SC pulls up Centre, Delhi on pollution

A girl wears a face mask to protect from air pollution, in New Delhi. Photograph: ANI Photo

New Delhi, November 4 (PTI): A bench of justices Arun Mishra and Deepak Gupta asked the Centre to call environmental experts, including from IIT, to the court within 30 minutes.

"Can we survive in this atmosphere? This is not the way we can survive," the bench said adding that the authorities have left the people to die.

The court said it will not tolerate this and will fix liability on the state governments.

"Delhi is choking every year and we are not able to do anything. Question is that every year this is happening," the bench said, adding, "It cannot be done in a civilised country".

It also took serious note of crop burning in Punjab, Haryana and Western Uttar Pradesh and said it cannot go unabated every year.

"Why there should be unabated crop burning every year? Every year there is hue and cry. States know this but still they are not tackling this issue," the bench said.

Senior advocate Aparajita Singh, assisting the apex court as an amicus curiae in the air pollution matter, told the bench that as per the Centre's affidavit, crop burning has gone up by 7 per cent in Punjab and down by 17 per cent in Haryana.

The top court called the pollution in Delhi-NCR as atrocious and said no one is safe even inside homes.

"It is too much. No one is safe even inside their house. It is atrocious," the bench said.

People are being advised not to come to Delhi due to pollution, state governments are responsible for this.

"You are asking people to die. Your states (Punjab and Haryana) are also badly affected. Is this the administration left in Punjab and Haryana? Every year this is happening. We will fasten the liability of states and panchayats also," the bench said.

41% Delhiites suffer from cancer-causing metal toxicity

New Delhi, Nov 4 (IANS) If you live in Delhi-NCR, there's more bad news in store for you. A whopping 41 per cent of the Delhi and NCR population are found to be suffering from severe heavy metal toxicity, according to a survey conducted by Daivam Wellness.

The shocking findings suggest extremely high levels of air and soil pollution, food contamination, plastic usage etc in the region.

Out of 165 patients, 68 patients were found positive for some kind of severe metal toxicity. Metals like aluminium, mercury, lead, arsenic, and cadmium were the most commonly found metals in these patients.

Before you wonder, apocalyptic pollution is seen as the major reason for increasing metal toxicity in human body. The reason these findings are more than a cause for worry is because they can easily stimulate multiple organ damage and lead to serious health issues.

The survey that was done over a period of 6 months, from May 2019 to October 2019 covering people from age group of 20 to 65 years, has now sparked off a scare.

Health horrors like cancer too can result from this. It may even result in congenital defects and adverse pregnancies. Such high levels of metals in the human body can also lead to chronic kidney diseases, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, cardiac diseases, infertility and epilepsy.

Dr Alok Chopra, Medical Director, Daivam Wellness said, "Along with contaminated food, medicines, plastic ware, high level of environmental pollution - especially air, soil and water, has increased the exposure of heavy metals. While even before running the tests, we knew that people living in Delhi-NCR, one of the most polluted areas of the world, will have some metal toxicity, but the final result surprised us. 41 per cent is a way too high figure and certainly calls for emergency measures."

Amid this toxic health hazard, children are the most vulnerable lot. Experts say, their exposure to even low concentrations during intrauterine and early childhood can result in lifelong physical disabilities.

According to the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, contaminated water, air and soil are responsible for about nine million early deaths, which is about 16 per cent of global deaths. What's more? About 92 per cent of these early deaths due to environmental toxicity occur in low and middle-income countries which includes India.

Dr Chopra urged that if someone is having symptoms like muscle or joint pain, headache, mood swings, persistent tiredness, constipation, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, poor immunity, unexplained hair loss and skin problems, frequent deep seated allergies or illness is worsening without any reason then he or she should consider a metal toxicity scan.

"To detect metal toxicity, we use OLIGOSCAN, a device that gives the real-time percentage of metals like Mercury, Magnesium, Iron, Aluminium, Lead and other minerals that are present in the body such as Calcium, Magnesium and Zinc," he said.

Once it's established you are toxic infested, ultra modern technologies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) can be used to treat the patient.

The group warned the toxic exposure is only set to rise in Delhi-NCR in the coming days. Brace up, you are living in an apocalyptic world.