CITIES MAKE one simple promise to newcomers: Sacrifice yourself to me and your children shall prosper. This promise drew Ahmed Raza, a small-time wrestler from an Uttar Pradesh village and millions like him to the capital of newly-independent India. Raza kept his part of the bargain, yet half a century later, his daughter was pushed out of the city her father helped build, the only home she has known. “I...

The Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen said on child domestic workers that “it is not economic poverty but rather political poverty that is depriving children their rights to education and pushing them to labour force. Our actions should aim at attacking this political poverty to bring education to the reach of children and free child domestic workers from the bondage.” The child domestic labour is common and traditional form of...

The fates of Delhi government's favourite project, Signature Bridge, and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation’s (DMRC) Central Secretariat to Badarpur line have become intertwined. The government is now planning to move the Central Vigilance Commission to seek permission to give the project to the second lowest bidder. The move is prompted by the decision of the DMRC to examine whether or not to blacklist Gammon India Private Limited after the...

A UN Habitat publication warns that inequalities and worsening informal settlements (read slums) could lead to widespread violence and chaos in the cities and towns of the world. The newly-released report titled “Planning Sustainable Cities: Global Report on Human Settlements 2009” says that with almost 200,000 new dwellers flooding into the world cities and towns each day, there is an urgent need to check the mushrooming of such settlements. The...

Sitting on an iron bench along a busy street, Chaman Lal sticks his fingers into a mug full of a greasy concoction and then applies the dark-red brew to areas where his patients complain of pain. Lal -- who does not have a license to practice medicine, but claims to be a successful bone doctor and traditional healer -- says this potion of 18 herbs is a cure-all. His large signboard,...