A peek into what the international press is saying about the city, in the run-up to the Commonwealth Games

CNN International
From India, a Homespun Brand of Hospitality
Amy Yee,
October 18
There is a major shortage of hotel beds in India; the entire country has only about 130,000 rooms in branded hotels - some 10,000 less than in Las Vegas, according to HVS, a global hospitality consultancy group. And with thousands of visitors expected to converge on Delhi for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the hotel shortage may become especially severe. Nearly 300 homeowners in Delhi have opened their homes to date, and the accommodations vary significantly. At the lower end are no-frill rooms for Rs 1,500, with little decoration except a wall calendar. At the high end are places like a modern three-story private villa with a penthouse in the idyllic neighborhood of Nizamuddin East, which has six modern rooms carved out for guests for Rs 6,700. Most places fall in between.

The Guardian
Delhi sweeps streets of beggars as India prepares for Games
Gethin Chamberlain,
November 8, 2009
As India’s capital stumbles towards the starting line for next year’s Commonwealth Games, draconian orders have gone out to clear the streets of beggars. Teams of police, backed by mobile courtrooms, are roaming the city, dispensing summary justice to those whose faces don’t fit. There are an estimated 60,000 beggars on Delhi’s streets — many estimates put the figure much higher... The rationale for the purge is simple: the image of an outstretched hand does not sit easily with that of the “Incredible India” that the authorities wish to project. “Before the 2010 Commonwealth Games, we want to finish the problem of beggary from Delhi,” the city’s social welfare minister, Mangat Ram Singhal, announced at the launch of the initiative. But quite what Delhi plans to do with them is not entirely clear.

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