The air quality in the city deteriorated slightly in the past 24 hours, but remained in the “very poor” category on Friday with an overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of 339. On Thursday, AQI was 314. Agencies have forecast it to touch the higher end of the “very poor” category on Diwali day, even if no firecrackers are burst.
In what could be considered a Diwali gift for the homeless and slum dwellers, Delhi government on Friday announced that it would construct 89,400 flats before 2025 for the economically weaker sections of society.
Attributing the recent surge in Covid-19 cases to pollution, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said that Delhi government would be taking multiple interventions next week to check the spread of the viral disease. While testing and contact tracing had been intensified for early detection of infected individuals, the government was also closely monitoring the management of patients in hospitals.
The sharp increase in recorded instances of farm fires around Delhi-NCR this year has corresponded with the first half of November, which is seeing the highest number of ‘severe’ AQI days (five) in the past five years.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has appealed to Delhiites to join him virtually in worshipping Goddess Laxmi on Saturday evening.
The Narcotics Control Bureau on Friday arrested an Australian architect, Paul Bartel, on charges of procurement and consumption of contraband. While officials did not find any contraband in Bartel's Santacruz flat, they claimed to have come across his WhatsApp chats allegedly discussing drugs.
While Mumbaikars lit up their homes and prepared for the Diwali weekend, thousands of healthcare workers gave travelling to their hometowns a miss and chose to tend to Covid patients instead. Many decided against even meeting their near and dear ones despite being in the same city for fear of passing on the infection.
The railways on Friday gave its approval for teaching and non-teaching staff of schools to travel on suburban local trains with immediate effect.
Faced with a severe shortage of hospital beds as the city bears the brunt of a third Covid-19 wave, the AAP government got a breather from the Delhi high court on Thursday after being allowed to temporarily reserve 80% of ICU beds for coronavirus patients in 33 private hospitals.
The strained relationship of Delhi University students with their online open-book examinations hasn’t ended.
East Delhi MP Gautam Gambhir on Thursday inaugurated Delhi's second anti-smog tower at the Gandhi Nagar market to help improve air quality in the area.
The Covid-19 pandemic could have a severe and adverse impact on blood sugar levels among diabetes patients across the country, said doctors ahead of the World Diabetes Day on November 14.
(This story originally appeared in MumbaiMirror on November 12, 2020)
Delhi on Wednesday recorded the highest single-day tally of 8,593 new Covid-19 cases and the health department confirmed 85 deaths in the last 24 hours.
Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has requested Union health minister Harsh Vardhan to augment Covid-19 bed capacity in central government-run hospitals in the capital in view of the surge in cases and apprehensions that the number of Covid cases may reach 15,000 a day in the coming weeks.
Raising an alarm over the desealing drives and a “free for all” atmosphere for violations related to building laws and regulations, the three-member monitoring committee, which was constituted by Supreme Court in 2006 to check illegal constructions and misuse in the city, has submitted a report stating that all their work over the past 14 years was being undone.
After six consecutive “severe” days, Delhi’s air quality improved on Wednesday, entering the “very poor” category. The overall air quality index (AQI) was 344 against 476 on Tuesday, according to Central Pollution Control Bureau .
Hours after deciding to go for emergency measures under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) to bring down levels of air pollution, the Commission on Air Quality Management on Wednesday scaled down its operational move after slight improvement in air quality and asked pollution control boards of NCR to rather ensure implementation of usual mitigation actions. These include control of road and construction dust, stopping stubble and biomass burning and compliance of NGT order on ban on sale and use of firecrackers.
