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.
Normally, monsoon reaches Delhi by June 27. It covers the entire country by July 8. Last year, the wind system had reached Delhi on June 25 and covered the entire country by June 29.
"The overall Delhi's Air Quality Index is in the very poor category with few Delhi locations entering at higher zone but that will be short lived. This is mainly because the extremely calm local surface winds which were prevailing yesterday are likely to increase slightly and may further pick-up by Oct 26," SAFAR said.
All those in the Union council of ministers with two portfolios are likely to lose at least one and major administrative changes are expected in a Cabinet reshuffle due on October 28 or 29 on the return of President Pranab Mukherjee from Durga Puja celebrations in West Bengal.
Delhi's air quality was again in the severe category with the 24-hour average AQI recorded at 403 after remaining in the 'very poor' category till Tuesday morning, when the AQI was recorded at 396.
A high-intensity earthquake hit the Central Asian country of Tajikistan on Monday, tremors of which were felt in parts of north India, including Delhi and Kashmir.
Vayalar Ravi on Tuesday became the fifth person to assume charge as minister for science and technology in three years since United Progressive Alliance returned to power in 2009.
Amid the political spat, the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) lent its weight to the prime minister's suggestion, noting that the idea of using wind turbines in generating water from moisture in air and separating oxygen from air is technically feasible.
A business in India wanting access to maps and geospatial data would typically have to wait months before it got what it wanted. All this is set to change with the new guidelines on geospatial data, report Neha Alawadhi and Peerzada Abrar.
The earthquake had a depth of 10 kilometres, measuring 4.4 on Richter scale.
Sunday's opening T20 International against Bangladesh can't be cancelled at the last minute despite deteriorating air quality in the capital, said BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.
India on Wednesdy said there was no likelihood of tsunami tidal waves being formed anywhere in the Indian Ocean region after an earthquake of 8.9 magnitude hit waters off western coast of northern Sumatra in Indonesia.
Aqua, Latin for water, is a NASA Earth Science satellite mission named for the large amount of information that the mission is collecting about the Earth's water cycle, including evaporation from the oceans, water vapor in the atmosphere, clouds, precipitation, soil moisture, sea ice, land ice, and snow cover on the land and ice.
Some global weather watchers have warned that India will likely see below-normal rainfall during this coming monsoon -- and that should be taken seriously, regardless of whether it turns out to be true or not.
A middle school teacher from Maharashtra has been selected as the first international teacher for a prestigious space programme in the United States.
The central government's Air Quality Early Warning System for Delhi said a significant increase in the number of "fire points" was observed over Punjab (around 3,000), Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on Wednesday, which is likely to impact the air quality of Delhi-NCR and other parts of northwest India.
An earthquake measuring 4.9 on the Richter scale hit Pakistan-occupied-Gilgit late on Tuesday night and resultant mild tremors were felt in Doda and Kishtwar districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
As many as 29,557 COVID-19 patients have recuperated in the past 24 hours.
22 of the 37 air quality monitoring stations across Delhi recorded the air quality in the severe category on Thursday morning.
President Pratibha Patil on Wednesday accepted the resignation of Prithviraj Chavan from the Union Council of Ministers and asked Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal to hold additional charge of two ministries independently handled by him.
Mileage derived from the test drive was 12.4 km.
There were no immediate reports of any loss of life or damage to property.
In the 30-year period between 1986 and 2015, temperatures of the warmest day and the coldest night of the year have risen by about 0.63 degree Celsius and 0.4 degree Celsius, respectively.
Expressing concern over China supplying nuclear reactors to Pakistan, India on Sunday said the global community should closely look at the collaboration considering Islamabad's track record on nuclear technology.
Pradeep Sharma, mechanical engineer at the University of Houston, Kavita Ramanan, professor of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, Dilip Da Cunha, architect, planner and teacher at Harvard University and Columbia University, Mukul Sharma, professor of Earth Sciences at Dartmouth College, and Tahera Qutbuddin, professor of Arabic Literature and Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago, have been awarded the 2020 Guggenheim fellowships.
The minister said that the available data and model studies do not indicate inundation in a major part of southern Mumbai occurring at least once a year during 2040-50, as published in an international study report.
Both the countries discussed issues of mutual interest like comprehensive economic partnership, high level structured energy dialogue, cooperation in mining and earth sciences, social security agreement, civilian nuclear cooperation at the 6th round of Annual Bilateral Trade Policy Consultations that concluded in Ottawa on Thursday.
The air quality had turned 'severe' on Saturday evening with stubble burning accounting for 32 per cent of Delhi's PM2.5 pollution, but firecracker emissions and calm winds made the situation even worse.
Addressing participants at the Tenth Editors' Conference on Social Sector Issues-2010 in New Delhi on Tuesday, Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said his ministries have been focussing on six priority sectors to ensure a better quality of life for Indian citizens.
The smog reduced the visibility to merely 300 meters in the morning affecting traffic, an official of the India Meteorological Department said.
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 TEWS was envisioned as a national importance e-governance project by the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences after the 2004 tsunami disaster.
After a making a slow progress, the southwest monsoon is expected to gain momentum and advance further into several parts of drought-hit Maharashtra and central India.
Southwest monsoon, critical for the farm-based economy of the country, is expected to reach Kerala on May 30, two days before its normal onset date in the coastal state.
Pollution levels in Delhi during the Diwali period are likely to remain in the higher end of the 'very poor' category in the absence of emissions due to fireworks, the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality monitor, SAFAR said.
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.
United States space agency NASA said it would launch a water-related satellite in collaboration with India's ISRO.
Identifying India as a 'big partner' of the US space programme, NASA has applauded the country's efforts in using its space missions for "societal needs." "I think it's 85 per cent of their budget is spent on what they call societal needs. It's earth science, climate change, those kinds of things, and they still insist that they're going to bring about a human space flight programme, you know, by 2020 or so," NASA Administrator Charles F Bolden said.
South-west monsoon is likely to be below normal this season, government announced on Wednesday raising concerns about its impact on agriculture and economy.
The dip in the air quality can be attributed to low wind speed and temperatures which allowed accumulation of pollutants.
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