Letters to editors and letters from readers

08/17/07 04:56 - silkboard

I read at least two newspapers everyday, and one feature I like is - letters to editor. Sometimes, you also hear of 'success stories' (like Nisho's about an open drain) resulting from these letters.

Well, I am a fan of this reality-TV like content. If you ask me, newspapers can chose to go the rediff way (have you seen their news article based bulletin boards?) and start having an extra page full of these letters from readers. Yes that will sell well :) But actually, I read these letters - especially the ones that complain about a local service or public amenity - because they put me in these chains of thoughts:

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Hebbal lake - floating restaurant is off!

08/16/07 03:23 - silkboard

[flickr-photo:id=61280547,size=m]

A TOI report (Aug 16) says that EIH have canceled their plans to construct floating restaurant on Hebbal Lake:"The idea was that adequate income would be generated by those who got the lease for the lake's upkeep. However, the group has now decided that we are not going ahead with the project. We took up the lake to restore it. It is a social project for us,'' added Ketki (from EIH) ...  Asked for the reason for the change in plans, she said the project had attracted way too much attention and criticism by environmentalists and conservationists in the city.


There is another side to these green protests - what will be the motivation for corporates to come forward and "own" lakes under Lake Development Authority's lake upkeep plans? Two points on that:

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New airport - pictures!

08/15/07 03:18 - silkboard

Lots of pictures of work in progress at BIAL, on this discussion, click here at skyscrapercity. Really good ones, and lots of them. Enjoy.

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Mysore highway upgrade - service lanes and bypass roads

08/14/07 10:33 - silkboard

So it is action time for another round of upgrade to Bangalore Mysore state highway. As per this KRDCL tender, the work is worth 795 crores, and:

"The work includes Construction of Service roads all along the existing 4-laned Bangalore-Mysore Road Excluding Town Limits of Kengeri, Bidadi, Ramanagara, Channapatna, Maddur, Mandya and Srirangapatna where bypasses are proposed to be constructed as part of the scope. Also the work includes widening of the 4-laned road to 6-lane from chainage 11.60 Km to 33.00 Km."

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Whitefield suburb - upcoming road work

08/14/07 10:17 - silkboard

Spotted this tender recently on BBMP website. Have a look, a lot of roadwork coming up in Mahadevapura, Marathahalli and Whitefield sub-divisions - about 6 crore worth of work for each.

How about we track this work? Basically, write to BBMP and ask them to publish the deadlines, actual money spent, what standards will be used to determine completion of work etc? Anyone interested? 3-4 of us can try do this together as an experiement to see how much effort it takes for citizens to really be in the know.

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Elevated Inner Core Ring Road - whats up?

08/13/07 18:48 - silkboard

Remember the Inner Core Ring Road (ICRR) project? Find some documents here in case you need to jog your memory. BBMP and newspapers haven't talked much about it lately, and then The Hindu carried this piece (steel structures favoured for ring road) a few days ago.

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Kheny's interviews

08/13/07 15:50 - silkboard

Going by his media talk, Mr Ashok Kheny is sure sounding aggressive and even more determined about his pet project. Here is some interesting stuff I picked out from his recent statements and interviews. First the TOI interview (Sunday, Aug 12).

"... some IAS officers then came to me and advised me to change the alignment as their properties were getting affected..."

"He (Deve Gowda) told me to let go off 245 acres and in return, promised me 5000 acres elsewhere. I learnt through officials that he had made some commitments during the elections that the land will be de-notified"

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Not My Job

08/13/07 00:36 - tsubba

This video we have all seen. These type of things prolly happen daily at most stations in India. From the video it is difficult to tell where it happened, but it could well have been our own Yeshwantpura station, for example.

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Bangalore memories

08/12/07 05:23 - GVK

A post by my blogger friend Abraham Tharakan on Banglore memories ought to interest long-time residents. Here is Mr Tharakan's post:

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Proposed BMTC Buses rerouting around MG Road

08/12/07 04:13 - shas3n

When a major infrastructure project is underway, it is usual to see that a lot of services being disrupted. Bangalore Metro is no exception to this. We recently heard about no-parking regulation on MG Road to accommodate the work on the elevated track.

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