India's capital, New Delhi, seems to be under the influence of a malevolent star this summer, as anything that could go wrong has.
This has affected not just its citizens, who are frustrated and furious, frequently resorting to violence to assert their rights. The city's administrators openly claim they are overwhelmed by the multiplying crises and are too swamped to tackle any of them, even perfunctorily. "Delhi's citizens are fed up of life without respite," declared the Times of India newspaper recently.
Record temperatures of 46 Celsius in May and June - the highest this century - were made worse by power supply breakdowns, frequently lasting 24 hours in some neighbourhoods, in addition to water shortages.
Police had to be deployed around power stations in most neighbourhoods to prevent irate residents from beating up the electricity staff inside. Assurances of uninterrupted power by Delhi's chief minister, Sahib Singh Verma, came to naught, as did his promises to resign for failure to vindicate his pledge.
The normally welcome monsoon in early July failed, too. Instead sporadic showers added to the discomfort by increasing humidity to unbearable levels.
And if this was not bad enough a downpour upstream of the Tamuna river that runs through Delhi caused floods and a breach near the water treatment plant, disrupting the limited water supply to an already harassed citizenry.
For the city's sick and injured, too, the summer has been a nightmare. This was due to a succession of strikes in usually overcrowded and chaotic hospitals by doctors, nurses, and even ward attendants. All this came at a time when thousands were struck down by debilitating viral fever, as well as the dreaded dengue fever and cholera in the poorer quarters of the city.
Others fortunate enough to remain healthy were afflicted by shortages of essential commodities like vegetables and fruit that are still available only at astronomical prices, if at all.
Neither were commuters spared, as hundreds of buses were suddenly pulled off the road with no promise of any replacements. The federal budget in June offered little relief. Petrol became dearer, automatically pushing up prices and even the anticipated tax relief proved to be a mirage. Then there was a 10-day postal strike in July.
Delhi's more opulent citizens generate their own electricity with private generators, their own water by sinking wells and their own security by hiring armed guards and setting up barricades in neighbourhoods. They send their children to study abroad and their sick to foreign hospitals. For the rest, it is just suffer it.
To add to the general woes there was an alarming upsurge in lawlessness. Kidnappings and murders were joined in crime statistics by rapes, daylight robberies, and bus hold-ups. The police admitted they were unable to prevent or even investigate many of the crimes. The federal government stepped in and did what it knows best: set up a commission of inquiry.
Police officials have admitted that the rule of law has broken down, replaced by the law of the jungle. It is accepted practice not to approach the police or seek legal redress unless every other avenue has been exhausted.
"The police will harass the complainant and courts take decades to adjudicate," said Ms Malvika Rakotia, a Delhi High Court lawyer.
According to estimates by the legal and social activist, H.D. Shourie, around 20 million civil and 10 million criminal cases are pending in courts around the country, including those in Delhi. Cases drag on interminably, often resolved by the litigants' demise. The number of untried prisoners languishing in overcrowded prisons is alarming. Consequently, most people have lost faith in India's judicial system and frequently turn to professional thugs to settle disputes.
Locals, meanwhile, blamed all the ills, especially the excessive heat and meagre monsoon, on the multiple nuclear tests conducted by the coalition government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, in early May.
Escalating prices and shortages, people said, were a direct effect of sanctions by western countries, led by the United States, for carrying out nuclear tests as initial euphoria over becoming a nuclear weapons power waned. The country was not prepared for it nor has the ability to sustain that status economically. Nuclear-weapon capability for a country that cannot ensure basics such as water, power and affordable food appears meaningless.
