Once India's 'Garden City', Bangalore is now a garbage city

Bangalore

THE stench of rubbish hanging over swathes of Bangalore is so powerful it rouses residents in the middle of the night, the fetid result of a trash crisis that threatens its reputation as one of India's nicest places to live.

Hailed first as the country's Garden City and then its Silicon Valley, drawing in multinational IT firms and their monied executives, today Bangalore is paying a heavy price for its success - it's a city overflowing with garbage, its infrastructure and waste collection services unable to keep up with decades of unchecked growth.