The annual summit of the Group of 20 economies is the largest gathering of world leaders ever in New Delhi, with attendees including President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and others.
They will be greeted by some of the cleanest streets New Delhi has seen, ornamented by hundreds of thousands of lush flowers potted on freshly painted pavements. What they will not see are the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced, or the slums that have been flattened or obscured by temporary fences bearing the G20 summit’s logo and photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Modi’s government hopes the beautification project will help showcase the best of what the world’s most populous country has to offer, further cementing its position on the global stage.
Anything that might disrupt that effort is unwelcome.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
An army of government workers is rounding up stray dogs, scaring away hungry monkeys — and evicting some of New Delhi’s poorest residents by bulldozing their dwellings.
The annual summit of the Group of 20 economies is the largest gathering of world leaders ever in New Delhi, with attendees including President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and others.
What they will not see are the hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced, or the slums that have been flattened or obscured by temporary fences bearing the G20 summit’s logo and photos of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
From his designated spot in Connaught Place, a business district in the heart of New Delhi, motorcades could be seen passing by every few minutes this week as droves of arriving diplomats headed to nearby luxury hotels.
Authorities say they have also deployed several dozen people to mimic the sounds made by langurs so that the rhesus monkeys will be further convinced the cardboard animals are real.
According to a July report by Concerned Citizens Collective, a rights group, almost 300,000 street food vendors, cigarette sellers, shoe polishers and others have been displaced from neighborhoods where the visiting diplomats might see them.
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