The smog reduced the visibility to merely 300 meters in the morning affecting traffic, an official of the India Meteorological Department said.
"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.
The neighbouring cities of Faridabad (469), Greater Noida (464), Ghaziabad (470), Gurgaon (472) also recorded 'severe' air pollution levels.
The Bandra Kurla Complex area of Mumbai recorded an AQI of 300 and in the Chembur area, AQI of 319 was recorded as 'very poor'.
The Comptroller of Auditor General (CAG) on Friday came down heavily on the environment ministry for lapses in implementation of its green schemes whether it was for afforestation, biodiversity, pollution control or creating awareness.
The government has put a spanner in the plans of oil companies like Reliance Industries Limited and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited to make ethanol directly from sugarcane, without producing sugar.
A CPCB official said a number of factors were responsible for the deteriorating air quality, including vehicular pollution, construction activities and meteorological factors.
MPCB said Indiabulls had started the construction work at the IT Park project in violation of consent to establish and without complying with its directions issued on January 27.
The dramatic reversal in the situation caught people and weather scientists unaware.
Govt has done away with the need to secure crucial permits.
A bench headed by NGT chairperson Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel directed the carmaker to deposit the amount within two months.
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.
Mercury hovered around 40 degrees Celsius in large parts of the country on Monday as the Indian meteorological department predicted heat wave conditions in parts of east India over the next four days and the northwest region over the next two days.
There is a proposal to term forests as areas so notified and not include plantations on private land.
What will the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government do to answer the queries and fears of investors who will want to be doubly sure they would not be harassed at a later date, as has been happening to Sterlite, should be interesting to watch, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Delhi government on Monday started a process of deregistering 15-year-old diesel vehicles in the city and also imposed a ban on use of fire crackers except for religious functions, following directions from Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to bring down air pollution.
Tamil Nadu Minister for Environment and Pollution Control and Minorities Welfare N Mariam Pitchai died in a road accident in Tiruvelangurichi, about 40 km from Tiruchurapalli, early on Monday morning.
The impact of the explosion "was so massive" that the factory, which was being run from a residential building, collapsed, the police said.
Doctors have declared the situation as a 'public health emergency', while the government has taken a series of measures in view of high pollution levels.
Chinese Minister of Environmental Protection Zhou Shengxian said on Tuesday a new survey will undertaken to conduct a final check on local governments' emission-reduction efforts as the country was on course to meet the pollution control targets for the 11th plan period.
Expressing concern over the alarming level of air pollution in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has directed concerned officials for banning 15-year-old diesel vehicles in the state capital among other measures to improve the situation.
Two Silicon Valley firms - Nanostellar and Meraki - have been selected by the Geneva-based World Economic Forum as Technology Pioneers 2008. Both companies are headed by Indo-Americans - Nanostellar by Pankaj Dhingra, president and chief executive officer, and Meraki Inc by Sanjit Biswas, co-founder and chief executive officer.
Responding to a question on the issue of felling trees in Mumbai's Aarey forest, in which the Supreme Court has restrained authorities from cutting anymore trees, Javadekar told the reporters that he would not like to comment on a sub judice matter.
The air quality in Delhi is turning worse, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.
During his tenure as an apex court judge, Justice Lokur had dealt with pollution matter which included the aspect of stubble burning.
A central team on Monday began a probe into allegations that a radioactive contaminated United States ship has been anchored at the Alang coast in Gujarat, even as non-governmental organisations demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation into the matter.The three-member team comprising an official each from the Central Pollution Control Board, the Steel Ministry and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board will submit its report by the end of the week.
The Supreme Court Thursday termed the COVID-19 situation as almost a "national emergency" while agreeing to hear Vedanta's plea for opening of its Sterlite copper unit at Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu on the ground that it would produce thousand tonnes of oxygen and give it free of cost to treat patients.
The 300 mw Group Captive Power Project (GCPP) being set up by Vidarbha Industries Power (VIPL), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) formed by Reliance Power, at Butibori near Nagpur in Maharashtra, will soon enter the construction phase. Sources said the required land has been acquired and the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB) has given the green signal for setting up the project. Reliance Power will soon award the EPC contract for the Rs 1500 crore project.
The proposal had to be routed through the transport department. "We were having discussions with the department and were hopeful of a mandate being passed for converting these vehicles to alternate fuel sources," said M L Meena, principal secreatary, department of environment, west Bengal.
New Delhi has sent a firm message to first world countries that India can't be used as a dumping yard for their wastes.
A farmers' association of Tirunelveli district had filed the petition claiming that EIA was mandatory for the project to be implemented in 16,000 acres of land, of which around 3,000 acres would be on the sea shore.
While Emerald Court would take one more day to be cleaned, the work at ATS Village could extend up to seven days due to more rubble and dust on the premises, according to officials.
'Not even a single rupee from the electoral bonds should be allowed to be used in the election.' 'If it is used in the election, it will taint India's electoral process itself.'
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.
The increased outlay, the ministry says, will be used for river and lake cleaning and pollution control.
'They are taking the people of the country for granted.'
Pune villagers are protesting against Maharashtra govt's move to give about 40 hectare of grazing land to Dow Chemicals for a R&D facility in Shendi village. The area's dairy business has suffered due to this and the villagers were also not informed. Activists say there is no environmental impact assessment report for the project. Over 10 villages in the Pune district have launched protests to save their grazing land, by not allowing construction material into their villages.
The court also wanted to know about the nodal agency that would be entrusted the job of overseeing the dismantling of the Blue Lady, which has already been breached.
It is believed that the crop residue burning in the nearby states of Punjab and Haryana are contributing to polluting the air.
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