Multi-column headlines of many widely circulated dailies may or may not have choked the readers, taking in their strides reports of the country’s economic slowdown, abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution, action by the sleuths of the Central Government’s ED (Enforcement Directorate) questioning political heavy-weights, nature’s fury causing unprecedented disaster affecting people in unmanageable numbers, criminal acts victimising lay people, even committing murders for trivial reasons, unending verbal spats among the politicos in many States creating conditions not suitable to carry on stable administration, such as in Karnataka and Maharashtra, but the National Capital Region is currently witnessing choking in a more serious sense of the term. Headlines reading “Indian lungs under extreme stress” and “High demand for air purifiers in the capital,” may set the people of other regions in general and their counterparts in Mysuru and surroundings wondering about the exact import of the media reports. Steep decline in the quality of ambient air, a gift of nature taken for granted, and soaring prices of food articles provide the greatest contrast between two phenomena.
Talking of air pollution, alongside pollution of water bodies, notably lifeline-rivers and even lakes that sustain water table, due to unchecked letting of effluents from industries manufacturing toxic chemicals and emission by motorised vehicles witnessing never-before density in urban spaces has turned a joke, but the current scenario in the nation’s capital is a cruel joke.
