Mismanagement, not scarcity, root cause of city's water shortage: Dr TV Ramachandra
The event was presided by Justice Shivraj Patil as the chief guest and Actress Thara Anooradha amongst other dignitaries.
Bengaluru: Namma Bengaluru Foundation honoured six outstanding citizens for their contributions towards the city at Town Hall on Sunday.
In its eighth edition, Dr. T.V Ramachandra, who is a faculty member at the IISc, was honoured with the Namma Bengalurean of the Year Award for his contributions towards assessing and safeguarding the lakes of the city, especially Jakkur Lake.
After receiving the honour, Ramachandra said, “I have been questioned about who I was and where I was from ever since I started my questions about water. Today, because of this award, I’ve been branded a Bengalurean.” He added, “The root cause of the water shortage in the city is due to mismanagement, not scarcity. We can use the silt in our lakes to rejuvenate our water bodies.”
The event was presided by Justice Shivraj Patil as the chief guest and Actress Thara Anooradha amongst other dignitaries. The five other categories of awards were for Government Official of the Year awarded to Jagannatha Rao from the BBMP for his efforts in conservation of lakes, Citizen Individual of the Year awarded to Geetha Menon for her crusades for the rights of domestic workers, Rising star of the Year awarded to Harshil Mittal for his initiative Lets Spread Love that has fed over 1 lakh hungry mouths.
The Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award to Jasmeen Patheja founder of Blank Noise, for its efforts to reclaim public spaces for women’s safety and Media Individual of the Year Award to Dhanya Rajendran editor-in-chief of the online news portal The News Minute.
NBF CEO Sridhar Pabbishetty said, “We had 36 finalists and though only six are awarded, all of them are heroes and winners in the city’s eyes.”
He congratulated the audience for their efforts in stopping the construction of the steel flyover. “We had 44 thousand people sign the ballots for the Steel Flyover Beda movement and I think that was a remarkable show of what a democracy should be like. This significant success has only been possible due to the combined focus on our core principles of advocacy, partnership and activism.”