TUI in News - BBC Radio Interviews An Ugly Indian

"Kaam Chalu Mooh Bandh is our motto, and we always have declined media interviews. However, we agreed to let a TUI volunteer speak to BBC World Service Radio today on strict condition of anonymity. BBC said that the TUI message needs to go out to their global audience, so we broke our 'silence' for this noble cause!" - TUI




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BBC News - 'Ugly Indians clean up Bangalore

TUI Birthday - A Cartoon Birthday card

A  lovely birthday card for TUI by Jai.

TUI Spot Fix - Rescuing a Telecom Pillar

Location - Central Bangalore District



To remove posters, first soak the surface in water (use a brush, sponge or a wet cloth).
Let the water soak for about 5 mins. This makes it easier to peel off/brush off the posters.
Buy a putty blade from any hardware store (costs Rs 5). It is the most effective weapon against posters.
And start scraping. It is a laborious job and does damage to the paint surface. The stronger the adhesive used, the longer it takes.
The putty blade helps in removing dried paan stains too

Go to any paint shop, and buy 1 litre of "Smoke Grey" or "Nickel Grey" oil paint. Mix with thinner, and start painting.

We use Asian Paints - it costs about Rs 150 for 1 litre - and that is sufficient for 1 pillar of this size. Thinner costs about Rs 40 and a decent brush about Rs 100.
 the basic cost of materials to transform a pillar of this size is under Rs 300. Sweat and fire-in-belly comes free, of course. And the brush can be reused (if washed and stored properly).
The impact of a fresh coat of paint is quite dramatic.

Simple removing posters will not do. It is not enough of a deterrent for the poster-putter.
The surface needs to look like new, like someone cares about it.

~ TUI

Click here to see in Pictures TUI Spotfixing a Telecom pillar


Here are a few  more pictures of TUI rescuing Telecom Pillars. 
SpotFixing a few BESCOM boxes 

Spotfixing area around BESCOM box

Spotfixing BESCOM box by KC Das Employees


TUI currently has rescued and continues to maintain 30 BESCOM boxes in and around Church St.It takes Rs 300 and 2 hours to fix a Telecom Pillar, Will you try this in your area?

TUI Birthday & Treasure hunt

The Ugly Indian turned 1 on Sat, Nov 12th 2011! That's 52 weekends of SpotFixing!
They celebrated on Saturday morning  with a Treaure Hunt in the MG Road/Church Street area. 

So what was The Ugly Indian Treasure Hunt?
Participants had to take 12 pictures of Ugly Spots on 4kms of footpath in Bangalore's city centre (anywhere on MG Road, Church Street, Brigade Road). The Ugliest pictures win.

The minimum requirement to be eligible for a prize was
- 2 photos of paan stains on walls
- 2 photos of garbage dumped on the road/footpath- 1 photo of a missing/broken Footpath slab
- 1 photo of a man urinating on a wall
- 1 photo of a stinking place where people urinate frequently

Participants had 4 hours to 'inspect' 4 kms of footpath to find this treasure.






Click here for more pictures of the Treasure Hunt

Lest we Forget how the 'Treasure Hunt' was one year ago - in 2010

Take a look at the Treasure Hunt competition Entries!

And the Result??

"The Winner of The Ugly Indian Treasure Hunt is the city of Bangalore/Bengaluru!
It successfully passed the 'Inspection Test' of over 50 meticulous treasure hunters - who spent 2 hours inspecting every inch of footpath.


It's true. Brigade Rd, MG Rd & Church St passed this tough test on Saturday.
- There are no open garbage dumps
- There are no missing footpath slabs
- There is no public urination (as there are WonderLOOs)
- There are no paan stains on walls (people still spit paan but it is directed into the 100+ tereBins available. Any stains that hit a wall are immediately cleaned or painted over by vigilant Ugly Indians).

It's something to be proud of.
TUI will work hard at maintaining it this way.
Yes, there are leakages and you will see the odd paan stain - but they will not survive."

~ TUI

I Can Spotfix! - Koramangala playground! - A birthday gift

TUI had neglected to maintain the Big Fix we did in the Koramangala Playground 3 months ago (as their focus had  been CBD), but SOMEONE decided to adopt this Spot.


This story exemplifies the 'power of one' person to make a change. This is inspiring for many of us to go out and 'do something'. Even if it is all by ourselves!

 

READ ON in the links below.

Birthday present for TUI - part 1

Birthday present for TUI - part 2

I Can Spotfix! - Tree fix by Aastha

Location - Bangalore

Aastha Sahai  removes ads/posters from about 15 trees/electricity poles near house in Bangalore! Kudos to her!!

TUI Birthday - The First spotfix - what got them Started

TUI approaches its FIRST BIRTHDAY on Nov 12th!
 In their own words here is how or what got them started!!

 

What really got us started 1 year ago was seeing this Ugly Spot on Church Street.

We could not understand how this was tolerated in the middle of Church Street (right opp Barton Centre, Amoeba, Ruby Tuesday, Saigon, Shrungar Shopping Centre, Indian Coffee House) - and how everyone we asked threw up their hands and said - it has ALWAYS been like this.

We wondered - why isn't someone doing something about it? Doesn't it matter? This is the city's prime restaurant street, for God's sake!




Then we discovered that there were 6 such large open dumps spread across the 1km long Church Street - that had garbage "23x7". And about 5-6 smaller dumps. They were part of the 'system'. The clearing lorry came at 9am everyday (they were prompt), the place remained clean for 1 hour at most, and then dumping began again. This was 'normal'! Everyone played their part - the dumpers and cleaners, and life went on. And nobody was willing to change it.

Church Street is a windy street - so the whole place looks a mess all day.
We felt that if these 6 Dumps were eliminated, the street would become less dirty.

It seemed like commonsense. It would be easy to criticise this 'spot' fixing approach as a 'Band-aid', but we felt that Some aid was better than No aid. How long should we wait for a Miracle Cure - better to start small, apply band-aids and small spotfixes, and improve the overall health of the street
 .

Click here for more Shocking pictures of Ugly Spots on Church Street taken in 2010.

There are 40 Major Ugly Spots, and another 20 minor spots. On a road that is barely 1 kilometre long.

And after the spot fixes this is how one of the spots look today!

Check out the more of TUI spotfix pictures and videos. 

.....more stories will follow with more posts by TUI....