Can the term urban decay factually be used on Indian cities? Logically, for ‘decay’ to set in there should have been, at some point of time in recent history, a degree of glory. But if you go back a hundred years or so in history, documents of civic planners show a sense of dismay of Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta getting over populated and difficult to govern. The cities have been renamed, foreign rulers sent back packing, glorious slogans and goals been coined. We are going to have a hundred smart cities soon. But not too soon it appears.

Residents dumped garbage on a road near Nirman Vihar metro station as MCD workers went on strike. Political parties passed the buck; each blaming the other for the decaying rubbish in the capital of the largest democracy in the world that is pitching to be a wannabe super power in the region. Pic/PTI