Commonwealth Games

They are doing a lot for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. They are building a huge Metro system, which is actually quite a lot better than the one in London, but I was wondering what they are going to do about some of the stuff.

The Indian attitude as far as I've seen is to pretend the scruffier aspects of India don't exist. When the BRCM boys saw a picture of some poor people on my camera they told me off and said "you shouldn't be taking pictures of poor India." (I should be taking pictures of the Taj Mahal and India Gate). They also liked to shout "slumdog" at beggars and turn around thinking I'll be impressed.
But when you walk down Chandni Chowk at night, stepping round rats on the pavement and see a line of beggars stretch right down the side settling down for the night, lots of them families sharing a rug, how do you ignore that? It's unignorable.
That made me wonder what they will do with the beggars for the commonwealth games.

When I came into Delhi I had two choices for sleeping. One is Paharganj. Some people seem to love it, but I think it's everthing that is wrong with Indian tourism. It's got neon signs, money changers, and it's right next to the Red Light District. I've never payed a decent price for a hotel there and they haven't been all that special. A previous gaper got her room broken into by the hotel staff.
Or
I could stay in Manju ka Tila, the Tibetan colony. It's a lovely little maze of alleys and eveyone is happy there. BUT they were planning to destroy it. Completely to the ground. That's the problem with illegally raised buildings. The government were going to rehouse the residents but it just seemed such a shame to destroy one the only places where people are looking after each other and not trying to part you with as much cash as possible.
I don't know if they are still doing this. I asked a monk who I was sitting next to at breakfast and he seemed not to know too much about it but thought the situation was better.
The reason they were doing it was because the settlement got in the way of their highway expansion and their beautification of the Yamuna River (good luck with that one.)

All for the Commonwealth Games. It's a big thing when the rest of the world is coming to visit a fast developing country. All you can hope is that it all pays off.