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Reporting on India’s air, pollution policy, and the science of cleaner breathing from the last 30 days, newest first. Earlier coverage is kept in the news archive.
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Lahore topped global air-quality rankings on 26 September with an overall AQI of 204, Daily Pakistan reported, with Paragon City recording the highest neighbourhood reading at 271 and Barki Road at 227. The outlet said experts advised residents to take precautionary measures as pollution climbed amid calm winds and high humidity.
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ThePrint reported that a strengthening El Niño is expected to reduce winter rainfall over Delhi-NCR by weakening the western disturbances that normally help clear pollutants, citing Skymet Weather's Mahesh Palawat and IMD data pointing to only three to four western disturbances in December-January. Punjab's farm fires fell 53% in 2025 versus 2024, but the Supreme Court has flagged continuing enforcement gaps in Punjab and Haryana.
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Malaysia's Natural Resources and Environmental Sustainability Ministry is studying Singapore's Transboundary Haze Pollution Act as a model for a dedicated law to penalise firms behind cross-border haze, undersecretary Dr G. Pubadi told The Star. A multi-ministry committee has been formed, and the proposal, backed by Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore and Thailand, will go before an 11-country ASEAN meeting in Vietnam in December.
Read moreSingapore's National Environment Agency reported a 24-hour PSI of 61-79 (Moderate range) as of 6pm, with moderate to dense smoke plumes from ongoing fires in Kalimantan and southern Sumatra amid dry conditions. NEA forecast showers over Singapore and the surrounding region that could ease the smoke haze risk into September 26.
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A study in Nature Cities led by Oxford-affiliated researcher Basudev Swain found that while India's shift to cleaner cooking fuel cut household air-pollution deaths from about 1.2 million a year around 2010 to roughly 1 million by 2023, deaths linked to coal-fired power-plant emissions rose from about 15,000 in 2000 to nearly 300,000 in 2020, per Medical Xpress. Researchers attributed the rise to coal supplying about 76% of India's electricity generation in 2020.
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Haryana Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi unveiled a plan to set up a district- and block-level 'Parali Protection Force' of police, agriculture and administrative officials, alongside drone surveillance with DRIISHYA under CAQM directions, The Tribune reported. Verified stubble-burning cases will trigger an FIR, challan and land-record 'red entry', while farmers adopting crop-residue management get a Rs 1,200-per-acre incentive.
Read moreA Bombay High Court division bench of Justices G.S. Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale banned bursting firecrackers on public streets, roads and similar areas across Maharashtra cities including Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik, also barring laser and high-intensity lights during festivities, ThePrint reported. The order, in a suo motu case on festival noise and pollution, cited weak enforcement of existing rules and set a compliance review for October 15.
Read moreIndonesia's health ministry recorded 174,694 acute respiratory infection cases, including more than 40,000 among toddlers, across seven haze-affected provinces between August and September 21, health ministry official Then Suyanti said, The Jakarta Post reported. The tally is up sharply from over 113,000 cases reported as of September 9, as wildfire haze continues to blanket parts of Borneo, Sumatra and Papua.
Read moreThe Southwest Monsoon withdrew from Delhi on September 23, ending an 83-day spell (July 2 to September 23) that was the capital's shortest since an 80-day spell in 2012, ThePrint reported. Delhi still received 728.6mm of rain, 16% above normal, but the early withdrawal ushers in drier conditions after AQI had already climbed from 118 to 178 over the preceding week.
Read moreThickening wildfire haze forced the evacuation of 167 patients to another wing of Sambang Lihum Psychiatric Hospital in Banjar regency, South Kalimantan, after about two hectares of the facility's forest burned, The Jakarta Post reported. Hospital director Yuddy Riswandhy Noora said medical operations continued despite patient complaints about smoke, with a nearby social rehabilitation centre on standby if conditions worsen further.
Read moreSerian recorded Malaysia's Air Pollutant Index at 201, in the 'very unhealthy' band, on September 23, while Kuching stood at 185 and readings across Sarawak's monitoring stations ranged from 121 to 201, Free Malaysia Today reported citing the Department of Environment. The outlet said the whole of Sarawak was battling haze from land and forest fires burning in Indonesia.
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Delhi's Transport Department plans to add 150 electric buses next month, expanding its fleet to 5,238 across 40 depots, already India's largest public electric bus fleet, Swarajya reported. Transport Minister Pankaj Kumar Singh reviewed progress on September 21, with charging infrastructure being built at additional depots under the National Electric Bus Programme and PM E-Drive scheme.
Read moreThe National Green Tribunal directed the Delhi Pollution Control Committee to file a more detailed report within four weeks on Environmental Damage Compensation recovery from seven industrial units found operating without mandatory pollution consents or control devices, The Tribune reported. The tribunal called the DPCC's earlier status report insufficiently detailed and listed the matter for further review on December 7, ahead of winter.
Read moreMore than 200 experts from over 40 countries, including India's Dr Ranga Reddy Burri of the Infection Control Academy of India, launched a Global Framework for Action on healthy indoor air during Climate Week in New York, Deccan Chronicle reported. The framework sets out nine action areas and about 180 voluntary recommendations, citing household air pollution's link to more than three million deaths a year.
Read moreHearing suo motu proceedings on festival noise and air pollution, the Bombay High Court directed Maharashtra authorities to enforce a complete ban on bursting firecrackers on public roads and to strictly police decibel limits of 55dB in residential and 65dB in commercial areas, the Free Press Journal reported. A bench of Justices Girish Kulkarni and Neela Gokhale cited readings of 90-100 decibels during processions and said festivities cannot be a 'free-for-all.'
Read moreResearchers from IIT Bombay and European universities produced the first nationwide multi-year maps of India's brick kilns using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and deep learning, published in the International Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation, The Tribune reported. The study estimates India has over a million kilns, responsible for roughly 15% of the country's particulate emissions and 6% of its CO2 emissions, with about 60% concentrated in the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
Read moreDelhi's AQI rose to 169 on Monday, the upper end of CPCB's 'moderate' band, extending a four-day climb from 88 on Friday to 118, 160 and 169, with PM2.5 and ozone the dominant pollutants, Dynamite News reported. The IMD said conditions were turning favourable for the southwest monsoon's withdrawal from Delhi within two to three days, after which no significant rain is forecast for the week.
Read morePunjab AAP leader Baltej Pannu criticised the Centre's proposed 2026 stubble-burning rules, which would impose environmental compensation of Rs 5,000-30,000 based on landholding size and a 15-month "red entry" against farmland records, calling the approach punitive rather than supportive, PTI reported. Pannu cited a 53% year-on-year drop in Punjab farm fires in 2025 and urged the Centre to also address stubble burning in other states.
Read moreThe New Delhi Municipal Council approved a 50% concession on parking charges for electric vehicles at all its parking facilities and adopted new solid-waste-management bylaws setting monthly user charges and fines for waste generators, ThePrint (PTI) reported, as part of a push framed by officials as building a cleaner capital.
Read moreIndonesia has deployed 64 aircraft and roughly 54,000 personnel since last month to fight forest and peatland fires on Borneo and Sumatra, but the blazes remain hard to contain, Cabinet Secretary Teddy Indra Wijaya said, according to AFP. The resulting haze has affected Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore for weeks, with Kuala Lumpur's Air Pollutant Index at 156 and Kuching's at 157, both in unhealthy territory.
Read moreDelhi's Environment Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa has directed district administrations to map pollution hotspots and audit emission sources within a 3-km radius of each location ahead of winter, The Tribune reported. Officials were told to use air-quality monitoring data to assign hotspot-specific responsibility for road dust, construction debris, unauthorised parking and biomass burning, and to complete pending road repairs and dust-suppression work by October 31.
Read moreDelhi's average AQI rose to 160 on Sunday, its highest in 62 days, and climbed further to 165 by 10pm, according to CPCB data cited by IANS. Six of the city's 45 monitoring stations recorded 'poor' air quality, including IGI Airport (264) and Chandni Chowk (227), with IMD forecasting no rain through the week as the monsoon withdraws.
Read moreSingapore's 24-hour PSI crossed into unhealthy territory in the eastern and western regions overnight, joining the central region which had been unhealthy since Saturday afternoon, AsiaOne reported citing NEA data. NEA attributed the smoke to fires in Kalimantan and southern Sumatra and forecast PSI to stay in the high-moderate to mid-unhealthy range.
Read moreLahore topped IQAir's global ranking of most polluted cities on Saturday with an AQI of 181, ahead of Singapore (177), Kuching (171) and Kolkata (168), Daily Pakistan reported. Within Lahore, Model Town recorded the highest reading at 211, while Burki Road and Bedian Road measured 162 and 160 respectively.
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