Cracker crackdown on NCR’S cleanest Nov day

“We have been informed that there have been a crackdown on cracker godowns, and cracker markets are closed in Delhi. Plus, even though winds will be northwesterly before and during Diwali, IMD (India Meteorological Department) has informed us that wind speed will not fall to zero — which means there will be some movement,” Gargava said, explaining why weather conditions would not be completely hostile for the dispersal of pollutants on November 6 and 7. Diwali is on November 7.

The police, which have seized over 2,500kg of crackers since the court order, have not issued temporary licences to small traders. Those with licenses, too, appear to be in a fix since they don’t have the court-mandated “green” fireworks in their stocks.

Mandeep Singh Randhawa, deputy commissioner of police [central], said, “We are not denying licences, but they [sellers] will have to prove that they will sell green crackers. If they get us a clearance from PESO [the government body authorised to monitor explosives], we’ll give them the permits,” he said.

According to a 2017 affidavit to the top court and explanations offered by the country’s explosives regulator [Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation or Peso] , green firecrackers refer to products that do not contain metals such as barium, aluminium and iron which release toxic gases, but such products have not yet been manufactured for sale.

The minimum temperature in Delhi on Sunday was 18 degrees Celsius and the maximum was 29.7 degrees.

On Diwali, the minimum temperature is likely to fall to 13 degrees, said the weather department. Snowfall in Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh is likely to bring down Delhi’s temperatures by 3-4 degrees Celsius over the next few days, said IMD deputy director general BP Yadav.

Pune-based System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting Research (SAFAR) predicted that AQI on November 5 will be 309, which is in “very poor” category, and the next day it will be 315, also in “very poor “category.

Farm fires will continue in Punjab till November 15, said Harinder Singh Lakhowal, the general secretary of Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU).

“Crop fires have reduced considerably because of government crackdown,” he said. nor say and their website regarding their RTI policy, and a great secrecy of vigilance reports and inspection reports is being maintained with impunity, in spite of the Supreme Court confirming the orders of the CIC in the Jayantilal case,” information commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said.

He concluded that it would not serve any purpose to punish the central public information officer (CPIO) for this defiance, because he acted under the instructions of the top authorities.

“The commission considers the governor as the deemed PIO responsible for non-disclosure and defiance of Supreme Court orders and CIC orders, and directs him to show cause why a maximum penalty should not be imposed on him for these reasons,before November 16,” Acharyulu said.

He rejected the arguments of Santosh Kumar Panigrahy of the RBI that section 22 of the Right to Information (RTI) Act would not override various laws he quoted, prohibiting disclosure of names and details of wilful defaulters and hence, the RBI should be discharged from the obligations of disclosure.

“His contention that unless the above referred enactments are repealed, the RBI cannot disclose the details of defaulters is also absurd,” Acharyulu said.

He added that another contention of Panigrahy that the pendency of a PIL before the Supreme Court on the issue would prevent him from disclosure was also baseless as he did not present any interim order passed by the Supreme Court preventing the disclosure of names of wilful defaulters or against the proceedings before the CIC.

“These submissions of the RBI show that its legal wing did not bring to the notice of the CPIO that in the RBI vs Jayantilal N Mistry case, a Supreme Court bench consisting of M Y Eqbat and C Nagappan JJ, on December 16, 2015 [Transferred Cases (Civil) Nos. 91 to 101 of 2015], gave a landmark decision, upholding the direction of the CIC to disclose the inspection reports of the RBI and the names of wilful defaulters in many cases, rejecting all the above referred contentions of the RBI,” Acharyulu said.

The information commissioner said in that case, the counsel for the RBI had raised the same contentions, referring to the same cases referred by Panigrahy, and those were straightaway rejected by the Supreme Court.

“The commission finds no merit in hiding the names of, details and action against wilful defaulters of big bad loans worth hundreds of crores of rupees.

“The RBI shall disclose the bad debt details of defaulters worth more than ₹1,000 crore at the beginning, of ₹ 500 crore or less at a later stage within five days and collect such information from the banks in due course to update their voluntary disclosures from time to time as a practice under section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act,” he said.

Acharyulu asked the RBI governor to remember, at least once, one of the three lakh farmers who died in the field as he failed to sustain his crop or sell his produce for an appropriate price and hence, could not pay of the debt before defying the transparency law and directions, and discontinue the non-disclosure policy which will seriously harm the economy of the nation.