-The Hindu Paddy stubble, unlike wheat residue, isn’t valuable animal feed. Incentivising biomass-based power plants in Punjab and Haryana will help north India breathe easier. Delhi has registered its worst air quality in recent times. This has prompted Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to call it a “gas chamber”. Pollution in different parts of the capital has touched hazardous levels with potentially serious health effects on the rich and poor alike, especially on...

-Hindustan Times Sukhwant Singh, a farmer in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, had most of his 12 acres of agricultural land under paddy. After harvesting his crop, he set the paddy stubble on fire, burning it to the ground within a few hours. Singh and most other paddy growers in Punjab and Haryana, who are facing financial constraints due to falling productivity and dwindling returns, do not care about the ban on stubble burning put...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: Delhi's 1,800-odd municipal schools have declared a holiday tomorrow citing predictions of "very poor" smog and the health risk it poses, but critics rued that over a million poor children would miss their midday meals. Some parents said the slum children who go to these schools would be playing on the smoggy streets anyway if classes were closed. This is the first time so many schools will close in...

-Daily Pioneer Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) on Saturday turned into a gas chamber with the pollution levels reaching an all-time high, leading to burning of eyes, breathing problems and choked throats forcing people to stay indoors to avoid the hazardous toxic air. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who said that the national Capital had become like a “gas chamber” due to the pollution, met Union Environment Minister Anil...

-The Hindu As I write this column, my gaze is on the post-Deepavali haze that has enveloped Delhi. As a third-generation asthmatic, with a fourth-generation asthmatic daughter, it is set me wondering whether returning to Delhi, the city of my birth, from the United States a decade ago was a mistake. This haze is smog (smoke + fog), a hazardous mix of noxious gases and very high levels of suspended respirable...