Revision as of 18:25, 16 April 2014

Trivia

Adapted from IndiaToday

1. Attara Kacheri, a landmark, was saved from demolition by the first PIL filed before the Karnataka High Court in 1985

2. Springfest, an annual festival of Christ College, began in the 1970s and was later replaced by a festival named after a Nirvana song

3. Lido, a Bangalore theatre inaugurated around the year 1965, tarted the 70 mm vogue in Karnataka with a screening of Cleopatra

4. Chitchat, a 1980s hangout, in the former EGK building, is likely to be spotted in movies of the period such as Mani Ratnam’s Pallavi Anupallavi

5. The Elgin Flour Mills, a 1932 red-brick structure on Hosur Road, made way for an apartment complex in the ’90s

6. Galaxy Theatre, a now-defunct Residency Road establishment, set up in 1971, offered patrons the view of an artificial brook flowing over a bed of pebbles as they ascended a walkway carpeted in red

7. Plaza Theatre was established by two brothers in 1936 after they visited Britain to see how such buildings were designed

8. Thom’s Café was the restaurant off Promenade Road that served as a hangout for students of the ’70s and now survives as the name of a BMTC bus-stop

9. Olivia Newton-John and Elton John were the names of the toilets at Black Cadillac. Thus did the female lead of Grease and a musician, whose real name was Reginald Dwight, find immortality of a dubious sort in Bangalorean memory

10. The Public Utility Building, a Bangalore landmark, was built on the site where the Bangalore Library had stood since 1813

India’s biggest market for books

The Times of India

Bangalore is the new Kolkata

Sujit John,TNN | Jan 24, 2014

The IT capital has less than half the population of the Delhi National Capital Region and Mumbai. It's smaller than Kolkata. Yet, it's today the biggest market for books in India. And publishers say it has among the most sophisticated and discerning readers.

For Flipkart, India's biggest bookseller, Bangalore accounts for its biggest sales, followed by Mumbai and Delhi. For rival online retailer Amazon, Bangalore is a clear leader, followed by Hyderabad and then Mumbai. The company says in the past six months, Bangalore has contributed almost twice in terms of units sold as compared to Hyderabad.

For Hachette India, which publishes brands like John Grisham, Asterix, Enid Blyton, Stephen King, and Robert Ludlum, Bangalore accounts for 16%-18% of its all-India business. "This would be the picture by and large for trade publishers," says Thomas Abraham, MD, Hachette India. "For a single city, that is incredibly high. Mumbai would follow Bangalore, and Delhi next; the business from these other cities would be 2-3 percentage points lower than from Bangalore."

He says Bangalore is today what Kolkata was some decades ago. The West Bengal capital was once the hub of literature and literary activities, including the legendary Kolkata Book Fair that's said to be the most attended book fair in the world. "Kolkata's fallen off hugely. People there hardly buy books anymore. The number of stores has barely changed in the past 50 years," he says.

Bangalore too has seen some stores close. But it has also seen the addition of many, despite the onslaught of online retailers. Sapna Book House has been expanding. Newer, special interest stores have emerged like The Entertainment Store on Church Street for comics and collateral, and Light Room in Cox Town and Kutoohala in Basavanagudi for children's books. Bangalore perhaps has the highest children's-only stores anywhere, and those with a big focus on children's books like Atta Galatta and Bookstop, both in Koramangala.

Most attribute this phenomenon to the emergence of Bangalore as a city with a strong base of young, working professionals over the past decade, thanks to the IT revolution. "Disposable incomes are high, and people are electronically well connected (to make online purchases)," says Anand Padmanabhan, head of sales, Penguin India. For Penguin's sales through physical stores, Delhi and Mumbai are its top markets, but Padmanabhan says Bangalore could be the top market for online retail.

Anil Goteti, director-digital, Flipkart, says Bangalore's most comfortable buying online, and that partly explains why it's at the top of its book sales.

Aroon Raman, a Bangalore-based entrepreneur, who has published two thrillers in the past two years, with his biggest sales coming from Bangalore, says the young and affluent in the city love thrillers that are quick reads. "Books sell like consumer products in Bangalore. But I think it's still Kerala and West Bengal that treat books in a personalized way; that's where literary fiction like those of Shashi Deshpande and Arundhati Roy work best," he says.

Abraham says he judges a city's vibrancy by the quality and depth of stock of its second-hand bookstores. "Bangalore is taking on the mantle once held by Kolkata with its Free School Street and Chennai with Moore Market. In most cities, used bookstores predominantly keep textbooks or surplus stocks. In Bangalore, Blossom, Bookworm and others around Church Street are easily the best used bookstores in India. It's not just the ubiquitous bestseller but the rarity that one will find. I built back my Richard Armour and classic comics collection from here. I've even found a couple of great first edition rarities like Gone with the Wind," he says.

Mayi Gowda, who started Blossom in 2001 after being a roadside vendor of books to pay off his engineering college fees, uses a network of raddi (scrap) pickers in Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi to find rare books much sought after by his customers. "These raddi pickers have some idea of which books are good. I sometimes tell them what I need," says Gowda.

Trees: 5,000 are felled every year

5,000 trees fall in Bangalore each year

Saswati Mukherjee,TNN | Apr 16, 2014 The Times of India

BANGALORE: Almost 5,000 trees fell in Bangalore each year, after processing roughly 3,000 applications in one year. This information was given out by Brijesh Kumar, Chief Conservator of Forests, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike (BBMP).

Kumar gave a detailed analysis of the Karnataka Preservation of Tree Act, 1976, which he said has endowed authorities with powers that allow intransparent decision making. This has encouraged indiscriminate felling of trees and the situation is now worsening in the name of road widening and various developmental projects. He said the decision making process to allow felling of trees was deeply flawed and this could not be remedied unless the Tree Act is amended comprehensively. For instance, the application and approval system for tree felling is completely in the control of the Tree Officer, of rank Asst Conservator of Forests, and rarely is an application rejected. Not a single appeal against a decision to tree felling has come before the Tree Authority.

In such prevailing circumstances, Kumar said the High Court has drawn the attention of the Government to this blatant illegality in the PIL filed by ESG (WP 7107/2008), that the current process allows one to be a judge in one's own cause which is anathema in law. The Government in response has confirmed that it will reform the law, but no action has been initiated thus far to this effect.

In this context, he said he and his colleagues had worked on promoting a transparent model of decision making relating to decisions on trees. This method essentially allowed for a 15 days delay between a decisions, say to fell trees, and its implementation. During this period it would be possible for anyone to challenge the decision, if needed. Further, if even after the challenge before the Tree Officer failed, a further 15 days would be allowed for the Tree Authority to review the decisions, the system which is yet to be implemented.