A friend called from UK recently to tell me that he spotted an ad from Karnataka government about Global Investors Meet 2010 in a prominent daily there. Thats how serious GoK has been about marketing this event taking place next week.

Need - More of Tier 2

Bengaluru has had enough of love. Those Tier-2 cities need all the attention now. No, not talking Hoskote, Bidadi or Devenahalli, talk real tier2, far up central, and further north. More initiatives like Suvarna Karnataka Development Corridor (SKDC - click here) are it.

Short, narrow and faulty table-top runway. No flat terrain. Pilot/Pilots' fatigue. Quick turn-around (QTA) flights at night raises pilots' stress and fatigue levels. Compromising safety vs commercial interests. No rest between outbound and inbound journeys for the pilots and the cabin crew.

The Karnataka state government wants to establish an airport in every tier-II city across the state. Also a new concept called helitourism is also being introduced even in Madikeri, Kodagu (Western Ghats).

The presence of the Chamundi Hills has rendered the present Mysore airport potentially unsafe especially under foggy / rainy conditions for the flights that are likely to go/depart and come/arrive from Bangalore, Chennai etc.

There seems to be a veil / cloak of secrecy regarding/surrounding the exact cause of YSR's chopper / helicopter accident.

The Airbus 320s or A-320s were grounded for 07 months immediately after the 1990 air crash at the HAL Airport Bangalore by blaming the aircraft and the fly-by-wire technology for the crash. We learnt only after the Mangalore Air crash that it was a pilot error in the case of A-320 crash.

 This is about an incident that i witnessed in Bangalore few weeks ago.

I had been to a single screen theatre few weeks back to watch a Kannada movie. The theatre was crowded since it was a Sunday. The problem arised when the movie started. The "fans" of the movie hero, started chanting his name and shouting slogans of praise for him when the movie name was displayed. This never stopped till the end of the movie, not even for a minute! They might have watched the movie before, but how is it right to spoil the movie for the others?? They were so loud that we could not hear the dialogues properly, none of us could tell them anything lest they charge at us for being so un-fanly.. I am a fan of the star too, but shouting the slogans inside the movie hall and disturbing everyone really upset most of the other audience.

The other thing I generally notice is the habit of many people in Bangalore these days to spit on roads for no reason at all! They dont chew tobacco/pan, still they spit on roads, on pavements, from bus windows etc. There should be some strict legislation to curb such bad habits so that Bangalore stays a clean city.

The Jayanagar TTMC was built with a swanky futuristic look but all what’s within is huge empty spaces and leaking walls and roofs. Almost close to completing a year now, all the promises are still on paper. Apart from the busy bus service in the basement, there’s been no progress within. A quick survey of the entire building reveals nothing more than empty spaces, unfinished structures and poor quality of construction. Even the flooring and electrical wiring have not been completed. The walls and beams have already given in to the recent rain. The unfinished wiring works on the first and second floors are now seen soaked.

At a time when there is serious shortage of parking space, this TTMC has a huge park and ride provision on the terrace with a capacity of nearly 110 cars. The original idea behind it was that people could drive in, park their cars/ two-wheelers and board their bus. But, with no lifts ready yet, people are forced to walk the entire ramp up and down to park and ride. According to locals here, weekdays hardly see even 10-15 cars parked here. Even on weekends, the numbers hardly touch 20.