This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Anand Vardhan are joined by urban geographer and researcher Rashee Mehra and Gulshan Sachdeva, Professor and Jean Monnet Chair at JNU’s Centre for European Studies.

The discussion opens with Delhi’s continuing housing crisis and the problem of unauthorised construction.

Talking about areas such as Satya Niketan, Rashee Mehra explains how a neighbourhood can be legally regularised while the construction within it remains in violation of planning and building norms. 

She remarks, “It is actually a very confusing governance structure that we have created in the city. And that leads to questions of whose responsibility it is… Is it the MCD which did not do these regular checks and shut down these buildings if they were unsafe?”

Rashee argues that Delhi’s housing problem cannot be understood simply as a question of illegal construction. “When we talk about housing, housing has to be adequate, affordable, viable, sustainable. Over here, where housing is affordable, it’s not adequate, and where housing is adequate, it’s not affordable. And that’s your catch-22 situation.”

Anand adds another dimension to the discussion, pointing out that Delhi’s housing problem is much larger than the university students who have recently come into focus. 

“There are two kinds of landlords. One has invested in these houses, and the other lives on rent only. So in these Lal Dora areas, the urban villages, the only thing from which they earn is that house. So they have less incentive to invest because all the rent that they get, they spend somewhere.”

In her concluding remarks, Rashee brings the discussion back to the larger question: “Are cities for people or are cities for profit?”

The panel then proceeds to the growing importance of the BRICS grouping and the changing balance of the global economy. 

Gulshan points out that while global growth over the past two decades has averaged around 3%, BRICS economies have grown at more than 6% on average, making the Global South an increasingly important force in the world economy.

From BRICS, the discussion moves to the rise of right-wing politics in Europe. Gulshan notes that far-right parties have shifted from the political fringe into the mainstream, emerging as a significant force across Western Europe. He attributes this rise to a mix of factors: concerns over immigration, economic anxieties, demographic pressures, and Europe’s broader geopolitical vulnerabilities. 

He also argues that mainstream conservative parties have contributed to this normalisation by echoing far-right rhetoric, particularly on immigration.

All this and more.