Articles by Darshini Mahadevia

Selective state interventions to mitigate natural disasters such as floods, the compulsions under which the urban poor inhabit ecologically marginal lands and in the case of Guwahati, the “encroachments” on wetlands and hills, have set the stage for conflict about housing rights, especially for those without legal land tenure. The “encroachments” of the poor are delegitimised and they become victims of eviction drives while encroachments by the state and the middle- and high-income classes on ecologically vulnerable areas are legitimised. In Guwahati, this has led to a cycle of violence and counter-violence. This paper sets this sequence of events against the historically contested land rights issue in a city with limited habitable land due to its natural ecology.

Hidden behind city branding exercises through large projects are acts of land capture and slum demolitions by a predatory local state and crony capitalism. In the policy arena, meanwhile, the urban, and particularly the metropolitan story has been one of deliberate confusion, and fragmentation of policy and implementation. The promise of rapid city transformation has not been met through the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, which does something for infrastructure and something for housing but all in an uncoordinated project-by-project manner. Neither the infrastructure agenda nor shelter security for all is advanced. The urban reality instead has been one of gradual improvement, with or without these policy and branding initiatives.

Inclusions and Exclusions Darshini Mahadevia This collection of 11 articles with an introductory chapter brings to the table the issues faced by the urban poor in the cities of developing Asia. This is a rare collection, though a number of books have either analysed the economic dynamics of emerging

The central government's National Urban Renewal Mission is expected to convert select cities into "world class" urban centres. The submission for basic services that falls under the NURM would benefit the poor only if they have security of tenure and their settlements and dwelling units get connected to these networks. The land question is central to making affordable housing available for the poor. Since the mission does not address this question, how would a city become world class without reaching out to half its population? The mission will instead encourage processes that would displace the poor, rather than include them in the process of city transformation.

Private organisations contacted by the Gujarat government to rebuild houses in earthquake-affected Kutch are having to beat a dejected retreat. On one hand, housing contractors merely wanted to reap a quick turnover, on the other, their understanding of the villages they sought to rebuild did not take into account the differing wants of the people and the caste-class divisions among them.