Next generation bus shelters

A bus shelter can do a lot more than just provide commuters with a place to wait in, shielded from the sun and rain. These days the city has numerous shelters that are attractive, innovative, and even informative. Polished granite seating, bright illumination, stainless steel railings, attractive signages, and in one shelter, even an audio commentary synchronised with pictures of famous personalities of the State.

Some of Bangalore’s bus shelters add colour to the surrounding area. They create an ambience of progress and even give people waiting in them a sense of security thanks to their bright lighting.

The neon signs on the bus shelters give them a fancy look. It brings alive the surroundings and makes waiting for a bus a little easier. In areas where tiled footpaths and glass-fronted buildings are changing the city's look and feel, these high quality bus shelters complement the aesthetics, completing the pretty picture.

—Excerpted from Times Property, 14 November

Mysore—the “Fleet Street” of India

As we go to print, we learn from The Hindu (11 Dec) that Mysore has earned one more sobriquet: the city of newspapers or the “Fleet Street” of India! According to the Mysore Gazetteer (last updated in 1988), there are more than 250 registered newspapers in the city, of which at least 170 were registered in the pre-independence era.

Bangalore: a mobile city!

A trendsetter on many counts, Bangalore is now a leader in the mobile revolution. The city has more mobile phones than land lines. Bangalore is the third city in India to achieve this milestone; the others being Delhi and Chandigarh. The number of mobile phones (both GSM and CDMA) in Bangalore is about 11.7 lakh as of now—about 70,000 more mobiles than land lines.

— Excerpted from Deccan Herald, 11 December

Fabrics for office furnishings

Most offices have the following areas: a reception or front office, a conference room, a cafeteria and cabins.

A reception looks lovely with upholstered sofas for seating visitors. Depending on the kind of business you are in, you can choose from a wide range of tapestry material for upholstery. But, the tapestry has to be good-looking and durable. The number of people using this area is going to be large.

The conference rooms are usually categorised into VIP and non-VIP rooms. Use upholstered furniture in the VIP locations. You may want to go with pastels and lighter shades. You can also indulge in curtains instead of the regular blinds.

In a cabin, the only place you can use upholstered furniture is on the chairs of the executives. Many computer chairs are also upholstered for additional comfort.

In a cafeteria, you can use checked tablecloths. Use practical furniture, which is easy to wipe and dry off with a cloth.

— Excerpted from Times Property, 24 October

Fortune magazine tells Americans:
“Where your job is going...to Bangalore, India”

Every weekday, as the tropical sun begins its swift descent over the Deccan plain, fleets of what the Indians call “multi-utility vehicles” fan out across Bangalore. The Tata Sumos and Toyota Qualises bump along the potholed, muddy residential streets of India’s fifth-largest city, stopping to pick up young men and women and carry them to work. Then, as business hours begin in the Eastern U.S., thousands of these young Indians don telephone headsets and do their enthusiastic bit to help the American people get their Internet service working, figure out their credit card bills, and order tacky limited-edition collectibles.

In Bangalore some 110,000 people are employed writing software, designing chips, running computer systems, reading MRIs, processing mortgages, preparing tax forms, and doing other essential work for U.S., European, Japanese, and even Chinese companies.

The attraction of the Indian knowledge workers who get those jobs is that they're paid 10% to 20% of what Americans would except for similar work—and in many cases they do it better. That has stoked understandable alarm in the U.S. Together with China’s rise in manufacturing, it is bringing protectionists out of the woodwork. It is also causing even those of a less reactionary bent to wonder just what it is that Americans will do for a living now that even knowledge work can easily be sent overseas.

The real clincher is that despite constant complaints about Bangalore’s insane traffic, skyrocketing real estate prices, and fickle workforce—and constant efforts by other cities, especially Hyderabad and Chennai, to get in on the action—companies and people keep coming to Bangalore.