Skip to main content

Notify plan for ‘health emergency’ in Delhi-NCR: SC(thehindu)



The Supreme Court on Friday ordered the government to urgently notify a graded response action plan to combat a new and heightened level of air pollution called ‘health emergency’ in Delhi and the National Capital Region.

This almost-lethal level of pollution is reached when the air quality worsens beyond the ‘severe’ category. As of now, air pollution is graded from ‘moderate to poor’, ‘very poor’, and lastly, ‘severe’.

A ‘health emergency’ will be declared if the air quality worsens five times the standard. This would invite blanket ban on constructions, entry of trucks and imposition of odd-even scheme in Delhi-NCR.

The new plan was framed after the Supreme Court raised questions about the authorities’ preparedness to combat levels of air pollution when “the entire city will be shut down and human lives are threatened”. A Bench led by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur had on November 9 pointed to how Beijing and Singapore were shut down due to air pollution reaching life-threatening proportions.

The Supreme Court-approved plan, drafted by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in consultation with noted environmentalist Sunita Narain, is designed to give real-time information on air quality grade to prevent mass health distress and diseases.

With the CPCB forecasting that the coming winter months would witness “severe and very poor air quality” for Delhi, the response plan, if notified immediately, would play the role of a life-saver.

“Analysis of past air quality trend show that severe and very poor air quality is anticipated throughout the winter from November to February and largely poor category during the summer months of March to May,” a note on the response plan submitted in the apex court said.

The plan urges to kick-start necessary preparations so that the response plan is in place at least four weeks in advance of the “anticipated critical pollution days” ahead.

While the worst category according to air quality index is ‘severe’ at 250 microgram per cubic metre at PM2.5 and 401 microgram per cubic metre at PM10, the “health emergency” grade demands more stringent action.

“The threshold for this category (health emergency) will be 300 microgram per cubic metre for PM2.5 and 500 microgram per cubic metre for PM10, which are five times the standard,” the note said.aaaaaa
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NGT terminates chairmen of pollution control boards in 10 states (downtoearth,)

Cracking the whip on 10 State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) for ad-hoc appointments, the National Green Tribunal has ordered the termination of Chairpersons of these regulatory authorities. The concerned states are Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Kerala, Rajasthan, Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Manipur. The order was given last week by the principal bench of the NGT, chaired by Justice Swatanter Kumar. The recent order of June 8, 2017, comes as a follow-up to an NGT judgment given in August 2016. In that judgment, the NGT had issued directions on appointments of Chairmen and Member Secretaries of the SPCBs, emphasising on crucial roles they have in pollution control and abatement. It then specified required qualifications as well as tenure of the authorities. States were required to act on the orders within three months and frame Rules for appointment [See Box: Highlights of the NGT judgment of 2016 on criteria for SPCB chairperson appointment]. Having ...
Post a Comment
Click Here To Read more »

High dose of Vitamin C and B3 can kill colon cancer cells: study (downtoearth)

In a first, a team of researchers has found that high doses of Vitamin C and niacin or Vitamin B3 can kill cancer stem cells. A study published in Cell Biology International showed the opposing effects of low and high dose of vitamin C and vitamin B3 on colon cancer stem cells. Led by Bipasha Bose and Sudheer Shenoy, the team found that while low doses (5-25 micromolar) of Vitamin C and B3 proliferate colon cancer stem cells, high doses (100 to 1,000 micromolar) killed cancer stem cells. Such high doses of vitamins can only be achieved through intravenous injections in colon cancer patients. The third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, colon cancer can be prevented by an intake of dietary fibre and lifestyle changes. While the next step of the researchers is to delineate the mechanisms involved in such opposing effects, they also hope to establish a therapeutic dose of Vitamin C and B3 for colon cancer stem cell therapy. “If the therapeutic dose gets validated under in vivo...
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »

SC asks Centre to strike a balance on Rohingya issue (.hindu)

Supreme Court orally indicates that the government should not deport Rohingya “now” as the Centre prevails over it to not record any such views in its formal order, citing “international ramifications”. The Supreme Court on Friday came close to ordering the government not to deport the Rohingya. It finally settled on merely observing that a balance should be struck between humanitarian concern for the community and the country's national security and economic interests. The court was hearing a bunch of petitions, one filed by persons within the Rohingya community, against a proposed move to deport over 40,000 Rohingya refugees. A three-judge Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, began by orally indicating that the government should not deport Rohingya “now”, but the government prevailed on the court to not pass any formal order, citing “international ramifications”. With this, the status quo continues even though the court gave the community liberty to approach i...
1 comment
Click Here To Read more »