One of the highs that come with working for a daily newspaper is the sneak peek of tomorrow’s news a day before the print-reading audience gets to soak it all on the following morning. In today’s digital universe where news is consumed at the speed of light, that joy is also fast becoming a miniscule one. But we are digressing.

The reason why I chose to share this ‘inside-the-newsroom’ observation was around a recent episode where I got a little glimpse of mid-day’s Page 1 story, ‘Transit camps in 100 days flat’ [October 15] the previous evening. Interestingly, the thought stuck with me longer than on usual days when I read the paper the next morning, in its final avatar. It was a news article that left a bittersweet taste. A developer had created a 10,000-sq ft makeshift shopping complex in 108 days to accommodate occupants of an iconic building in Matunga Central since they had to be relocated to make way for a housing project. 
State housing body MHADA was mighty impressed with this example where aggrieved parties face nightmare after another when it comes to rehabilitating them, and were keen to take a leaf from this success story and thus find solutions for their countless projects.