Events

Not much time to interface with BMTC for this month's event, though I am sre Jenny and some others have been on. The Bus Day is very much on for June 4th.

Bus Day campaign needs a named "anchor". If Srivatsava or Bharat or someone else can just keep in touch with BMTC and posting updates from them, that should be good enough. Once in a while meetings with BMTC too will help.

 This is a meeting to discuss planning & data collection for the report. Project members mandatory. Others interested welcome. RSVP with comments.

When: Saturday June 5th @ 6:30 PM IST

Where: TBD (Possibly on Skype also)

Venue : Remodeled Vittal Mallya Road

 Date : 12 June 2010

Start: 8:00 AM

End:   9:00 AM

Literary, Arts and Heritage Forum, NIAS, is pleased to announce a Lecture on "Green Bangalore: Some Reflections” by Prof Vijay Tiruvady (vrt@bgl.vsnl.net.in)
On Monday, 14 June 2010 at 5.00 PM in JRD Tata Auditorium, NIAS

Highlights of the talk:
The Greening began with the development of Devarakadus & Gundutopus around Bangalore;
The next greening took place around settlements adjacent to lakes, a network of which was established by Kempe Gowda to harvest Monsoon rain water;
The first area within Bangalore to be greened was the 40 acre Rose & Cypress Garden of Haider Ali.
With the growth of the British  Empire plant collecting expeditions resulted in exotic species coming into Lalbagh.
With these developments Bangalore has had a mix of indigenous and exotic plants like no other city in India.  
Through the 19th Century all the early institutions in Bangalore were planted with this mix of indigenous and exotics.

            United Way of Bengaluru to hold Corporate Quiz Challenge 2010 on June 26, 2010
            QuizCraft (of KBC fame) to conduct the competition with Charu Sharma as the quiz master
            Proceeds to support corrective eye surgeries of underprivileged adults and children 

            United Way of Bengaluru to hold Corporate Quiz Challenge 2010 on June 26, 2010
            QuizCraft (of KBC fame) to conduct the competition with Charu Sharma as the quiz master
            Proceeds to support corrective eye surgeries of underprivileged adults and children 

Loksatta calls for a movement to bring Justice Santosh Hegde back to office: Organises protest at Mahatma Gandhi statue on Saturday (26th June) morning at 9 AM

The resignation of the Hon'ble Lokayukta Shri Santosh Hegde is a low point for governance in the state. His action, coming after many months of repeatedly urging the government to give his office more powers, and to take action against various offenders he has identified, is a blackmark against the political leadership of the BJP, as well as the Congress and JD(S), all of whom have paid only lip service to the Lokayukta's efforts. It is particularly unfortunate that the Government has failed to protect officials of the Lokayukta's office from motivated legal and other attacks.

Even at this late hour, the Government can take corrective action, and restore public confidence that the much-needed battle against corruption in public service will be taken up seriously. There are three steps the government needs to take seriously, and immediately.

Posting on behalf of Prof Gowda

Dear fellow citizen,

As you know, the Karnataka Lok Ayukta, Justice Santosh Hegde, has resigned in protest against the state government’s efforts to scuttle the Lok Ayukta’s anti-corruption drives. As concerned citizens we cannot just sit back and watch as a crusader against corruption gives up the fight.

Instead, we must urge Justice Hegde to withdraw his resignation. We must show him that the people of Karnataka are together with him in his battles. We must raise our collective voice and push the state government to change its stance and punish the corrupt. We must launch a drive to give the institution of the Lok Ayukta more powers and more teeth.

Let's make a start by coming together for a candle-light protest rally on June 24, 2010 at 7 pm at the Mahatma Gandhi statue. This is open to all people and organizations interested in good governance.

Spread the word. Then come, join hands in the fight against corruption!

Sincerely,

Rajeev Gowda

Heres some fun activity followed by lot more fun activity!!

Update: The video campaign is put off for now. A separate notification will be posted on Praja whenever it happens!! The effort to meet and get the buy-in of corporators will go  ahead as planned.

Event 1: Video Campaign

We have to build some short videos as Bus Day online campaign material. The intent is to showcase advantages of taking the bus, in short and crisp videos (may be 10 sec to 1min duration). The 'shoot' is planned for Saturday, 26th June from 8:30am to 10am. We need volunteers to enact in the clips. We need men and women - old, young & middle-aged, able to speak 'minimal' English or Kannada. And yes, ideas and storylines for the videos are also welcome. Hope to see atleast 10 people!!

Venue: Shantinagar Bus Stand (tentative). From there, we may hop on to a 'exclusive' Bus to shoot the videos!!

And yes, We need a good camcoder and a interested/skilled 'video'grapher. Any volunteers?

Event 2: Corporators Campaign!!