Escaping the gas chamber: Helpless residents now start Quit Delhi campaign

1. Business Standard Escaping the gas chamber: Helpless residents now start Quit Delhi campaign As the pollution in the city has hit 70 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit, doctors have advised people to wear N90 masks whenever they go out

2. "For weeks the breathing of my 8-year-old son, Bram, had become more laboured, his medicinal inhaler increasingly vital. And then, one terrifying night nine months after we moved to this megacity, Bram's inhaler stopped working and his gasping became panicked," New York Times correspondent Gardiner Harris wrote in May 2015 in a piece about how he was leaving Delhi because of its air pollution. Two years later, others, both expatriates and Indian citizens, are staring at the same situation: Should we continue staying in a city that is killing us with every breath we take or quit while we're ahead? Also Read : As Delhi Chokes, NGT Says AAP Govt Has Not Filed Odd-Even Review Petition As the pollution in the city has hit 70 times the World Health Organisation's safe limit, doctors have advised people to wear N90 masks whenever they go out, as exposure to air pollution can lead to cancer and heart disease. The residents of the city are battling the health menace as best as they can. Speaking to news agency ANI on Sunday, a jogger at India Gate said, "We are facing breathing problems now. We are taking precautions to protect ourselves from respiratory problems." Another citizen of the city said, "It is tough to breathe and the situation needs to be fixed. Time to quit the city? However, for some Delhiites, the only 'precaution' left is to pack their bags and leave the city.

3. TV anchor and foodie Mayur Sharma, of Highway on My Plate fame, who had spent his life in Delhi, left the city last November. A Times of India report reveals why: With Delhi overtaken by air pollution and blanketed by smog, Sharma and his wife pulled their two children out of school and went to Goa for three months. However, after returning to Delhi, they came to the decision that it was time to leave the city for good. "It was a hard but obvious decision because it comes down to this: if a few years later, my child is sick or dying, all this won't matter," Sharma told the national daily……read more