23 yrs on...

Of the total plan for such facilities, only 40% has materialised.

These deficiencies should be a wake-up call for the civic body, said architect and planner Nitin Killawala, who is also a resident of the ward. “These figures show a great level of deficiency in almost every kind of infrastructure. The BMC needs to utilise the land better, rather than diverting public land to private developers, which has been happening on a rampant scale,” Killawala said. The civic body should focus on implementing the plan, said Dilip Patel, BJP corporator from Juhu. “What is the point of revising the DP, if only a pittance will finally be implemented?”

The next caller was Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front chief Yasin Malik. A former militant, Malik said the resolution of Kashmir was far more important than trade and commerce between the two countries.

He said seven past Indian PMS had “facilitated” meetings between Kashmiri separatists and visiting Pakistani leaders and wondered if they were all wrong and if Narendra Modi was “Mr Right”?

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, too, was critical of the government. “New Delhi over-reacted...there has to be a peaceful, political resolution to the Kashmir issue,” the moderate leader said. Kashmir was not an economic problem but a political one that could only be addressed through talks, said Farooq, who is also Kashmir’s head priest.

The Congress came down hard on the government for scrapping the talks. The government, it said, was first in a “sonorous slumber” and then resorted to a “kneejerk reaction”.

“The question is why they started it in the first place. They have followed an opaque and incoherent foreign policy towards Pakistan,” former commerce minister Anand Sharma said at a press conference.

Calling for a consistent and coherent policy, he accused the BJP and Modi of taking an extreme view on relations with Pakistan. Party colleague Manish Tewari said the Modi government had “completely walked itself into a corner”.the decision to call off talks after permitting the Hurriyat meetings was inexplicable, CPM leader Sitaram Yechury said. “Whenever some Pakistani leaders come, they (separatists) meet them and they do so in our country itself. And, this is not possible without the permission of our government,” he said. Basit didn’t interfere in India’s internal affairs, Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tasnim Aslam said in Islamabad. “Pakistan is not subservient to India… It is a legitimate stakeholder in the Jammu and Kashmir dispute,” said Aslam, who has served in India. “Kashmir is not part of India... It is a disputed territory.” (With PTI inputs) intervene as protesters moved the outermost of a ring of barricades Police in the outer ring of security have sticks, not guns. Some are armed with tear gas and rubber bullets.

Hours before the marchers set off, the interior minister announced that soldiers would be deployed to stop the protesters

The announcement was intend ed to send a message to the coup prone country that the protests do not have military backing. It also underscored how the domestic opposition has forced the fledgling civilian government to rely on the country’s powerful army, despite deep mistrust between the two institutions.

The protests have piled extra pressure on the 15-month-old gov ernment as it struggles to overcome high unemployment, daily power cuts and a Taliban insurgency. The showdown has also raised broad er questions over the stability of Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million people.

Khan and Qadri both want Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to resign. Khan accuses him of rig ging last year’s polls. Qadri accuses him of corruption. Police estimate the two protest leaders have around 55,000 supporters between them.

Both Khan and Qadri have been holding protest rallies in the capita since Friday with government per mission. But they have been banned from the “Red Zone” that houses many Western embassies, parlia ment and Sharif's office and home

Their protests have so far remained separate because the two have different supporters and different plans for what should hap pen if Sharif steps down. But on Tuesday, Qadri said his supporters would march on parliament, a day after Khan asked his supporters to do the same. “The people’s parlia ment ... have decided to do their sit in in front of parliament,” Qadr announced.

Most of Khan’s supporters are young men. Qadri’s supporters are seen as more disciplined and deter mined. All the men have sticks; bri gades of youths also have goggles and masks to deal with teargas. The Red Zone is sealed off with shipping containers and barbed wire.

Khan said any violence would be the fault of the PM, as his female supporters scattered bas kets of rose petals over bemused police in body armour. “If police try to stop us and there is violence Nawaz I will not spare you, I wil come after you and put you in jail,”