Following are the latest developments from Indian on Wednesday, November 11
India's Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has issued a clarification on data gap concerns in New Delhi after pollution monitoring in the capital came under scrutiny on Diwali night with official data showing a much lower Air Quality Index (AQI) than private platforms and reports saying that several of the city's monitoring stations went blank.
Celebrations during the Hindu festival of Diwali on Sunday blanketed New Delhi and other surrounding areas in a dense and toxic smog as revelers defied a firecracker ban, adding to the region's seasonal pollution woes.
As smoke and particulate matter from the fireworks kept being released into Delhi's air, an alarmingly wide difference was seen in air pollution figures between official government data and the numbers on private websites and applications.
The CPCB's app showed the AQI at 400 on Diwali night while numbers on private platforms breached the 2,000 mark.
The difference in AQI values was "attributable to differences in measurement of pollutant concentration and in methodology, and not to underreporting," the CPCB said in a statement on X, published Tuesday night.
The anti-pollution watchdog further added that analyzers under its National Air Quality Index (NAQI) reporting methodology, introduced in 2015, were calibrated to measure particulate matter levels of only up to 1,000…
