The Chief Minister described the new city forest as another lung of Delhi, which would go a long way in ensuring clean environment. Local MLA Vijay Lochav and secretary, Environment, J.K. Dadoo were also present on the occasion.

Dikshit pointed out that Delhi has become greener over the years. The credit for it goes to the schoolchildren who have become a role model in this field. Delhi would soon have 32 city forests. Nine city forests were set up last year.

With this green cover, Delhi would go up beyond 20 per cent of its total area. It is essential to grow more trees to maintain an ecological balance in this city, Dikshit said.

Chhawla City Forest is being developed in a 12-hectare land, which belongs to the department of irrigation and flood control. This has been handed over to the department of environment to develop it as a city jungle.

The department has constructed a boundary on this land.

The forest would also help in developing potential habitat for resident and migratory wildlife in urban and nearby areas. Neem, Jamun, Arjun, Kajalia, Amaltas, Shisham, Aonla, Chhatton, Cassic Siamea, Begonia, Bakain, etc. tree species are being grown in this city forest, the Chief Minister added.

"There is not much space for planting more trees in NDMC areas, except for gardens and green strips on roads. So we had to plant the saplings in Central Ridge. Nearly 12,000 saplings of various species were planted there last year. However, only 20 per cent of them could survive because of paucity of water. As the Central Ridge is rocky, water is essential for the survival of these plants. This year also, we are facing several constraints. A private contractor has been hired to supply water to these plants. However, we cannot plant trees into the Ridge beyond 60 metres from the road as water tankers cannot reach there due to dense kikar growth," said a senior NDMC officer.

Wild animals also pose as a threat to the greens planted in the Central Ridge. "We had planted species like amaltash, pilkan and papri, but noticed that pilkan was eaten by the animals like nilgai.

So we decided to grow it near the road since fewer animals venture there," the official added.

The 10-teraflop supercomputer being built by the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) will be 10 times more powerful than the USbuilt Cray supercomputer in use at the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), based in the Delhi suburb of Noida.

A teraflop machine does one trillion calculations per second.

The machine is expected to be ready by 2009. "It is more versatile, (will provide) better accuracy and modelling (of weather data)," said A.R.

Upadhya, director of NAL.

A scientist at the NCMRWF , who did not want to be named, said a country as large as India that experiences complex weather patterns because of monsoon vagaries needs more powerful machines and also trained personnel to use the machines.

"For (building) new models, you need people who understand them (supercomputers)," he said.

The new supercomputer, which is to be linked with the proposed integrated Indian weather forecasting system, could help in both long-range forecasts and short-range predictions of extreme weather events such as the early monsoon being witnessed in parts of India.

The country is also launching new remote-sensing satellites such as Megha Tropiques and Oceansat to understand cloud patterns around the tropics, crucial to provide accurate weather forecasts.

The reality of an urban life, in this day and age, is one that bears out the human condition quite suitably; a constant struggle towards a meaningless end. Already, the condition of urban liveability indicators such as electricity, water and that perennial favourite, traffic, are fueling an increase in social bonhomie among Indians, as strangers breathlessly share horror stories from a city of their choice.

The decay of the Indian urban life, however, does not end with these. There are others. Insidious ones such as what is happening to the quality of human life through environmental degradation and break down of community life, and dehumanising ones such as living conditions of the urban poor. If one, however, were to wipe the slate clean, to begin anew on a piece of land the building of a green-hued city that we would all love to live in, where the air would be made of better stuff and its heart big enough to include everybody, it would have to be a city that embraces sustainability.

Vijay K Dhar, Prof Urban Planning, National Institute of Urban Affairs, gave the following definition of a sustainable city, "A green city is one that is in balanced harmony with its environment, society and economy, administered by transparent governance brought about by a participatory process." Dhar likes to call it a balance between software and hardware. "We have erected concrete jungles but what is missing is the software. Community life, social interaction, green spaces. We need to create more spaces to improve liveability." He gives as example the case of Gurgaon, which he says, "...is still groping in the dark with regards to its water needs and waste management." Ok. So how does one improve the operating system of our lives?

The State of Environment in Indian Cities survey attempts to assess what average Indians living in big cities think about India's environment, and to gauge their levels of awareness, attitudes, perception and concerns. The findings are based on interviews among 1,732 respondents spread across 36 locations in six cities--Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta, Bangalore and Hyderabad--chosen to adequately represent both genders, different age and income groups, and localities in each city.

Highlights

• 77% of urban Indians consider environmental pollution the most serious problem of urban life, second only to inflation 82%.

• Air pollution is considered the biggest problem 34% followed by lack of green cover 21%, water pollution 17%, noise pollution 14% and garbage disposal 11%.

• 77% want the government to tackle river pollution but there is widespread unawareness of what causes the problem. Only 5% of people are aware that household sewage flows into the river.

• While 94% of people favour a law banning the use of polythene bags, 17% still use them for shopping.

• 10% of people dispose of their garbage in the nearest ditch or on the road, only 13% regularly separate recyclable waste from garbage

• 86% favour a law banning use of diesel engines in private vehicles

• Among upper income groups, 30% had solar heaters, 42% had power-saving devices and 30% had set up means of rainwater harvesting. In contrast, only 11% of people in lower-income groups had solar heaters and 14% had power-saving devices or set up rainwater harvesting devices.

• Most people believe that pollution will increase over the next five years, with 77% believing that air pollution will increase, 71% that noise pollution will rise, and 55% that water pollution will increase.

With a large number of tourists expected to arrive during the sporting extravaganza, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) has roped in FRI to beautify the national capital with trees and plants of different varieties.

The project will also involve cleaning of the much-polluted Yamuna through biological treatment. "This is an innovative root-zone treatment, which involves planting of Ipomea shrubs infused with bacteria culture along the banks of the river. Through this treatment, we are sure that the water of the river will become clean," said FRI Director SS Negi.

For beautifying various stadiums, lawns and games villages, the institute has stationed its scientists in New Delhi to suggest various varieties of flowers and plants that can sustain themselves in both the extreme heat and cold weather of the city. The total cost of the project is being estimated at Rs 1 crore.

FRI has also taken up the task to rejuvenate jamun trees that adorn India Gate, Rashtrapati Bhavan and Rajpath in central Delhi.

"The jamun trees are drying up. We will give scientific treatment to these trees so that they can live for some more years," Negi said.

"The website, inaugurated by the Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi on Monday, is an attempt to bring people closer to the environment that they need to protect. We realised that until people knew where the Ridge is or what is the total floodplain area of the Yamuna, they will not be in a able to offer any support in keeping an eye on any encroachment or take up their protection," said Diwan Singh. Titled "Delhi Natural Resources Site", the website has been conceptualised by Professor Vikram Soni of the National Physical Laboratory and devised by Vikal Samadariya of Kalpvriksha and Diwan Singh of Natural Heritage First, both non-government organisations with assistance from students of IIT Delhi.

The website is aimed at creating awareness about the exact extent of the ecological units, their present condition and the steps that need to be taken to protect them.

A new, imported air-pollution monitoring device is ready to be commissioned at Netaji Subhash Institute of Technology at Sector-12, Dwarka, which will measure the level of pollution every second and display the figures in an electronic board.

"The display will have the permissible limits and the actual levels for all pollutants, like nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide, carbon monoxide etc," said a senior official of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Apart from Dwarka, CPCB is installing a similar system in Dilshad Garden as well.

"This will take the total number of automatic air monitoring systems in Delhi to five. They will start streaming data from Thursday Another one at Shadipur Depot will . come up soon" he said.

Imported from the US, each machine costs Rs 80 lakh with an operating cost of Rs 10 lakh per year. "The data they generate are accurate," he added.

Trees retain water and pump moisture in atmosphere helping in building and attracting clouds. "It is a known phenomenon that areas with more trees have higher rainfall than arid zones," said G.B. Pant, former director of Indian In- stitute of Tropical Meteorology But there were other factors too. "Rains take place because of a complex procedure. Other con- ditions also play an important role."

The link is clear if you go through the weather data for the month of May and the increase in forest cover in Delhi. The forest cover increased from 88 sq km in 1999 to 283 sq km, about 19.09 per cent of Delhi's total area, in 2005. It increased to 300 sq km last year - and the city retained it so far this year.

Rainfall in May over the same period has also risen from 14.8 mm in 1999 to 104 mm in 2008. It fell in 2003 but there has been a steady rise since the past two years.

Greener and wetter Delhi has made the summer more bearable. The average temperature for May has steadily fallen - from 37.2 degree Celsius six years ago to 32.5 this year So, now you know what to do to make the summers even cooler for your kids.

Emissions from two-wheelers in the same period, in comparison, have gone up by 61%, the analysis said.

For the consumer, this might be a pointer to deteriorating fuel efficiency of new cars as well -- emissions of carbondioxide are closely linked to the fuel efficiency of vehicles.

CPCB officials said a network of 12 such systems would be set up in four cities, with at least one in each city by June 5, World Environment Day.

Officials said the automatic monitoring machines will help monitor air pollution and analyse data more efficiently.

"Currently, the monitoring of air pollutants is done manually on a 24-hour basis. Once the network is in place, we would be logging data within 6 to 30 seconds. This way we will have data in real time, which can make our analysis more accurate," said a spokesperson for CPCB.

In Delhi, the Board will install the machines at the Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences at Dilshad Garden, Netaji Subhash Insti tute of Technology at Dwarka and the Delhi Milk Scheme in Patel Nagar. The other cities where the systems will be installed include Bangalore, Chennai and Lucknow.

This gives an explanation as to why Delhiites, despite the respite from heat, have been feeling a sense of unease. Why is the weather so out of whack? Where is all this rain -- the met office calls it ``precipitation'' -- coming from? Rain comes from evaporation, right? But evaporation from which water bodies?

A senior met official's explanation was this: ``The cyclonic circulation formed over Pakistan, western Rajasthan and Punjab has been exceptionally strong this year, causing a heavy downpour in many northern states. But it has now begun to weaken and while rainfall will continue over the next few days, the intensity will reduce and eventually stop.''

The long-time average rainfall for May in Delhi is barely 17.5 mm, which means the current month is already almost 10 times as wet as the average for this time of the year. Apart from 2002, no other year in the last decade has seen rainfall of even 80 mm in May, which is less than half what we have got so far this month. And more of it is expected in the coming days.

Rainy spell, thunderstorms to continue

The first major event since their launch - IYCN's Delhi Youth Summit on Climate (DYSoC) - will be held on May 28 and 29, in Teen Murti Bhawan. Eighty young people will come together to set the agenda on climate change for Delhi.

The DYSoC is in association with UKbased Lead International's India chapter, Fountain of Development, Research and Action, the UNESCO and the Youth Parliament Foundation. Registration forms can be downloaded at iycn.in.

"There has been no real `Indian' youth movement on the issue of climate change. When Kartikeya, a key member of IYCN, attended the UN Cli- mate Change Conference in Bali in De- cember as part of a US youth delega- tion he was shocked that there was no representation of the Indian youth at such an important conference," says Govind Singh, a Ph.d scholar at Delhi University's School of Environ- ment Studies.

And so Kartikeya Singh, a Compton Mentor fellow (a US fellowship) who is working on renewable energy resources in India, and Govind envisioned this youth coalition.