India is a country of conflicting realities. Nothing illustrates this better than the confusing results of various surveys undertaken recently on the liveability of Indian cities. In its Worldwide Quality of Living survey, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a firm advising companies on the placement of their personnel, anointed New Delhi as the best city to live in, so far as India is concerned. It surveyed 215 countries on the basis of 39 criteria that included social, economic and environmental factors. Dominant among these were considerations of pollution, public health, access to hospitals and spread of infectious diseases.

Living on the edge, Chirosree Basu, The Telegraph, 1st May 2007, [ C.eldoc1/j50_/01may07tel1.html]