00:00Now joining me now is the Dr. Sanjeev Bagai. He is a chairman at Nefron Clinics. Also with us is
00:06Chandra Bhushan, CEO, International Forum for Environment, Sustainability and Technology,
00:11iForest as it's called. Dr. Bagai, the first question really is to you. I don't know about
00:16your weekend, but the weekend that just went by got so many people sick, so many people run to
00:24the hospital. And what I am hearing at least is that the numbers when they crossed 1000,
00:30that's when you immediately saw an impact of emergency rooms. You immediately saw patients
00:36sort of trickling in. What was your experience? Good evening. I think this is a healthcare emergency
00:44in the national capital. There is no question about it. We have framed our rules of putting
00:50the Grap measures in different grades to suit our convenience. The international AQI, which
00:57is recommended by WHO is 15 and below. India has accepted 50. Okay, that's fine. But according to
01:03me, health hazards kick in anything more than 100 to 200. If you're going to wait for 400 to 500 to
01:09kick in and then bring in the measures, it's too little too late. Let me explain this in layman terms.
01:15This AQI is a reflection of various components of the air pollution, which is mainly PM2,
01:20PM5. But not to forget micro-nanoparticles of plastic, hydrofluorocarbons, volatile organic
01:27compounds, toxic gases like methane and so on, including ozone. These are filtered down in
01:33ultra-fine particles. They break through your lung barrier and enter the bloodstream and go to
01:38every body organ. There is almost an 80 to 100% increase in lung cancers, brain cancers, kidney cancers,
01:46liver cancers and so on in the last 10 years to 15 years. We've seen acute respiratory problems,
01:51including bronchitis, pneumonias. Children are more affected, especially because they breathe twice as
01:56fast as adults. That means they take in twice the volume of the pollutants. Apart from that, we must
02:03understand that 20% underestimation of the AQI is an accepted norm because the PM2.5 aggregate as larger
02:13or larger particles is called as an aggregating factor. So the real, if it is 500, the real is
02:19more than 6, 650. Also, the heavy metals are never being spoken about. The heavy metals, what they do is
02:26they catalyze the micro-nanoparticles of plastic, make them into super ions and these damage the body
02:33even more. So we need to look at this in a more holistic manner. I have recommended this for a very long
02:39time as a simple tax-paying citizen that we need a separate ministry of clean air. This is our
02:46fundamental right. If we want to reach the dream of being Viksit Bharat and a really strong nation
02:52by 2047 or earlier, we cannot achieve this if we are an unhealthy nation. Make no mistake about it.
02:59This is damaging the pregnancies, damaging the fetus, congenital birth defects, including absent limbs,
03:06cleft palate, congenital hearts, absent kidneys. It damages your DNA. That means your next generation
03:14is going to be born with more amount of chromosomal defects. This is all published data. There is some
03:20whispering in some corridors that all this is not correlated with Indian study. So just in 60 seconds,
03:27let me pan it out. I'm sorry for my cough. This is a gift from the air. That there is more than 7,000
03:35articles which have been published internationally out of which more than 250 are only India-based.
03:41Lancet July 24, Lancet Jan 21, Lancet December 22, Lancet December 22, Lancet July 22, BMJ, British Medical
03:51Journal Journal in November 23, New England Journal of Medicine, 1122. These are all published on
03:59India meta-analysis of 10 cities, 21 cities. Some are only based on Delhi. The fact is even a 10
04:07microgram increase in AQI of BM 2.5 gives you a 200% increased risk of either having a heart attack or a
04:15stroke, obesity, diabetes mellitus, metabolic disturbances. One notch higher of 22 AQI increase
04:24is equivalent to smoking one cigarette for a never smoker. That means with this AQI on a daily basis,
04:31people who never touched a cigarette are smoking up to 25 to 30 cigarettes a day. So in my language,
04:38it's called as welcome to the Marlborough country. Dr. Bagai, I hear you. I hear the cough,
04:45the pollution cough in your voice. I hear your frustration. I hear your almost breathless list
04:50of things that is going to happen to us and the generations that follow. But somehow,
04:56the politicians are not hearing you. Somehow, our ministers don't care enough about AQI. Somehow,
05:05they are in perhaps in, you know, filtered air and that's why it's not impacting them. And for some
05:11reason, this is just not knocking the right doors, which is really, really sad. But let me bring in
05:16Chaddar Bhushan at this point. Mr. Bhushan, the last weekend is where a lot of people who were saying,
05:26a lot of people who in India have now discounted air pollution as just another inconvenience
05:30that you live with, right? Like, like you live with bad traffic or you live with like bad water
05:36and you have to purify it at your own house. You just live with bad air like that's what a lot of
05:41people had sort of given up. And that's what they were living last weekend change something.
05:46Friday, Saturday, Sunday, when numbers went above 1000 something happened. First up, could you tell us
05:52what is your own analysis on forecast for the days and weeks to come? Remember, the days and weeks to
05:59come are going to be filled with Christmas parties and new year end parties. There'll be catch ups,
06:06there'll be weddings and receptions, there'll be a lot of gathering and also a lot of traffic on the road.
06:11So we are right now in one of the worst meteorological conditions that you can think about. The wind speed is
06:19very low, you have inversion, you have high moisture, therefore you have fog. And it is both because of
06:27local conditions as well as the conditions from western disturbance. So what you see today is one of the
06:33worst meteorological conditions, clubbed with major pollution sources from everything. Whether it is
06:42traffic, it is heating and cooking fuel, industries, dust, everything has come together. And therefore,
06:49you have such poor air quality. Next couple of days, the predictions are that the meteorological
06:57condition is not going to improve significantly. So you will have poor air quality for a couple of days.
07:03Let's now pray for gods to give us higher wind speed or maybe a rainfall to clear this up. No measure of
07:12grab can reduce this air quality, improve this air quality. I want to say it up front. You know,
07:20there's enforcement challenge of grab. I saw one of your reporters at Anand Bihar and how difficult it is
07:27to enforce. So one is enforcement challenge. Second is even if we are completely implementing grab, will it
07:35get us very clean air? Most likely not. It will reduce somehow, but not significantly. So air quality in
07:43Delhi will not be improved by such emergency measures as grab. We have to start thinking about air quality
07:50improvement year-round. And start thinking about all sources of pollution. Start thinking about the
07:57entire region. It is not Delhi's problem alone. You go to Noida, you go to Gurugram, you go to Aligarh,
08:05Mehrat. You think about... In fact, let me go beyond that. It's not just Delhi. NCR, it's 60% of the country.
08:1260% of the country has bad air. And that's the reality of the day. That's what we're dealing with.
08:18That's what we're dealing with. I really wish I had more time, Mr. Chandra Bhushan, but I promise I
08:24will not leave this issue. I promise we will come back to you and we will pick up different layers of
08:28this entire air pollution fiasco, emergency, you know, that we've been talking about. But I'm really
08:36sorry. That's all the time we have at the moment. Quick wrap and we will see you again tomorrow. Bye-bye.
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