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Tuesday brought inhabitants of the world's most polluted city found themselves exposed to extremely polluted air that registered in the "severe" category.

Extremely High Air Quality Readings

Several parts of Delhi showed an AQI exceeding 500, which represents a tenfold increase over the healthy threshold established by the World Health Organization.

Particular areas, levels of dangerous airborne particles soared to of 1800, amounting to fifteen to twenty times higher than healthy limits.

Firecracker Ban and New Developments

For the past four years, authorities had implemented a complete ban on the sale and use of firecrackers during Diwali due to their significant contribution to the dangerous haze that blankets the metropolis as the cold season begins.

However recently, the newly elected regional government petitioned the supreme court to seek a relaxation of the ban.

They proposed allowing "eco-friendly fireworks" – which have been doubted by environmental experts as being only approximately one-third less polluting – as a balance between "cultural practices and environment".

Judicial Decision and Reality

To the disappointment of medical and ecological activists, judges agreed to the appeal, specifying that eco-friendly pyrotechnics could be ignited during specific time windows throughout the Diwali.

Throughout the festival evening, there was considerable disregard of the designated hours across the metropolis, with little enforcement regarding whether the pyrotechnics being used were actually the supposedly greener version.

Many air quality sensors throughout the capital showed air quality peaking around the night hours to the most severe measurements seen during celebrations in at least recent memory.

International Consequences

Extensive ignition of firecrackers during Diwali also triggered a dispute with neighbouring the neighboring country, with representatives in Pakistan's Punjab partly blaming worsening pollution levels in the city of Lahore on contaminants originating in neighboring India following the celebrations.

Chronic Pollution Issue

Extremely elevated concentrations of atmospheric toxins in Delhi have continued as a major problem for over a decade and a half, with the condition continuing to worsen.

During celebratory seasons, the levels of toxic particulate matter in the atmosphere has been found to spike to significantly exceeding the worst readings ever measured in the Chinese city, which was once considered as the planet's dirtiest city.

Various Pollution Factors

The situation in the capital is caused by a convergence of various sources including automobile exhaust, dust, construction activities, waste incineration and pollutants from agricultural fires in adjacent states of neighboring agricultural zones.

Within these states, agricultural workers regularly set their fields on fire to expedite field preparation, creating toxic pollution that then gets trapped over the city as cooler air descends.

Public Health and Financial Toll

Public health and economic impact on the nearly 33 million residents calling home the metropolitan zone is enormous, according to numerous investigations.

This pollution causes elevated rates of neurological, cardiovascular and breathing diseases, and can potentially cause malignancies.

Air quality crisis is projected to be accounting for ten thousand early mortalities per year in the city.