| The crime, the Covid, the politics and the potholes: Capital Letters — Keeping track of Delhi's week, one beat at a time, through the eyes and words of HT's My Delhi section, with all the perspective, context and analysis you need. Good morning! Delhi was rocked twice this week (in literal and figurative senses) - first by a destructive storm on Monday that lopped off a few hundred trees in the Capital and destroyed quite some property; then (within hours of that storm dying out) by a political furore after a senior Delhi was arrested in a money laundering case. Nature scorned? Keen readers (please tell me we have some of those) of this newsletter will recall that a bulk of last week's edition (on May 30) was dedicated to violent winds and rain that left Delhi reeling. The winds on the day, at their strongest, travelled at speeds of around 75km/hour. To this, June said, hold my bubble tea. A routine evening on Monday turned quite dramatically when, for just a few minutes, destructive winds ripped through the Capital. The squall, marauding at speeds of 100km/hour, bore down the city at will, tearing off scaffoldings from buildings, slashing trees in half, flinging trunks onto cars. The effects of the squall also killed two people in Delhi on Monday. Hundreds of trees were either entirely uprooted or brutally felled in the wake of the winds, and many fell on to vehicles. Below is just a sample of the terror that struck in those brief minutes.  (Click to expand) Naturally, traffic went haywire for many, many hours, especially in the central and New Delhi areas - home to the Capital's greenest neighbourhoods, which consequently bore the major chunk of the damage. The prostrate trees also left authorities with a gargantuan task, getting trunks many decades old off the streets and sidewalks. Experts for their part flailed the administration's disregard for the trees and said a lot of the damage was avoidable if proper preservation efforts had been factored in. The storm gives us quite a decent segue into the next segment - existential questions about some tough choices Delhi needs to make. | 
