Setting himself a target of a thousand trees each year, Dr Mahantesh Tapashetti has greened his neighbourhood and surrounding areas in Hubli by himself. Many residents appreciate his work, and the Forest Department has been happy to support him, supplying trees for his care and planting them each year. Shree Padre reports.

What is the price of water to the supplier? What are people being charged out there? Where are our institutions headed in the balance between equity-accessibility and cost recovery? S Vishwanath looks at the example of Bangalore, and finds much room and need for improvement in water pricing.

Efforts to make learning more interactive and more fun for students appear promising, but it may be too soon to judge if they are positively impacting children's performance in standard tests and surveys. Meanwhile, teachers complain that these efforts have added to their already heavy burden. Padmalatha Ravi reports.

There is much that the nation's farmers need to hear in the Green Foundation's message, and avoid past mistakes. But there is also a positive message, reminding farmers that "traditional farming will help you gain control of your finances and your food security." Sudha Narasimhachar reports.

The devotees of historical Veera Narayana Temple at Gadag now have an important lesson to take home along with their theerth and prasad. That if they harvest rainwater falling on their land into the mother earth's womb, they won't have to suffer in the summer. Shree Padre reports.

A hurriedly passed amendment to the Karnataka Panchayat Raj Act last week gives MLAs unwarranted powers over panchayats, which are themselves a separate tier of local goverment. Nandana Reddy and Damodar Acharya say the amendment is contrary to the spirit of decentralisation and the Constitution.

For decades, Karnataka has been haunted by the devadasi tradition where girls were 'dedicated' to goddess Yellama and then turned into sex-workers. Today, determined groups of devadasis of Bagalkot district are bravely stopping the practice, stemming the growth of AIDS and gaining a new respect in society. Ramesh Menon reports.

27-year-old Ratnamma, a garment factory worker, was forced to deliver a baby on the streets of Bangalore. 20-year-old Gayathri was run over by the bus belonging to the Bangalore garment factory where she worked. Garment workers in Bangalore are caught in an exploitative web, reports Padmalatha Ravi.

A three day festival of a special tender mango called appe midi held last month in Shimoga, Karnataka attracted 6000 visitors. The festival showcased a range of preparations including popular pickles, and gave a filip to the conservation of this wild mango variety. Shree Padre reports.

Bagalkot district in Karnataka is today emerging as a model for how AIDS awareness can make all the difference in stemming the disease. It is also showing how it is not impossible to create an atmosphere where HIV positive people can continue to live with freedom, dignity and hope. Ramesh Menon reports.

Recent research has shown that computer/digital technologies can help children with autism (and other disabilities) learn and communicate better. A computer training workshop for parents and children was held recently at Bangalore. Shuchi Grover reports.

When a teacher specially trained to handle children with special needs started work at a local government school in Bangalore, children were benefited and stopped dropping out. Padmalatha Ravi has more.

In Karnataka, job-training programmes are on offer at a number of institutes, and yet, students unable to make it into college are not lining up in large numbers. Ironically, a manpower crunch exists across industries at the entry level, placing employers in a bind. Padmalatha Ravi digs deeper.

No matter which way India's seed policies are heading, the underlying purpose of Malnad's home garden programme as a community conservation initiative for the preservation of genetic diversity, organic agriculture, health and ecologically sensitive livelihoods remains undiluted. Keya Acharya reports from northern Karnataka.

A private high school in Sirsi, in northern Karnataka is not stopping at imparting academic education. It has also started teaching practical water literacy to the people of five Malnad districts. The rain centre at the school, with 28 examples of rain water harvesting, opened in early June. Shree Padre reports.

Two areca farmers of Sirsi in northern Karnataka, Ganapathy Dattatreya Hegde and his brother-in-law Ananda Subbray Pratakahal have become community leaders, workhorses and heroes, all in one. They have turned a situation of water-scarcity and soil-degradation into one of regeneration. Keya Acharya reports.

The latest vocational education courses are presenting job opportunities for high school graduates that their poor parents lacked. Institutes conducting bilingual training are particularly helpful for students who are very likely to have not schooled in English medium. Padmalatha Ravi has more.

The Karnataka state legislature's amendment to the Panchayati Raj law has already attracted severe criticism from civil society. The governor had also expressed his objections. There is now an outpouring of wrath from women panchayat members around the state as protests intensify. Kathyayini Chamaraj reports.

The village of Hebballi in the Krishna river basin is a striking example of a successful and sustainable piped water supply in rural India. While challenges still remain, this experience shows that some steps towards equity and sustainability can be taken in many other places too. S Vishwanath reports.

In the major metros, a range of new vocational courses is helping high school students find jobs in the rapidly industrialising sectors. What about job-seekers in small towns and rural areas? Padmalatha Ravi reports on two NGO-led training innovations in Tamilnadu and Karnataka.

Charles and Nirmala Sequeira were simply looking for something different to do. Little did they think that, many years later, their decision to start selling ice cream made from local fruits would catch on with customers, and open a new channel for value addition for local produce. Shree Padre reports.

Paradise Lost…almost! is a report on the Western Ghats written by Sudhirendar Sharma. The report follows the trail of destruction in the ghats and engages with those who have been engaged in the task of reversing the dominant trend. An IN-PICTURES feature.

By building tanks to catch run-off in the higher reaches of the land, a Karnataka farmer reaps the benefit of a higher water table in the lower areas. In doing so, he remembers that this was the practice for a long time in this area, and he has simply recalled an old tradition. Shree Padre reports.

Smooth relocation of forest dwellers from within to outside tiger reserves requires effective land records and land use policies. Citing the messy situation in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, an official says that even today, there is no reliable estimate of number of people and livestock living inside the reserve. Malini Shankar has more on the challenges.

A study of women's lives in the L R Nagar slum of Bangalore shows how women's economic and social independence in the slum may be linked to age, as well the socio-economic constraints of individual families. Sarayu Pani summarises her study.

With water run-off patterns in his area disturbed by the Forest Department's plantations, more bore wells being sunk, and pumping of groundwater turning multifold, a Karnataka farmer decided to build his own network for recharging ground water. Surprisingly for him, these efforts have revived his local stream. Shree Padre reports.

A far-sighted educational trust is reaping the benefit of digging recharge wells long before the need for them. While its own decision is a lesson in conservation, the institution is also going further, imbibing ecological concerns into the students too. Shree Padre reports.

Has bamboo's time arrived? The high cost of inputs going into conventional construction is beginning to push more people in the direction of alternatives, and this was topic of a recent seminar at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Ashwin Mahesh has more.

A university professor in Shimoga had the fore-sight to make his home nearly autonomous from various public utilities, and alongside do his part for the environment. And when his neighbours were slow to learn, he set out to educate them too. Shree Padre reports.

A 3-acre pond dug in the Yenepoya Medical College 15 kms from Mangalore is catching run-off from about 15 acres of the campus and from an equal area of their neighbourhood. It has already saved the institution a substantial sum on getting water from outside. Shree Padre reports.

79-year-old Achyutha Bhat brought surangas to Manila village in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. His passion for the water caves - which help tap and supply water - and his commitment to training newcomers in suranga-digging has been a boost for local farmers, reports Shree Padre.

An inspection of the latest electoral rolls released by Bangalore's municipal body reveals that it's riddled with errors, despite recent door-to-door surveys. Kathyayini Chamaraj reports on suggestions made by a joint initiative of citizens groups to correct the anomalies.

An initiative at an educational institution near Mangalore ensures that the institution can do without water tankers during the monsoon months. Rainwater suffices and what's more, its borewell also gets recharged. Shree Padre reports.

This 58-year-old illiterate farm labourer has developed irrigated farming at a hilltop in the Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka. His hard work, vision and never-say-die attitude have turned the land around and he now advises visiting farmers. Shree Padre reports.

A Karnataka Bank branch in Mysore is the setting for a unique tale of investment - in water. The bank's senior manager devised a simple plan to allow accumulated rainwater, which was earlier just pumped out and wasted, to percolate into the earth. Shree Padre reports.

The proposed 1000 MW coal-fired power plant at Chamalapura, Mysore, to be located on agricultural land and within 30 kilometres of the Nagarhole and Bandipur national parks, evoked strong protests last year. Recent announcements indicate that the government is going slow. Nandini Chami has more.

Konkodi Bhat's simple pipe system at his home in Dakshina Kannada allows the family to use rainwater for half the year and lets the excess recharge the open well for usage in the remaining months. His easily replicable technique can successfully reduce groundwater usage in heavy rainfall areas, reports Shree Padre.

S Ganesh Mallya, a high school teacher cum Sunday farmer in Yedapadavu in Karnataka, has greened his plot without borewells. Using simple techniques to catch rainwater, he has managed to raise the water level in his open well and grow a bountiful farm. Shree Padre reports.

The government school system is not a rationally driven and coherent apparatus of state policy. Instead, its everyday work is continuously and varyingly reshaped in the light of social, institutional, and policy related inflections, write A R Vasavi and Rahul Mukhopadhyay.

With lakhs of the city's long-term residents, traders and others likely to be affected, there is much opposition to Bangalore's road-widening plans. Protests against tree-felling have acquired a much deeper dimension. Kathyayini Chamaraj reports.

Over the years, nationalised banks have had to buckle up and polish their looks to serve new generation customers and meet stiff competition from the private sector. But the personal touch, valuable to many customers, has been lost, laments Sudha Narasimhachar a former PSU-banker.

Father Benjamin D'Souza's rain harvesting measures in four acres of the Tallur Church campus in coastal Karnataka have assured zero runoff for the last half a decade and watered neighbouring wells too. Shree Padre reports.

It was 25 years ago this month when villagers in Karnataka undertook an eight-kilometre-long trek to resist massive tree-felling at the Kalase forests. In today's milieu, the Appiko movement is facing fresh challenges, writes Sudhirendar Sharma.

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 •  Printer friendly version 10 September 2008 - If your journey along the west coast still remains picturesquely green, thank the chants that had rented the air of this region 25 years ago, and which seemingly echo even today. Chanting the Kannada slogan of Ulisu, Belasu and Balasu, meaning ‘save, grow and sustain’, the forest-loving people of Uttara Kannada - the most green district in the country – stood up against the tyranny of the state that was clearing the native forests to pave way for monoculture plantations.

The 25-year-long journey

Girish Kasaravalli's latest film is a beautiful celluloid essay on the trials and tribulations of a poor Muslim woman, Gulabi, as the world around her changes in response to apparently unconnected events. Shoma Chatterji reviews the film.

Frustrated with the hardness of borewell water, H Ramesh and his family are harvesting rain in their Mysore house for almost all their domestic uses. Shree Padre has more.

Rainwater harvesting need not be limited to household purposes. It can be successfully implemented to solve water problems in commercial establishments too, as demonstrated by an automobile dealer agency in Mangalore. Shree Padre has more.

Earlier, this tank was providing water for 600 trees only. Now 2000 trees are being irrigated from the tank itself for four months. Shree Padre as another success story, this one from southwestern Karnataka.

In the name of good governance, decision-making powers in Karnataka are being given to parastatal organizations and non-elected task forces. Kathyayini Chamaraj asks for a re-look at outsourcing government.

This is a bill that the Governor of Karnataka sent back to the state government in 2007 saying that it "evidently seems to undermine the Constitutional mechanism for rural development governance.." The same bill may be back in the state assembly soon, warns Nandana Reddy.

It's a classic headline: "Government-funded rainwater harvesting for public schools goes wrong, money wasted". However in one district, the tale is altogether different. Shree Padre records the positives and the lessons.