Jairam Ramesh

News India Xtra@newsIndiaxtra

Opposition parties have intensified criticism of the Centre over dangerous air in Delhi after Diwali. Congress MP Jairam Ramesh cited a FICCI-EY study putting India's 2023 pollution-linked deaths at about two million.

Congress leader Ajay Maken, citing CPCB data, said 25 of Delhi's 39 monitoring stations logged no PM2.5 readings in the early hours of November 9. Across the nine stations that did report, average PM2.5 was 576 micrograms per cubic metre, up 2.5 percent on the same hour last Diwali.

News India Xtra@newsIndiaxtra

Congress has hit back at PM Modi over his Diwali address to CRPF personnel at a camp in Bastar, Chhattisgarh. He told the forces that armed Naxalites had been wiped out from the forests, but 'dimagi Naxals' now controlled several organisations and had infiltrated political parties.

Jairam Ramesh posted on X that Modi had used a solemn, non-political occasion to attack his rivals. He also cited Modi's past shifts, such as calling caste census backers urban Naxals in 2024 and repealing the farm laws in 2021.