The Golden 80s

If you think air pollution can be controlled by maintaining the status quo, then you are probably mistaken. Pollution is linked to our day-to-day activities. It is the stark reality. In Bengaluru, the primary reason behind air pollution is that there are lots of vehicles on the road, especially during peak hours. The more vehicles that you add to the existing number, then the air pollution will keep on increasing.  Air pollutants do not vanish overnight. They stay in the air and they will react with other chemicals to form toxic compounds that create eye irritation and respiratory issues. If night temperatures are less, the chemicals trapped in dense air will disappear next day only.  To reduce air pollution in Bengaluru, do the following: Reduce the number of vehicles This is the saddest and the most controversial solution that nobody will agree to. There are over 83 lakh registered vehicles in Bengaluru, says a report in the Deccan Herald newspaper. The city has to reduce i...

A missing vowel, O, creates a new virus in Times of India, Bengaluru, story titled Disinfection: Businessmen in Bengaluru make killing amid scare .

A report in Bengaluru's Deccan Herald today says that "...Air pollution in Bengaluru dropped by an average 28% during the Covid-19 lockdown".The report cites a study on PM 2.5 levels that decreased during the lockdown as an indicator of air quality improvement. It is not scientific to conclude that a decrease in one air quality indicator (AQI) results in overall air quality improvement or reduction in air pollution. This is because PM2.5 is just one AQI parameter used to measure the air quality level in India. Other pollutant levels need to be tracked to know whether their levels have decreased or not. This include Ozone, oxides of Nitrogen, Sulphur Dioxide, PM 10, and Ammonia.  A report by the Centre for Science and Environment says that Ozone levels saw a spike in many cities that were supposedly clean during the lockdown. The same report states that Bengaluru had an average PM2.5 level of 45% during the lockdown and NOx level have increased by 38%. This furth...

It did rattle all of us on a hot afternoon on May 20. There was a loud sound, like a thunder, and the doors rattled. I was waiting it to repeat, but nothing happened after the first boom. On checking, there were messages galore on Twitter. I was sceptical of posting a tweet, but then I retweeted one of them that reported the mysterious boom 16-20 km away. It was later confirmed by IAF that there was a sonic boom. It was caused by a routine IAF Test Flight involving a supersonic aircarft, said NDTV . "The sonic boom was probably heard while the aircraft was decelerating from supersonic to subsonic speed between 36,000 and 40000 feet altitude", said the NDTV report. After months of political row, Kerala government cancelled the agreement with US-based firm Sprinklr for collection and analytics of Covid-19 patient data, including those quarantined in the state. According to a report , the state government, through an affidavit submitted to the Kerala high court, sai...

Bengaluru was known as 'Garden City' because of its greenery, tree-lined avenues and parks. Officially there are 1247 parks and many 'undeveloped' parks. There is a park right opposite to my house. There are trees with bushy crowns, small trees, benches, and play area for children. In the mornings, I can see people of all ages walking, running, jogging. In the corners, lovers cuddle, pinch, squeeze, kiss and hug their emotions. In the evening the park gets noisy as children go wild, as expected like an unknown script. But the nights are dangerous. As the yellow streetlights are switched on, lumpen youth get in. in the dark corners, they scream, smoke and drink and smash the liquor bottles. Youth gone wild. The bottles, cans, and plastic covers are thrown around the trees and benches. A few are thrown out directed at someone's cars or bikes outside. Some are really creative: they throw the bottles under parked cars. Planting or destroying evidence. The re...

The India media's expertise is primarily on politics, cricket, entertainment, and business. Their forte is not on science, unlike other well-known publications like The Guardian or the New York Times. When I read the headline, Mandya's lake man to build 15th pond with award money , I was not all surprised. I was sure that normal readers may not find the words, Lake and Pond, that intriguing. A discerning reader or someone who have studied Ecology will notice that there is something wrong here. A lake and a pond are not the same thing strictly from an ecological science point of view. Of course, they are static water bodies of varying sizes. But there are obvious ecological differences. One is there are man-made lakes and there are lakes borne out of natural phenomenon such as volcanic eruptions, retreat of ice sheets and earthquakes. Technically, there are differences in the structure, energy flows, ecological stratification, flora and fauna, and so on. There is an intere...

Yeah, what caused the fire in the polluted Bellandur lake in #Bengaluru? Let us look at what the media reported: "...Fires are often sparked by deadly effluents in the lake, but this time, it was a pile of burning garbage that caused the scare." said Deccan Herald.  The Hindu newspaper quoted unnamed firemen and said " the fire originated in the thick layer of hyacinth in the lake". "...But they are clueless on what set the hyacinth on fire," added the newspaper. The New Indian Express in a report titled, Bellandur lake spews fire , named the reasons as methane from industrial waste, solid waste and rise in ambient temperature!  At least the editorial teams must have checked how and from where a gas called methane is created.  The Financial Express went ahead and made it even worse by saying that the entire city choked because of smoke. Is it? I was feeling better yesterday after a few days of allergic rhinitis , which is common in Bengal...