Lost Lakes of Bangalore Contest

March 22 is celebrated as World Water Day. India Water Portal is organizing a contest called the ‘Lost Lakes of Bangalore’ contest.

According to the Wikipedia article, in the 1960s the number of tanks and lakes was 280 and less than 80 remained by 1993 and 67 are now remaining. Various factors have lead to this: several of these lakes have been officially developed by the government into layouts etc. and several have been encroachment by slums and private parties. Many people may not be aware that Majestic Bus Station was once a tank! Land use changes have resulted in reduced inflows to lakes that have made the above possible. BTW – we use the words lake and tank somewhat interchangeably, tanks are manmade structures while lakes are natural structures. Most of Bengaluru’s waterbodies are tanks rather than lakes.

The contest is to create a short film (upto 10 minutes) that documents any particular lost lake of Bengaluru. The documentation can take the form of interviews with people, photo and video clipping of the state of the lake now coupled with any footage of the past state of the lake. The film could investigate the story of how the lake originally was, and the circumstances that resulted in the lake vanishing and the current state of the lake. You could pick any ‘lost lake’ in the city or you could also document an existing lake that is on the verge of extinction.

The contest is divided into two categories: Students and General.

Student Category:
Is applicable to all full time students of schools or bachelor degree courses. Students can work in teams of up to 5 students. You should register your team by sending an email by March 7th to [email protected] with the name of your school/college and the name and email addresses of your team members. Any number of teams can enter from a school or college. The contest is open to all school and bachelor degree college students in the Bengaluru area.

General Category:
Anyone can participate in this contest in the General category. You can work in teams of upto 5 people.
The films must be made in either English or Kannada. If more than one language is used, subtitles should be provided so that the entire film can be understood in either one of the above languages The winning team in the Student category and the winning team at the school level will each get a prize of Rs. 15,000/-. All entries that are found to meet a minimum quality level will be awarded a prize of Rs 1,000/- and a certificate of participation.

The winning person in the general category will get a prize of Rs 15,000/-Entries must be submitted by March 15th

More details here.Image Source : Zahid H Javali