Budget 2018-19

  More than 480 million people living in the vast swathes of central, eastern and northern India, including the capital, New Delhi, endure significantly high pollution levels, a report said Air pollution is likely to reduce the life expectancy of about 40 per cent of Indians by more than nine years, according to a report released by a US research group on Wednesday. More than 480 million people living in the vast swathes of central, eastern and northern India, including the capital, New Delhi, endure significantly high pollution levels, said the report prepared by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC). “Alarmingly, India’s high levels of air pollution have expanded geographically over time,” the EPIC report said. For example, air quality has significantly worsened in the western state of Maharashtra and the central state of Madhya Pradesh, it said. Lauding India’s National Clean Air Program (NCAP), launched in 2019 to rein in  dangerous pollution ...

  New Delhi’s air quality was running at levels considered hazardous for three consecutive days earlier this week The thick smog that blankets northern India with the approach of winter has a particularly grim ally this year: Covid-19. Air pollution from the annual burning of rice stubble across the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab is reversing the gains that gave the north of the country its cleanest air in two decades under lockdown earlier this year. New Delhi’s air quality was running at levels considered hazardous for three consecutive days earlier this week, and the usual peak in pollution around the Diwali festival won’t even hit until Saturday. In Alipur in the north of the capital, an air quality index that conventionally tops out at 500 posted an off-the-charts reading of 851 Monday. That’s particularly troubling given the evidence that  Delhi air pollution  is a major factor raising the risk of dying from coronavirus. The decline in pollution and roa...