Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan on Tuesday instructed the states in the National Capital Region to take all possible measures to prevent any spike in air pollution levels during the upcoming Under-17 FIFA World Cup in Delhi to save India the blushes.
India had 14 out of the world's 20 most polluted cities, the World Health Organization reveals.
The alarming pollution level is literally 'capital punishment' for Delhi'ites who are being robbed of three years of their lives due to it, Delhi High Court said on Thursday, holding government's inaction and stubble burning in Punjab as being responsible for the "genocide".
With Delhi recording air pollution levels seven to eight times above safe standards on Monday, the city government announced the return of its flagship odd-even scheme after four years anticipating further deterioration of air quality post-Diwali.
The poisonous haze has been causing significant problems for people with existing respiratory issues, according to doctors.
This time, Delhi saw a sharp improvement in air quality just ahead of Diwali which can be attributed to intermittent rainfall on Friday and wind speed favourable for the dispersion of pollutants.
Uttar Pradesh, last year, recorded the most 2,60,028 deaths attributable to air pollution, followed by Maharashtra at 1,08,038 and Bihar 96,967, it said.
Water is drawn for agriculture, industry and cities, but only waste is returned to the river.
New threats, such as West Nile virus and Lyme disease, have also developed
The meeting was focussed on air pollution and stubble burning.
The Rediff labs team tried to correlate vehicle density with air pollution.
EY Foundation India and India Paryavaran Sahayak Foundation have come up with a cost-efficient and scalable solution. The project involves spreading awareness and driving usage of in-field straw management practices among farmers, to reduce the air pollution caused due to crop residue burning.
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday unveiled the prototype of the world's first Bharat Stage (BS)-VI-compliant electrified flex-fuel car, developed by Toyota Kirloskar Motor. The car, which runs on 100 per cent ethanol (E100), is based on the Toyota Innova HyCross. It can cover 40 per cent of its distance on ethanol and the remaining 60 per cent on electric, with the petrol engine shut off.
'The prime minister took a meeting recently and he asked for suggestions and ideas for a plan till 2047.'
It is in coal consumption that India most diverges from the rest of the world
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.
'We want to make sustainability affordable.' 'We tell everyone, don't just recycle, Craste it!'
The industry players couldn't hide their disappointment.
The increase in stubble burning has kicked off a political slugfest, with Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav on Wednesday saying that there had been a 19 per cent rise in farm fires over 2021 in Punjab and that the Aam Aadmi Party had turned the national capital into a gas chamber.
'If the BJP does not change its stand, we will hope that those who are in favour of protecting Ladakh come to power.'
The members of the farmers' unions while on their way to the protest site removed barricades put up by police and forcibly entered the road leading to the 'dharna'.
Six decades and more later, we are now captives of our identities. Every poll is based on elaborate calculations of electability of candidates on the basis of their castes and other narrow definers. That, along with voter promiscuity, is what defines our political culture, which remains stubbornly resistant to any change, asserts Shreekant Sambrani.
According to forecasting agencies, the city is set to record its best air quality for the day after Diwali since 2015 on Tuesday.
India needs a second green revolution along with the next generation of reforms with a view to make agriculture more climate-resistant and environmentally sustainable, said an RBI article on farm sector challenges. Observing that Indian agriculture has exhibited remarkable resilience during the COVID-19 period, the article said "new emerging challenges warrant a second green revolution along with next-generation reforms". Despite the success in terms of production that has ensured food security in the country, food inflation and its volatility remain a challenge, which requires supply-side interventions such as higher public investment, storage infrastructure and promotion of food processing, said the article titled 'Indian Agriculture: Achievements and Challenges'.
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.
Adani Total Gas Ltd, the joint venture of billionaire Gautam Adani's group and French energy giant TotalEnergies, will invest Rs 18,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore in the next 8 to 10 years to expand infrastructure for retailing CNG to automobiles and piping gas to households and industries, its CFO said. The company retails CNG to automobiles and pipes gas to household kitchens for cooking purposes in 52 licences that cover 124 districts of the country. It has 460 CNG stations in the country and about 7 lakh consumers of its piped cooking gas.
Poor governance and mediocre short-sighted politics are destroying the paradise that Goa was as its environment, water table, culture and way of life is drastically threatened by tourism and migration, points out Ramesh Menon.
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.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde passed the order while considering the Centre's stand that it is coming out with a comprehensive legislation to deal with air pollution, including the aspect of stubble burning.
Year by year, our cities remain defeated in the face of weather conditions, costing us time, money, resources and often lives, observe Amit Kapoor and Bibek Debroy.
The court was informed that the commission for air quality management will start functioning from today.
India's negotiating posture at the multilateral negotiations should be aligned with a significantly transformed development strategy domestically.' 'The positions the country takes at the negotiations will then carry credibility, says Shyam Saran, former foreign secretary and India's chief negotiator on Climate Change 2007-2010.
Pollution is biggest reason behind the spike in COVID-19 cases in Delhi. We had situation under control until October 20, the CM said.
To prevent rise in air pollution levels, oil marketing companies and thermal power units were planning to procure stubble from farmers to make bioethanol and promote the central government's 'Agricultural Mechanization' for crop residue management. But both have seen minimal success.
India's climate change goals are turning combustible. On the one hand, a protracted dispute between the government and manufacturers over subsidies threatens to slow the pace of electric vehicle (EV) sales. On the other hand, repeated assertions by different arms of the government over banning sales of new fossil fuel-fired vehicles have queered the pitch for energy investments. Before we address the issue of the recommended diesel vehicle ban in the recent report on energy transition, issued months before the next round of global climate talks begin in Dubai in November, let's look at what's at stake.
And the only answer one can think of is that this is being done to preserve the image of toughness and 56 inches and all the rest of it, notes Aakar Patel.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the target date for achieving 20 per cent ethanol-blending with petrol has been advanced by five years to 2025 to cut pollution and reduce import dependence.
New Delhi's overall air quality index read 456 at 4 pm, up from 425 at 4 pm on Tuesday.
The Centre has sought five names from the Samkyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) to be included in a committee for discussion on a host of issues, including MSP, and the umbrella body of farmer unions will decide those in its December 4 meeting, farmer leader Darshan Pal said on Tuesday.
The relative ranking of castes can vary across regions and localities and depends on a number of factors including control over land, wealth, and political power. Castes have often tried to 'upgrade' themselves (a process sociologists refer to as Sanskritization), and sometimes get 'downgraded'. A revealing excerpt from Upinder Singh's Ancient India: Culture Of Contradictions.
