NEW DELHI: Thick smog blanketed India’s capital on Tuesday, a day after millions celebrated the Hindu festival of Diwali with fireworks that sent air pollution levels soaring to hazardous levels across the city.
Revelers in New Delhi burst firecrackers late into Monday night, filling the air with smoke and fine particles that mixed with seasonal pollution and stagnant weather conditions. By Tuesday morning, the city’s Air Quality Index had climbed above 350 in several neighborhoods, a level considered “severe” and dangerous to breathe, according to the World Health Organization’s daily recommended maximum exposure.
Visibility also dropped in some parts of the city as a gray haze enveloped streets, high-rises and historical monuments.
“I have never seen anything like this before. We can’t see anything here because of pollution,” said Vedant Pachkande, a tourist visiting New Delhi.
India’s top court last week eased a blanket ban on firecrackers in New Delhi during Diwali, allowing limited use of “green firecrackers” that emit fewer pollutants. Developed by federal research institutes, they are designed to cut particulate and gas emissions by about 30 percent. The court had said they could be used during specific hours from Saturday to Tuesday, but like past years the rule was mostly flouted.
New Delhi and its metropolitan region – home to more than 30 million people – routinely ranks among the world’s most polluted cities during the winter months when widespread Diwali fireworks coincide with cooler weather and smoke from crop residue fires set by farmers in nearby states.
Authorities in New Delhi have implemented a set of measures to curb pollution levels, which include limits on construction activity and restrictions on diesel generators. But environmentalists say long-term solutions, such as cleaner energy and stricter vehicle-emission controls, are needed to prevent the annual crisis.
Rising pollution also cuts the amount of sunshine India receives, a recent study found.
Indian scientists have found that sunshine hours – the time strong sunlight reaches the Earth – have steadily declined across most of India due to rising air pollution, according to a study published this month in Scientific Reports, a journal by Nature Portfolio. The researchers attributed the drop to increasing aerosols – tiny particles from industrial emissions, biomass burning and vehicle pollution.
“We see a greater impact in more polluted regions such as northern India,” said Manoj K. Srivastava, a scientist at Banaras Hindu University and one of the study’s authors.
Srivastava said the reduction in sunshine can affect the amount of solar power India can generate as well as the country’s agricultural productivity apart from impacting local environment and people’s health.
Thick smog blankets New Delhi after Diwali fireworks, pushing air quality to hazardous levels
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Thick smog blankets New Delhi after Diwali fireworks, pushing air quality to hazardous levels
- Revelers in New Delhi burst firecrackers late into Monday night, filling the air with smoke and fine particles that mixed with seasonal pollution and stagnant weather conditions
Terrorism arrests in UK surged by 660% after Palestine Action ban
- Support for proscribed group was made a terror offense by govt in July
- Extreme’ ban decision renders UK ‘an international outlier,’ says barrister
LONDON: Arrests for terrorism offenses in the UK have spiked by a massive 660 percent year-on-year due to support for Palestine Action, new government figures show.
The pro-Palestine group was listed as a terrorist organization and banned in July. Now any public demonstration of support for the group is outlawed, and hundreds of protesters — who have used the slogan “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” — opposing the ban have been arrested in recent months, with the act now an offense under UK anti-terrorism legislation.
Of the 1,886 arrests in the year up to September for terrorism-related activity, 1,630 — or 86 percent — were linked to support for Palestine Action, government data released on Thursday shows.
In the previous year, 248 arrests were made in relation to incidents falling under anti-terrorism laws.
Among those arrested for supporting Palestine Action, protesters were 4.4 times more likely to be female, and were remarkably older, on average, than people typically arrested for alleged terror offenses.
The average age of those arrested in relation to Palestine Action was 57, compared to 30 among those arrested for all unrelated terror offenses.
Before the banning of Palestine Action, there were 63 arrests for terror-related activity between April and June this year.
Following the ban, the number of arrests within the category surged by 2,608 percent, with 1,706 arrests recorded from July to September.
The group’s proscription has been challenged in the High Court by co-founder Huda Ammori, whose barristers have argued that the ban’s impact was “dramatic, severe, widespread and potentially lifelong.”
Then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to ban the group was “novel and unprecedented,” Raza Husain KC told judges, adding: “This is the first direct action civil disobedience organization that does not advocate for violence ever to be proscribed as terrorism.”
The government’s decision in July was “so extreme as to render the UK an international outlier,” he said.
Cooper’s government body, the Home Office, was advised by the Foreign Office that Palestine Action’s “activity is largely viewed by international partners as activism and not extremism or terrorism.”
Representing the government, Sir James Eadie KC argued that Parliament reserved the right to decide what constitutes terrorism.
