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The Hindu
14-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Nandi Hills gearing up to host Karnataka Cabinet meeting on June 19
From its foot to the top, Nandi Hills, one of Bengalureans' favourite getaway destinations, is abuzz with civic work, pruning of trees, beautification of surroundings, and much more, as it gets ready to host the Karnataka Cabinet meeting on June 19. On Friday, representatives of several departments were busy working on the hill when The Hindu visited the spot. A team belonging to the Public Works Department was carrying out the shouldering work on the road leading to the hill. Horticulture Department workers had brought natural lawns to lay in front of a restaurant. They were also arranging ornamental plants brought from the nursery at Lalbagh. Monkey trouble 'After the Cabinet meeting that was conducted on the Male Mahadeshwara Hills, it is now the turn of Nandi Hills to host the State Cabinet. We have also requested the Forest Department to control the large number of monkeys around here without disturbing them,' said an official of the Horticulture Department. In 1986, the second SAARC summit, which was attended by the then Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi, was held at Nehru Nilaya on Nandi Hills. Controlling monkeys back then was also a Herculean task. The Cabinet meeting on June 19 will be conducted in the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation's (KSTDC) Mayura Pine Top restaurant. The restaurant is getting a complete makeover as everything from the washrooms to the air conditioning systems were being fixed on Friday. 'We are upgrading our basic infrastructure. This will be a milestone for the KSTDC as we will be hosting the State Cabinet meeting on our property. We are even increasing the bandwidth of our Wi-Fi to ensure uninterrupted live streaming for media and for any other official work,' said Manoj Kumar, manager of Mayura Pine Top. The hall that is being prepared for the meeting will be occupied by Ministers, while separate locations will be provided for officers on special duty, personal assistants, and others. The hall on the ground floor of the restaurant offers an uninterrupted view of the Chickballapur town. Demands of the district With the Cabinet meeting being hosted in Chickballapur, there is a lot of expectations about big announcements for the district. MLA for Chickballapur Pradeep Eshwar, who had come to oversee the preparations on Nandi Hills on Friday, told The Hindu that decisions on many major projects of the district would be taken at the meeting. 'As we are famous for flowers and vegetables, we had requested that the international flower market should not be set up in a public-private partnership. The government has agreed to invest the full amount of ₹150 crore for it, and it will mostly be announced on that day. We have also requested that the storage capacity of Jakkalamadagu reservoir be increased to ensure adequate water supply during summer months,' Mr. Eshwar said. Hopes of ropeway He also said the government might take a call on proposing the Bhoga Nandishwara temple as a UNESCO World Heritage site to attract more foreign tourists to the district. 'While we think that something related to the Yettinahole project will be announced, the final approval for the Nandi ropeway project will definitely be given,' the MLA said. Nandi Hills has been closed for the public from 6 p.m. on June 16 to 5 a.m. on June 20 in view of the Cabinet meeting.
New Indian Express
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New Indian Express
A Stitch in Time
Memories, bitter, sweet, or both, have a tendency to become entwined in the places they were formed. And if you were to think of one place that holds most Bengalureans' memories – where children run around on school trips, couples steal a moment alone, and the elderly come for peace and quiet – Cubbon Park comes to mind. It is this interconnectedness between Cubbon Park and the people whose memories are entwined within it, that Bengaluru-based artist Karthika Sakthivel seeks to explore with her project Sonic Picnics – a quilt that tells these stories to anyone with a moment to sit, touch a patch of fabric, and listen. Created with the aid of a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts, the installation is set to be open to viewers on Sunday at Cubbon Park. 'We've found some amazing stories. Someone shared a story of finding a dead dog, cremating it and coming back to plant a tree in its memory; another, a sweeper, got street-cast for a movie here; one guy had a first date here that lasted over 12 hours and the couple saw their first sunrise here, with light rushing through the leaves and dew. There was also a man who manages the public restroom who sang for us! It's lovely to see these meaningful connections people make with nature and each other,' she says. Sharing the origins of this project, which started with her work on a jacket that tells oral histories at The British Library, Sakthivel says, 'We were trying to figure out how to get visitors to engage with oral histories. People don't want to put on headphones and stare at a wall, so how do we create an embodied listening experience?' The answer, applied to Cubbon Park, was to collect stories from people and weave them together over a year. 'What we're trying to do here is capture present day experiences and future aspirations that people have for the park by communally weaving together a picnic blanket that is interactive. We got people to come to workshops, listen to the 24 stories we've curated, and start stitching onto the patch. Some, saw us and just joined in!' says Sakthivel. How exactly does the blanket work and make this interactive experience happen? Through the magic of smart fabric, explains Sakthivel. 'I'm using conductive fabric, thread, and an entire circuit is concealed under the fabric so you can't tell it's there. But when you touch a particular story, it plays the audio in the headphones. At any point, five people will be able to sit or lie down on it.' With Cubbon Park being a thriving spot for community events and clubs, bringing people of all classes together, Sakthivel hopes that the project will act as a conduit that encourages a culture of people listening to one another. 'We talk a lot about storytelling but there's not as much of a culture for story-listening. Through this, we want to create a culture where people slow down, sit down, and actually listen. Listening in a group is different from listening alone – you can see how many different stories exist and how many different people use a public space.'
