Slums in Delhi were flattened before the G20 summit | Hacker News Reader

Slums in Delhi were flattened before the G20 summit

reuters.com

80 pointsgmays22 comments

That opening picture, with the scroll effect. I don't know if I have ever seen such an image used so effectively. The transition from line art to a real picture was so subtle that I was just stunned to find out it was real. And that had such an immediate impact that it brought a tear to my eye.

I can't remember there ever being a time in my 30+ years of being online that web design caused such a reaction.

Haven't even read the article yet...

It very strongly reminds me of Heaven Shall Burns music video for Combat[1], just from the emotional impact. Note that the music isn't necessarily grandma-friendly, but feel free to mute it. Also note as a possible trigger warning - this is about child soldiers and there are no happy endings.

However, the visuals of realistically drawn ... harsh, reality, the pencil drawings as the reality forced upon them, and the crayon drawings representing the hopeful and happier longings of the children is very powerful. And I can very much recommend looking at the lyrics[2]

1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jCd-KTTR_I

2: http://www.darklyrics.com/lyrics/heavenshallburn/invictus.ht...

I agree- and I'm amazed that this is the first comment on see on the story. I sat stunned, and saddened by the photo, after what first appeared to be a mere illustration. I don't know what is so impactful about the effect, but it really touched something in me.

I think it's one of those things where the medium is used correctly to tell the story. The web has the ability to be more than just "digital newspapers" as in the past, and this is what happens when showing advertisements isn't the first priority of the storyteller.

It took forever to load on my phone, but yeah--impressive!

If it is too effective, it might be taken down by the powers!

Wouldn't be the first time the Modi government intervenes in un-welcome reporting.

Muck Fodi.

The article is designed superbly.

The story itself though… not much I can say without going on a rant that will get me flagged for language.

I have reached a point where this crap isn’t even interesting to me anymore. Yet again the elite is given some kind of special treatment and the real problems of the world get buried in ruble… yay… can’t wait for the next story highlighting the same exact thing.

And then the next… and nothing a mere mortal can do because the elite doesn’t play by the rules of the commoner.

I know exactly what you mean but also that normalisation of despair and acceptance of the futility of action is part of the PR machine of those who wish to do whatever they want. Resisting that seems to be the right thing to do but also seems futile.

I see this with climate discussions, where there's long been climate doomism but there now seems to be a tactic of moving people from the denial to doom camps, skipping the stage where people think prevention or reduction of the underlying mechanism is possible, because both denial and doomism allow people to keep on doing whatever they want.

> I have reached a point where this crap isn’t even interesting to me anymore.

Adam Curtis covers this effect wonderfully in his film Hypernormalisation: https://archive.org/details/HyperNormalisation

I think a counterpoint to this is the growing number of strikes and general labor organization. I think a lot of people feel your frustration and those in the working classes have reached their breaking points and have started to take action. Stories like this are demoralizing but they're reality and I think collectively, the non-rich have had enough.

I watched a news clip where they were covering some slums up with netting to hide them. That was kind of, questionable. Bulldozing is a whole different thing

This is a country with a fully fledge space program which can land rovers on the moon.

This is a country that can land rovers and fly helicopters on other planets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaLxBjvqYqg

I don't see many 6 year olds sleeping rough in Philadelphia

https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Homeless%20Education/Pages....

For the 2020-21 program year, education and community agencies identified 32,666 children and youth experiencing homelessness served by Pennsylvania's Education for Children and Youth Experiencing Homelessness (ECYEH) Program (unique, unduplicated count). The population includes children under the age of five and youth enrolled in prekindergarten through grade 12.

being homeless and sleeping rough are very different. To pretend the issues that cities in the US have with homelessness is anywhere near the same magnitude as that of Delhi is disingenuous.

India sure seems to be borrowing a page from China with this.

Didn't similar happen in multiple countries now? It seems to play out every damn time.

https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/brisbane-g20-hom...

https://youtu.be/9z2Rc4ajQc8

I assume there's more stories like this in different languages for the various summits.

I thought that, by and large, China at least tried to compensate the people that got displaced.

Why flagged?

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