It's a battle of the bulge in major cities of Uttar Pradesh. Be it Agra, or the more sedate towns of Aligarh and Meerut, the Manchester of the East Kanpur or pilgrims' delight Varanasi and Allahabad or the industrialised hub of the state, Ghaziabad-it has spread everywhere. The mounting pressure of the population is pushing the edges to these towns to their margins. This, coupled with the crumbling edifice of the urban infrastructure, is adding to the worry lines of town planners when they sit down to plan and visualise these cities two decades from now.

The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has just two day ago given its in principle clearance for the Rs 4,000-crore Navi Mumbai international airport. MoEF, in March, had deferred environment clearance for the project on the grounds that the airport would involve reclamation of low-lying areas in an ecologically fragile zone as well as destruction of several hectares of mangroves.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday posted for hearing in July a writ petition filed by the residents of Rajouri Garden challenging certain provisions of the 2020 Master Plan for Delhi as being "arbitrary", "unreasonable" and "violative" of the citizen's Fundamental Rights. A bench of justices Arijit Pasayat and P. Sathasivam said it would tag the matter along with other writ petitions filed on the issue.

The city topped in the implementation of Jawaharlar Nehru Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). With abundant funds available the execution of the projects is going at a fast pace. According to sources, after Ahmadabad, Vijayawada stands in the best position in following the guidelines of the mission in the implementation of various projects in urban areas. The city has also received accolades as it has successfully implemented projects like e-governance, double-entry accounting, collection of more than 95 per cent of property tax and funds allocation for urban poor.

NOTICEABLE DIFFERENCE: Pollution, congested development and lack of a railway system such as the MRTS are depriving residents of north Chennai of quality life. A picture of contrast between Tondiarpet and Saidapet. The lines dividing north and south Chennai are not only drawn across access to quality healthcare, education or the standard of living but also physically drawn by the Railways.

In an astounding revelation, top state economist YK Alagh has calculated that Gujarat's land will become 70 per cent urban by the middle of the next decade. Addressing the annual convocation of Dharmasinh Desai University, Nadiad, on Saturday, Prof Alagh said, "Already, there are 2,018 villages in Gujarat which should be stopped being categorized as rural, yet they are governed by village panchayats.' He stressed on urban planning in these villages.

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Delhi Development Authority, the Delhi Government and the Commonwealth Games Committee on an application for a direction to them to re-locate the sports stadiums to be constructed near Siri Fort auditorium to some other site as it involved cutting of over 1,000 trees. The application wanted them to ensure that any site selected should be such as to cause minimum disruption to the environment, and if such new sites involved felling of trees, it should be done only after obtaining permission from the Supreme Court.

Nine more towns in Rajasthan have been selected for creating sewerage infrastructure under the Urban Infrastructure Development of Small and Medium Towns (UIDSMT) programme of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM). A grand total of Rs.389 crore has been sanctioned for the projects which are likely to get going from this coming July in a fast track mode.

The World Bank has started "reviewing and updating" the Rs 1,300-crore Andhra Pradesh Urban Reforms and Municipal Services project. APURMS had been undertaken jointly by the World Bank and the state government but has not been implemented in real earnest. The re-evaluation was necessitated as four years have elapsed since the project was first conceived.

Though there is an economic boom in India there is a flipside to it too. According to estimates there are 80.7 million urban poor in India and a housing shortage of 24.7 million, says Kumari Selja, minister of state (independent charge), housing and urban poverty alleviation.