Environment minister has said the country’s toxic air is no cause for alarm, claiming only “routine precautions” were needed to cope with what doctors have called a public health emergency. Harsh Vardhan contrasted the pollution choking large swathes of north India, including the capital, with the 1984 gas leak in Bhopal that killed at least 25,000 people and remains the world’s worst industrial disaster. Political leaders have been criticised for failing to do more to tackle rising pollution levels, which experts say are wiping years off the lives of its citizens. Delhi is now the world’s most polluted capital according to the WHO, with pollution levels that regularly exceed those of Beijing. But campaigners say long-term measures are needed to tackle the crisis.

Source: Hindustan Times November 14, 2017 11:37 UTC