New Delhi’s crowded streets have been resurfaced. Streetlights are illuminating as soon as darkish sidewalks. Metropolis buildings and partitions are painted with brilliant murals and graffiti. Planted flowers are in every single place.

However most of the metropolis’s poor say they’ve been merely erased, very like the stray canines and monkeys which have been faraway from some neighbourhoods as India’s capital obtained a Makeover forward of this week’s Summit of the Group of 20 (G20) nations.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s authorities hopes the flowery effort to make New Delhi sparkle – a “beautification challenge” with a price ticket of $120m – will assist showcase the world’s most populous nation’s cultural prowess and strengthen its place on the worldwide stage.

The 2-day summit will happen on the newly constructed Bharat Mandapam constructing, a sprawling exhibition centre within the coronary heart of New Delhi.

Scores of world leaders are anticipated to attend. The G20 consists of the world’s 19 wealthiest nations plus the European Union. India presently holds its presidency, which rotates yearly among the many members.

However for a lot of avenue distributors and people crammed into New Delhi’s shantytowns, the G20 makeover has meant displacement and lack of livelihoods, elevating questions concerning the authorities’s insurance policies on coping with poverty.

In a metropolis of greater than 20 million folks, the 2011 census put the variety of homeless folks at 47,000, however activists say that was an enormous underestimate and the true quantity is not less than 150,000.

Since January, tons of of homes and roadside stalls have been demolished, displacing 1000’s of individuals. Dozens of shantytowns had been razed to the bottom. Many residents obtained eviction notices solely a short time earlier than the demolitions obtained below method.

Authorities say the demolitions had been carried out towards “unlawful encroachers”, however human proper activists and people evicted query the coverage and allege that it has pushed 1000’s extra into homelessness.

Related demolitions have additionally been carried out in different Indian cities like Mumbai and Kolkata, which have hosted different G20 occasions main as much as this weekend’s summit.

Activists say it was greater than only a case of out of sight, out of thoughts.

Abdul Shakeel of the Basti Suraksha Manch (Save Colony Discussion board) says: “Within the title of beautification, the city poor’s lives are destroyed.”

“The cash used for the G20 is taxpayers’ cash. Everybody pays the tax. Similar cash is getting used to evict and displace them,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t make any sense.”