Many of the landmarks of Paras Tyagi's life remain the same in Budhela village in Delhi where he grew up: the house he lived in, the school that he, his father and grandfather attended, the homes of neighbors he knew as a child.
But the farmland that Tyagi's grandfather once owned is long gone, a pond that the cattle used to drink from has been filled in and walled off, and around the village, high-rise apartment and office blocks and a metro station have sprung up.
Budhela is one of 135 urban villages in Delhi, settlements that are exempted from building codes and excluded from its plans — leaving nearly a million people, most of whom have no titles to their homes, without a blueprint for the future.