Word: delhi
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...with the Commonwealth Games just a year away, the city's bad manners have upset a personage no less than the country's Home Minister, P. Chidambaram, who said on Sept. 22 that Delhiites needed an "attitude makeover" in order to "play good hosts" in 2010. Delhi's Chief Minister, Shiela Dixit, readily agreed and said plans are afoot to teach Delhi folks to be "more caring and sharing." She indicated that a Beijing-style program of civic education, like the one rolled out before last year's Olympics, would be launched soon. It's only the third time...
...makers of Slumdog Millionaire learned when there were protests over the film's title, which some people found offensive), no one disputed the high-level censure. No displays of injured pride, not even a pretense of offense taken. Even the Home Minister's tactless remarks blaming migrants for Delhi's civic woes - "People come to Delhi. This is the capital, and we cannot stop them. But if they come to Delhi, they will have to adhere to the behavioral requirement, the discipline of the city" - went without remark. And that insouciance is exactly why it will be difficult to teach...
...Part of the city's problem is that there are too few true Delhiites to really care about Delhi. Among the 14 million people living in the capital today, some 40% are migrants. "If you ask anyone in Delhi where they come from, they don't say Delhi, they name their native city or village," says Delhi-based journalist Manoj Joshi. "No one knows anyone else, so people behave very differently from how they would where they come from. They have no affiliation with the city." Gokhale agrees: "There are no real Delhi insiders anymore, and the Delhiite's identity...
...After India's partition in 1947, it used to be de rigueur for Delhi old-timers, who prided themselves on their Mughal courts-inspired etiquette and culture, to blame the influx of Punjabis for the city's civil decay. Having lost all they had in the butchery that accompanied partition, these Punjabis were intent on succeeding in this alien land - and they did. The Punjabis are among the richest communities in Delhi today, owning many of the city's largest and most successful businesses. In the process, they became accused of injecting a new ruthlessness into the city...
...Delhi houses people from all corners of the country, who have carried on the tradition of blaming one another for bad public behavior and who refuse to claim this orphaned city as their own. Few know the history behind even the largest monuments that dot the landscape and stand witness to Delhi's layered past. Because people here don't know one another, Delhi folk feel no compunction in replicating the same behaviors they disparage in others - honking horns, staring unabashedly at women (yes, even women stare at other women) and, not to forget, urinating in public, sometimes right next...