According to senior IMD scientist Kuldeep Srivastava, clear sky or absence of clouds allows sun rays to reach the ground, warming up the air close to the ground which lifts up and clears the pollutants.
New Delhi's overall air quality index read 456 at 4 pm, up from 425 at 4 pm on Tuesday.
Terming the rise in air pollution in Delhi-NCR an "emergency" situation, the Supreme Court asked the Centre and the Delhi government on Saturday to take immediate measures to improve the air quality and suggested steps such as stopping vehicles and clamping a lockdown in the national capital.
Bursting firecrackers is not a matter of religion, it affects people's lives, Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai said on Wednesday and urged the Opposition not to jeopardise the well-being of children and the elderly for political ambitions.
An alleged Al Qaeda member who is a doctor and lodged in Tihar jail, moved a Delhi court on Thursday seeking permission to assist the prison authorities to deal with the COVID-19 cases.
A CPCB official said a number of factors were responsible for the deteriorating air quality, including vehicular pollution, construction activities and meteorological factors.
It is believed that the crop residue burning in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana are contributing to polluting the air.
The overall air quality index was recorded at 426 which falls in the 'severe' category, according to data by the Central Pollution Control Board.
The Central Pollution Control Board on Monday reviewed the air quality in Delhi-NCR observing that the contribution of stubble burning may rise in the next five days with the AQI fluctuating between 'very poor' and 'severe' categories.
The rotation policy followed by the BCCI and the travel route for the visiting team forced the BCCI to schedule the first match of the tour in Delhi
According to the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research, the overall air quality of the national capital docked at 376 at 8:30 am on Tuesday.
Enter the fireworks city of Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu and you can smell a familiar mix of sulphur, potassium nitrate, aluminium and carbon - familiar because if you've ever burst crackers, say on Diwali or Onam, chances are they were made here. Almost every household used to contribute to India's festive joy by contributing almost 90 per cent of the fireworks made in the country. Before the pandemic, around 300,000 people worked in the industry directly and another 500,000 indirectly. Located 540 kilometres from Chennai, Sivakasi is famous for its fireworks and crackers, along with printing and matches, but is almost a ghost town these days.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday said the violence during the Popular Front of India (PFI)-sponsored hartal in his state was 'pre-meditated' and assured strict action against the culprits while his Assam counterpart Hemanta Biswas Sarma batted for banning the Islamist outfit, whom the National Investigation Agency (NIA) accused of encouraging youth to join terrorist groups including the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
He alleged that the BJP made people burst firecrackers on Diwali.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal hopes pollution will not affect the India-Bangladesh T20 International in the city on November 3, emphasising that his government has been taking steps such as the odd-even scheme to improve the air quality.
The Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent says a series of drone attacks have killed nearly 50 of its members, including deputy head Ustad Ahmad Farooq and Qari Imran, the group's central council member and in charge of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
The Supreme Court Wednesday asked the Centre and the NCR states to continue implementing for few days the measures to ensure improvement in air quality, saying that preventive actions are needed in anticipation to curb pollution even as it wondered what signals are being sent to the world.
In a gross violation of a Supreme Court order, people in several cities burst firecrackers until at least midnight, two hours after the 10 pm deadline. Loud bangs rent the air in New Delhi.
India has told the United Nations General Assembly that it is high time the international community called on Pakistan to take 'effective and irreversible' actions against terror outfits operating on its soil, asserting that Islamabad should not take the 'high road of morality' which is only laden with mines of falsehood.
In December 2016, the Supreme Court directed the central government to have a graded action plan to tackle the menace of air pollution. There are two plans - Comprehensive Action Plan and Graded Response Action Plan.
The minimum temperature settled at 2.6 degree Celsius at the Safdarjung observatory, four notches below the season's average, and humidity was 100 per cent. The visibility recorded by the Safdarjung and Palam observatories stood at zero metres at 8.30 am. It was recorded at 100 metres at Safdarjung and zero at Palam at 5.30 am.
The city's overall air quality index stood at 306 on Friday.
The 24-metre-high air purifier recorded a PM2.5 concentration of 642 micrograms per cubic metre at the inlet and 453 micrograms per cubic metre at the outlet.
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.
The top court did some tough-talking and had warned that the administration at large will be made accountable even if there is a single incident of stubble burning henceforth.
Pollution levels in Delhi and satellite towns shot up again on Sunday morning, with the air quality bordering the 'severe plus' category at several places.
The city's air quality index will fluctuate between the higher end of the "poor" category and the lower end of the "very poor" category, it predicted.
In the video titled 'From France to Bangladesh: The Dust Will Never Settle Down', AQIS chief Maulana Asim Umar mentioned Prime Minister Modi in the context of what he claims to be a war against Muslims.
Al Qaeda's reclusive chief Ayman al-Zawahiri, who played a central role in the 9/11 terror attacks and later created the group's regional affiliate in the Indian subcontinent, was killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan's Kabul, in the biggest blow to the global terror network since killing of its founder Osama bin Laden in 2011 in Pakistan.
The national capital on Friday recorded a 24-hour average air quality index of 239. On Thursday, it was 315, the worst since February 12 when the AQI was 320.
India-born American citizen Ahmed Kauser Mohammed has been sentenced to 15 years in jail by a United States court for providing thousands of dollars in material support to the Al Qaeda and other terrorist organisations.
The Delhi government has banned construction and demolition activities in the city till November 21.
Bangladesh on Monday said it has launched investigations into the involvement of Al-Qaeda in the killing of atheist blogger Avijit Roy.
No improvement in the air quality in Delhi-NCR is expected for another three days, authorities said on Monday, as the Supreme Court directed the Centre to call an emergency meeting to decide on measures like stopping non-essential constructions, transport and power plants by Tuesday evening.
Investigators also found that the accused, Abdul Rahman, 37, was closely related to one of the persons held in connection with the 2007 GlasgowInternationalAirport attack, but failed to gather further leads in this line of inquiry.
Two suspected operatives of Al Qaeda have been arrested in New Delhi and Odisha and Delhi Police on Wednesday claimed to have busted a module of the terror group's Indian sub-continent wing operating out of the country.
On Sunday, too, a drizzle resulted in an increase in humidity, triggering a massive pollution spike.
The spurt in pollutants was caused by a combination of meteorological factors including a drop in temperature, wind speed and mixing height, a layer where air and particulates float, the Central Pollution Control Board said.
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.
