Fighter Jets, Drones Keep Watch As Delhi Turns Fortress For G20 Meet

As the world's most powerful leaders descend on New Delhi for the Group of 20 summit, India is pulling out all the stops, deploying fighter jets around the capital, painting murals on underpasses and chasing away packs of monkeys from government buildings.

The moment is a long-awaited milestone for India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is selling the nation as an emerging superpower with the clout to navigate geopolitical tensions, economic slowdowns and rising food and energy prices. Over the weekend, he'll test that thesis by welcoming US President Joe Biden, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and other heads-of-state for one of the most important global gatherings of the year.

But pulling off a successful G-20 summit is about more than smart diplomacy. For months, Indian officials have plotted out the best way to fortify Delhi, a city of more than 20 million people.

At the heart of the project is locking down New Delhi district, the city's bureaucratic center, where the summit will take place Saturday and Sunday. The area is known for its acres of manicured parks, sandstone monuments and stately bungalows.

To ease traffic, the authorities have ordered schools, banks, most private businesses and all government departments to remain shut. Borders to neighboring states will also be sealed, and over 100,000 police and security personnel are expected to patrol the streets.

Among the tools at their disposal: heavy artillery, advanced AI-based cameras, jamming devices and sniffer dogs.

"There's a tremendous amount at stake for Modi with this G-20 summit," said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Washington-based Wilson Center.

Ultimately, carrying out a successful summit could boost PM Modi's reputation as a competent administrator. It may also bolster BJP's chances in five looming state elections this year and the 2024 polls.

"New Delhi takes its presidency extremely seriously, and it has linked it not only to core national interests and foreign policy objectives, but also, even if indirectly, to domestic politics," Kugelman said.

The location for this year's G-20 summit is as grand as they come. The world leaders will meet in a refurbished convention and exhibition center that's larger than Australia's Sydney Opera House and was designed by the international firm Aedas, which created Marina Bay Sands in Singapore. The entire renovation took four and a half years at a cost of Rs 2,700 crore.

Reminders of the summit are everywhere in Delhi. Posters depicting PM Modi and the G-20 logo line the roads. Sculptures, fountains and flowers decorate roundabouts, and officials have strung lights on trees to illuminate them at night. Flyovers and railway bridges have gotten similarly colorful makeovers, with murals depicting Hindu gods and different dance and crafts traditions.

The Indian authorities are also attempting to push less vaunted wildlife out of view. To scare away thousands of small monkeys that hang out near government offices and steal food from pedestrians, officials have dotted the sidewalks with life-sized cut-outs of the larger, black-faced langur species.

The G-20 summit is one of the highest-profile international events New Delhi has hosted in years. It's also an opportunity to push past governance missteps further from memory, including one from 2010, when the capital hosted the Commonwealth Games. Among several issues, officials were accused of corruption in how they chose firms to provide sporting equipment and of using child labor to build facilities.

Ahead of the G-20, the authorities seem to have considered every conceivable safety risk, sketching out rules for the most obscure of details. Until Sept. 12, hot air balloons are banned from sailing above the city, one order from the Delhi police reads. Another prohibits paragliding.

India's security apparatus is robust: To protect visiting leaders, the armed forces will deploy commandos, snipers, bomb disposal squads, explosive detection teams, anti-drone technology, a "quick reaction" crew for chemical and nuclear threats, long range surveillance aircraft, and fighter jets, according to people familiar with the plans.

"To contain protests and gatherings, multiple domestic agencies are giving us real time information," Dependra Pathak, Delhi's special police commissioner for law and order, said in an interview.

By Friday, access to New Delhi will be particularly difficult. Though the city's metro will continue to run, traffic police will prohibit most other travel near parliament and government ministries. The restrictions will effectively seal off the area, where elite G-20 guests are mostly populating five-star hotels.

Ahead of the summit, PM Modi apologized to Delhi's residents for the inconvenience of so many restrictions. But for many Indians, the G-20 summit, though abstract in its goals, is more exciting evidence that the country is an unmissable shaper of world affairs.

"The hosting of the G-20 summit is a responsibility of the entire country," PM Modi said in a speech late last month. "We need to show the world that Delhi can handle this responsibility without any glitches."