Sitting amid the blackened remains of his home, 32-year-old Nikesh Gawali carefully broke open a half-melted plastic box with a screwdriver. His hands shook slightly, not out of fear, but out of hope. “I’m trying to find my daughter Aarti’s gold earrings,” he said quietly, still focused on the box. “She’s just five. I got them made recently after months of labour work.” The plastic box, warped and blackened by heat, was one of the few things left from his two-room house on the outskirts of Dhamangaon village . All around him lay ash, broken tin sheets and charred wooden beams. The walls had cracked under the heat and the front room’s tin roof had caved in completely. What remained was a blackened debris all around - almost nothing to suggest a home once stood there. Nikesh earns his living as an agricultural labourer, like many in the village. Work is uncertain and depends on the season. Those earrings weren’t just jewellery - they were a small dream, a reward for his hard work,...
Indian National Captial -- New Delhi’s -- air pollution hit dangerous levels as the country celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights and firecrackers, stated report of Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). Diwali is festival of fireworks and firecrackers. It was celebrated on Sunday. The World Health Organization recommends that PM2.5 is kept below 10 as an annual average. It says exposure to average annual concentrations of PM2.5 of 35 or above is associated with a 15% higher long-term mortality risk. During Diwali, various parts of Delhi, PM2.5 levels increased to 1,238 on Sunday, compared with 435 the same day of the festival a year earlier.
 |
| Air pollution in Delhi |
"Firecrackers and fireworks set off during the Diwali celebrations “may have added” to the city’s pollution levels, said Dr Pankaj Chandra, an environment expert. “We need to make people aware that their activities should not release more emission when our air is already so polluted,” he said.
 |
| Diwali celebration firecrackers |
The United Nations Children’s Fund in a report entitled “Clean the Air for Children,” released Sunday, said that nearly 20% of the world’s children who live in India risked developing life-long health complications due to air pollution and in some cases even death.
“Children are uniquely vulnerable to air pollution – due both to their physiology as well as to the type and degree of their exposure,” said the report. That is because they breathe twice as fast as adults, taking in more air and pollutants which can adversely affect their growth and immune system. The report said that outdoor air pollution in India exceeds nearly six times that of limits considered safe internationally, while more than half of the country’s population still burns solid fuels for cooking and heating, often the causes of ill health and early death in children.
Comments
Post a Comment