Delhi Airport's Third Runway Returns After Seven Months as ABVP Sweeps DUSU
Delhi's Indira Gandhi International Airport regains its third runway for operations from September 20, ending a seven-month rehabilitation after 17 years of continuous service since 2008. Separately, ABVP claimed three of four Delhi University Students' Union posts while a building collapse in Moti Bagh put fresh pressure on lawmakers to regulate the capital's vast unregistered paying-guest housing sector.
🗳️ Third Runway Reopens at Delhi Airport After Seven-Month Overhaul
The third runway at Indira Gandhi International Airport, which first entered service in 2008, resumes full operations from September 20 after a comprehensive rehabilitation that kept it offline for seven months. Since its commissioning, the runway handled continuous traffic for 17 years, with only a minor rehabilitation in 2017; the latest project addressed more substantial structural and surface wear accumulated over nearly two decades of high-intensity use. Delhi airport, which handles one of the highest passenger volumes in Asia, depends on multi-runway availability to sustain departure punctuality, especially during morning peak banking windows when flight corridors fill rapidly. The return of the third runway is expected to ease sequencing delays and allow air traffic control to manage flow more flexibly. Airport officials coordinated modified taxi routes and updated ATC handoff procedures to smooth the transition back to three-runway operations. The timing also carries practical significance: Delhi's winter fog season approaches, and every additional runway in service narrows the operational margins that dense fog conditions erode. Residents beneath the third runway's approach corridor should expect a measurable uptick in overhead traffic from Saturday morning onward. [9]
ABVP Claims President, Secretary and Joint Secretary in DUSU 2026 Results
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad won three of the four contested positions at the Delhi University Students' Union in the 2026 elections, securing the President, Secretary, and Joint Secretary posts. Counting proceeded under heightened security deployed across Delhi University campuses, a standard precaution given the historically charged atmosphere surrounding DUSU polls, which draw active involvement from national party structures given the union's reputation as a nursery for future political careers. This year's contest was fiercely competitive, with sustained campaigning across North and South Campus colleges in the days before the vote. ABVP's strong showing continues a recent pattern of dominance in DUSU cycles, built on organisational networks embedded in RSS-affiliated structures active throughout the university's affiliated colleges. The fourth contested post was hotly disputed at time of reporting, with the Congress-linked National Students' Union of India pressing its claims. DUSU elections are closely monitored beyond the campus because the campaigns and results are seen as proxy indicators of youth political sentiment in one of India's largest and most diverse university systems, with nearly 300,000 enrolled students. [4]
Moti Bagh Building Collapse Revives Case for Delhi Paying-Guest Regulation
A structural collapse in Moti Bagh has given fresh momentum to legal advocates pushing for a dedicated paying-guest regulation law in Delhi. Live Law's analysis following the incident highlighted the regulatory gap: Delhi's housing framework lacks specific provisions governing paying-guest accommodations, which have become the dominant housing model for students, migrant workers, and young professionals across most of the city's residential neighbourhoods. Unlike formal residential tenancies governed by rent law, or commercial establishments subject to licensing inspections, PG units operate in an ambiguous zone where structural safety checks, occupancy density limits, and fire egress requirements are rarely enforced in a systematic way. A formal registration and regulation framework, legal analysts argue, would mandate minimum room-size-to-occupant ratios, require verified fire safety compliance, and establish a municipal complaints mechanism accessible to tenants. The Moti Bagh collapse provides a concrete case study for advocates lobbying the Delhi government and the three municipal bodies. With tens of thousands of unregistered PG units operating across older residential colonies, the structural vulnerability exposed at Moti Bagh is not an isolated outlier but a systemic risk that regulation alone can address. [6]
🎬 Defence Colony Quietly Becomes Delhi's Newest Gallery Destination
Delhi's Defence Colony is developing into a distinctive gallery district, with The Print documenting the neighbourhood's emergence as a cultural address separate from the capital's more established art corridors in Lodhi Colony, Khan Market, and Hauz Khas. Galleries have been drawn to Defence Colony by rents that remain more accessible than South Extension, and by the neighbourhood's particular social mix: affluent residential foot traffic combined with proximity to the diplomatic enclave and the senior corporate community that forms a core purchasing audience for contemporary Indian art. The spaces occupying Defence Colony storefronts range from contemporary Indian painting and print to design-led galleries that blend art-objects, fashion, and textile practice. For Delhi's art community, historically overshadowed by Mumbai's larger international market profile, the colony's emergence as a weekend gallery circuit represents a meaningful expansion of the city's ecosystem beyond the handful of institutional names that have long anchored it. Saturday and Sunday afternoons in Defence Colony are increasingly attracting gallery visitors alongside the restaurant crowds that have traditionally defined the neighbourhood's commercial identity, giving the area a layered cultural texture unusual in Delhi's more functionally segregated commercial zones. [7]
Sources: [9] newindianexpress.com · [4] tribuneindia.com · [6] Live Law · [7] ThePrint