By Dr. Archana Chaudhary
The festival season has arrived in the entire country. Dussehra has just passed, and Diwali on 8 November will be followed by Chhath, Guru Purab, the wedding season and Christmas. Air Quality Management (CAQM) invoked Stage I of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) after Delhi’s AQI rose sharply to 341, entering the “very poor” category. On the morning after Diwali, Gurugram’s air was in the “very poor” category, with the city’s 24-hour average AQI settling at 351 (CPCB), before climbing to 370 later in the day in the year 2025. Families ask a practical question: how do we celebrate fully and keep children and elders healthy?
The answer lies in preparedness, the habit of planning early and caring together. Gurugram learns this every monsoon, when a few hours of rain turn roads into rivers and people ask only whether their family is safe and where to go. Polluted air is a slow emergency, but the question is the same.
Preparedness begins at home and costs very little. A simple family plan can hold emergency numbers (112), regular medicines, a first-aid kit and a meeting point. In this season, it also means checking the daily AQI on the CPCB’s SAMEER app before a morning walk, wearing a fitted N95 mask when advised doing so, and keeping children and older adults indoors on bad days. This guidance rests on credible science and complements, never replaces, a doctor’s advice.
Our festivals already point the way. They celebrate light, renewal and togetherness, values suited to a cleaner season. Lamps, rangoli, flowers, music and shared sweets bring joy without harming anyone’s lungs. As in last year’s order, the Gurugram district administration has permitted only CSIR-NEERI-certified green crackers. Festive weeks are also a livelihood for many traders and workers, and rules are hard to enforce. Resident welfare associations, schools and municipal bodies can work with these traders and workers, not against them.
Households do better with guidance, and this is where universities and colleges can help. Our campuses hold deep knowledge, but too often it stays in journals that few people read. It reaches people when shared in local languages, through demonstration and in partnership rather than lecture, beginning with a question: what does the community need?
At SGT University, the Cell for Holistic Sustainable Development (CHSD) promotes community resilience and sustainable living through diverse campus-based and community outreach initiatives. Through activities such as mock drills, waste segregation, recycling practices, and awareness campaigns, the Cell encourages students, guided by their teachers, to extend their learning beyond the campus and engage with neighbouring communities. These initiatives foster environmental responsibility, disaster preparedness, and collective action, demonstrating how educational institutions can empower communities to adopt safer, healthier, and more sustainable practices.
India has already set the direction. The Prime Minister’s Ten-Point Agenda for Disaster Risk Reduction, announced in New Delhi in November 2016, calls for women’s leadership and a network of universities. The National Institute of Disaster Management offers the scientific foundation, and the University Grants Commission and the Association of Indian Universities can help bring risk reduction into curricula and recognise community engagement as core academic work.
Resilience is incomplete if it leaves people behind. A daily-wage worker cannot stay indoors on a severe AQI day. Women, persons with disabilities and economically weaker households face the greatest barriers, yet they bring knowledge that communities need. Inclusion means accessible venues, local-language material and flexible timings.
Success, too, must be measured honestly. Counting attendance is easy, but it does not show that behaviour has changed. Better measures are the share of households with a family plan and the number of residents who check the AQI before going out. We at the university can share our failures as readily as our successes.
That is what thinking globally and acting locally means. The Sendai Framework and the Sustainable Development Goals offer a shared destination, but no global target is met in conference halls. It is met when a family checks the air before a morning walk, when a student explains a health advisory to an elderly neighbour, and when a campus opens its gates to share what it knows.
Three simple steps this festive season:
1. Check the AQI daily before going outdoors.
2. Keep N95 masks at home for everyone, especially children and the elderly.
3. Check on elderly neighbours, and share what you know with them.
This Diwali, the test of our celebration is simple: can a child and a grandparent breathe easily the morning after? If we treat clean air and community care as shared responsibilities, then the next time the question comes, in a downpour or a heatwave, “Is my family safe?”, the answer can be a confident yes.
The writer is Associate Professor and Head, Cell for Holistic Sustainable Development, SGT University
