| The crime, the Covid, the politics and the potholes: Capital Letters — Keeping track of Delhi's week, one beat at a time, through the eyes and words of HT's My Delhi section, with all the perspective, context and analysis you need. PS: This newsletter marks its first anniversary today. Thank you so much for sticking around since then, and we hope you continue to enjoy Capital Letters. Good morning and happy Diwali! Consider wearing a mask today. Even indoors. And not just the regular, N95 ones to ward off Covid-19. You may want to hunt for one of those sinister-looking gas masks used in every second film as lazy exposition to imply a nuclear disaster (something like this perhaps?). You’ll need it, because by Monday evening, pollution levels in Delhi are likely to be hazardous, thanks to a lethal cocktail of stubble-burning smoke, probable violations of the cracker ban, calm winds and dropping temperatures. There are few analogues of the stratospheric levels of pollutants in Delhi’s air on Diwali evening. But, being exposed to smoke from firecrackers is equivalent to smoking hundreds of cigarettes in just a few minutes. Yes, it’s that bad. The central government’s air quality forecasting agency, Safar, has predicted the Air Quality Index (AQI) will enter the ‘very poor’ zone on Monday, even if no firecrackers are burnt across Delhi (that’s not going to happen). That’s because smoke from farm fires, which have increased steadily over the past week, has begun to make its way into the National Capital Region from Punjab and Haryana, thanks to the amenable wind direction This is also borne out in how Delhi looks, frankly. The blue skies from just 10 days ago have made way for a pale grey tint, white buildings now look slightly sepia, and most distant silhouettes are now accompanied by a coat of smog. And it’ll only get worse. The afternoons will soon look like dusk and dusk will look like the apocalypse. According to the Safar forecast, the AQI could become “severe” (the worst bracket of pollution) on Diwali night, on the back of illegal firecracker emissions. The Society for Indoor Environment (SIE) conducted a study of pollution levels on Diwali. What they found was alarming. Bear in mind that India’s central pollution control agency considers a PM2.5 concentration greater than 40 ug/m3 unsafe. The World Health Organization (WHO) sets the safe threshold much lower, at just 5 ug/m3. “The outdoor concentration ranged from 1,200 to 1,400ug/m3. And indoors, where levels had been around 70-80 ug/m3 just a day before, rose to around 500 to 700 micrograms per cubic metre,” said Dr Arun Sharma, SIE president. The air, according to Safar, could stay in the ‘severe’ range for at least two days, after which winds could get stronger and clear up some of the air. But generally, Delhi is well and truly on the way to the Annual Bad Air Fair. Keep those masks handy. STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED DU, CUET meet The general sense of confusion that surrounded the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) earlier this year seems to have seeped into Delhi University’s admission process as well. Entries to the sought-after university kicked off last week, with an oh-so-predictable last-minute delay. The first round of allocations was supposed to be revealed on Tuesday evening, but ended up being postponed to Wednesday, an announcement that only came late on Monday. DU aspirants would likely have been wrought by a strong sense of deja vu, with the late change eerily reminiscent of the much-delayed CUET results in mid-September. Candidates will probably be wondering what sins they’re being punished for this year, with an unforgiving entry process treading only rockier paths. Further, the outcome itself didn’t please all students. To be fair, it didn’t leave all students displeased, but there was enough dissent to be taken note of. For instance, a candidate who did not make the cut in the first round said that she would have preferred the old cut-off system rather than CUET. “With CUET, we have to study the same course thrice -- first for pre-boards, then for boards and the same material for CUET. We have been sitting at home for months and the process has been delayed a lot,” she said. The allotment process, helmed by the University Grants Commission (UGC) lacked the kind of transparency that earlier characterised the DU admission system (even if it was clunky), with even college principals left in the dark. Sample this. Anju Srivastava, principal of Hindu College, told HT’s Hemani Bhandari, “It’s taking us some time to understand how the admission system is working this time…” There is value, then, in examining (and, if required, realigning) the CUET process. Most seats in the top DU colleges and sought-after courses are nearly taken. Several students who were allocated these seats got perfect (700/700, for most programmes), or near perfect scores in CUET. Nearly all of them were in the top percentile brackets. Several colleges offered courses to more students than they have seats. These were all problems CUET was supposed to solve. It was intended to do away with the perennial over-admission headache, allow a more streamlined admission system, free up some of the board exam stress, and allow for universities’ limited resources to be distributed more fairly and rationally. Does CUET meet its KRAs? At the end of the first round of allotments, just over 7,000 seats in the 81,000-seat varsity are up for grabs. So, only time will tell. In graphic detail Twist in Ghaziabad horror tale An alleged gang-rape in Ghaziabad early this week took an even more unsavoury turn after the state’s police claimed that the woman was lying, and had fabricated evidence and events in a bid to frame the initial set of suspects. The woman, 38, said she was gang-raped in Ghaziabad on Sunday evening. She was found in a gunny bag with her hands and legs tied, and doctors said they found a “foreign object” inside her. The nature of the incident prompted comparisons with the December 2012 gang-rape and murder in Delhi, with widespread outrage across the board. But then, the very next day, the police said she was lying and alleged that she made up every bit of it. Praveen Kumar, inspector general (Meerut range), “The incident was planned to nail the five men (initial suspects) who had a land dispute with the woman. We have also come across evidence which suggests payments were also made to sensationalise the case.” The woman and a journalist have been arrested now. But, earlier, in a video statement on Thursday, she said the police were lying, a statement her brother also reiterated. The police have, however, denied this claim, and insisted that the incident was a grand ploy to take down the initial lot of suspects. Those men, for their part, said they were grateful for the electronic evidence that eventually let them off the hook. | 
