Indian supreme court bans noise at night

Anyone who has lived in India knows the country has almost no concept of noise pollution. If your neighbours are having a party, you can forget sleeping: the music will be deafening late into the night.

So it will come as a relief to many in India that no less an authority than the Supreme Court has finally stepped in and banned loud music, firecrackers and car horns at night.

Firecrackers are a great favourite in India. The national love affair with loud noise reaches its apogee at the annual Diwali festival. It's supposed to be the festival of light, but it's really a festival of noise. Everybody sets off a barrage of bangers and louder fireworks. In the major cities, it sounds as if the place is under a full-scale military assault, and the aftermath leaves thick clouds of acrid black smoke shrouding the city.

Every village in India has some annual festival which is celebrated by carting out huge loudspeakers and amplifiers that blast music late into the night. They vie with live brass bands, which often play without a sense of a tune, just trying to create the maximum amount of noise possible.

And it's not just the festivals. Indian weddings also come complete with a similar sonic barrage from brass musicians whose enthusiasm often outweighs their musicality.

It's no joking matter, according to Indian health experts, who say the extraordinary levels of noise pollution are a major cause of heart attacks and other stress-related illnesses in India.

The Supreme Court has acted after a public interest lawsuit calling for a ban on noise late at night. The lawsuit highlighted the horrific case of a 13-year-old rape victim whose cries for help could not be heard over the music from loudspeakers. She set herself on fire and burned to death.

The Supreme Court has asked the federal government to set new limits on noise at night, and to restrict the use of loudspeakers by day as well. It even suggested that chapters on the dangers of noise pollution should be included in school textbooks, and that the subject should be addressed in college lectures.

But it remains to be seen whether the court ruling will have any effect in India, a country whose laws are often impressive in writing, but poorly implemented. A little while back, the Supreme Court banned smoking in public, but you will still see Indians drawing on bidis, foul-smelling cheap local cigarettes wrapped in leaves on the streets of any major city.

- INDEPENDENT