16th July 2015 - Save the date

We are delighted to tell you that PNLIT will be receiving the  शहर GREEN करो - It's Our Turn to Lead Award at a special function at the Puttenahalli Lake premises on 16th July 2015, 11:00 a.m. onwards. The Chief Guest is Mrs. Karuna Singh, Country Director of Earth Day Network India, the organizers of the contest. 

The contest was held in 45 Indian cities to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Earth Day and six winners were announced in May. The Jury found merit in our entry on the pre-monsoon cleaning of the lake bed by volunteers on 28th March 2015, most of whom live in the neighbourhood. Sincere thanks to each one of them for the great vigour and enthusiasm with which they had picked trash from the lake bed. Pictures of the event are below. 

More than in the previous years, this cleaning drive was important because it may have been for the last time that we were able to do this. Puttenahalli Lake no longer needs to rely on the monsoon to fill up. From 17th May 2015, treated waste water from the Sewage Treatment Plant at South City has been flowing into the lake. Within a year, we hope our dream of seeing it filled to the optimum will become a reality and even more birds will flock to the lake. 

After their inspection of the STP, the Upa Lokayukta Hon'ble Justice Sri Subhash B. Adi and Dr. Vaman Acharya, Chairman, KSPCB visited the lake and met our volunteers. Their presence boosted our morale no end and made the day a memorable one for us. 

Our sincere thanks to KSPCB for giving the necessary permission and for sponsoring the lake cleaning drive. With infrastructural support from BBMP and donations from our well wishers, PNLIT has been maintaining the lake from May 2011. It is still a work in progress and we have a long way to go but awards like the one we will be proud to receive on 16th July encourage our endeavour. 

We look forward to sharing this moment with you. Do please attend. A line to confirm your attendance will be most welcome. 

Best regards

Usha for the PNLIT Team

PNLIT is a winner in Earth Day Network's शहर GREEN करो Contest

PNLIT is happy to inform you that we are one of the winners of Earth Day Network-India's शहर GREEN करो - It’s Our Turn to Lead Contest. The result was announced today. The other winners are from Kozhikode, Mumbai, Srinagar, Raipur and Varanasi and can be seen on the Earth Day Network website here. Details about PNLIT's entry can be seen on the Green Cities India Facebook page here.

To commemorate the 45th anniversary of Earth Day (celebrated on 22nd April) this year, Earth Day Network-India, in February, had called for entries from 45 cities on how to make their cities "Swachh" and "Green". Each of the contestants had to register with a specific task and accomplish the goal within 45 days. PNLIT's entry was on the pre-monsoon lake cleaning drive we had organized on 28th March. This particular cleaning drive had been sponsored by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and the event was attended by the KSPCB Chairman, Dr. Vaman Acharya. Another dignitary who accepted our invitation to visit the lake that day was the Upa Lokayukta, Hon'ble Justice Sri Subhash B. Adi. It was truly special for us to welcome these guests as it was to see our volunteers picking up plastic and other trash scattered on the lake bed with vigour and enthusiasm. 

Heartfelt thanks to all our well-wishers, for the unstinting support to Puttenahalli Lake and to PNLIT! 

An "I Support" click can help us raise funds for Puttenahalli Lake

Over the last couple of years, we've tried many different ways of raising funds for Puttenahalli Lake, with the objective of eventually making the lake more-or-less self sustaining. And with your support, we are slowly getting there.

We've just registered for the Ripple Rewards competition on Gudville. Every month, causes that garner maximum supporters will win funding from Gudville.    

All you need to do is click on the link below to view our cause. Then login using one of your social media credentials and click the "I support" button. Done! 

 "Sustaining Puttenahalli Lake"

We are aiming for the December funding to start off with, and if we do not make it, our points will get carried over to the next month.

Thank you for your support.

Arathi

Trustee, PNLIT

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Our cause on Gudville: "Sustaining Puttenahalli Lake". Please click on the link to view the cause. You can login using your Facebook credentials.

Click on "I Support" to help us win funding.

Gudville - A home for your cause.

Gudville is a private social action network for discovering and sharing personal causes  and inspiring others to take positive action.

Winning the Namma Bengaluru Award

In its fourth edition, with a record 61,000 nominations for nine categories in the prestigious Namma Bengaluru Award, 2012 (NBA) which recognizes the "unsung heroes; ordinary people who do extraordinary things so that the city can move forth in to the future" the odds of winning were stacked against everybody.

We had been shortlisted last year and the excitement continued this year as well. However, with a great deal of work yet to be done to make the lake ready for the monsoon, we tried not to think too much about the NBA. Our lake was in no condition to receive visitors but the organizers sent someone over to do a due diligence of PNLIT's work. Before we could meet him, he had already quizzed the two groups of men who were working at the lake. One group was digging a trench for the diversion channel to harvest rain water from the road and another was enabling a system by which we could draw water from the lake for the plants. We chatted and he left without taking a single note. More work is the best way to stop worrying or thinking of things beyond our control.

We were not the only busy ones, the Namma Bengaluru Foundation was following their own timeline. The Award function was on 16th March and the countdown must have begun to sift through the 53 short listed nominees and make their final selection.

It was the Award Day at last and we reached the venue well in time.

Malleswaram ground. What did it look like normally? Certainly not as it looked that evening. Colouful pandal, lights, volunteers, music, stalls, vigilant policemen and people streaming inside. The next few hours were surreal. We simply didn't know where to look! Do we see the dancers, the VIPs entering, the huge stage brightly lit (with Raghu Dixit's drums in silhouette), speed artist Vilas Nayak who won as much applause for hailing from Malleswaram as for his swift but dramatic creation of Kempe Gowda 1, bearing a shield and sword or of "Bangarada Manushya" Dr. Raj Kumar?

The stage was set for announcing the winner in each category. Fellow trustees Nupur Jain and O.P. Ramaswamy sitting on either side of me were a study in contrast. Nupur was on the edge of the seat, clearly unable to control her tension. OPR was his usual calm and composed self. Beyond him sat Prasanna in deep conversation with PNLIT well wisher Jagadeesh Maiya who had come to cheer us just in case we won. Unable to join us in person, trustee Arathi Manay watched the webcast in Mumbai biting her nails perhaps! She had the presence of mind, however, to forward the link to the PNLIT e-group, several of whom watched the live streaming as well.

The NBA trophy

The winners in several categories had been announced. All individuals. What if we won? Would all of us go up to receive the award? What would we do afterwards? There were only 11 chairs for the winners on the dais. We have to give a speech? Oh, oh. Questions, mumbled answers, rising tension as the nominees in our category "Citizen Groups/NGO" were named.

Eleven names, the maximum in any category. Each one highly deserving of The Award. Who was going to be the lucky one? Show host Vasanthi Hariprakash invited a dignitary to announce the winner. We were far too tensed to remember his name but we needed to hear only the first word from his lips to cheer and jump from our seats! When we went up to the dais, it was in a daze, not hearing the applause, not seeing anyone but the Chief Guest, Prof G Venkatasubbaiah, all of 100 years, renowned Kannada lexicographer who handed over the trophy, replica of Kempe Gowda's tower (which had marked the four boundaries of the city) and an envelope. A battery of photographers froze that moment, a milestone for PNLIT.

PNLIT receiving the award

Winners all!

As Chairperson, I delivered a speech which was short but after the really brief ones by earlier winners, I seemed to speak forever! I'd like to repeat the thought with which I concluded - A Big Thank you to the Environment Cell, BBMP and to each individual who helped us along the way. Their names are too many to be listed here but we are so grateful to them and to all our volunteers and donors who are helping us transform the lake and finally to our families for tolerating our madness, our obsession with lake restoration.

We relived the excitement the next morning with our volunteers who'd come to work at the lake. The award belongs as much to them as to PNLIT.

Volunteers with the NBA trophy

For a more objective account of the NBA function, please see the report here.

Usha