The latest findings of Census 2011, a decadal count of people and their quality of life, have thrown up some paradoxical trends on Delhi. Shivani Singh writes.
Buying a new flat is always fraught with risks because you rarely get what you are promised in advertisements, brochures or even sample flats you inspect yourself.
Does too much praise kill our children’s ability to face failure? In the late 90s, Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted a series of experiments on school students in New York to figure out just that. Shivani Singh writes.
Flanked by an impressive bell tower, medieval buildings, some brilliant cafes, pubs and curio shops, the centuries-old Rynek square in Krakow, Poland’s medieval capital for 500 years, is a lively, majestic town centre even by the European standard. But there is also a lot happening underground. Shivani Singh writes.
Writing about how crime rates in Britain continued to fall despite the economic slump and high youth unemployment, The Economist magazine last month was positive about the fact that rape was bucking the trend. Shivani Singh writes.
Commenting on the lapses in investigating the disappearance of a five-year-old girl in east Delhi who was later found raped, mutilated and locked up in the neighbour’s room, the Delhi high court last week asked the police to keep a close watch on “people coming from nearby states as most of the crimes happening in the Capital are committed by them.”
The unfortunate story of the Yamuna keeps getting worse. Last week, the Delhi Development Authority had put out a public notice in newspapers asking for suggestions and objections to the proposed modification in its zone ‘O’, a highly protected river precinct where no construction whatsoever is allowed.
With the future of their wards in the custody of the private schools, the parents are easily the most vulnerable of consumers, Shivani Singh reports.
Some coincidences carry a sense of foreboding. A day before the collapse of an illegally constructed building killed 74 persons in Maharashtra’s Thane, Delhi cleared a layout plan to regularise an illegal settlement, writes Shivani Singh.
When my colleague’s kid got into this reputed school in the National Capital Region, he couldn’t believe his luck. Now, after four years, he is not sure if he was really lucky. Every year, the school hikes the fee by 25% or more. But he wishes it were worth the money. Shivani Singh writes
Presenting her government’s 15th consecutive budget and her third as finance minister, Shiela Dikshit, who seeks re-election in eight months, offered no sops. Instead, she stepped up spending on health, education and transport. Health, received the biggest boost ever with a 33% hike in allocation. Dikshit promised to open tobacco cessation clinics to help citizens quit smoking, offered Rs. 1 lakh to resident bodies to buy and install treadmills for public use, and declared 2013 as the year of prevention and early detection of diabetes and hypertension, writes Shivani Singh.
There is nothing more mystifying than the great Indian road trick. It is amazing how quickly roads are smoothened in the run-up to an election, and how fast the blacktop vanishes with one downpour or two, hurtling trucks passing over. Shivani Singh reports.
The city's first ever tree survey conducted by local residents in the leafy neighbourhood of south Delhi's Sarvodaya Enclave had an unexpected fallout. Shivani Singh writes.
Delhi is set to rise taller and redraw its skyline. As part of a mid-term review of the Master Plan last fortnight, an advisory committee recommended that buildings that have a provision of stilt parking should be allowed to go up 2.5 metres higher than the existing limit of 15 metres. Shivani Singh writes.
The long-pending proposal to establish a unified body for framing and implementing policies for public transport in the National Capital Region (NCR) was again revived last week, Shivani Singh reports.