ONLY RESTRAINT, AWARENESS CAN CURB DIWALI POLLUTION

THE National Capital Region (NCR) wakes up today on the Diwali morning with crossed fingers. The average air quality index across the region has already touched 350 mark (at places it's approaching 400), entering into very poor and very poor zones.

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Now one would be waiting with bated (choked) breath to watch how much this graph soars when the green crackers go bursting with permission from no less than the Supreme Court of India.

Not that crackers were not burst in the city when the Supreme Court had imposed a complete ban in the past years. This year it would at least save itself the ignominy of seeing it's ban flouted across the region thanks to a callous network of licensing and prosecuting authorities with the greedy cracker sellers. The crackers are sold because there exists a market of those who would care a damn either for the health of their or the community lungs.

What has added cauldron this year is the existence of a BJP government in the national Capital. The ideological foundations of this government has compelled it to demand lifting of the ban. As opposition last year they had opposed the ban calling it encroachment of the religious rights of the people to celebrate Diwali.

It's so ironical that a government which on the one hand is rolling out plans to fight air pollution including the ambitious cloud seeding, is on the other pushing for lifting ban on the crackers.