India Gate Disappears Behind Haze as Delhi AQI Deteriorates

Delhi’s iconic India Gate almost vanished behind a thick haze, as the city’s air quality slipped back into the ‘Poor’ category with an AQI of 295, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

For the past few days, Delhi’s air has been playing a rollercoaster game, one day up, the next day down. On Wednesday, the AQI was at 279 (‘Poor’), shot up to 373 (‘Very Poor’) on Thursday, eased a bit to 218 on Friday and then once again crossed the ‘Very Poor’ mark on Saturday, recording 303. This back-and-forth pattern marks one of the most unstable air quality phases of the pre-winter season.

The latest spike seems to have a familiar culprit, stubble burning in Punjab. The state reported 442 farm fires on Saturday, the highest single-day figure so far this season and the biggest count by any state since mid-September, as per the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI).