The Canadian Parvasi - Issue 20

The International News Weekly India
November 10, 2017 | Toronto 14
Record 74 percent voter turnout
in in Himachal assembly polls
Agencies
SHIMLA: A record over
74 per cent, highest in
four decades, of Himachal
Pradesh's 50.25 lakh electorate
on Thursday exercised
their franchise in the
assembly elections where
the ruling Congress and
the BJP were locked in a
straight contest.
"The percentage is expected
to go up further. This
is the highest poll percentage
recorded by the hill
state in assembly polls,"
Dilip Sharma, Director General,
Election Commission,
told reporters in New Delhi.
Election officials said
the polling was peaceful and
no major untoward incident
was reported from the 68
seats.
However, there were reports
of malfunctioning of
EVMs and Voter Verifiable
Paper Audit Trail machines
at a few polling booths,
which led voting continuing
at these booths even after
the polls officially closed
at 5 p.m.
"Despite minor hiccups
as EVMs developed snags
at some places, there was
no report of any delay in
starting the poll process,"
an electoral officer told
IANS.
A total of 337 candidates,
19 of them women,
are in the fray. There are
112 Independent candidates.
The main contest is
between the ruling Congress
and the Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP).
The Congress has projected
incumbent Virbhadra
Singh, 83, as its Chief
Ministerial candidate,
while former Chief Minister
Prem Kumar Dhumal,
73, is the BJP's. Both are
contesting the elections.
Both Singh and Dhumal
cast their votes along with
family members at their
hometowns Rampur and
Samirpur respectively. After
casting his votes, Chief
Minister Virbhadra Singh,
who is try to get at the helm
for the seventh time, said
he was confident of the
Congress getting a majority.
On the other hand,
two-time Chief Minister
and Leader of Opposition
Dhumal said the BJP was
aiming to get 60 plus seats
this time.
Punjab CM writes
another letter to
Modi on smog crisis
Indo-Asian News Service
CHANDIGARH: Punjab
Chief Minister Amarinder
Singh on Thursday wrote to
Prime Minister Narendra
Modi seeking compensation
for farmers for crop residue
management to check the
dangerous trend of stubble
burning, which has triggered
a major smog crisis in the
northern belt of the country.
Amarinder Singh
also requested the Prime
Minister to convene a
meeting of Chief Ministers
of the affected states along
with the Union Ministers
for Agriculture, Food and
Environment on the issue.
Reiterating his request,
earlier raised in a letter on
July 5 this year, the Chief
Minister sought the Prime
Minister's intervention for
arresting the problem of
paddy straw burning by
providing a bonus of Rs 100
per quintal as incentive to
compensate the farmers to
manage the crop residue
scientifically.
He pointed out that most
of north India, including
New Delhi, is currently in
the throes of a pollution
crisis, induced largely by
burning of paddy straw in
the paddy-growing areas
of Punjab, Haryana and
Uttar Pradesh. "The higher
courts of the country
and the National Green
Tribunal have also taken
cognizance of the matter.
"However, what is probably
not being understood in
proper perspective is that a
problem which is essentially
scientific and economic
cannot be tackled through
other means, including
coercion," said the Chief
Minister.
"Scientific management
and disposal of paddy straw
entails significant cost for
the farmer and he naturally
prefers the cheaper and easy
solution of burning the crop
residue," he pointed out,
adding that at present there
are no technical or biological
systems for managing
this farm operation that is
economically attractive to
the farmer.
India battles smog by odd-even traffic plan
Continued from page 01
which was also the case with
Safdarjung Hospital across the road.
The NGT (National Green Tribunal)
asked the pollution control boards of
NCR to ban all industrial and construction
activities in the region till November
14 and directed the Delhi government
to sprinkle water on the hot spots
using helicopters. It also banned entry
of trucks carrying construction material
into the NCR. Delhi Chief Minister
Arvind Kejriwal, who inaugurated 20
Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring
Stations here, blamed stubble
burning for the "severe" air quality and
said the neighbouring states of Haryana
and Punjab should come together
with Delhi to find a solution.
The 'emergency' under Graded Response
Action Plan (GRAP) came into
force in Delhi-NCR on Thursday with
weather officials saying that change in
wind direction is set to further worsen
the air quality of Delhi on Friday.
The announcement of the third
phase of odd-even rationing traffic plan
from November 13 to 17 was made by
Delhi's Transport Minister Kailash
Gahlot at a press conference here.
He said the modalities of the scheme,
under which private four-wheeled vehicles
with odd registration numbers
were allowed to run on odd dates and
those with even numbers on even dates
from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., would be the same
as the previous phases.
The first phase of the odd-even rule
was implemented by the Delhi government
from January 1 to 15 and the second
phase was from April 15-April 30
last year.But members of the Supreme
Court-appointed Environment Pollution
Prevention and Control Authority
(EPCA) said that November 13 "is too
late" as the "emergency or severe-plus"
category under GRAP calls for immediate
implementation of the odd-even traffic
rationing move.
The "emergency or severe-plus" situation
arises after the major pollutants
-- PM2.5 and PM10, or particles in air
with diameter less than 2.5 and 10mm,
remain above 300 and 500 units respectively
for at least 48 hours.
The Central Pollution Control
Board (CPCB) on Thursday informed
that both PM2.5 and 10 had been beyond
the "required limit" since past 52
hours. On Thursday (since Wednesday
evening), all ten monitoring stations
of centre's System of Air Quality and
Weather Forecasting And Research
(Safar) recorded "beyond severe" or 500
plus units of PM10 and PM2.5.
According to Safar, the average
PM2.5 was 546 units and PM10 was
895. According to CPCB, at 5pm, average
PM2.5 in Delhi NCR was 478 units,
across 20 active stations (including Alwar
in Rajasthan), with an average Air
Quality Index (AQI) placed 478 (on a
scale of 0 to 500).
The safe limit for PM2.5 and PM10
as per international standards is 25 and
60 microgrammes per cubic meters,
while as per national standards it is 40
and 100 units respectively.
India Meteorological Department
(IMD) has predicted that some relief
will be visible from Sunday due to rise
in wind speed and rains likely on November
14 in the neighbouring states
would bring major relief by dispersing
the pollutants.
Kejriwal said the one month period
from the mid-October to mid-November,
when farmers burn the stubble,
"the whole of north India and not just
Delhi turns into a gas chamber".
He said that in September this year,
the PM10 was recorded at 300 units and
PM2.5 was 160 and the rise had not happened
due to the local problems.
"All of us (North Indian states) will
have to keep politics aside and work
together to tackle this huge problem of
pollution," he said.
He said that farmers should be provided
with an economically viable alternative
to stubble burning.
The Delhi High Court on Thursday
issued a slew of directions to control
pollution in Delhi-NCR and banned felling
of trees, ordered sprinkling of water
on roads to control dust and strict enforcement
of construction code.
The court questioned the move to
increase parking rates by four times.
In the wake of incessant air pollution
and smog, some schools in Delhi
shifted their winter opening and closing
timings by an hour.
Environment Minister Harshvardhan
said in a tweet that crop burning
increased this year "due to lack of advanced
planning." He also said that air
quality will improve in the next few
days.