| 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. Good morning! Since the last edition of this newsletter dropped in your inbox, it has pretty much just rained in the National Capital Region. And as this edition is finished up, the rains have finally paused, and the Delhi sun has graced us with a quick (if brief) peek. The showers started off around Tuesday, with a few neighbourhoods treated to patchy spells of rain. The Met department called these rains “highly localised heavy rainfall events”, which were restricted to areas around the Delhi Ridge and Delhi University. It was much the same on Wednesday, with rain gauges ticking in a few parts, but most other parts of Delhi firmly rooted in a sense of weather FOMO. And then, the clouds arrived on Thursday. And they stayed till Saturday evening, catching the NCR entirely off guard, coming as it did after a nearly dry September, when temperatures were well above normal. Of course, if unusual weather events catch us off guard any more, it’s probably our fault - over the past few years, abnormal has been the new normal for Delhi’s weather (it’s been hotter than usual, colder than usual, drier than usual and wetter than usual, just in 10 months of 2022).  So, what happened? Well, according to weather experts, the unusual spell of rain in late-September (when monsoon normally begins to recede from the region) can be attributed to a rare clash of two weather events southwest of Delhi: a western disturbance and a low-pressure system. The former is a storm that originates around the Mediterranean and brings inclement weather (usually outside monsoon) to the subcontinent, while the latter is the major cause of monsoon rain. They combined to give Delhi 106mm of rain between Thursday morning and Saturday evening, exactly 10 times more than the 10.6mm the Capital had received in the 21 days of the month before that. But of course, when it rains, it pours civic havoc. Trees fell, traffic came to a standstill, underpasses flooded, schools shut, people were stranded, roads caved in - you know, the usual. Gurugram, neighbouring Delhi, bore the brunt of the showers and struggled to cope, something that’s now a rain routine for Millennium City, which struggles with its poor drainage systems, especially along the arterial highways and at key underpasses. Commuters were forced to walk through waded expressways, all the while trying to avoid any potentially damaged roads beneath. One person died in the general melee as well, electrocuted by a live wire on a waterlogged road. Some people swam, others sat on trucks and tractors as life came to a halt for three days, underlining the urgent need for the city to fix its broken civic systems.  Visuals from a rained-in Gurugram. Credit: PTI and ANI Of course, Delhi’s drainage system isn’t exactly a spring chicken. It’s nearly half a century old and is completely unequipped to deal with contemporary life, or indeed contemporary weather. The rains were also evidence that the withdrawal of monsoon may be pushed back even more than it already has. This means two important things: a longer possible dengue season and a shorter window for farmers in Punjab and Haryana to burn stubble. That gives a pretty neat segue for the next section of the newsletter. STORIES YOU MAY HAVE MISSED No smoke without fire The surprise rain spell managed to wash away the news of farmers in Punjab starting to set their fields afire, marking the likely beginning of the dreaded pollution season for Delhi and its surrounding regions. Stubble fires in the upwind agrarian states are a major driving force behind the annual winter air quality emergency in Delhi. As the monsoon winds up, farmers in Punjab and Haryana set fire to clear their fields in preparation for the next harvest. This is a quicker and more cost-effective method to make way for the Rabi sowing season, but also leads to hazardous amounts of stubble smoke being carried to Delhi and adjoining cities, leading to noxious pollution levels. Research shows that between 40% and 60% of Delhi’s air pollution (particularly the ultrafine PM2.5 particles), during this period originates from farm fires in Punjab. Farm fires still persist because the alternatives have found few takers, either because of time (which is why Delhi’s Pusa decomposer solution has failed to take off) or cost (associated with technological interventions like happy seeders). Data from the Punjab government shows that the state has recorded at least 106 farm fires already since September 15. The rains effectively narrow the window available to farmers to harvest and clear their fields of paddy remnants, wrote HT’s Zia Haq. “Delayed harvesting is likely to cause a spike in the intensity of stubble burning, as farmers will have less time to clear fields for their next crop, wheat.” There may be some evidence that these fires (and a general drop in temperatures) have already begun to hamper Delhi’s air quality. For instance, on Tuesday, the city’s air quality fell to its worst level since June 25 this year. As the rains recede and farm fires well and truly spread their smoky wings, expect a rehash of an oft-replayed annual scourge. In graphic detail All quiet on the Covid front? It’s been a while since it seemed like Covid-19 mattered. Even when cases in Delhi ticked up between end-July and August this year, the pandemic didn’t break its way into the forefront of our mindspace. Cases have receded since then and the surge left little impact, either in health care or economic terms. Authorities in Delhi have, consequently, dropped fines for flouting masking norms in the city, apart from deciding to scale down Covid care centres, facilities where patients with mild symptoms could be isolated and administered basic medical care. Officials did, to be sure, implore residents to keep wearing their masks, especially in crowded public hubs ahead of the festive season, underling that “the pandemic is not over yet. Experts are split on the move to act on mask fines, especially during the festive season, when Covid-19 infections usually see an upsurge, driven largely by packed crowds in tight spaces and increased travel. Delhi has logged over 3,200 cases of Covid-19 so far this month, which is more than infections logged in the same period last year (850), though significantly fewer than the 82,041 cases in 2020. This is down in large part to the conjunction of widespread double vaccinations as well as the natural course of the pandemic, which has likely infected most (if not all) of the population at least once, leaving residents with some innate protection. But we’re still not quite out of the water. More than 3/4ths of Delhi’s eligible adult population is yet to take the third Covid-19 vaccine jab, mirroring the damp response to the booster drive across the country. Even among the 24% who have taken the third dose, health care and frontline workers are likely to have made up a significant portion, firming up fears that there is a considerable degree of Covid complacency among the general public. The state now faces an uphill battle on two fronts: One, to keep people cautious of Covid-19 and keep in play mitigation measures like masks or distancing, and two, to convince people to take the third dose of the vaccine. The latter is likely to get tougher still, especially with the state itself diluting its Covid norms. | 
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