Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced that primary schools will be closed from Saturday in view of spike in pollution levels in the national capital.
According to forecasting agencies, the city is set to record its best air quality for the day after Diwali since 2015 on Tuesday.
Violation of the ban will invite punitive action, including a fine or a jail term or both, detailed under Section 15 of the Environment Protection Act (EPA) and under bylaws of respective municipal corporations, they said. For effective enforcement of the ban, national and state-level control rooms have been set up and special enforcement teams formed to check illegal manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of banned SUP items, officials in the ministry said.
Better living conditions must be an integral part of all political campaigns. But this will only happen if the public pressures the political class to understand the irreversibility of climate change and make the environment a crucial part of their manifestos.
According to the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), the air quality is considered to be in the emergency category if the PM2.5 and PM10 levels continue to be above 300 micrograms per cubic metre and 500 micrograms per cubic metre respectively for 48 hours or more.
The ban on certain single-use plastic (SUP) items kicks in from Friday, with state governments initiating an enforcement campaign to identify and close down units engaging in production, distribution, stocking and sale of such items, officials said. Though several manufacturers have said they are not prepared to implement the ban due to a lack of alternatives, Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav had on Tuesday said the government had given enough time to the industry and the general public to prepare for the ban on SUP items and it hopes for everyone's cooperation in implementing it from July 1. Violation of the ban will invite punitive action, including a fine or a jail term or both, detailed under Section 15 of the Environment Protection Act (EPA) and under bylaws of respective municipal corporations, officials in the Union environment ministry said.
The Yamuna river gets polluted due to bathing by floating population, throwing flowers, garlands and other worship material as well as the industrial affluent.
Low temperature -- Delhi recorded a minimum of 13.5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, the season's lowest so far -- allowed accumulation of pollutants, said Mahesh Palawat, vice president (meteorology and climate change), Skymet Weather.
The Centre is conducting a study to assess the presence of SARS-CoV-2, or novel coronavirus, in the Ganga as corpses were found dumped in the river during the second Covid wave, and were fished out from districts in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, officials said.
Vedanta had sought handing over of the plant for three months saying it requires two months to start the unit and the company should be allowed to run it for four weeks to ascertain whether its polluting or not. The interim plea by Vedanta was opposed by Tamil Nadu government which claimed before a bench headed by Justice R F Nariman that the plant had been 'polluting consistently'.
The air quality in the national capital remained poor for the sixth consecutive day on Monday with stubble burning accounting for seven per cent of the capital's PM2.5 pollution.
In India, air pollution is most severe in the Indo-Gangetic Plain (northern India), where topography and meteorology concentrate pollution from energy, mobility, industry, agriculture, and other activities, the researchers said.
The 20-member squad also includes goal-keepers PR Sreejesh and Krishan Bahadur Pathak; defenders Harmanpreet Singh, Amit Rohidas, Surender Kumar, Varun Kumar, Jarmanpreet Singh and Jugraj.
International-medallist Deepak Kumar (51kg) led the show as Services Sports Control Board (SSCB) boxers produced an impressive all-win performance on the second day of the men's National Championships at the Inspire Institute of Sports in Bellary on Thursday.
According to Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) Sameer app, the city's air quality index (AQI) stood at 449 in the severe category at 8 am on Saturday. It was 462 on Friday.
Nagaraju (25), was previously arrested in seven cases in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, it said, adding he is a native of Srikakulam District in Andhra Pradesh.
The India Meteorological Department on Wednesday issued an orange alert for Delhi, predicting 'heavy' to 'very heavy' rainfall in parts of the capital with winds gusting up to 60 kilometers per hour.
It also asked the governments of Punjab and Haryana to take immediate stringent actions to curb stubble burning and authorities in Delhi-NCR to strictly check biomass burning.
A bench headed by Justice R F Nariman said it is allowing Tamil Nadu's appeal against the National Green Tribunal order only on grounds of maintainability.
A bench of the NGT, headed by its chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, directed that the order will also apply to all cities and towns in the country where the average of ambient air quality during November (as per available data of last year) falls under 'poor' or worse category.
The big question is whether the regulators will have the courage to prosecute the bigwigs in the cities.
When it closed close down the copper plant at Thoothukudi in 2013. Its orders were held illegal by the NGT on procedural grounds
The top court said a balanced approach of sustainable development ensuring environmental safeguards needs to be resorted to while dealing with the issue of sand mining.
Sports Minister hands over trophies to 2020 National Sports Awards winners
'They are taking the people of the country for granted.'
Skies over Delhi hung heavy with smoke and its air quality inched towards "severe" category on Diwali night as people burst firecrackers in a blatant disregard to the government's ban against it, imposed amid an increase in the contribution from farm fires.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated the 'country's first smog tower' at Connaught Place in New Delhi on Monday and said it will prove to be a milestone and many such structures can be installed in the city if the pilot project yields results.
A bench, headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel, set up a five-member Committee to probe Thursday's gas leak incident in the chemical factory, in which 11 people were killed and 1,000 exposed, and submit a report before May 18.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), the 24-hour average concentration of lung-damaging fine particles known as PM2.5 in Delhi-NCR shot up from 243 micrograms per cubic metre at 6 pm on Thursday (Diwali day) to 410 micrograms per cubic metre at 9 am on Friday, around seven times the safe limit of 60 micrograms per cubic metre.
This comes at a time when the group's copper plant in Tamil Nadu remains shut for nearly three years, causing a Rs 5 crore loss every day.
The overall AQI deteriorated further and touched the 268 mark, which falls in the poor category.
The city also recorded a maximum temperature of 23.8 degrees Celsius, 16 notches below normal and the lowest in the month of May since 1951, the IMD said.
According to the Central Pollution Control Board's mobile application SAMEER, the city recorded an air quality index of 168, which falls in the 'moderate' category, much better than Monday's AQI of 221, which falls in the 'poor' category.
The Madras high court on Tuesday rejected a plea from mining giant Vedanta to order reopening of its Sterlite copper unit at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu.
The neighbouring cities of Faridabad (469), Greater Noida (464), Ghaziabad (470), Gurgaon (472) also recorded 'severe' air pollution levels.
The Centre on Monday earmarked a separate Rs 2,217 crore for 42 urban centres to tackle air pollution and announced the much-awaited voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and polluting vehicles, even as it shrunk the budgetary allocation for the environment ministry from the last fiscal by nearly eight percent. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech for 2021-22, announced a total of Rs 2869.93 crore for the ministry, Rs 230 crore less than the last fiscal. Officials said the outlay has been lesser this time as the economy is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Experts said while meteorological conditions were "moderately" favourable for dispersion of pollutants, a "very high" number of farm fires in Punjab was the primary reason for "severe" air quality.
India captain Rohit Sharma assured BCCI boss Sourav Ganguly that his team is ready to play Sunday's opening T20 International against Bangladesh despite growing concerns about severe air pollution.
Air pollution may lead to a faster spread of Covid-19 infection as it causes coughing and sneezing, government officials told a parliamentary panel on Friday, according to sources.
There cannot be a complete ban on firecrackers and the mechanism to stop their misuse has to be strengthened, the Supreme Court said on Monday setting aside the Calcutta High Court order banning firecrackers during Kali Puja, Diwali and other festivals this year to check air pollution amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
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