-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...
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Invisible foe in air kills 600,000 in a year -Jacob Koshy
-The Hindu Fine particulate matter from industries, cars and biomass causing premature mortality. Air pollution could have killed at least 600,000 Indians in 2012, a study conducted by the World Health Organisation and made public on Monday said. That is about a fifth of the 3 million who died worldwide because they were exposed to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) that may have aggravated or been directly responsible for cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer. India...
More »Safety concerns: Inside India’s mines, a worker dies every 10 days -Anil Sasi
-The Indian Express Mining has the distinction of being the most dangerous profession in India. Industry insiders concede that official numbers could be much lower than the actual deaths that take place deep inside the mines. Progressive improvements in the safety standard of India’s coal mines notwithstanding, every ten days last year there was a mining fatality in the country. And every third day last year, on an average, there was...
More »IIT Kanpur study finds presence of PAH in Delhi’s air
-PTI Apart from PAH, the report identifies the sources of suspended particulate matter PM 2.5, namely road dust, vehicles, domestic fuel burning and industrial point sources New Delhi: An Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur study has found alarming details on Delhi’s air pollution, including the presence of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), that are extremely toxic chemicals and a product of emissions from diesel-run vehicles among others. Apart from PAH, the draft report,...
More »Heat & dust raise Delhi’s air toxins to critical levels
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Day temperatures dropped marginally on Thursday but there was hardly any relief for weather-beaten Delhiites as toxins in the air rose alarmingly due to a cloud cover trapping pollutants. The capital's air quality index (AQI) breached the 'severe' level, going from 219 (poor) on Wednesday to 410 in one of the sharpest single-day spikes in recent months. Fine particle pollution (PM2.5) that AQI measures wasn't the...
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