HSR Layout resident Prachi, a six-year-old, shares her tips on how to start composting at home through the aerobic method.
Not only has her mother Lalithamba BV recorded this but also uploaded it on YouTube for mass consumption. The video was uploaded on October 2, Swachchata Diwas, and has already recorded over 300 views and gotten six subscribers.
We would like you to watch this as well, because if there is zero wet waste coming out of your house, there will be fewer landfills. You can watch Prachi’s video here. Two days earlier, she had shared a short video on the benefits of aerobic composting here which garnered 170 views. Way to go!
Hasiru Mithra, a group of HSR Layout residents, that works towards bettering the neighbourhood selflessly also offer an affordable steel cutlery rental service. This is perfect for the upcoming festive occasions. In fact, these are perfect for birthdays, anniversaries and just about any occasion that requires you to rent cutlery. Instead of going plastic, go steel. Not only is it environment-friendly, it also saves you from getting diseases like cancer due to plastic usage.
BYOC is the new buzzword, and it means ‘bring your own cutlery’. Thanks to their venture, little ones are now carrying their own cutlery for the Ashtami Pooja celebrations. “Take your own cups, containers, cloth bags, and cutlery everywhere, just like your wallet and phones,” says Hasiru Mithra co-founder Lalithamba Viswanathaih. “Buy from local shops, loose packaging free stuff as much as possible. Lets respect Mother Nature by saying ‘No’ to single use plastics and paper disposables, and keep taking #BYOCSelfie to inspire many more people.”
If you notice paper or plastic cups or any single use disposables in your office, attempt to make a change towards reusable cutlery like steel. Start celebrating Waste-Free functions. “We have a steel cutlery bank for any celebrations with nominal rental charges (available in HSR Layout and Somasundrapalya). Happy Eco Navaratri!”
For renting steel cutlery, you can contact Lalitha (94480-63776). Will you be the next Change Agent?
A women and child safety helpline in BTM Layout receives an average of 10 calls a day, 70% of whom are students. According to the helpline officials, the biggest problems they face is addiction to smartphones, losing interest in studies and getting involved in love affairs.
In rare cases involving warring adult couples who don’t listen to them, such people are referred to the helpline located inside the police commissioner’s office on Infantry Road. “So far, this has happened in about a dozen cases where either the people coming to us are highly educated and adamant or people with tremendous influence,” says Thamar SM, the helpline founder. “Such individuals are sent to the commissioner’s office, so they fear the law more.”
Most cases involving adults are about infidelity and personality classes between couples. “We offer legal guidance on the phone and counselling the wife and husband in person,” says Thamar about this free service. “We have one counsellor and one person who fields the phone calls.” They publicise this free service through pamphlets, but it’s largely word of mouth. A face to face counselling session can last between 30 minutes to two hours, according to him. Counsellor Meena had earlier worked with the Santvana Kendra, a government non-profit in BTM Layout.
HELPLINE
108/6, First floor, Tavarekere Main Road, near Balaji theatre (Off Forum Mall Road, behind Christ University
Phone: 91084-45555
Alternative number: Bangalore City Police: 100 (they will direct you to area-wise NGOs.
MC Sunanda is a fiesty 65-year-old woman who is a resident activist of sorts in Sector 1. She has successfully fought against polluters and illegal occupants in her neighbourhood in the past and her latest is against a tenant in front of her house. “The occupants of site number 1879 on 21st A Main have no water facility or drainage. They wash, cook and dirty the place. They use firewood and pollute the area. They urinate in the site itself. It is causing nuisance and is an ugly sight in the morning.”
She has not only informed the landlord of this site but also complained to the BBMP way back in August, but no action has been taken so far. “I have also spoken to the site owner’s husband on the phone. They are aware of it. I have sent the pictures,” says Sunanda. “They wash the clothes, there’s no drainage, mosquitoes breed there, please ensure that they vacate the place. A family of four are staying there and they cook openly with firewood.”
To make matters worse, the site owner K Kavitha has it on record that it’s a vacant site when there is a room with people living in it. “The site is let out for ironing of clothes and a cart is parked and thereby made commercial,” says Sunanda. Can a citizen give wrong declaration to the authorities and get away with it by troubling the honest tax payers?
The wrong declaration that it’s a vacant site
The site owner is paying tax for a vacant site when she has a shed with people living in it
We reached out to site owner’s husband Gopinath K and this is what he had to say: “I had visited the spot last month. Let me take a look at the issue again and then respond. I definitely understand the issues concerning the neighbours and will get back to you.”
Sunanda has this to all the site owners erecting temporary sheds to house people. “These site owners declare to BBMP as vacant site, but construct a shed and let it out without any plan sanction and sanitary connection,” says Sunanda.
She is just as angry with the BBMP for inaction. “Inspite of me giving all the details such as phone number and address of the owner, BBMP has utterly failed in discharging their duties. BBMP does not respect people who follow the law, instead it encourages people who violate it Is BBMP set up to protect law offenders?”
HER PAST SUCCESSES
A similar case had stared her in the face when a woman was staying in a shed diagonally opposite her house. It was yet another hygiene issue and when she gave a police complaint, the owner of the site where the shed was built got the maid to vacate it.
Two years ago, there were huts where about 10 people were staying and creating a health and hygiene issue. She called the police and got them removed too. “The owners want to preserve their site at the cost of our hygiene,” says Sunanda.
On Wednesday, November 7, Dr Sumana Kaushik lost Angel, a female golden retriever due to a negligent caretaker in Mangammanapalya. On Saturday, November 10, she was reunited with her six-year-old pet, thanks to four dog lovers of HSR Layout.
The message that did the rounds of social media
Dr Sumana had given her female dog to a pet trainer who had in turn given it to a woman in Mangammanapalya. During Diwali, with all the firecrachers going off simultaneously, the dog got scared and ran away. Thankfully for her, dog lovers Prashanth, Bindu and Sindhu Gowda, who had lost their dog a year ago, sheltered and fed this dog for three days when they found her strolling on Hosa Road. They also put up her photo on Facebook’s ‘HSR Canine Club’ group.
The ‘Found dog’ message that went viral on social media
Sumana after being reunited with her pet
The dog was reunited with Dr Sumana when Anshu Vyas, another HSR resident and a member of the pet club, saw a ‘lost dog’ message on Facebook by Dr Sumana’s sister in law. “After seeing both the ‘lost’ and ‘found’ posts, Anshu put the puzzle together and asked us to contact the Gowdas,” Dr Sumana told Residents Watch. “The rescuers have a nursery on Hosapalya where they took care of her for three days. Even now, my dog is scared after going through all the trauma. I thank Anshu, Prashant, Bindu and Sindhu who looked after our Angel. It showed us that God’s miracles are personified through such warm-hearted good souls.”
On October 23, Residents Watch wrote about a community fridge placed by Saibaba temple on the 19th Main footpath, so the poor can make use of it. Today, Sector 7 resident Ratnakar BNS Ratnakar did his bit for the underprivileged.
He decided to donate the harvest from his terrace and community garden to the community fridge. “I placed cabbage, brinjal, and Amaranthus leaves harvested today,” he told Residents Watch. “Hope the same will be relished by the users. We should encourage more such community fridges across HSR. I feel elated.”
We are elated too. If more residents start caring about the underprivileged, the world will be such a better place.
Sector 4 residents stopped the installation of a mobile tower atop a ground plus two floor house by Airtel yesterday. It’s unusual for the telecom service provider to opt for such a low-lying house that could not only be harmful to the residents.
Airtel planned to erect a tower on top of this house in Sector 4
House No 228 is right in the heart of a residential area
According to the residents, the person responsible behind the installation attempt was the owner of house number 228. “Although Debnath is the house owner, the No Objection Certiticate (NOC) was signed by his friend living next door,” said resident Kavitha Reddy. “Residents around have stopped the work and the BBMP Joint Commissioner (Bommanahalli) confirmed that he was not even aware that such a permission was given.”
Now the residents have asked the Sector 4 Residents Welfare Association to up this issue with the BBMP and issue a warning to the owner of the house. “Just for the sake of money, people like Debnath and his neighbour are putting the entire locality in danger,” said Reddy. “Telecom towers are banned in residential areas and these people are violating the law and playing with the health of citizens.”
DO MOBILE TOWERS CAUSE CANCER?
According to the American Cancer Society, the radiofrequency waves emitted by mobile towers do not cause DNA damage that can lead to cancer. In London, you will be hard pressed to find a mobile tower, because they are all installed outside the city. What you will see instead of boosters inside the city. In a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by film actress Juhi Chawla in 2015, her lawyer cited this and asked India to follow suit. However, India’s telecom regulatory authority maintains that its standards are 10-times stricter than the globalstandards. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has made a public statement that the radiation from cell phones. mobile towers and Wi-Fi as “possibly carcinogenic”. In April 2017, the Supreme Court gave a landmark ruling in favour of a cancer patient who alleged that he got it because of a mobile tower next to his office. The country’s highest court ordered the deactivation of the tower.
CHECK THE MOBILE TOWER RADIATION NEAR YOUR HOUSE
A year ago, the ministry of communications set up a mobile tower radiation monitoring website. You can check out if your mobile tower is emitting harmful radiation that is above the standards specified by India. Just CLICK HERE and you are good to go.
A literature festival no matter where it’s held in the city is a matter of pride for the residents and readers. When every TV soap, film or business strategy relies on writing, it’s but natural to showcase the power of writing to the world and encourage the habit of reading. It is with this objective that we are highlighting this event eventhough it’s being held in the centre of Bangalore.
Held once a year, the 7th edition of Bangalore Literature Festival is two day event at Lalit Ashok hotel on Kumarakrupa Road near Bangalore Golf Course from October 27 to October 28. The HSR extension residents who are part of this festival include author Bhaskar Chattopadhyay (who stays in Suncity Apt in Iblur) who will hold the fort on crime and detection. And then, there’s bestselling romance author Preeti Shenoy, a resident of Bellandur, and romance author Nandita Bose from Harlur Road. Three members of the Litt Fest team are residents of this area including Subodh Shankar (Bellandur), Shrabonti Bagchi (Harlur Road), and Festival Director Shinie Anthony (Mantri Sarovar in Sector 1).
“It’s a community funded festival by individual contributors from the citizens of Bangalore,” says Subodh Shankar who is also the co-founder of Atta Galatta, the exhibition space in Koramangala. “It belongs to the people of Bangalore. In its seventh year, we have close to 200 authors, around 150 sessions of programming in five stages parallelly. Two are dedicated exclusively for children. There are grand musical concerts to close the festivities for each day.”
Some of the most recognised names on the literary circuit will be there including Vijay Seshadri, the first person to win a Pulitzer for poetry. And then, there are Aatish Taseer, Ashwin Sanghi, Appupen, Chitra Subramanian, Barkha Dutt, Kiran Manral, N Ponnappa, Nandan Nilekani, Naina Lal Kidwai, Saba Naqvi, Rhea Saran, Samit Basu, Sarika, Shashi Tharoor, Shoba Narayan, Shoma Chaudhury (Tehelka), Srinivasan Jain, Vinta Nanda, Tushita Patel, Vivek Shanbagh, Girish Karnad, VK Karthika, and Ramachandra Guha, among many more.
Festival Director Shinie Anthony is an HSR resident
From panels on #metoo to fake news to the upcoming general elections, there are several topics being discussed under one roof. Importantly, one stage is dedicated to children below 10 years and another for those above that age limit. The timings are between 10am and 7pm and it’s free for all.
Leave whatever else you are doing in the next two days and head over here. It only happens once in a year. CLICK HERE for the full schedule.
Following the police complaint by the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) that a girl student had gone missing from October 13, the cops swung into action immediately and traced her when she was on her way to Hyderabad. They alerted their Andhra Pradesh counterparts who intercepted her in Ananthpur and handed her back to her relatives in Bangalore. The case of 19-year-old Bharati Gurjar is amusing too as she hadn’t gone missing because she had eloped with anyone or someone had kidnapped her. NIFT officials informed Residents Watch that since there were 10 days of college holidays, she had planned to visit Hyderabad with her friends without informing her college or family members. That was her undoing. But then, if she had informed, they would not have allowed her to go. Unable to decide between the two options, she decided to lie to the college authorities that she was going to stay with her relatives in Banashankari. But the college authorities smelt a rat and checked with her relatives if she had reached their place. Since her father was in the Indian Foreign Service, it was also a prestigious case for the institute. With her family’s permission, the college authorities filed an FIR because the cops cannot trace anyone’s call without the court’s permission. And that can only happen with an FIR. Once the FIR was lodged, the cops accessed the SMS records of Bharati and found that in one SMS, she had told someone she’s coming to Hyderabad. Tracing her GPS coordinates, the cops found that she had reached Ananthpur in Andhra Pradesh. They alerted the cops in the nearest police station who picked her and brought her back to Bangalore.
68-year old Kumud Sinha missing since Saturday is reunited with her family. Unable to remember the apartment name, Kumud did the next best thing. She went back to her hometown and asked her family over there to call her husband back in Bangalore. Her son flew to her native place and got her back.
Speaking to Residents Watch, son Raju Sinha said, “As usual, she went out to buy some fruits. However, this time she went out of the building through the gate she never used before. She forgot the way back and tried to search for some time. As she did not know the building name, she decided to go back to our home town as that is the only address she knew. When she reached there, she asked our friends to give us a call as she did not carry a mobile or know our number. I immediately flew to my home town and got her back. She is good now.”
Expressing his happiness, her son Raju has thanked Deputy Commissioner of Police Ahad and his team for forming a team to trace her. The cops had done their best too. “They sent her pic to all the police stations in Bengaluru,” said Raju. “They came to our house and checked the CCTV footage in and around the building. They reached out to help groups if they have any information.”
In his message to the DCP to call off the search, he sent the latest picture given below and said, “Sir, this my mom’s picture, she looks fine now. My relative came here last night and took care of her. Sir I am very thankful for all your help and support.”
Sector 2 resident and civic activist Lalithamba BV has done something brilliant. Two weeks ago, she reported to the cops about an abandoned vehicle in front of Somasundrapalya Lake in front of Isha Lakefront View apartments. She even checked out the owner’s name on the transport authority’s website.
According to the RTO, the car belongs to one Rajesh Kallayel and was registered in 2007
“The cops said that they don’t have a towing vehicle then,” said Lalithamba. She followed up a week after her complaint, and the cops said that they are fetching more details on the vehicle from the Road Transport Organisation (RTO) before deciding on their next step.
She followed up again today, and found that half an hour before her call, the cops had towed away the car to an empty site next to Bandepalya Police Station in Sector 3. “The cops said that perhaps the thief ran out of fuel and abandoned the stolen vehicle, never to return for some reason,” said Lalithamba.
We called Electronic City traffic inspector Mariswamy, and he had this to say: “Since it was abandoned for such a long time, it appears to be a stolen vehicle. However, the Bandepalya police guys are supposed to verify and confirm.”
A few days later, the car owner was traced online by another resident
Car owner traced in Brussels by HSR resident
The mystery of this car is now unravelled, this time by another HSR resident Shrinivas Deshmukh who did some nifty social media lookup to contact the real owner of the car. In a Facebook chat, car proprietor Rajesh Kallayel says that he’s in Brussels and had kept his car at his friend’s place who never informed him that the car was stolen. He was indeed planning to sell his car and had hired a person to prepare all the papers. “But he stole my money and is not giving my RC book. It’s a mess,” car owner Rajesh told Deshmukh. Delaying the issue further is that he is only coming to Bangalore in February. Until then, the Mahindra Renault car will remain abandoned at the Bandepalya police station in HSR Layout, Sector 3.
It may be recalled that another HSR resident (you can read our earlier story) Lalithamba BV had pursued the traffic police to remove an abandoned vehicle in her vicinity for over two weeks. Since no complaint was registered against the vehicle, the cops took their time and eventually shifted it to the Bandepalya police station premises where it’s still lying abandoned. The cops speculated that it could be a stolen vehicle. And then resident Deshmukh finds the owner on social media and alerts him to the stolen car.
Here are the screenshots of the conversation that followed between him and the car owner.
On the morning of October 19, at around 6.15am, 47-year-old Muniyallappa was riding his two wheeler on Bellandur Service Road from the Cafe Coffee Day end towards Bellandur.
When he approached Bhagini restaurant, 26-year-old Siddeshwar, a cab driver, allegedly driving rashly hit him so hard that the victim fell on the road along with his bike. He had injuries on his leg and back. Interestingly, the cab driver himself called for an autorickshaw and took him to the nearby Sakra Hospital for treatment.
This is the second instance where the culprit has also played a good samaritan by attending to the victim immediately in the last two weeks. It also makes sense because if not treated immediately, the patient could die and the culprit could be behind bars for a longer time. However, a case is registered against the cab driver for rash driving and causing agony to the victim.
