“Now that India has its own air quality framework whose credibility is proven beyond doubt, we need to take its advantage to become self-sufficient in replicating in other cities as originally envisaged in the National Clean Air Programme plan document rather than borrowing foreign framework with a cost,” Dr Gufran Beig said.

Using this, all urban local bodies can issue timely health advisories to alert citizens about ‘bad air’ days, which will help save vulnerable groups from severe health impacts of air pollution, the senior scientist added.

On March 23, the court had passed a slew of directions in connection with the treatment of persons with rare diseases, including a direction to notify the National Health Policy for Rare Diseases by March 31 and setting up a National Consortium for Research, Development and Therapeutics, a rare diseases committee at AIIMS and a fund for such ailments.

The index ranks states on five parameters of food safety: human resources and institutional data, compliance, food testing facility, training and capacity building besides consumer empowerment.
Among small states, Goa came first followed by Meghalaya and Manipur. Among union territories, Jammu and Kashmir, Andaman and Nicobar Island and Delhi secured the top three positions on the index.