New Delhi world's most polluted capital city for 2nd consecutive year
Darpan News Desk IANS, 22 Mar, 2022 10:46 AM
New Delhi, March 22 (IANS) New Delhi has been ranked the world's most polluted capital city for a second consecutive year followed by Dhaka (Bangladesh), N'Djamena (Chad), Dushanbe (Tajikistan) and Muscat (Oman).
Of the 15 most polluted cities in Central and South Asia in 2021, 12 were in India. New Delhi saw a 14.6 per cent increase in PM2.5 concentration in 2021, 96.4 Ig/m3, up from 84 Ig/m3 in 2020.
The annual PM2.5 concentration averages in 48 per cent of India's cities, exceeded 50 Ig/m3 or more than 10 times the World Health Organization's (WHO) air quality guidelines.
Crop burning is common in India, especially in the rice farms near Delhi during the winter months.
During crop burning season, smoke is responsible for up to 45 per cent of pollution in the city.
These startling facts came to light on Tuesday in the 2021 World Air Quality Report according to which only three per cent of cities and no single country has met the latest WHO PM2.5 annual air quality guidelines.
The report analyses PM2.5 air pollution measurements from air monitoring stations in 6,475 cities in 117 countries, regions and territories.
IQAir's 2021 World Air Quality Report is the first major global air quality report based on updated annual WHO air quality guidelines for PM2.5.
The new guidelines were released in September 2021 and cut existing annual PM2.5 guideline values from 10 Aug/m 3 to 5 Aug/m 3.
Fine particle pollution, known as PM2.5, is commonly accepted to be the most harmful, widely-monitored air pollutant and has been found to be a major contributing factor to health effects such as asthma, stroke, heart and lung diseases.
PM2.5 leads to millions of premature deaths every year. The key findings include no country met the latest WHO air quality guidelines for PM2.5 in 2021.
Only the territories of New Caledonia, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico met the updated WHO PM2.5 air quality guidelines.
Only 222 out of 6,475 global cities in the report met the updated WHO PM2.5 guidelines.
At least 93 cities in the report had annual PM2.5 concentrations exceeding 10 times the WHO PM2.5 guidelines.
Of 174 Latin America and the Caribbean cities, only 12 (seven per cent) have met the WHO PM2.5 guidelines.
Of 1,887 Asian cities, only four (0.2 per cent) have met the updated WHO PM2.5 guidelines.
Of the 1,588 cities in Europe, only 55 (three per cent) have met the WHO PM2.5 guidelines.
The report covered 2,406 cities in the US and found that an average PM2.5 concentrations rose from 9.6 Aug/m 3 to 10.3 Aug/m 3 in 2021 compared to 2020.
"It is a shocking fact that no major city or country is providing safe and healthy air to their citizens according to the latest WHO air quality guidelines.
"This report underscores just how much work remains to be done to ensure that everyone has safe, clean and healthy air to breathe. The time for action is now," said Frank Hammes, CEO of IQAir.
During the 45-minute long meeting with the Home Minister, Channi also discussed the security situation of the state and demanded that the border must be sealed properly to effectively prevent the smuggling of weapons from Pakistan.
It is the largest agricultural protest to take place in India and others from around the world have also joined in, tens of thousands of farmers have camped for months on major highways to New Delhi to oppose the three laws.
On Thursday night, Shah reached to Nadda's residence and meeting between the two leaders lasted for about an hour. The Shah-Nadda meeting came after a series of events. Earlier, on Wednesday, Amarinder met Shah.
The police identified the victim as hakeem Satnam Singh who was attacked at his clinic on Thursday in the limits of Faqirabad police station. A police official said that unknown assailants, whose number could not be ascertained, opened fire on the victim and managed to escape from the scene, the Dawn news report said.
Chief Secretary H.K. Diwedi held an emergency meeting with the District Magistrates and Superintendent of Polices of West and East Burdwan, Bankura, Birbhum, Hooghly, and Howrah on Thursday evening and took stock of the situation. After that the state government decided to deploy the Army in certain areas. However, NDRF teams have been kept on standby.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
