‘You can’t see sky in IT city Bangalore’

“If you are a resident of Bangalore and Hyderabad, it’s so disgusting the way the two cities have been developing”, he said without mincing words, terming Bangalore’s development ‘vulgar and filthy’.

Rao, Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Council to Prime Minister and an author of over 40 books, said it’s unfortunate that the mushrooming of hundreds of malls in Bangalore is seen as a sign of prosperity, development and growth.

“How can you forget that 35 per cent of women in Bangalore are illiterate”, he asked, while delivering key-note address at the golden jubilee seminar on ‘Fostering Scientific Temper: Popular Science Writing in India’, organised by the National Book Trust.

He also said big sign boards have come up all over the city. “You can’t see sky in Bangalore”, he quipped. In addition, there are huge cut-outs and posters of political parties pasted all around with ‘their ugly faces’.

“It’s terrible,” said Rao, also Head of the city-based Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research.

Taking on the IT sector, he said while this industry claimed that only 25 per cent of engineering graduates are employable, it did nothing to start any outstanding university or institute.