The book, packed in 22 chapters, provides in-depth and detailed information on different aspects of urban development. Issues, such as education, health, power, transport, stray animals, tourism, water, greenery, pollution, waste and sanitation management, disaster management, adulteration, crimes, social life, civic infrastructure, encroachment, unauthorized construction and illegal colonies, which the people in Delhi have been confronting for long, have been covered under the book. As Delhi is the national capital and the mirror of the country, the author has attempted to focus on the development of it as a role model of the urban India, to be replicated by others in respect of issues that affect the day-to-day life of a common man, people of all age groups, sex, religion, region, poor and rich, students, public and private sectors, bureaucrats, businessmen, industrialists and politicians. The book will be of immense value to policymakers, programme planners, public and private sectors, NGOs, social workers, environmental workers, educationists, developmental practitioners and the Delhiites who dream to see Delhi as "a world-class city".

The Part-2 of the book packed in 10 chapters provides in-depth and detailed information on important issues like civic agencies and service delivery, governance, democracy, election, legislature, bureaucracy, judiciary, reservation and taxation. The book will be of immense value to policy makers, programme planners, public and private sectors, NGOs, social workers, environmental workers, educationists, developmental practitioners and the Delhiites who dream to see Delhi, “A World Class City”.

Urban India reports high incidence of poverty despite being hailed as a hub of growth and an instrument of globalization. Poverty figures for urban areas are higher compared to rural areas in a large number of states. This report looks at the process of globalization and development strategy in India to ask why poverty exists in urban areas and how the poor are being physically and economically absorbed in the system. It analyses the processes of urbanization, migration, changes in the structure of the economy, and the pattern of infrastructural investment with the aim of assessing their impact on the poor. Changes in urban governance, legal system, and the administrative structure have been reviewed to identify the problems faced by the poor and to focus on the systemic changes that need to be brought in. Thus it focuses on urbanization keeping poverty at the centre of analysis.

Using Delhi’s contemporary history as a site for reflection, Pirate Modernity moves from a detailed discussion of the technocratic design of the city by US planners in the 1950s, to the massive expansions after 1977, culminating in the urban crisis of the 1990s. As a practice, pirate modernity is an illicit form of urban globalization. Poorer urban populations increasingly inhabit non-legal spheres: unauthorized neighborhoods, squatter camps and bypass legal technological infrastructures (media, electricity). This pirate culture produces a significant enabling resource for subaltern populations unable to enter the legal city. Equally, this is an unstable world, bringing subaltern populations into the harsh glare of permanent technological visibility, and attacks by urban elites, courts and visceral media industries. The book examines contemporary Delhi from some of these sites: the unmaking of the citys modernist planning design, new technological urban networks that bypass states and corporations, and the tragic experience of the road accident terrifyingly enhanced by technological culture. Pirate Modernity moves between past and present, along with debates in Asia, Africa and Latin America on urbanism, media culture, and everyday life. This pioneering book suggests cities have to be revisited afresh after proliferating media culture. Pirate Modernity boldly draws from urban and cultural theory to open a new agenda for a world after media urbanism.

This book looks at two decades of environmental politics in Delhi and argues that 'bourgeois environmentalists' who claim to speak for nature and society have perversely worsened the quality of life for most citizens.