NEW DELHI: It is more than 15 days since Sunieta Ojha’s two children and husband began complaining of a persistent cough and congestion in the heart.
They have stopped going out and bought three air purifiers to protect themselves from the air pollution that has engulfed New Delhi and the National Capital Territory (NCR).
A lawyer by profession, Ojha has been facing the tough task of taking care of three sick people while ensuring her professional life remains unaffected.
“My kids, who are 10 and 5 years old, keep on coughing and feel uncomfortable the whole day. They cannot step out and play. Life has become very suffocating for us,” Ojha said.
“The NCR has turned into a gas chamber where people have no other option but to suffer,” she told Arab News.
India’s national capital and its adjoining areas have been under a blanket of toxic smog for almost two weeks. The Air Quality Index (AQI) has exceeded the 500 mark regularly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the AQI should not exceed more than 60. This year has been the worst for the past three years.
The air quality in Delhi improved on Wednesday. However, it still remains in a hazardous zone.
On Tuesday, hundreds of people protested in Delhi against the escalating pollution and asked the government to intervene to address the issue.
“I have never bothered about pollution in life. I have been busy in my professional life. But that was a mistake. I realize that something needs to be done to address the issue of air pollution because it affects everyone’s life and I tried mobilizing people through my social media posts,” said Shuchir Suri, one of the main organizers behind mobilizing citizens on the issue of pollution.
“It is a movement for clean air. This is happening globally, and this should happen in India also. Clean India starts with clean air. People want a change now in the way we look at environmental pollution,” Suri said.
Last week the Delhi government declared a public health emergency and ordered the shutting of schools until Nov. 6. It distributed four million masks in schools.
It has also introduced a car-rationing system in Delhi for ten days from Nov. 3-14, in which cars with odd and even number plates would use the roads on alternate days.
The Supreme Court on Monday pulled up central and the local government for not doing enough to address the issue of pollution. It ordered the cessation of all construction and demolition activities in Delhi. It also asked the neighboring states of Panjab and Haryana to stop the burning of farm stubbles, which environmentalists believe is one of the major causes of the toxic smog at the onset of winter in Delhi.
Dr. Loveleen Mangla, of Metro Hospital and Cancer Institute, said: “Bad air can damage your lungs, it causes bronchitis. If the air quality is bad then particulate matter or PM 2.5 can enter the heart through the lungs and also cause heart attacks.”
He said that in the past month there had been an huge increase in the number of patients visiting him with respiratory problems.
“In the prevailing situation, it would be difficult for patients to get back to normal life. The medication can subside the problem for the time being but it cannot cure,” Mangla told Arab News.
“Air purifiers and masks do not really address the issue. These are short-term measures. They are more for the psychological satisfaction of the people. Patients cannot remain confined to home all the time,” he said.
Environmentalist Vimlendu Jha, who runs an NGO called Swechha that advocates a clean environment, said: “It’s the collective failure of the central and the state government and all the wings of the executive that a problem which affects the lives of so many people remains neglected year after year.”
“The public health emergency that India has needs to be looked at from the 360-degree angle, not just 60 degrees. It cannot be looked at as a November-December issue; the air quality has to be addressed keeping in mind the whole year,” Jha told Arab News.
“I am disappointed that so many years have passed and still the problem is lingering. There is no way out but to find out a solution.”
He said that Delhi and the NCR have 10 million vehicles and the Delhi master plan says that almost 80 percent of the people should be using public transport, but this is not the case. “Right now, only one fourth of the total population of 40 million is using public transport. So the region needs robust public transport and facilities to address last-mile connectivity.”
New Delhi breathless as people take to streets to demand clean air
New Delhi breathless as people take to streets to demand clean air
- India’s national capital and its adjoining areas have been under a blanket of toxic smog for almost two weeks
- On Tuesday, hundreds of people protested in Delhi against the escalating pollution
Ukraine suspends consular services abroad for men of fighting age
- Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry “announced a temporary suspension of accepting new applications for consular services” for men between 18 and 60
- It made an exception for documents allowing Ukrainians to return to Ukraine
KYIV: Ukraine authorities on Tuesday suspended consular services for men of fighting age living abroad, after announcing measures to bring them home amid manpower shortages in the army fighting Russia.
Ukraine’s army has been struggling to hold frontlines, partly due to a lack of soldiers over two years into Russia’s invasion.
Ukraine’s foreign affairs ministry “announced a temporary suspension of accepting new applications for consular services” for men between 18 and 60.
It made an exception for documents allowing Ukrainians to return to Ukraine.
The move would likely oblige Ukrainian men to return from abroad to undergo administrative procedures that were previously available abroad.
The government has already adopted a mobilization law, due to come into force on May 18, that toughens penalties against draft dodgers and obliges men to keep their military registration up-to-date.
The ministry said men would be able to access consular services once the law came into force and “after updating their military registration.”
“Male citizen of Ukraine aged 18 to 60 with valid military registration documents will have full access to consular services,” the ministry said.
Ukrainian men have been forbidden to leave the country since the invasion began, apart from a few exceptions.
But some lived away before the war began, and Ukrainian media estimates that thousands more illegally fled the country.
Major arrests at NYU campus as Gaza protests spread
- Some of America’s most prestigious universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks
- On Tuesday, the New York Police Department said 133 people had been arrested at NYU and released after being issued with court summons
NEW YORK: More than 130 people were arrested overnight during pro-Palestinian protests at the New York University campus, as student demonstrations gather pace in the United States over the Israel-Hamas war.
Some of America’s most prestigious universities have been rocked by protests in recent weeks as students and other agitators take over quads and disrupt campus activities.
The demonstrations come amid sweeping debates over Israel’s assault on Gaza, following Hamas’s deadly invasion on October 7.
Such bastions of higher education — Harvard, Yale, Columbia and others — are grappling for a balance between students demanding free speech rights and others who argue that campuses are encouraging intimidation and hate speech.
On Tuesday, the New York Police Department told AFP that 133 people had been arrested at NYU and released after being issued with court summons, as protests also intensify at Yale, Columbia University and other campuses.
As the holiday of Passover began Monday night, police began detaining demonstrators at an encampment at NYU who had earlier refused orders to disperse.
A New York University spokesman said the decision to call police came after additional protesters, many of whom were not thought to be affiliated with NYU, suddenly breached the barriers erected around the encampment.
This “dramatically changed” the situation, the spokesman said in a statement on the school’s website Monday, citing “disorderly, disruptive and antagonizing behavior” along with “intimidated chants and several antisemitic incidents.”
“Given the foregoing and the safety issues raised by the breach, we asked for assistance from the NYPD. The police urged those on the plaza to leave peacefully, but ultimately made a number of arrests.”
The spokesman said the school continues to support freedom of expression and the safety of students.
But protests have grown large and disruptive enough — New York Police Department spokesmen have spoken of their officers facing violence when confronting protesters at NYU — to draw the attention of President Joe Biden and his administration.
“Anti-Semitic hate on college campuses is unacceptable,” US Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona posted on X on Tuesday, expressing concern about the unrest.
The protests began last week at Columbia University, also in New York, with a large group of demonstrators establishing a so-called “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on school grounds.
But more than 100 protesters were arrested after university authorities called the police onto Columbia’s campus Thursday, a move that seemingly escalated tensions and sparked a greater turnout over the weekend.
Social media images late Monday appeared to show pro-Palestinian Jewish students holding traditional seder meals inside the protest areas on campuses including at Columbia.
There were also demonstrations at MIT, the University of Michigan, UC Berkeley and Yale, where at least 47 people were arrested Monday after refusing requests to disperse.
France arrests eight in PKK financing probe
- The arrests took place in the Paris region and in southern France, the PNAT anti-terror unit said
- French prosecutors suspect the eight of preparing and financing terrorist acts
PARIS: French police arrested eight men on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the finances of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), banned as a terror organization by Turkiye and its Western allies, anti-terrorism prosecutors told AFP.
The arrests took place in the Paris region and in southern France, the PNAT anti-terror unit said.
The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
French prosecutors suspect the eight of preparing and financing terrorist acts, and of conspiring to extort, or attempt to extort, funds to finance a terrorist organistion between 2020 and 2024, the PNAT said.
Investigators believe the eight to be connected to a campaign to collect funds from Kurdish business people and other Kurds in France, a source close to the case added.
Police can hold the suspects for up to 96 hours for questioning, the source said.
Another source said the funds were destined for use in Belgium, where police on Monday raided Kurdish-run media as part of a probe undertaken at the request of a French anti-terror judge, the PNAT said.
The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority of Turkiye in the southeast of the country, in a standoff with the Ankara government that remains unresolved to this day.
Dutch intelligence sees the wars in Gaza and Ukraine as triggers for terrorist threats
- The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the destruction of a Qur’an outside parliament last year are “trigger events” for extremists
- “The terrorist threat is serious at this moment,” the agency’s director-general, Erik Akerboom, told AP
ZOETERMEER, Netherlands: The Dutch national intelligence agency said Tuesday that threats targeting the Netherlands are increasingly connected to worldwide turmoil, including the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Although the number of terror attacks across Europe has been down in recent years, the General Intelligence and Security Service in its annual report said the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and the destruction of a Qur’an outside parliament last year are “trigger events” for extremists.
“The terrorist threat is serious at this moment,” the agency’s director-general, Erik Akerboom, told The Associated Press.
Akerboom said he is particularly concerned about big events, noting that the agency is working closely with French authorities to prevent incidents during the Paris Olympics this summer.
In December, the Dutch counterterrorism agency increased the country’s threat alert to its second-highest level because of concerns about the Daesh group’s Khorasan affiliates, Akerboom said. IS-K, a Central Asian affiliate, was responsible for the attack at a suburban Moscow concert hall that killed at least 133 people in March.
According to the new report, “global jihadism has been the greatest terrorist threat for years in the Netherlands.” Incidents such as the one last April, when an anti-Islam activist tore pages from the Qur’an in front of the Dutch parliament building, put the Netherlands on the map of targets.
About a dozen terror attacks were thwarted by authorities in Europe last year and in four cases, suspects were arrested in the Netherlands, the report said. None of those attacks was focused on the Netherlands, according to Akerboom.
The Dutch also see threats from China, in particular cyberattacks, as a major concern. Akerboom said China is producing more hackers to break into Dutch systems than the Dutch can produce to defend them. The security service has cited China as the biggest threat to the country’s economic security.
Russia also continues to pose a risk to the Netherlands amid Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. So-called peace protests in Amsterdam which call for the Dutch to stop sending arms to Ukraine have included demonstrators paid by Russian sources to attend and given prefabricated slogans, the security service has asserted.
The Netherlands is of particular interest to Moscow in part because of the international institutions housed here, including the International Criminal Court. The Hague-based court is investigating crimes in Ukraine and has issued arrest warrants for President Vladimir Putin and other Russians.
Sunak says UK to raise defense spending amid global threats
- “In a world that is the most dangerous it has been since the end of the Cold War, we cannot be complacent,” Sunak told reporters
- The increase in spending from 2.3 percent will see the UK become one of the highest spenders on defense in the 32-member defense alliance
WARSAW: Britain will raise defense spending to 2.5 percent of GDP by 2030 in a “most dangerous” world, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday during a visit to Poland.
The commitment came as NATO countries face pressure to raise defense spending in the face of global threats, particularly from Russia.
“In a world that is the most dangerous it has been since the end of the Cold War, we cannot be complacent,” Sunak told reporters in Warsaw, where he held a press conference with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
The increase in spending from 2.3 percent will see the UK become one of the highest spenders on defense in the 32-member defense alliance after the United States, the British government said.
It means the UK is expected to spend £87 billion on defense in 2030-31, an increase of £23 billion over current levels.
“I believe we must do more to defend our country, our interests, and our values,” Sunak said, announcing “the biggest strengthening of national defense for a generation.”
Western nations are under pressure to boost defense funding following Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor Ukraine as well as the threat of escalation in the Middle East.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen recently called for a “European awakening on defense and security.”
Brussels is set to come up with more proposals for financing the defense push by a summit of EU leaders in June.
Sunak has also faced calls from his Conservative Party to boost defense spending, with some calling for a level of three percent of GDP.
On Tuesday, Sunak also announced £500 million additional funding for Ukraine’s war effort against Russia.
