Decoding the air emergency

What can we do - without the clamour and the politics that in their own way are contaminating the air today, the author writes

We can’t breathe in Delhi. It is a public-health emergency as pollutants in the air have spiked to extremely toxic levels. Officially, the air quality is in the severe+ zone, which means that it is bad for even the healthy, forget about what it will do to our children, the aged, and the vulnerable. But what I want to discuss is why and what can we do — without the clamour and the politics that in their own way are contaminating the air today.
 
So, what happened in end October and early November? Till the afternoon of Diwali (October