In the classical Node-Disjoint Paths (NDP) problem, the input consists of an undirected $n$-vertex graph $G$, and a collection $mathcal{M}={(s_1,t_1),ldots,(s_k,t_k)}$ of pairs of its vertices, called source-destination, or demand, pairs. The goal is to route the largest possible number of the demand pairs via node-disjoint paths. The best current approximation for the problem is achieved by a simple greedy algorithm, whose approximation factor is $O(sqrt n)$, while the best current negative result is an $Omega(log^{1/2-delta}n)$-hardness of approximation for any constant $delta$, under standard complexity assumptions. Even seemingly simple special cases of the problem are still poorly understood: when the input graph is a grid, the best current algorithm achieves an $tilde O(n^{1/4})$-approximation, and when it is a general planar graph, the best current approximation ratio of an efficient algorithm is $tilde O(n^{9/19})$. The best currently known lower bound on the approximability of both the
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