Delhi: New writings on the megacity

Abstract

a Department of English, faculty of arts and social sciences, open university, Milton Keynes, uK; b Department of English literature, King's college london, london, uK The world was changing; an imperceptible hysteria was pulsing through the city. For as long as I can remember Delhi looked like a giant construction site [ … ] but the rubble has masked the incredible changes and dislocations of factories, homes and livelihoods that occurred as Delhi changed from a sleepy north Indian city into a glistening metropolis of a rising Asian superpower. (Sethi 2012, 38)The old was dying, the new was in preparation, and we were living in the in-between, when nothing was resolved, everything was potential. Everyone was trying to absorb, to imagine what the city -and their own lives -might become. (Dasgupta 2014, 39)

Effect of lockdown amid COVID-19 pandemic on air quality of the megacity Delhi, India

“…The World Urbanization Prospect 2018 Revision predicted that the megacities of the Asia and Africa is likely to be experienced about 90% growth of its population (World Urbanization Prospect 2018 Revision) by 2050. Delhi, the second largest megacity in the world (Tickell and Ranasinha, 2018) is the single largest contributors to the urban population (about 7.6%) in India with about 16.8 million inhabitants distributed over 1485 km 2 area (Chandramouli and General 2011). Over the last two decades, the population density has increased from nearly 9340 people/ km 2 in 2001 to 11,297 persons/km 2 in 2011, growing at an average annual rate of 37.60%.…”

Provincializing Island Poetics: The Personal as the Spatial in N S Madhavan’s Litanies of Dutch Battery

“…The project of provincializing is relevant to the spatial reading of the novel as well as its configuration of islandness in terms of pre/colonial history given that it draws attention to an otherwise under-explored literary geography. Most engagements with spatiality in Indian novels deal with metropolitan cities such as Bombay (Ashcroft, 2011;Gopal, 2009;Mantri, 2019) and Delhi (Khanna, 2016;Tickell & Ranasinha, 2018), some even evoking Bombay as the metaphor for India (Patel & Thorner, 1995). Therefore, the extensive engagement with Kochi's history in general and of its cosmopolitanism in particular in the novel Litanies of Dutch Batteries by N S Madhavan merits attention for providing an anchoring of an alternative cosmopolitanism model for India (to echo Ashis Nandy's formulation in its ethnographic account of the city).…”

Is habitat heterogeneity effective for conservation of butterflies in urban landscapes of Delhi, India?

“…Delhi is the second largest megacity in the world (Tickell & Ranasinha 2018) and one of the largest contributors to the urban population (about 7.6%) of India, with about 16.8 million inhabitants distributed over 1,485 km 2 area (Chandramouli & General 2011). Over the last two decades, the population density has increased from nearly 9,340 people/km 2 in 2001 to 11,297 persons/km 2 in 2011.…”