[ Sajith M ]

The incident started with when someone threw parts of a pig’s carcass at a mosque in JC Nagar area of the city, while Muslims were attending early morning prayers. Authorities have clamped Section 144 in JC Nagar locality. There are also reports of a bus having been attached in the RT Nagar area.

Bangalore seems to extremely sensitive this this kind of incidents. I hope that the situation remains under control and does not flare up.

Link: http://news.in.msn.com/national/article.aspx?cp-documentid=1555590

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore
Tagged with: Bangalore, Communal Tension

Looks like we have a fuel shortage. The petrol bunks either sporting “no stock” boards or have a serpentine queue of vehicles waiting for fuel. For the last one month, getting normal petrol has been tough in face of the hard sell for the premium fuel, now this has become impossible. Even petrol bunks that do have petrol and/or diesel available seem to have only the premium variant (HP Power, BP Speed or India Oil Xtra Premium), the regular petrol seems to have vanished from the petrol bunks.

Times of India reports:

Is the city heading towards a dry-out scenario? It is already facing a fuel shortage of 30%. Plus oil companies have “unofficially’’ asked bunk owners to go slow on “regular’’ petrol/diesel and focus on “premium’’ products. The rationing has started and regular petrol is out of stock, say many consumers.
Confirming the shortage, Bhushan Narang, president, Bangalore Petroleum Dealers’ Association and Akhila Karnataka Petroleum Dealers’ Association, said: “The reason is purely economical. Oil companies are unable to source sufficient quantity of oil. This has led to a 30% decline in supply, while the demand for fuel is growing day by day. It’s a matter of time before the shortage scenario turns worse in the city and across the country. This could be avoided if the gover nment revises prices.’’

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore
Tagged with: Bangalore, Fuel Shortage

Around 35 per cent of Bangalore’s corporate citizens fall in the medium health risk category and are likely to be affected by at least one among the ailments like hypertension, diabetes and cardiac disorders, a health study indicated.

Confirmation of what we already knew. Read the complete Rediff report.

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore
Tagged with: Bangalore, health

Fever (104.0 MHz), seems to have kicked off its ad campaign in Bangalore. Fever has been on air since February 2007. While its available to audience on 104.0 MHz, it is not yet out of the testing phase. But with the launch of ad campaign, the official launch can’t be far behind. A collabration between HT Music and Virgin Radio, it looks like the best channel on air in Bangalore now. With a promised “40 minutes of non-stop music” that includes a nice mix of English and Hindi songs, the channel does live up to its slogan of being “all about the music”

For now it is All about the music, but I wonder how long will it last? Radio City used to be pretty cool a while back, till they decided that they need to be catering to the lowest common denominator and seems to have completely ruined itself. Mirchi was sad to start with (hell, I can’t make head or tail of Kannada and thats what they seem to like talking in). Never serioulsy checked Big FM, but guess that too is heavily kannada laden.

We have seen a boom in the number of FM channels that are on air, but the quality seems to have only gone down (IMO). If you exclude Indigo (91.9 MHz), there is no other channel that can even be considered worth listening to. Will Fever live upto the promise of being all about the music, or will it go the city way? Too early to say. Hope it does not get influenced by the dark side, may the force be with you, fever :-)

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore
Tagged with: Bangalore, Fever, Indigo, music

Great, so today was again a bandh. Life came to a standstill across Karnataka (including Bangalore)

Thanks to this Bandh, we achieved the following:

1. Karunanidhi said that Tamil Nadu will be happy with just 215 TMC ft of Kaveri water, and Karnataka can have 465 TMC ft as it had desired.
2. Union Water Resources Minister Saifuddin Soz said that his earlier statment that Cauvery verdict will be implemented was taken out of context and clarified that this was never his stand.
3. Productivity of all the industries in Karnataka sky rocketed.
4. The average citizen (or clueless guys like me) became more sympathetic to the cause.

If we did not achieve any of the above by having yet another bandh, will someone enlighten me on what was the whole point of having this forced shutdown?

Btw, Is Bangalore City turning into a Bandh City?

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: bandh, Bangalore, Cauvery, forced, Karnataka, Kaveri, shutdown

NDTV had a report showing around ten police personals beating a lonely guy on the streets. Now, I do understand that you need to be firm when dealing with rioters, but we are not talking about police trying to disperse a mob; rather what we see here is a bunch of policemen brutally attacking a single guy on the roads.

Click here to see the footage. The complete NDTV report can be found here. Footage Courtesy: NDTV

While the report exposes the police excessiveness and brutality, Mr. N Achyut Rao (Police Commissioner, Bangalore) had this to say:

This could be either false or imaginary. There cannot be an atrocity on the (part of the) police….. This could only be to quell the rioting mobs (that) one has to be firm…

Well dear commissioner, are you saying that a lonely guy on the streets was “the rioting mobs”? Ah, now that’s a good joke.

Incidentally, the one person killed in police firing was a 12 year old boy - Fazil (May his soul rest in peace). While it’s not impossible, I don’t think it’s probable that a 12 year old was part of the rioting mobs. So essentially we have our police force brutally attacking and butchering innocent people in the name of maintaining law and order.

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: Bangalore, brutality, excessiveness, police

Arghh!!! WTF. That summarizes my reaction.

Okay, so assuming that you have just returned from Mars, here is a quick summary. Effective today (November 01, 2006), Bangalore will be known as Bangalooru. This is supposed to be the state government’s gift to the people on the 50th anniversary of Karnataka state.
Oh! thanks for the un-pronounceable gift. Can i return it Mr. Chief Minister?

For note, I think Bangalooru is utterly un-pronounceable and has (sort of) a rural sleepy village feel to it as compared to relatively well know, well pronounceable and cosmopolitan sounding Bangalore. Just my personal thoughts, I think at least some people would be able to pronounce it.

Btw, I am sure that the government did not have anything better to do when it thought of this wonderful plan. I mean, hey its just a matter of getting the name right. Once the name is right, the infrastructure will take care of itself. And of course, the same applies to other problems of Bangalore like the law and order situation, increasing regional chauvinism etc etc

So does this mean that Bangalore too disappears into history - just like Bombay and Madras? Or does it mean that people will continue to be Bangaloreans in Bangalore and Bangalooru will be restricted to the government world?

Link 01: Bangalore, names and Nehambal by Neha Viswanathan.
Link 02: Everything is in a name by Aviraj.

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: Bangalooru, Bangalore

To give you a quick summary, If you are driving a two wheeler (irrespective of engine size and bhp) in Bangalore City limits, you are supposed to wear a helmet. For now the pillion riders don’t need to wear a helmet.

As a person who always wears a helmet while riding, you would expect me to perhaps welcome this move..
And why as a person who anyways wears a helmet, am I opposed to this new regulation you might ask?

The biggest argument given in favor of wearing helmets is that it will reduce serious head injuries. And I sort of agree with it. However,

1. Is there anything to prove that helmets do actually bring down the number of serious injuries?
2. Will someone take count of injuries after this rule comes into effect, and repeal the law if its not working?
3. Is it not also a proven fact that in most two wheeler accidents, it is the pillion rider who ends up being more seriously injured?
4. Won’t improving the road conditions (potholes, bad lights etc) help in reducing accidents and (subsequent) injuries more than imposing helmets?

And why do our governments (the ones we are supposed to elect as adults) treat us the same way as some kindergarten kids. Why do we need to be told what to wear and what not to wear? [rant]What to drink, what not to drink; when to drink, when not to drink; when to sleep, when not to sleep (sorry, looks like we don’t have a law about the last one yet)[/rant]

The beauty of this rule is that it ignores the causes for deaths and injuries (bad roads), and focuses on the remedies (helmets). And somehow it makes it look like our law makers don’t think that citizens can think for themselves. Ah, well…

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: accidents, bad roads, Bangalore, deaths, head injuries, helmet, injuries, road conditions, two wheeler

Shopping at Big Bazaar, Hosur Road is a nightmare. Its perhaps the best example of what type of stores not to visit. Getting parking space is impossible, the billing queues never ending, and finally the difference between the listed price and MRP too miniscule to compensate for the effort and time you have to put in.

Sometime it makes me wonder how does Big Bazaar stay in business with the absolutely pathetic shopping experience that they provide, but guess I am missing something as others don’t quite see it that way and the place is always crowded with shoppers.

Link: bangalore- shoppers’ paradise or? by Usha Vaidyanathan on Bangalore MetroBlogging.

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: Big Bazaar, nightmare, pathetic, Shopping, shopping experience

What if the average Bangalorean is least bothered about which state Belgaum belongs to, that sure is no deterrent for Kannada Chaluvali Paksha and Karnataka Rakshna Vedike from calling for a 12 hour strike (6AM to 6PM) to protest against UPA government’s ’step motherly’ treatment in border row with Maharashtra. Ah well…

So we have a daylong strike paralyzing normal life across Bangalore (and perhaps whole Karnataka), thanks to Kannada activists defending the status of Belgaum as an integral part of Karnataka. Btw, if you thought that the near complete shutdown was because people were passionate or seriously concerned about Belgaum issue, then you are mistaken. It was mostly due to the fear psychosis and forced shutdowns.

Thankfully, this time the police was actually present on the streets. This I believe was the reason the bandh went off peacefully, and we did not see a repeat of incidents that took place following Rajkumar’s death.

The traffic was pretty low, and I was able to cover the 22 Kilometers from HSR Layout to HRBR Layout (Kalyan Nagar, Banaswadi) in less than 20 minute while being able to take a few snaps on my way.. I would have loved to put up the photos that I managed to get showing cops doing the rounds (and thanks to them we did not have any untoward incidents today), but none of them came out well.. so here are the ones that I managed.

Posted under: City Life/Bangalore/Uncategorized
Tagged with: bandh, Bangalore, Belgaum, Karnataka, strike