Obama's Delhi visit: Will he be stuck indoors due to air pollution?

Barack Obama’s India visit later this month, where he will be the chief guest at the Republic Day parade, might see him stuck indoors, says a report in Times of India. The reason: Delhi’s terrible air quality and high levels of air pollution. According to the report, “there is speculation that the US authorities here could seek to curtail Obama’s ‘outdoor activities’ during his visit,” and the US embassy pollution monitor has termed the air quality in the city as ‘poor’. — in other words, unhealthy. However, the report also goes onto  say that when questioned “US embassy sources dismissed all speculation about Obama’s outdoor activities being curtailed.” While Obama may or may not be stuck indoors, there’s no doubt that Delhi’s air quality is truly terrible. As the report points out, the Delhi Pollution Control Committee own data showed that PM2.5 level for the past three years - 2012, 2013, 2014 “was between 130 to 170 microgram per cubic metre.” WHO has set 25 microgram per metre cube as the safety limit while India has a more generous 60 microgram per metre cube limit. Either way, Delhi is  crossing both parameters. [caption id=“attachment_1910227” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] US President Barack Obama. AP[/caption] PM2.5 particles are smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter, and can lodge deep into human lung and blood tissue and increase risk of heart and lung diseases, from strokes to lung cancer. PM2.5 particles are usually the result of combustion and emissions from automobiles, power plants and diesel powered vehicles. In 2014, an NYT article had pointed out that while Beijing’s bad air had got the massive media attention, Delhi was in fact far worse than China’s capital. According to the report, “for the first three weeks of this year (2014), New Delhi’s average daily peak reading of fine particulate matter from Punjabi Bagh, a monitor whose readings are often below those of other city and independent monitors, was 473, more than twice as high as the average of 227 in Beijing. By the time pollution breached 500 in Beijing for the first time on the night of Jan. 15, Delhi had already had eight such days.” Firstpost had noted earlier  that even in the global Environmental Policy Index, India ranked 155th worldwide and is the worst performer in G20 group, where air pollution was concerned. The index also pointed out that India and China have the highest average exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the world.