October 21, 2025—Delhi’s skies, still twinkling with the afterglow of Diwali’s diyas and the fleeting sparks of firecrackers, have transformed into a suffocating shroud of smog, with the Air Quality Index (AQI) rocketing past 400 to a hazardous peak of 412 by midday, marking the city’s worst post-festival pollution episode since 2023. The capital, home to 2 crore residents, awoke to a toxic veil that has rendered the air “severe” across 32 of 39 monitoring stations