Some are more important.

"It's official. The capital's air quality reached emergency levels yesterday and was the worst in nearly 11 months." This prompted "the Commission of Air Quality Management (CAQM) to enforce Stage III restrictions under the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) across NCR." The average Air Quality Index (AQI) stood at 428. TOI. According to Indian government guidelines, any level above 50 is bad for health and a level higher than 301 is considered hazardous. airnow.gov. "A Delhi-bound flight from Bengaluru surprised many after a passenger shared a photo showing only 10 people on board. The image posted on X, shows how air pollution in the national capital may be discouraging travelers." Daily Jagran. This being Delhi, evasion and deceit are the default option for the authorities. "A ground check by TOI at several (AQI checking) stations found glaring inconsistencies and questionable practices that may be influencing readings. At Anand Vihar - a pollution hot spot - the area around the monitoring unit was being repeatedly doused with water using high-pressure hoses." At Dilshad Garden, "The station is deep in a forested patch of a medical institute - covered by trees and away from the city dust and traffic." Mandir Marg was similar. On 10 November, "Since 1 pm, neither hourly AQI nor the city's daily average had been released till late evening, even as the air visibly worsened since the afternoon." TOI. Why is the government unable to control air pollution in Delhi despite evidence of children suffering? Or, is it unwilling? Much of the pollution comes from burning of stubble by farmers in Punjab, Haryana and UP. Although, "farm fires in Punjab fell to 10,909 cases last year as against 36,663 in 2023." BBC. Maybe not. Farmers have learnt that NASA satellites overpass the region at around 1.30-2 pm and set fire to their fields in late afternoon to avoid the satellites. This is confirmed by the South Korean geostationary satellite which takes a picture every five minutes. NDTV. If high pollution levels are acknowledged then the government would be obliged to act by starting GRAP restrictions banning construction activities (drishtiias.com). The construction sector is the second largest employer across India and is projected to employ over 100 million people by 2030. ET. The majority of employees in construction are laborers who are paid on a daily basis and a loss of earnings cannot be recovered. A large part of the pollution comes from cooking with biomass - firewood, dung cakes, agro-residues and charcoal. These are also used for heating in winter which can be very cold in Delhi, wrote Chandra Bhushan. Biomass cooking and heating are used exclusively by the poor and no politician in India will ever take any action that hurts the interest of farmers, laborers and poor people who constitute the 'vote bank' (wikipedia). So why has the government enforced GRAP III restrictions now? Because a public protest highlighted the damage to health, especially of children. BBC. Though Delhi Police responded by arresting scores of people, as they usually do, the government might be concerned about public anger. After all, the poor also have children. And medical care is expensive.