Here is a sentence from Time magazine.
To New Delhi resident Peggy Mohan, yoga had always seemed hopelessly impractical.

My question:
Is an article not obligatory before New Delhi resident?

Apple

This message has been edited. Last edited by: M.T.,

The sentence from Time Magazine is correct. It's an example of journalistic style, popularized by Time Magazine and now widely practiced in the print media. In an effort to "streamline" news reporting, this style takes short cuts, eliminating many function words and full clauses, and rearranging some sentence elements. The sentence, written in non-journalistic style would be, as you correctly assume,

"” To Peggy Mohan, a resident of New Delhi, yoga has always seemed hopelessly impractical


The use of identifying material, e.g. "New Dalhi resident," before the proper name saves space and gives the impression of briskness.

Here is an example from the current online issue of Time Magazine, at

http://www.time.com/time

...that illustrates this feature of the style:

"” "This isn't about fighting English, but rather the use and influence of any language at the cost of all others," says conservative legislator Bruno Bourg-Broc, leader of a French parliamentary group monitoring the language's fortunes at home and abroad. "It's about safeguarding cultural and linguistic diversity by resisting uniformity." [...] "The day after that report came out, three senior French officials took the battle to Brussels, demanding that French be made the official language of the E.U. justice system. Arguing that French "reduced the risks of differing interpretations" in a way no other language could, the manifesto "” authored by Académie Française member Maurice Druon, Paris Bar Association president Jean-Marie Burguburu and the state prosecutor of France's highest court, Jean-François Burgelin "” calls for "all texts of legal or normative nature engaging the members of the Union" to be written in French."

Note that for some reason the third author is mentioned in non-journalistic style, with the definite article.

Marilyn