From a time when Bengaluru was ruled by kings to the burgeoning metropolis it has become today, Gubbi Narasimaiah Lakshmipathi has seen many a seasons in his lifetime and has lived to tell the tale. Age, he proves, is just a number. Earlier this month, the father of four, grandfather of 10 and great-grandfather of 16, clocked in his 100th birth anniversary. He has witnessed two defining events in the […]

Animal lovers, step aside. This farmer from Kollegal taluk takes pride in protecting the smallest of nature, namely Microbes. And because of this focus, he has created a world where nature appears in all her glory. When BM visited Murthy’s farmhouse, which has never gone dry, we found he uses only natural methods of farming and shuns artifical inputs. Tucked away in a village in Kollegal taluk is an oasis […]

Maybe we were wrong about Bellandur Lake all along. Given the interest that companies from UK, Israel and now Germany have shown, it seems the lake is not dead and decaying as we had earlier thought. In fact, Bengaluru is perhaps blessed to have such a storehouse of resources in its midst; one would be forgiven to think that we are in Africa, and not India. But let’s keep it straight […]

In November, as millions of Indians were grappling with a cashflow crisis, a lavish wedding in the southern city of Bangalore sparked outrage. The BBC’s Geeta Pandey profiles the man a behind the wedding, the father of the bride, businessman and ex-state minister Gali Janardhana Reddy. Five days after the government scrapped 500 and 1,000 rupee notes in a crackdown on illegal money, Rumah Rasaque spent most of her Sunday […]

“A city is a living, throbbing organism with a soul of its own and, it would often seem, a thinking mind,” TJS George writes in Askew, a delightful “short biography of Bangalore”, published by Aleph Book Company this month as part of its series of monographs on Indian cities. Like all the volumes so far — on Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Patna respectively — this book is a combination […]

After the day’s drudgery, Saroja gathers her children around her at an underconstruction site in Chamarajpet, Old Bengaluru area, to prepare dinner. It’s only 4.30pm, but such is their routine –early to bed and early to rise. As Saroja, a migrant labourer from Raichur, is about to get on with cooking, a visitor lands at the site. He has in his hand whatever they have been craving for–vegetable pulao, plain […]

Bengaluru is protesting against a government plan to build a steel bridge that will make travelling to the airport easier, in a project that will cost the city 1,800 crores and more than 800 trees.   Citizens, some of who have also moved the High Court against the proposed bridge, have protested not only against the exorbitant cost of the project but also against what they call a lack of […]

One person was killed and three others were injured in police firing in Bengaluru as the Cauvery water dispute took a violent turn on Monday following a Supreme Court order to Karnataka to release 12,000 cusecs of water from the river to Tamil Nadu till September 20. The court had, on September 5, ordered the state to release 15,000 cusecs a day By late night, curfew was imposed in 16 […]

Virat Kohli and David Warner have been ruthless with bat this IPL — occupying the top two slots on the run-getters’ list — and have also led their sides from the front, clobbering the opposition into submission. But, in the dying hours of Sunday, only one man will be left standing, holding aloft the biggest prize in slam-bang league cricket as Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bangalore host Warner’s Sunrisers Hyderabad at […]

Indian Institute of Cartoonists is the only organisation in India working towards promoting the art of cartooning. It is easy to miss the Indian Institute of Cartoonists in the hustle and bustle of Bengaluru’s busy Trinity Circle. Situated just a few meters from the circle in the basement of a building, spread across 5000 square feet, this institute is one of its kind in India. The Institute, established in 2001, […]