Musings from Malleswaram

VMD - Vehicle of Mass Destruction Our own car lobby would destroy Bangalore. Wonder how? Well here are some facts for thought: Ratan Tata's Tata Motors plans to introduce Tata Nano on Indian Roads by March 2009. Bangalore has 4 million two-wheelers and 450,000 cars. According to the India Infrastructure Report 2006, a two wheeler occupies 10 times more road space than a bus, in terms of per capita road space utilisation.  A car, not far from that, occupies about 7 times more road space than a Bus. Ratan Tata plans to have atleast 10% of the two-wheeler users shift to Tata Nano. For Bangalore, that would mean an additional 400,000 cars on top of the 450,000 that we already have. We will have more nightmares than we can imagine!

After Mr Ramalinga Raju's "true lies" or whatever, it is clearly emerging that in the battle between the two cities of the Deccan, my home city, Bengaluru is a clear winner.  Only, in this battle - the winner will take it all. Hyderabad has virtually logged out of the "global supply chain" as Tom Friedman, the famous NY Times columnist, would like to term the global economy. Pentium chips could not withstand the heat of Bhagyanagar cooled by the Hussain Sagar lake! Yet, our humble Bellandur kere (lake in Kannada) seems to be at peace with Electronics City. And it deed, it is the pleasant climate of Bengaluru thanks to existant lakes like Sankey's, Bellandur, Agara lake which is directly contributing to the peaceful and largely fraud free corporate life. Bengaluru Inc needs to thank past regents like Kempe Gowda of the 16th century and recent ones like Nalvadi Krishnarajendra Wodeyar.  In school text books and innumerous excursions we are taught to marvel the