bodyType

customContents

entityId

printArticlePageQuery

filter

article

body

urlAlias

articleSectionsContent

articleSeoArticle

articleSourceHeaderArticle

contentSchemaRenderContent

contentSubHeadlineContent

contentHeadlineContent

mainImagePrintArticleArticle

authorBlockPrintArticleArticle

contentSponsorTagContent

articlePianoPaywallContent

scmpYoutubeContent

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

query printArticlePageQuery(
  $entityId: String!
  $customContents: [CustomContentInput]
  $bodyType: BodyFormatTypeEnum
) {
  article(filter: {entityId: $entityId}) {
    entityId
    body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
      json
    }
    urlAlias
    ...articleSectionsContent
    ...articleSeoArticle_3o8td4
    ...articleSourceHeaderArticle
    ...contentSchemaRenderContent
    ...contentSubHeadlineContent
    ...contentHeadlineContent
    ...mainImagePrintArticleArticle
    ...authorBlockPrintArticleArticle
    ...contentSponsorTagContent
    ...articlePianoPaywallContent
    ...scmpYoutubeContent
    ...hooksTrackPageViewArticle
    id
  }
}

fragment articlePianoPaywallContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksPaywallPromiseContent
}

fragment articleSectionsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      ...helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection
      ...entityLink
      name
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment articleSeoArticle_3o8td4 on Article {
  ...hooksArticleSeoArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersGetArticleTypeArticle
  entityId
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
  summary {
    text
  }
  subHeadline {
    text
  }
  body(customContents: $customContents, type: $bodyType) {
    text
  }
  keywords
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  topics {
    name
    entityId
    id
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  images {
    style(filter: {style: "768x768"}) {
      url
    }
  }
  readingTime
}

fragment articleSourceHeaderArticle on Article {
  urlAlias
  ...entityLink
}

fragment authorBlockPrintArticleArticle on Article {
  ...defaultArticleDateContent
  ...authorNamesArticle
}

fragment authorNameAuthor on Author {
  ...entityLink
  name
  entityUuid
}

fragment authorNamesArticle on Article {
  authorLocations
  authors {
    entityId
    location
    ...authorNameAuthor
    id
  }
}

fragment blockquoteQuoteContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment contentHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  socialHeadline
  ...contentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
}

fragment contentNewsletterWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
    id
  }
  sections {
    value {
      relatedNewsletters {
        ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
        id
      }
      id
    }
  }
  ... on Article {
    relatedNewsletters {
      ...helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment contentSchemaRenderContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...blockquoteQuoteContent
  ...imageContent
  ...inlineWidgetContent
  ...photoGalleryWidgetContent
  ...scmpYoutubeContent
}

fragment contentShareWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  shortUrl
  socialHeadline
  headline
}

fragment contentSponsorTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersUseContentSponsorContent
}

fragment contentSubHeadlineContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  subHeadline {
    json
  }
  summary {
    json
  }
  ...contentSchemaRenderContent
}

fragment defaultArticleDateContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...hooksArticleDateUtilsContent
}

fragment entityLink on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  __typename
  entityId
  entityUuid
  urlAlias
  urlRedirect {
    toUrl
    id
  }
  application {
    entityId
    id
  }
  ... on Section {
    fullSectionPath {
      entityId
      id
    }
    parentSection
  }
  ...helpersAppBarVariantBase
  ...helpersApplicationBase
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersAppBarVariantBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsLiveArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...helpersSectionContent
  ...helpersStyleSectionContent
}

fragment helpersApplicationBase on BaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias {
  __isBaseWithApplicationAndUrlAlias: __typename
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesPage
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusPage
}

fragment helpersCheckIfNewsSectionInFirstIndexSection on Section {
  name
}

fragment helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle on Article {
  entityId
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  disableOffPlatformContent
  sponsorType
  published
  ...helpersCheckIsPlusArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment helpersCheckIsLiveArticle on Article {
  flattenTypeIds
  liveArticle {
    status
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    paywallTypes {
      entityUuid
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPlusPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle on Article {
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersCheckIsPostiesPage on Page {
  urlAlias
}

fragment helpersCheckIsStyleArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  sections {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersGetArticleTypeArticle on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        entityId
        id
      }
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersMassageToNewsletterItemNewsletter on Newsletter {
  entityId
  name
  alternativeName
  description {
    text
  }
  summary {
    text
  }
  homepageDescription {
    text
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle on Article {
  authors {
    types
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle on Article {
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersStyleSectionContent on Section {
  fullSectionPath {
    entityId
    id
  }
}

fragment helpersUseContentSponsorContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  topics {
    entityId
    sponsor {
      ...sponsorTagSponsor
      name
      type
      id
    }
    id
  }
  ... on Article {
    sponsorType
  }
  ...helpersCheckIsMainTopicContent
}

fragment hooksArticleDateUtilsContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  createdDate
  publishedDate
  updatedDate
}

fragment hooksArticleSeoArticle on Article {
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsPostMagazineArticle
  ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  ...hooksContentHeadlineTagContent
  ...helpersCheckIsAmpEnabledArticle
  entityId
  headline
  socialHeadline
  types {
    value {
      entityId
      id
    }
  }
  authors {
    entityId
    id
  }
  images {
    generic_og: style(filter: {style: "og_image_scmp_generic"}) {
      url
    }
    styles(filter: {styles: ["og_image_posties_article", "og_postmag", "og_image_style", "og_image_scmp_analysis", "og_image_scmp_explainer", "og_image_scmp_editorial", "og_image_scmp_fact_check", "og_image_scmp_debate", "og_image_scmp_live", "og_image_scmp_obituary", "og_image_scmp_opinion", "og_image_scmp_review", "og_image_scmp_series", "og_image_scmp_generic"]}) {
      url
      style
    }
    type
  }
  urlAlias
}

fragment hooksContentHeadlineTagContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ... on Article {
    types {
      value {
        name
        entityId
        description {
          text
        }
        id
      }
    }
    ...helpersCheckIsStyleArticle
  }
  flag
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  ...hooksContentHelperContent
}

fragment hooksContentHelperContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...helpersSanitizeArticleTypeEntityIdsArticle
  ...helpersSanitizeAuthorTypesArticle
  ...helpersSanitizedAuthorEntityIdsArticle
  flag
}

fragment hooksPaywallPromiseContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  ...helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle
}

fragment hooksTrackPageViewArticle on Article {
  entityId
  publishedDate
  headline
  sections {
    value {
      name
      id
    }
  }
  urlAlias
  authors {
    name
    id
  }
  entityUuid
}

fragment imageContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  headline
  ...checkersCheckContentContainsStarlingImageContent
}

fragment inlineWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...contentNewsletterWidgetContent
}

fragment mainImagePrintArticleArticle on Article {
  images {
    title
    url
    isSlideshow
    size_652x446: style(filter: {style: "652x446"}) {
      url
    }
  }
}

fragment photoGalleryDialogContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  __typename
  ...contentShareWidgetContent
}

fragment photoGalleryWidgetContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  ...photoGalleryDialogContent
}

fragment scmpYoutubeContent on Content {
  __isContent: __typename
  entityId
  urlAlias
  publishedDate
}

fragment sponsorTagSponsor on Sponsor {
  name
  type
  images {
    url
  }
}


sections

types

disableOffPlatformContent

sponsorType

published

headline

socialHeadline

authors

images

publishedDate

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

keywords

topics

readingTime

authorLocations

entityUuid

Rajeshree Sisodia

The ramshackle metal construction is a haphazard ensemble of rope, poles and dirty plastic sheeting which barely keeps out swarms of hungry flies much less the merciless sun.

Inside Sunita Devi lies on a bed listlessly with her five-year-old daughter Chintu and husband Malik Sharma.

The family is merely a drop in the ocean; a collection of ragged souls in a global sea of 100 million people without a place to live.

The three-room house they used to call home on the banks of Delhi's River Yamuna  is now nothing more than a pile of bricks and rubble. Bulldozers - which last week razed the slum Sunita and Malik lived in for the last 23 years - have seen to that.

Homeless, landless and jobless,  34-year-old Sunita is beyond crying.

'When the bulldozers came, it was around 4pm. We did not get any [advance] notice. They told us to collect all our stuff and then started demolishing. We were really upset. That was 23 years of life just knocked down in a flash,' she says.

Malik, 40, a carpenter, along with his sons Mintu, 15, and Tinku, 13, managed to salvage what little they could and built an ad-hoc home in the shadow of their old house. The shelter is a jumbled two-storey affair, not unlike an untidy bunk bed, made of two charpoys tied on top of each other.

The family cook, eat and spend their days in their new home, while their few belongings, plastic jars of rice, spices and tea, flip-flops and a clock that has long since stopped working, sit incongruously nearby.

Sunita huddles next to her belongings. 'What can we do? We don't know where we will go. We will just stay here until we get kicked out. We hope that the government will give us some land. That's all we can do.' Two million in India alone, are homeless, the United Nations estimates, while millions more are forced to live in slums.

The numbers in India will rise, the agency has warned, with mass forced evictions set to create ghettoised 'apartheid' cities as the subcontinent clamours to build 'world class' cities and fulfil its destiny as a global economic player.

As India continues on her upward fiscal trajectory, people like Sunita are paying a heavy price. She was last week among thousands of slum families who were forcibly evicted from public land on the banks of the River Yamuna as the capital's government gears up to develop the area for the 2010 Commonwealth Games and a multimillion-dollar river-beautification scheme.

In a series of demolitions which began two years ago and are continuing today, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MDC) has forced around 35,000 Yamuna slum families from their homes.

Evicted communities face little hope of resettlement as Delhi government rules dictate that only those slum-dwelling families which can prove with documentation that they lived in the same slum for more than the past eight years are entitled to be re-housed.

It is a legal hurdle which means around 80 per cent of the city's 10.5 million slum-dwellers have no resettlement rights and, if evicted, are destined either to move to other slums or join the ranks of Delhi's 120,000 homeless.

For those slum-dwelling families in Delhi who are resettled, most have found their new homes are in one of two camps set up by the MCD, Jhuggi Jhopri [makeshift shelter] and Slum wing.

The sprawling Bawana Jhuggi Jhopri Colony  is home to around 50,000 former slum-dwellers. It first sprang to life two years ago.

The camp is a confusing collection of dusty gullies, impromptu shops and five primary schools. Families who live in the resettlement camp say they have had limited water supplies for the past five months and rely on hand pumps which are scattered around the site. Electricity supplies are erratic and there are two empty health centres.

Resettled Bawana slum dwellers must pay 400 rupees ($68) each year to live at the camp and have five-year leases for their homes. But they are given no tenure rights, which means communities face the possibility of being forcibly uprooted again.

Mohammed Mukin, 25, has lived in a one-room corrugated tin house with six other family members in Bawana since they were forced from their Yamuna slum home two years ago.

They survive on between 1,800 and 2,000 rupees a month which Mohammed earns making intricate bangles and necklaces from sequins and copper wire.

He says: 'Life was better on the River Yamuna. Everything was nearby, here we have no facilities ... there are problems here [in Bawana resettlement camp] in every way. Children don't get into schools. The school authorities look at whether you come from the slums or whether you come from a 'decent' family ... nothing will change here. I don't have any hope about the future,' he says. 'It's the government's responsibility but they don't do anything for us.'

It is a view echoed by Miloon Kothari, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, who says the situation in India has reached a crisis.

'I think the [Indian] Prime Minister [Manmohan Singh] should come out with a statement that says that they will put a hold on development-based displacement until we have a national rehabilitation policy in place and that policy should spell out under what conditions evictions can take place and the criteria to be taken,' he said.

'You are seeing this thing of two Indias; the sharp disparity between shopping malls and slums.'

The grim scenario is being played out in many of the subcontinent's other cities, including India's financial capital Mumbai and the eastern city of Calcutta.

Development charity ActionAid in Calcutta estimates the city currently has around 61,000 homeless people, a figure which spiralled from 49,000 in 1999.

It is an upward trend ActionAid officials believe will continue as migrant workers from rural areas move to the city in search of work only to find Calcutta provides no shelters or accommodation for the poor.

Legal experts have also called into question the lack of political will to enforce existing laws for slum-dwellers and the homeless.

The Indian constitution guarantees people the right to a dignified life, including housing. New Delhi has also ratified the UN Universal Declaration on Human Rights which states people have the right to adequate housing and that signatory nations have a responsibility to uphold this right.

But the subcontinent has no laws specifically designed to protect the homeless and slum dwellers.

While Indian President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam last week gave the nod to the Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Bill 2006, an act which has imposed a one-year moratorium on all the capital's demolitions, the law has come too late for thousands of Delhi's evicted slum-dwellers.

Lawyers have warned the legislation will be a toothless tiger unless politicians use the 12-month stay of execution to create new country-wide laws to safeguard the rights of India's vulnerable.

Prashant Bhushan, a lawyer specialising in rights of the homeless and slum-dwellers, said: 'What we need is a law which is specifically designed for the homeless and slum-dwellers ... what we are seeing in this country is a very large-scale onslaught on the poor by every organ of the state including the government and the courts.'



Out of a slum, into uncertainty