Devika Diwan

Spoke to six students last night. This is what one of aspirants from this year, Dushant Dubey had to say. If you're really worried about the students & their demands, do hear him out. I was surprised to see how clear the students are in their demand for reform. But please note - there is no shouting or drama, so you may find it 'boring'.

Trust me, I've muted everything but every time I open the app I see another response. While the other side is used to going on and on and on and boring the living day lights out of people - I am not 😂 So I'll write an article and leave it there. Can't do this back and forth.

This offer too was rejected by the farmers, almost immediately, creating another bottleneck. They want a comprehensive, universal legal guarantee of MSP for all 23 crops for every farmer across the country. But that is not possible. Then there is a long standing trust deficit. Punjab is run by the farmers, so no political party can push for anything beyond a point because like I said - everyone wants to come to power. And ultimately, in a democracy, it's the will of the people that matters. And it's not just the Centre then, talk about other schemes too? Since you feel schemes prove political will and intent - AAP government was offering an assured Minimum Support Price and direct monetary incentives (around ₹7,000 per acre) for farmers who shifted a portion of their land from paddy to summer moong. But state agencies couldnt absorb the entire yield cos of storage and logistical gaps. So when open-market prices dipped below expectations, many farmers suffered losses and became hesitant to repeat the experiment. So while your arguments are great on paper - like I said it would take more than this useless conversation. And it would need Centre and State to work together.

It's so crazy you think I would 'feel cornered' by your little jibes. Like I said, I see this on a daily basis and its precisely what makes news channel debates in India so incredibly boring. Offering contracts for crop diversification clearly didn't work at a mass scale - so did you ever bother reading why? Did you sit and 'analyse' what were the other factors as to why this scheme didn't work? Did you make those suggestions? I hopefully will assume you did cos you sure are trying to throw these one liners at me. Well, i did, and I don't have a one liner for you. Subsidising seeds and machinery does not eliminate market risk. A farmer given a free bag of maize seeds will still refuse to plant it if they know that at harvest time, open-market prices could crash and leave them with no buyer, while paddy carries Government MSP. Government meanwhile cannot afford MSP on diversified crops. So there are genuine bottlenecks which need to be dealt with, and schemes that need revisions basis those bottlenecks. Also, the scheme isn't a complete failure - I've seen the implementation results in Haryana and farmers are quite happy. But Punjab is not Haryana, and it's also ruled by a political party that does not care about people and their lungs because they're hanging on to power by a thread so obviously they will not agitate farmers by slapping fines. All the while they have made matters worse with their roles. And with the upcoming elections, farmers are the kingmakers of Punjab so absolutely forget any stringent measures by Centre or State. Everyone wants to win the Election first, and then MAYBE deal with the crisis later. You see, some matters are too complicated Mr. Gupta for a little spat on X to solve. But they're not impossible, and hence I repeat - it is a lack of political will. I use my mic and camera quite carefully because after a decade of doing this I realise the power it comes with. I hope you apply the same principles.

Ah so this is about protecting the Centre? Ok my bad, nvm then this is a pointless discussion.

What? Never said that, again when engaged with logic and facts, its back to twisting what I've said. I've literally said ten times now that farm fires are the major cause of pollution in winter months, and farmers continuing to burn their farms is both a systemic and political failure. I am "preaching" about farm fires as much as I am "preaching" about crackers. There is no double standard here. And no, it's fashionable to do what you're doing which is encouraging people to burst crackers because the great Diwali ritual of bursting crackers is "under threat". What I'm doing is the unpopular thing to do in today's day and age, you're smart enough to know this. vedapath.app/blog/diwali-bef… P.S- please spare me the lecture on Ulkadana, and other ancient text references. I know all about it 🙏🏻

Where is the data showing stubble burning peaks during Diwali week? Because the actual satellite records from the last ten years show the exact opposite. Farm fires follow a crop cycle, not a festival calendar. They peak every single year in a fixed window between late October and first two weeks of November, cos farmers have a narrow two-week rush to clear fields. In years when Diwali fell early ( October 19 in 2017, October 24 in 2022), the real spike happened nearly two weeks later. In years when Diwali fell late in mid-November (2020 and 2023), the fire peak was already over before the festival arrived. They only coincided in years when Diwali happened to land in early November. Second, you’re actually proving my point. If farm fires have already pushed pollution levels to dangerous highs, how does it make sense for an educated person to say, "The air is already ruined, so let’s burst crackers and add dense toxic smoke on top of it"? Make that make sense to me. I belong to a generation that grew up bursting crackers. Air quality wasn’t this catastrophic back then. But if the air right now is already choking us, and someone points out that holding off on crackers could keep an already terrible situation from turning into an outright health emergency, I don’t take that as an attack on my religion or traditions. We all know there is near-zero political will to fix the farm fire crisis. That’s a failure of governance at both Centre and State level. Your outrage makes sense against someone who blames the entire year's pollution on Diwali. But that’s not what I said, and shifting the argument to that doesn't change the facts.

This person hasn't started any debate whatsoever, simply made personal comments and told me not to give "gyaan" because I called out his post denying fire cracker pollution as obnoxious. And now he's like obviously you wouldn't like to debate blah blah. Buddy what debate? What facts? What are you even on? All you've made are statements about my intentions, about how I am dodging some question you didn't even raise. You have nothing factual or thought provoking to say, so you're constantly trying to call me out. Over what? Like I said, I've done this for a living for far too long to get confused / insecure about anything you have to say. Explain with logic if you can, else be entitled to your opinion and I'll do the same.

When did I ever dodge the question of farm fires? I have been covering them for almost 10 years, this year too. You can go watch since you seem to have an issue with my 'mic and camera'. I have always maintained that pollution in Delhi is bad the whole year - and then the farm fires make it impossible to breathe. That doesn't mean I will start bursting crackers because I think my religion is under attack. People making clarion calls to burst crackers aren't doing it for the fun and joy of it - they're doing it for SM clout and to prove some bizarre point of how they are saving Hinduism with every cracker they burst. And then people like you come with their TV channel news debate mentally and start a useless back and forth. You may be appearing on news channels, but I've been conducting those debates for a long time, so these tactics of 'you are dodging my question' and then personal comments are too old and too useless for me to engage with. Engage if you can be thought provoking please, otherwise let it be. And again, if I don't enjoy something it's not a rant. By all means please reduce Diwali to whatever you want, be that your "favourite wine" or playing cards. I'm allowed to make my observations on why I feel a festival can be enjoyed differently.

Just because you have a blue tick and call yourself an analyst also doesn't give you the right to mislead people on the impact of crackers on aggravating pollution. I'm speaking as a cancer survivor here, and someone who now sees the people of the city getting all sorts of diseases because we breathe bad air, eat rotten foods and get hard water supplies. It's amazing how logic and clear data is always met with 'don't give us sermons'. I'm sorry who's the 'us' here? Last I checked, as a Hindu, I have full right to speak about and share my thoughts on how my festivals are celebrated. I think Diwali in cities is ruined not just because of air pollution, that's the icing on the cake. All people want to do is drink and play cards, exchange very expensive gifts. I have different memories of Diwali, which included crackers but my Diwali was never limited to them. Also parents were strict about how much we could spend on crackers and had a zero bombs policy. Focus was more on cleaning the home, meeting neighbours and friends, beautifying and praying with family, eating sweets. Crackers was probably just a 15 minute thing. And yes the pollution was not so bad back in the day, one still felt it in the throat and eyes for a bit. Not for a continous 40 days. Highly unfortunate that people are promoting crackers for clout on social media. The likes on your twitter feed aren't going to help clean the air your family breathes :)

Are fire cracker companies actually paying people or what? Is there some fire cracker lobby in India that I'm not aware of? Because I do not understand how people keep crying data, data, data and yet have not checked the AQI in the last two days. NOBODY THINKS that the AQI problem of North India is due to fire crackers. EVERYBODY KNOWS it's farm fires in Punjab, Haryana, UP. HOWEVER, if you're already suffering, WHY WOULD YOU ADD TO IT BY BURSTING CRACKERS? There's a very real and visible impact of the crackers! We could barely drive back home the smog was insane. PLEASE STOP EQUATING DIWALI WITH FIRECRACKERS! They're a miniscule part of Diwali, just like playing cards. Is that all Diwali is in the cities now? Cards and crackers? Now please don't start commenting on this feeling "attacked". I am a Hindu who has celebrated Diwali for past two weeks now almost and had a wonderful time with any crackers. Jai shri Ram 🙏🏻

We are all dying a slow death. Opposition is busy saving the Constitution, Centre is busy winning elections and not caring about many real issues because nobody will hold them accountable. Nobody has the will or the guts to stop farm fires in Punjab, Haryana, UP. Political class will sell your soul (quite literally in our case) for votes. And yes it all boils down to will and guts. Open to being proven wrong on this. And to top it all - people have gone back to bursting crackers like they live in Norway with an AQI of 2. The sheer selfishness of every person who adds to this yearly disaster in North India is the only thing that remains crystal clear despite the smog. Thank god to be able to afford an air purifier.

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Clearly didn't influence enough.

It's rained a lot.

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