National gallery of modern art is a place where contemporary art forms are displayed.  The art forms range from sculputres, canvas paintings, charcoal work on paper, photographs and alike.

NGMA opened in bangalore recently and I visited it to see the different art forms and also for inspiration for photographs which are seen as art form. Being a wildlife and nature photographer, I find it sometimes interesting to portray it as art rather than just fact.

Located on Palace road, next to India Oil petrol station(Mount Carmel college is another big landmark), it is beautifully constructed with a mix of ancient British architecture and modern landscaping. The well maintained green plush gardens with fountains make the whole campus teaming with inspirations for all art inspirers.

Meeting with the Director was also a good insight into the work done over the past 3 years to get it inaugurated only a few months back. A place recommended for all art lovers. The art is only for display under tight security for an entree fee of mere INR20(< 0.50USD). There are starting to gain momentum in their activities with cultural tours and insights behind the art work on regular days. Sessions and lecture series are also conducted by eminent artists from time to time.

Having visited Delhi NGMA also, I think the one in Bangalore has an edge :)

Tiger news may be exciting with cub reports and new sightings at higher altitudes. But there is carelessness at lower altitudes for other animals as well.

Is the focus only on tiger conservation and all the resources have been pulled to this cause? A goods train in north Bengal in India ran over 7 elephants killing them. Yes 7 asian elephants have been killed in no time after being hit by a goods train in the Banarhat area of Jalpaiguri district on Wednesday night.

The herd of 7 elephants left four filled on the spot after collision, the remaining 3 died the next day. It seemed like an extended family with including sub-adults and two juvenile elephants.

The forest department has requested to run the train at lower speeds in this stretch but there is always hurry for everyone, and the train driver was no exception. Is running at 70km/hr against the requested 25km/hr going to bring back the elephant family?

A case has been booked against Subhankar Sarkar, train driver. The train runs across the forest areas in Dooars at odd times including night which is the most active time for elephants to feed.

Elephants need to feed around 10% of their body every day. This approximately 100-300kg of food per day which takes about 12-15 hours per day feeding. A rough estimates states that there are only 26,000 Asian elephants in wild in India.

This is not the first incident, three months ago, another elephant was run over and killed by a train near the same spot. Reports are even stating that 30 elephants have died in such collision incidents in the past years.

If the news of 2 cubs in Ranthambore was not much exciting, here you go for super moments captured.

In the kingdom of Bhutan, Tiger has been sighted using camera traps over the 4 months of field expedition by BBC. there was a male and female captured with breeding behavior. This is the first sighting of Tiger beyond 4000metre height.

Another fab news is the sighting of snow leopard cub in the same region of Bhutan. See the clip to understand it inquisitiveness for the camera trap.

It seems like a season of good wild news!

There have been reports of 2 tiger cubs spotted in Ranthambore on Sept 22, 2010. Cheers to all the efforts in making it happen. Looking forward to a trip to Ranthambore now? Or is Bandhavgarh the destination first!

Update: the cubs have been found for T13 also known as Sultanpur tigress. The cubs have been spotted in Kundal zone which is next to Zone 1.

Infinity events organized a fusion evening led by Niladri Kumar in Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Bangalore on Sept 16, 2010.

I photographed the event and some of the images I liked from the evening are below:

Pandit Jasraj with special appearance

In-Synched

In-Synch with Niladri Kumar

It was a lively crowd with good performance from the artists. Pick of the day for me was Gino Banks with the lights out performance and light emitting drum sticks.