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Although sixty percent of Delhi-ites are born elsewhere, the city's population has grown over forty percent in the last decade and now stands at around fourteen million. Rapid growth has seen Delhi spilling into the surrounding states, creating satellite developments such as Gurgaon to the south. The city has been attracting its fare share of industrial development in the last two decades, with an influx of technocrats, specialists and fortune seekers to match. In a heady atmosphere of optimism, around 9000 new industrial units sprang up every year during the 1990s. Despite this new-found affluence, a staggering third of the city's population lives in the notorious jhuggies - slums often seen clinging to the edge of new developments. With a daily average of around 200 major incidents of crime , including mindless cases of murder accompanying simple robberies, Delhi has gained the dubious reputation of being the crime capital of the country. The poor aren't the only perpetrators of crime - the city's nouveau riche young, burdened with more money than sense, have been responsible for some of the most notorious recent cases.

The authorities are trying, at last, to check the terrible pollution that smothers the city, especially in winter when vehicle fumes mix with the fires of the jhuggies to create a thick blanket of smog. Many small-scale industrial units are being forced out of the city, and, in 1998, cars over ten years old were banned. Further draconian measures were introduced in 2001, when all diesel-powered buses, taxis and autos were outlawed in favour of natural gas-powered vehicles . Still, with over 4,000,000 cars battling through the city's streets (more than Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta put together), the new ecological awareness may be too little too late. While some checks are being made to counter air pollution, an appalling seventy percent of the effluents draining into the River Yamuna still remain untreated. Delhi's growth pangs are far from over.