Pollution levels in Delhi and satellite towns shoot up, air quality 'severe plus' at several places

News Network
November 3, 2019

New Delhi, Nov 3: Pollution levels in Delhi and satellite towns shot up again on Sunday morning, with the air quality bordering the 'severe plus' category at several places.

A slight increase in the wind speed and a light drizzle on Saturday had led a drop in pollution levels with the air quality index settling at 399 in the evening.

However, weather experts said pollution levels shot up overnight due to calm winds leading to accumulation of pollutants.

At 11 a.m., Delhi's AQI read 483.

On Friday, the city recorded the 24-hour AQI average of 484, which prompted authorities to shut schools, ban all construction activities and declare a "public health emergency".

The Friday's highest was the worst since November 9, 2017, when it was 486.

The AQI at Pusa, Bawana, Anand Vihar, Ashok Vihar, Mundka, Punjabi Bagh and ITO was between 490 and 500.

In the National Capital Region (NCR), Noida (487), Ghaziabad (483) and Greater Noida (470), Gurgaon (457), breathed extremely polluted air.

An AQI between 0-50 is considered 'good', 51-100 'satisfactory', 101-200 'moderate', 201-300 'poor', 301-400 'very poor' and 401-500 'severe'. Above 500 falls in the 'severe plus' category.

NASA satellite imagery showed vast swathes of the northern plains, covering Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and parts of Jharkhand and West Bengal, blanketed under a smoky haze.

Delhi is pinning hopes on meteorological relief with the weatherman saying winds gusting up to 20-25 kilometers per hour are likely to prevail in the region from Sunday evening to Tuesday.

Scattered rainfall in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi is likely on November 7 and 8 under the influence of Cyclone Maha and a fresh western disturbance.

This rainfall, however light, will be significant in terms of reducing the effect of stubble burning and washing away pollutants, officials said.

On Friday, the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority had declared the "public health emergency", following which the Delhi government decided to shut all schools.

The EPCA also banned all construction activities in Delhi-NCR till November 5.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal called Delhi a "gas chamber" and blamed stubble burning in Haryana and Punjab for the apocalyptic haze shrouding Delhi.

The share of stubble burning in Delhi's pollution stood at 46 per cent on Friday, the highest so far. It dropped to 17 per cent on Saturday and is expected to be 12 per cent on Sunday, according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences' air quality monitor SAFAR.

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News Network
June 21,2020

New Delhi, June 21: India today recorded the highest single-day spike in infections so far with 15,413 new cases reported in the last 24 hours. The total number of positive cases in India touched 4.11 lakh on Sunday.

As per the Ministry of Health data, the total number of coronavirus cases stands at 4,10,461 cases which include 1,69,451 active cases, 2,27,756 recovered/migrated cases, and 13,254 deaths as per the Ministry of Health data.

With 1,28,205 confirmed cases of COVID-19 so far, Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state in the country, followed by Tamil Nadu with 56,845 and Delhi 56,746. 

Delhi reported its highest single-day increase of 3,630 new coronavirus cases. With this, the state’s tally rose to 56,746. The toll rose to 2,112 with 77 deaths. As many as 7,725 people recovered, taking the total recoveries to 31,294.

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News Network
May 9,2020

New Delhi, May 9: The Trinamool Congress on Saturday responded to Union home minister Amit Shah’s charge that the Mamata Banerjee-led West Bengal government is not facilitating the movement of stranded migrant workers.

Amit Shah has written to West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, saying her government is doing “injustice” to migrant workers by not allowing the special Shramik trains to reach the state.

“Union home minister Amit Shah speaks after weeks of silence only to mislead people with lies,” the TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.

“The Centre is lying… West Bengal is running 711 camps for migrants in the state. We are taking good care of them,” Abhishek Banerjee, who is also the chief minister’s nephew, said.

Amit Shah had pointed out in his letter that the Centre was not receiving the “expected support” from the state government in helping stranded migrant workers from West Bengal.

“West Bengal government is not allowing trains with migrants reaching the state. This is injustice with WB migrant labourers. This will create further hardship for them,” Amit Shah had said in his letter to Mamata Banerjee.

The issue of migrant workers is the latest flashpoint between the Centre and the West Bengal government amid a row over the state’s efforts to control the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).

The Centre and the state have exchanged allegations over the criteria for reporting deaths from the infection, and while While Bengal says the Centre is trying to politicise a public health crisis, the Union government maintains that state officials are ignoring repeated warnings to step up the fight against the disease.

Federal officials have said that the region has not conducted adequate tests and that there has been mismanagement over identifying hotspots and containing them.

Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla also slammed the state government for a very low rate of testing and high rate of mortality, 13.2%, by far the highest for any state.

The Centre has also accused the state government of not allowing cross-border movement of goods trucks to Bangladesh.

There are 1,678 Covid-19 cases and 160 deaths in West Bengal until Saturday morning.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Mumbai, Mar 8: A day after the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor and raided his premises, he was taken to the agency's office in Mumbai on Saturday for further questioning.

Kapoor, who was grilled by central agency's officials on Friday night at his Samudra Mahal residence in Mumbai, was shifted to the ED office in the metropolis around 12.30 pm.

ED officials said Kapoor was questioned throughout the night, with some rest time.

A senior ED official connected with the probe told IANS: "Kapoor will be questioned about Yes Bank loans to Dewan Housing Finance Limited (DHFL)."

The official said that during searches a lot of incriminating documents were found and the agency wanted to grill him on his links with DHFL promoters and other companies.

Kapoor's alleged role in the disbursal of loan to a corporate entity and kickbacks reportedly received in his wife's bank account are also under probe.

The ED had filed the money laundering case against Kapoor and raided his residence, apart from issuing a look-out circular so that he does not flee the country.

The ED registered a money laundering case against Kapoor as a continuation of its probe against the DHFL wherein it was allegedly found that Rs 12,500 crore was diverted to 80 shell companies using one lakh fake borrowers. The transactions with these shell companies date back to 2015.

An ED official in New Delhi told IANS that the DHFL probe revealed that funds diverted by the DHFL originated from Yes Bank.

He said that the searches at Kapoor's residence on Friday night were meant to find out any irregularity in grant of loans to the DHFL by the Yes Bank.

The ED has accused Kapil and Dheeraj Wadhawan of DHFL of purchasing shares in five firms -- Faith Realtors, Marvel Township, Abe Realty, Poseidon Realty, and Random Realtors -- after which they were amalgamated with Sunblink.

The outstanding loans of these five firms, totalling around Rs 2,186 crore till July 2019, were allegedly appropriated onto the books of Sunblink to cover up the diversion of loans acquired from DHFL.

The ED's action comes after the RBI superseded Yes Bank Board for 30 days and appointed an administrator, putting a cap of Rs 50,000 on withdrawals by account holders for a month.

The RBI said that the bank's board was superseded "owing to serious deterioration in the financial position of the bank".

Former SBI CFO Prashant Kumar was appointed as administrator of Yes Bank, which has over 1,000 branches and 1,800-plus ATMs across the country.

On Thursday, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the bank was on watch since 2017 and developments relating to it were monitored on a day-to-day basis.

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