Overcast skies but no rain in Delhi; IMD forecasts light showers ahead
Maximum temperatures hovered around normal levels while the minimums continued to stay slightly below average. The city's Safdarjung observatory recorded a maximum temperature of 35.5 degrees celsius, 0.6 degrees celsius above normal, and a minimum of 26.2 degrees celsius, which was 1.1 degrees celsius below normal.
No rainfall was recorded across the Capital till 5:30 pm, with relative humidity oscillating between 59% and 87%. Other parts of Delhi, including Palam, Lodi Road, Ayanagar, and Ridge, also reported dry weather with temperatures ranging between 33 degrees celsius and 35 degrees celsius. Wind speeds remained moderate, with south-southwesterlyy winds blowing at 8 to 15 kmph across different time blocks.
Persistent spell of cloudy sky
Forecasts for the next seven days indicate a persistent spell of cloudy weather with intermittent rain. On Monday, the city is likely to receive very light to light showers along with thunderstorms and lightning, the weather department said.
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The Hindu
an hour ago
- The Hindu
Cast-off capital
The Yamuna along Panipat's Khojkipur village is dry, leaving the riverbed exposed. A flock of birds – resident species of cormorants and herons – has gathered around a pool of residual water in the river on a hot June afternoon. There are also some migratory gulls. The birds, in search of food, occasionally break the silence with their croaking and keow calls. A large herd of cows and buffaloes, almost figurines from a distance, graze on the sparse greenery on the riverbed. Rajbir, a paali (cowherd) in his mid-30s, keeps an eye on the herd from under a tree on the riverbank. Like most people in India's plains, he waits for the monsoon to set in. For Rajbir though, it is not the heat that's disturbing. He is worried about his cattle frequently falling sick after they cool off in the pools of leftover Yamuna water. 'The nallah (Drain No. 2) carrying effluents from factories in Panipat city falls into the river just ahead of our village, contaminating it with hard chemicals. With the onset of the monsoon, the water flow goes up in the river, diluting these chemicals and mitigating their harmful effects,' explains Rajbir. Cattle cool off in a pond in summer, but there is none in the village, he grumbles. A gamcha is tightly wrapped around his head, one end of it held firmly in his teeth to protect his head and face from the temperature that has crossed 40 degrees Celsius. Panipat in Haryana, just 90 km from Delhi, is known for three famous battles fought on its land across two centuries, between 1526 and 1761. There is little evidence of that now. Over the past two decades, it has emerged as one of Asia's largest weaving, dyeing, and textile recycling hubs. Panipat is a processing hub for around 30 lakh tonnes of textile waste, says Sanjay Garg, Northern India Rotor Spinners Association president, comprising about 100 units. Cloth scraps come in daily from factories in the U.S., the U.K, Canada, Europe, Turkey, China, and Japan. In units here, these are processed into yarn, which is further sold in Tanda (Uttar Pradesh), Solapur (Maharashtra), and Tirupur (Tamil Nadu), for use in blankets, cushions, bed sheets, carpets, and several other products. Shoddy yarn, made from short and weak fibres, is often downcycled into low-grade products,' says Kriti Srivastava, assistant professor at NIFT Kangra. 'This isn't just inefficient recycling, it's a form of waste colonisation, where developed countries offload their textile waste onto the Global South, burdening already vulnerable nations with environmental and economic costs.' A part of this process is bleaching cloth scraps. Several illegal bleaching units function on Panipat's periphery, devoid of any mechanism for the safe disposal of the chemical-laden waste water, mostly acidic and chlorine-based. They operate on agricultural land taken on lease from the farmers. 'This highly contaminated water is just allowed to seep underground, polluting the groundwater, or is drained into open land and local drains. It eventually travels to Drain 2 that merges with the Yamuna,' says Varun Gulati, a Delhi-based environmentalist. Rajbir laments that no one listens to the people here: 'Yahan par kai baar patrakar aaye hai. Photo keech kar le gaye. Video bhi banaya. Lekin kuch nahi hua.' (Journalists have come here many times. They took photographs. They made videos too. But nothing happened.) Cloth to yarn Taking a nap on his farm under a structure resembling a palapa, Krishan, who owns a couple of acres of land, says the ground water in Khojkipur and the neighbouring villages along Drain No. 2 is smelly. 'It is not fit for drinking and irrigation. Those residing in these villages suffer from various skin-related ailments and, in some cases, even cancer. We avoid installing hand pumps near this drain,' he says. Then, laughing ironically, adds, 'Imagine people in Delhi who have to drink this contaminated water.' In March 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his 'Mann Ki Baat' broadcast, spoke about the problem of textile waste. 'Several start-ups have started working on textile recovery facilities…. some cities are creating new identities in dealing with textile waste. Panipat is emerging as a global hub of textile recycling,' he had said. Garg says his father was the first to set up a spinning mill in Panipat in 1981. Two to three more mills came up in the city over the next two decades, but the boom came in the early 2000s with technological advancement. 'Only 10-15 tonnes of scrap could be processed daily at these units earlier. But high-speed spinning mills equipped with the latest technology process around 100-125 tonnes of scrap daily,' he says, in his expansive office, adding that almost 90% of the imported scraps end up in Panipat. Garg owns Akshay Spinning Mills on the busy arterial Gohana-Panipat road. There are more than 250 such mills owned by around a hundred industrialists, scattered across the city. On the outskirts of Panipat, scores of illegally run bleaching units have mushroomed to cater to the growing need to bleach the cloth scraps before they are shredded and made into yarn. A few of the larger spinning mills have their own bleaching processes, adhering to the norms laid down by the Haryana State Pollution Control Board (HSPCB). These include checking the units for effluents that are safe to be discharged into the Yamuna. Garg maintains that the spinning mills are 'non-polluting units' that give 'a fresh lease of life to the garbage collected from across the globe', but downplays the role of illegally run bleach units. 'Only a fraction of the cloth scraps imported need to undergo bleaching,' claims the second-generation industrialist, insisting that the mills do not outsource production to illegal bleaching units. Bleach-washed In a complaint to the Central Pollution Control Board in January this year, Gulati said illegal bleaching units were running in several villages across Panipat: Naulya, Dahar, Binjhaul, Balana, Paldi, Kaurad, Didwadi, Mandi, Gwalda, Pardhana, Chamrada, and Nara. 'Chemicals containing acid and chlorine are added to the water to wash scraps and this poisonous water is later released into the ground by digging pits or into storm water drains,' he said in his complaint. Warning of a catastrophe of epic proportions like the Bhopal gas disaster, the letter mentioned around two dozen illegal units along with their addresses. It said that the owners of these bleaching units, emboldened by the inaction of the HSPCB, had now set up illegal plants to make acid and bleach chemicals using toxic chlorine gas. This, in case of leakage, could cause a major accident. Running a bleaching unit in Dadwari village, a 38-year-old man, not willing to be identified, says he has set up an Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to adhere to the HSPCB norms, but the 'plant is not functional; it is not run'. A fully running ETP could cost several lakhs, he says. It has been set up just to get the permission to run a bleaching unit. 'Water is reused a couple of times to bleach, and finally discharged into the drain,' he says. The man says that he has constructed tanks on his agricultural land and rented them out to a spinning mill owner. 'I only provide the land and the bleach powder, which I make using chlorine gas. The mill owners' contractors hire the labour for the bleach job,' he says. Yamuna Bachao Abhiyan convener Shiv Singh Rawat says that scores of dyeing and bleaching units in Panipat functioning without clearances and treatment infrastructure discharge acidic, chlorine-laced waste water into the river. 'The discharge either flows through sewer lines or is dumped via tankers into open land. Ultimately it ends up in the Yamuna through Drain No. 2. The visual discolouration of the water at the point of merger of Drain No. 2 and the Yamuna is a stark indicator of the contamination,' he says. Multiple water sample reports of Drain No. 2 by the HSPCB Laboratory in April this year confirm that several parameters were much higher than the permissible levels fixed by the Central Pollution Control Board. For instance, Biological Oxygen Demand was at 68 mg/l, with the maximum level set at 30 mg/l; Chemical Oxygen Demand was at 284 mg/l, while it should have been no more than 50 mg/l; and Total Dissolved Solids were at 1,858 mg/l, with the cut-off at 500 mg/l. Rishi Kumar, another bleaching unit owner in Didwari, says there could be 400-odd units in Panipat, and only one-fourth were running with permission. 'The recycle market has been sluggish after it reached its peak in 2023. The profit in the bleaching business is around 10-20 paisa per kg of scrap. But running a unit as per the norms increases the cost by ₹1 per kg. So, it is not financially viable,' says Kumar, who runs his unit with due permission from the HSPCB. He says he has 50 tanks on his 5-acre agricultural land, but only half of them are occupied, as the demand is weak. 'I have my own labour force staying inside the unit. We work both ways. We buy cloth scraps from traders, bleach them, and sell them to the spinning mills. The mill owners also send us scraps to bleach,' says Kumar. Following media reports, the National Green Tribunal has taken suo motu cognisance of the illegal bleaching units and issued notices to the HSPCB and Panipat Deputy Commissioner, among others, directing them to file an affidavit a week before the hearing on August 29. HSPCB Regional Officer, Panipat, Bhupinder Singh Chahal says the department has ordered closure of 20 units and sent show-cause notices to a dozen more a month ago. Chahal, however, says the department does not have the figure for the illegal units. Dip in demand Two types of cloth waste are imported: cloth scraps and second-hand clothes. The majority of godowns on Barsat Road, where they are concentrated, deal in scraps. These are bought by spinning mills to be made into yarn. Ramjan, a worker at a warehouse on Barsat Road, says his employer imports 30 tonnes of cloth each season, mostly from Korea and China, both before the onset of summer and winter. 'The scraps are sold for ₹20 a kg. The discarded clothes are sold at ₹100-120 per piece. Mostly traders from Delhi and Assam buy these second-hand clothes and sell them in local markets at high margins,' says Ramjan. Delhi's Sarojini Nagar market is one such hub. Running a firm in the name of A.R. Traders on Barsat Road, Ravinder Garg mostly deals in scraps. 'We sell it to the spinning mill owners through agents. A small percentage of the wastage, not accepted by the spinning mills, ends up as fuel for local industry,' says Garg. He too says the market has been sluggish for the past two years, and his annual sale of scraps has fallen to almost half, at 270 tonnes per year. To boost the industry, Mukesh Gulati, executive director at the Foundation for MSME Clusters, which aims at empowering small and medium enterprises through skilling and sustainable efforts, says India should develop an eco-mark for products with recycled materials. This will strengthen India's domestic ecosystem of recyclers and sustainable textile producers. 'This will generate greater awareness, as many still wrongly perceive recycled products as inferior. Correcting this perception is key to unlocking the full potential of India's circular economy,' he says. He talks about France mandating recycled content in public sector uniforms; the Netherlands recycling railway uniforms into train interiors; and Germany's procurement law preferring recycled goods. The Nordic countries use ecolabels to support green procurement in health care and municipal services, he adds. Half-burnt bits of cloth often show up on terraces. 'The waste cloth ends up as cheap fuel in furnaces and boilers. Panipat has a thermal power plant, a petroleum refinery, sugar mills, and fertilizer factories. At dusk, Panipat's air turns toxic,' says lawyer Amit Rathee, who practises in Panipat. Edited by Sunalini Mathew
News18
an hour ago
- News18
Delhis maximum temperature at 36.8 deg C
Agency: PTI Last Updated: New Delhi, Jul 26 (PTI) Delhi on Saturday recorded a maximum temperature of 36.8 degree Celsius, two notches above the season's average, the weather office said. The minimum temperature was recorded of 27 degrees Celsius, 0.3 notch below the season's average. A generally cloudy sky with rain and thunderstorm has been forecast on Sunday by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The relative humidity was recorded at 58 per cent at 5.30 pm. The IMD had said rain and thunderstorm were likely in the national capital on Saturday. Delhi's air quality was recorded in the 'satisfactory" category at 6 pm on Saturday, with an Air Quality Index (AQI) reading of 172, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data showed. According to the CPCB, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered 'good', 51 and 100 'satisfactory', 101 and 200 'moderate', 201 and 300 'poor', 301 and 400 'very poor', and 401 and 500 'severe'. PTI SSM SKY SKY Disclaimer: Comments reflect users' views, not News18's. Please keep discussions respectful and constructive. Abusive, defamatory, or illegal comments will be removed. News18 may disable any comment at its discretion. By posting, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The Hindu
5 hours ago
- The Hindu
Rain triggers a trail of destruction; train services halted at Alappuzha; Orange alert for seven districts on Saturday
The heavy rain accompanied by gusty winds that has been lashing parts of the State is likely to continue for a couple of more days, fuelled by the weather systems in the Bay of Bengal and the offshore trough formed along the west coast of the country. Around 129 weather stations under the India Meteorological Department (IMD) reported rain during the last 24 hours ending at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday. The areas close to the Western Ghats have witnessed heavy rainfall, with Munnar in Idukki and Ambalavayal in Wayanad and Ayyankunnu in Kannur registering the highest rainfall of 9 cm each during the last 24 hours, followed by Peerumedu (8 cm) and Udumbannoor, Cheruthoni and Vellathooval in Idukki (7 cm each). Strong winds with speeds above 20 knots are also prevailing over Kerala. The speed of the wind clocked 67 kmph in the manual weather station at Ernakulam, followed by 65 kmph in the automatic weather stations at Pathanamthitta and Thrissur and 63 kmph in Palakkad. The train traffic to Ernakulam from Thiruvananthapuram via Alappuzha was disrupted after an uprooted tree fell on the overhead electric lines on the tracks near Mararikulam in Alappuzha by 8.30 a.m. The trains through the stretch have been detained at various stations, including the Thiruvananthapuram-Kozhikode Jan Shatabdi. The incidents of uprooted trees damaging houses and blocking the arterial roads have been reported in the hilly areas of the State. Meanwhile, the IMD issued an orange alert for seven districts — Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Ernakulam, Idukki, Thrissur, Palakkad and Malappuram — on Saturday, warning of very heavy rainfall during the next 24 hours, while the rest of the State was put on a yellow alert, where isolated heavy rainfall is likely. Cyclone Wipha The low-pressure area that formed over the Bay of Bengal under the influence of the remnants of tropical Cyclone Wipha has intensified into a well-marked low-pressure system on Saturday. In addition, an offshore trough runs along the west coast up to the coast of Kerala, drawing moisture-laden air from the Arabian Sea. The wind that returns after hitting the Western Ghats and is unable to climb over the mountains causes the formation of offshore vortices along the coast, triggering heavy spells, especially in the Ghats regions. However, the rain is likely to subside after a couple of days in tune with the weakening of the weather system in the Bay of Bengal.
