National Physical Laboratory backs Sonu Nigam for his remark

Mumbai: Bollywood singer Sonu Nigam, who is in the eye of storm over his remark against ‘azaan on loudspeaker’, today got the backing of one the county’s premier research laboratory in the field of physical sciences. “Sonu Nigam is right on his part, noise is noise, irrespective of religion,‘’ CSIR- National Physical Laboratory Director Dinesh Kumar Aswal said here while replying to questions from reporters after a workshop organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology on the International Noise Pollution Day.

The scientist pointed out that as per the government rule and the Supreme Court order, the noise pollution level should be 45dB to 55dB in residential areas. The singer last week on his Twitter handle tweeted on Azaan on loudspeaker. He wrote, “God bless everyone. I'm not a Muslim and I have to be woken up by the Azaan in the morning.

When will this forced religiousness end in India.” He also tweeted on temple and gurudwara and said, “I don’t believe in any temple or gurudwara using electricity to wake up people who don’t follow the religion. Why then..? Honest? True?” On the rising of noise pollution the NPL Director said, “With development, noise pollution is rising and unnecessary honking is the major issue of noise pollution and what we lack is awareness.” To control the problem, Dr Aswal said that stars system should be applied on all electronic products for noise measurement.

The workshop was attended by school children, where they were told about noise and pollution and issues like development of a noise standard for airport zone and noise pollution and its effect on human being & urban environment was discussed. (UNI)