Bangalore: Free wireless internet services are expected to commence in the commercial heart of India’s technology capital starting next month. Mahatma Gandhi Road and Brigade Road, two of the best-known shopping destinations, will have free Wi-Fi access as part of a plan to make Bangalore the first city to have such a service available at public spots. The idea is the brainchild of a government-appointed panel headed by Mohandas Pai, a former director at Infosys. The pilot service will be available for at least six months, after which the Information and Communication Technology (ICT)... 

  Ganga in Patna Patna: After failed attempts to attract private investors for the Ganga Expressway project along the banks of the river here on the lines of Mumbai’s Marine Drive, a government agency has now been roped in to construct it, an official said. “The Bihar government is committed to the mega project – Ganga Expressway – as private companies have not come forward to promote it. Now the state government’s own agency will construct it,” Road Construction Minister Nand Kishore Yadav told the press. Yadav said the government has initiated the process... 

  Kites in Patna: the poster! Patna: at times, life can seem too serious, even unacceptably so. A bit like a friend or a relative who always brings up ‘problems’ every time you see her! Which is why, the kite festival in Patna yesterday was hugely welcome. The fact is whatever the state of the river Ganga in Patna, it does provide the city dwellers with a playground that is hugely and well, scandalously underutilized. Having come to inaugurate a ‘frivolous’ occasion yesterday, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar struck a serious note when he said d he felt like crying seeing the sorry... 

    Mumbai slums: more expensive? New Delhi: Square foot for square foot, your maid probably pays more than you to live in Delhi. A rent of Rs 2,500 a month might seem meagre, but when you consider the typical shanty room measures only 8x10sqft or less, the unit rate comes to more than Rs 30 per square foot. That’s like paying Rs 30,000 a month for a two-bedroom 1,000sqft apartment. Unlike apartments, though, shanties lack toilets and bathrooms, wall sockets and running water. They are neither weather-proof nor earthquake-safe. A recent study by the School of Planning and Architecture’s... 

Break dancing in Delhi slums: the slumGods of Khirki urban village!   B-boys: practice session! New Delhi: It`s hard to imagine that a small room in a dingy lane is the training ground for young talent from nearby slums who are on their way to becoming B-Boys (Break Boys) who perform the Breaking or B-boying street dance genre. As one enters the room in the Khirki urban village in South Delhi after climbing steep and dark stairs, one is greeted by sounds of laughing, screaming and hooting. The Slumgods of Tiny Drops, as the group is known, are celebrating. Harvinder Singh, a 16-year-old,... 

Occidentally Yours Guwahati: As my small town of memories grows bigger and bigger…  By Somnath Batabyal I look across the table at my cousin. We haven’t seen each other in almost fifteen years. Time, depending on how one looks at it, has been generous to her. Her house is enormous, her practice is flourishing and she looks successful. An ENT specialist in Guwahati, she tells me business is booming. “Lots of pollution, no? More and more tumors and cancers.” The small town I grew up in had vanished. In its place today stands a chaotic screaming mess of unimaginative blocks... 

Omkar Realtors and Mumbai’s slum redevelopment business: a case study    Editor’s note: even in an unlikely domain like real estate, it is not just possible but also profitable to maintain the attitude of the retail trader for whom ‘customer satisfaction’ is a very real thing! As real as his bank account and the daily returns. In fact if the biggest retail chains and the traditional corner store have anything in common at all, it is their single-minded focus on customer satisfaction. Such single-mindedness often causes them to ignore employee satisfaction as in the case of Wal-Mart,... 

Life of a Bihari child labour in Delhi: seen vividly!   By Ashpreet Sethi Delhi: here is a report on the state of child labour from Bihar and other sites, based on a police raid in Delhi: The 13-year-old looked frightened as a policeman and two volunteers entered the dark, dingy bakery. He was rolling dough, next to a furnace. The boy from Bihar was one of the 18 children rescued from bakeries and dhabas in east Delhi on Friday afternoon. We had made our way through the narrow lanes in Jagatpuri, which has several of these dark rooms, locally called “bakery factories.” They had no... 

It’s a tough life: Bihari migrants in Chennai   By Madhumita Dutta Tamil Nadu has more than 10 lakh migrants, doing jobs that local workers shun because of poor pay and dangerous working conditions, but they are easy targets of prejudices against ‘north Indians’. Last weekend, a dishevelled, bare-chested man was almost done to death in Chennai. Police and scores of bystanders watched the young man being beaten unconscious. A few even cheered and egged on the mob. Barely three days before this incident the city witnessed the killing of five men, allegedly involve in a recent... 

एक बेर फेर विकसित शहर बनत दरभंगा सिटी डेवलमेंट प्लान क तहत भेटत 1100 करोड़, 2030 तक लेल योजना तैयार! दरभंगा : 1934 क भूकंप क बाद दरभंगा नव ढंग स बसाउल गेल छल। 30 साल लेल शहर क योजना तैयार भेल छल। 1964 मे जे योजना एबाक छल से 2012 मे आबि रहल अछि। देर स सही...