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Supreme Court gags noise pollution
It may now be possible for citizens of India to sleep peacefully at night without being disturbed by blaring music from a neighbour’s stereo or loudspeakers screeching bhajans at the local jagran. We need to collectively thank the Supreme Court for it. In a landmark judgment on Tuesday, the apex court banned the use of loudspeakers, high decibel musical instruments and firecrackers between 10 at night and six in the morning. It also barred the use of vehicular horns near hospitals and residential areas at night. Acting on a public interest litigation, the court issued a series of directives and guidelines regulating the use of loudspeakers even during the day by educational institutions, residential societies and at political rallies. The apex court’s order is significant because so far such restrictions were imposed by executive fiat and orders of various high courts. With the Supreme Court order it becomes the law of the land. Hopefully, it will help arrest the alarming level of noise pollution in our cities. A recent study conducted on 1,500 traffic policemen in Hyderabad showed that three of every four cops on city roads suffer from noise-induced hearing loss. The situation is likely to be the same in other cities. Research done by the Pollution Control Board and IIT Roorkee has shown that noise pollution led to irritability, fatigue, high blood pressure, changes in cholesterol level and loss of hearing. The Supreme Court must be lauded for persisting with its environmental activism in the face of inaction on the part of governments, municipalities and police in implementing its rulings. As an indication of how serious the court is about
its implementation it has asked the Centre to establish the importance of controlling noise pollution in educational institutions. Rejecting the plea to relax the law on religious grounds the court decreed: "Nobody can indulge in aural aggression". With the court declining the "shelter of religion", citizens can now hope to be spared the assault they were subjected to all this while in the name of religion. How will the ban be enforced in every town and village of India? Empowering the police to book, fine and arrest and simplifying prosecution is the obvious answer, but it is easier said than done. In the end, it is only civilised behaviour which will teach us to respect the other person’s space. That can make a real difference.
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