Fog has always been part of winters in Delhi and surrounding areas. Even 40 years ago, one can recall driving through fog was tough task and planes used to be diverted on failing to land. But office and schools used to be open. It was much later somewhere in 2017 that people started calling it 'smog' because instruments to measure pollutants in same suspended 'fog' particles had arrived and installed and started giving some numbers we call AQI. Smart watched and phones too showed out these numbers adding to our concern or rather panic. Life changed, masks arrived, schools closed and traffic evened on odds !!! Were there those same farmers burning paralii half century ago also? Or, were there those thousands of factories surrounding NCR spewing pollution into the air unchecked as can even be seen today. Go out and drive through radial highways from Delhi in early hours couple of hundred miles after midnight and watch chimneys making clouds. Farmers and car owners come last in this blame game actually.
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