Also on Amit's agenda is the Janhit Times, a tabloid he envisions as a hard-hitting advocate of grassroots democracy. The first edition featured a story about an allegedly corrupt Dharavi policeman. Amit's headline: "A Giant Bastard, a Dirty Corrupted Devil, and Uniformed Goon." Cooler heads, pointing out the policeman wielded a lethal lathi (bamboo nightstick), suggested a milder approach. Reluctantly Amit went with "A Fight for Justice."

Even though the paper has yet to print its first edition, Amit carries a handsome press pass, which he keeps with his stack of business cards. This leads his mother to remark, "That's you, many cards, but no businesses." Looking at her son, she says, "You are such a dreamer."

It is an assessment that Amit, who just decided to open a rental car agency in hopes of diversifying his portfolio in the mode of "a Richard Branson of Dharavi," does not dispute.

"Talk about doing something about Mumbai slums, and no one pays attention. Talk about Dharavi, and it is Mission Impossible, an international incident," says Mukesh Mehta as he enters the blond-paneled conference room of the Maharashtra State Administration Building. For nine years, Mehta, a 56-year-old architect and urban designer, has honed his plan for "a sustainable, mainstreamed, slum-free Dharavi." At today's meeting, after many PowerPoint presentations, the plan is slated for approval by the state chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Dharavi is to be divided into five sectors, each developed with the involvement of investors, mostly nonresident Indians. Initially, 57,000 Dharavi families will be resettled into high-rise housing close to their current residences. Each family is entitled to 225 square feet (21 square meters) of housing, with its own indoor plumbing. In return for erecting the "free" buildings, private firms will be given handsome incentives to build for-profit housing to be sold at (high) market rates.

"All that remains is the consent," Mehta tells Deshmukh, a sour-looking gentleman in a snow-white suit sitting with his advisers at the 40-foot (12 meters) conference table. Normally, it is required that 60 percent of Dharavi residents approve of the plan.

But Deshmukh announces that formal consent is not needed because Mehta's plan is a government-sponsored project. All he must do is give the residents a month to register complaints. "A 30-day window, not a day more," Deshmukh says with impatient finality.