-Deccan Chronicle Maintaining green cover (not just trees, but also grass and small plants) is a big challenge in Delhi due to the shortage of water. With the quality of Delhi’s air has again reached critical levels with severe pollution, alarm bells have gone off, and the Delhi government announced it would bring back the “odd-even” scheme, that seems to be turning into an annual ritual. (The plan has been temporarily kept...

-The Hindu Seeks response of Centre, Punjab and Haryana govts. The Supreme Court on Monday sought the response of the Centre and the governments of Punjab, Delhi and Haryana on measures taken to counter the smog and pollution choking the national capital and surrounding areas. Acknowledging the dire consequences that continued exposure to peaking levels of air pollution would visit on the public, including schoolchildren, a Bench led by Chief Justice of India...

-Firstpost.com Delhiites are cursed by geography to be prone to a meteorological phenomenon called inversion where warm air rests above the colder air closer to the ground, preventing it from mixing upwards thereby trapping all that we put into it – almost like a lid Delhi’s pollution episodes at this time of the year have become an annual affair - the latest one has the Chief Minister comparing Delhi to a gas...

-The Indian Express Delhi has become world’s air pollution outcaste. Its decision-makers haven’t understood the consequences. The first thing that the Central and Delhi governments should own up to regarding the air pollution crisis is that everyone was forewarned and cannot pretend to be taken unawares. This “winter of our discontent” is the season when, as temperatures dip, pollutants hover around the surface of the city and do not waft upwards. Things...

-Hindustan Times The paddy straw is of no use to the farmer unlike the wheat straw, which is used as animal fodder. The paddy straw has high silica content that animals can’t digest. Chandigarh: The plain farming chore of burning after-harvest paddy stalks as farmers prepared their fields in Punjab and Haryana for the wheat crop never headlined so much as in the past month. The swirling smoke from the fire is blamed...