Bangalore

India is the world’s largest newspaper market. Every day – seven days a week – 100 million newspapers are sold here. The print media are clearly in the lead. LVZ reporter Kerstin Decker spoke with K Subrahmanya, editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Deccan Herald in Bangalore (India) about why circulation is continuing to grow while the press in Europe and America are stuck in a major crisis. more ...

“You simply must see a cricket match,” my colleague Raghunandan insisted, because, “The Indians are mad about cricket like the Germans are mad about football.” We’ll see, I thought. Two days later, during one of my rambles through Bangalore I found myself standing in front of the Karnataka Institute of Cricket. In the midday heat between one and two, they were intensively training the duel between the bowler and the batsman on ten pitches. more ...

The clock over the main entrance has stopped and time also seems to stand still in the City Market of Bangalore. It is one of the city’s oldest markets: over 100 years old. The City Market is open every day and a visit is like travelling back in time to Old India. more ...

After two and a half weeks in India and oodles of new impressions, it’s about time that I focus on my chosen topics: I want to get to know the origin of all medical science, the 5,000-year-old art of Ayurveda, first hand. And I want to try on a sari, the typical Indian women’s garment. more ...

„When I was asked if I would like to come along to a two-day Indian wedding, I was excited, but also puzzled. I don’t even know the couple. But, that’s the way things are here. Those who are invited to a wedding can bring along their entire families and even the cousin who is visiting by chance. In this case, I am that cousin. This is how the huge weddings with sometimes 2,000 or 3,000 guests come to be. more ...

Every morning, shortly after six-thirty there is a rustle at my hotel room door in Bangalore (India). The Deccan Herald, the daily newspaper for which I am writing for four weeks as part of a journalism exchange, is shoved under the door. more ...

Bangalore is considered a green city, a garden city. And in fact its gorgeous avenues lined with shade-giving trees muffle the noisy, hectic traffic. I have discovered parks with and without fences, with and without opening hours, even special parks for seniors and children. And I learned that a little less than one hundred years ago a Saxon had a great influence on the garden city of Bangalore. more ...

My first two days in Bangalore I only moved about on foot and explored my closer surroundings. On the third day, however, when the unavoidable gastrointestinal problems hit me and I felt too sluggish to walk longer distances at 38-degree temperatures, I climbed into an auto rickshaw for the first time. more ...

Rajwardhan Kumar was really there on time, early in the morning shortly after seven, but he still only drew number 85. It didn’t even begin until 9:30: registrations for new German courses at the Goethe-Institut in Bangalore. For two days there was a rush as 250 prospective German students per day completed their registration forms. more ...

At midday on a Monday nothing is happening in the clubs of Bangalore, there are no guests. Despite the unusual time of day, a group of Germans is taking a look at several party zones in the city: the jungle lounge Pebble, the Wedding Place right next door, the big hall in the Maharaja Palace, the Counter Culture and the Jaaga. And on their club-hopping tour they see everything they want to see – locations where they can perhaps perform. more ...

Laundering medieval style – saris, jeans, and tablecloths hang to dry between slums and thoroughfares more ...

Who would have thought that on my second day in India, I’d be sitting in a German beer garden? There are typical German dishes like potato salad and bockwurst, Käsespätzle and apple strudel and Black Forest cake. Not to mention Bavarian Brezeln, called “German Pretzels” here. more ...

“So, are you excited?” people keep asking me in recent days. Yes, I am! Only one more day, then it’s down to brass tacks. Tomorrow, I’ll be flying to India for four weeks. I am part of the Close-Up journalists’ exchange project celebrating 60 years of German-Indian relations. more ...