Copyright Newsweek
Indians celebrated their festival of lights with the flash and din of fireworks, casting a pall of murky pollution over the capital, New Delhi, despite a court order aimed at limiting the festivities to more environmentally friendly “green crackers.” Why It Matters New Delhi is one of the world’s most polluted cities, and the celebrations for the festival of Diwali herald its worst months as cooler air laden with smog is trapped over the city, reducing visibility and raising serious health risks for the more than 30 million people who live in the capital and its metropolitan region. What To Know The Hindu festival of Diwali marks the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil, and it is celebrated with candles and fireworks. City authorities have tried to ban firecrackers for Diwali in recent years, but they have struggled, largely in vain, to enforce the curbs as some Hindu groups argue that the bans spoil the celebration. This year, the Supreme Court relaxed the ban on firecrackers in the city, allowing the use of so-called green crackers, which are meant to blow up with less pollutants, for up to three hours on Sunday and Monday. Authorities said only the green crackers could be sold, and a system of QR codes was meant to ensure compliance. But the restriction appeared to do little to keep the pollution at bay. On Tuesday, the day after a night of Diwali celebrations, New Delhi woke up to a shroud of smog. The Air Quality Index of 347 on Tuesday morning compared with 359 at the same time last year, NDTV reported, citing the System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research. “A thick gray haze engulfed Delhi this morning as air quality plummeted into the ‘very poor’ and ‘severe’ zones, following widespread bursting of firecrackers beyond the Supreme Court’s two-hour limit,” Indian newspaper The Pioneer wrote on X. What People are Saying The Pioneer reported: “The green cracker policy, meant to strike a balance between celebration and clean air, has been reduced to a hollow slogan. In the end, Delhi’s markets tell the real story, no QR codes, no awareness, no enforcement. Only the same banned crackers wrapped in new labels. The ‘green’ in this year’s Diwali is only on paper.” Vedant Pachkande, a tourist visiting New Delhi, told the Associated Press: “I have never seen anything like this before. We can’t see anything here because of pollution.” What Happens Next The pollution in New Delhi is likely to get worse in coming weeks as farmers in breadbasket states around the capital burn off crop stubble in preparation for a new planting, and the “weather inversion” sets in when a layer of warm air traps cooler, polluted air over the ground.
