What is Daylight Saving Time, which the US Senate has voted to scrap?

• The US Senate unanimously passed a law making daylight saving time (DST) permanent, scrapping the biannual practise of putting clocks forward and back coinciding with the arrival and departure of winter.
• The practise of turning clocks back by an hour to standard time every November will stop and DST, which now starts in March, will be in effect all year round.

What does this imply?

• With clocks in the US going back an hour, the time difference between New York and India will increase from the current nine and a half hours to ten and a half hours.
• In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite has happened, where countries have “sprung forward”, and the time difference with India has reduced.

What is DST?

• DST is the practice of resetting clocks ahead by an hour in spring, and behind by an hour in autumn (or fall).
• During these months, countries that follow this system get an extra hour of daylight in the evening.
• Because the spring to fall cycle is opposite in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, DST lasts from March to October/November in Europe and the US, and from September/October to April in New Zealand and Australia.
• Dates for this switch, which happens twice a year (in the spring and autumn) are decided beforehand.
• By law, the 28 member states of the EU switch together — moving forward on the last Sunday of March and falling back on the last Sunday in October.
• In the US, clocks go back on the first Sunday of November.

Why have Daylight Saving Time?

• DST is meant to save energy.
• It involves resetting clocks ahead by an hour in spring, and behind by an hour in autumn, and those in favour of DST argue that it means a longer evening daytime.
• Individuals will complete their daily work routines an hour earlier, and that extra hour of daylight is supposed to mean a lower consumption of energy.
• Written accounts suggest that a group of Canadians in Port Arthur (Ontario) were the first to adopt the practice on July 1, 1908, setting their clocks an hour ahead.
• parts of Canada followed suit.
• In April 1916, during World War I, Germany and Austria introduced DST to minimise the use of artificial lighting.
• In the EU, clocks in the 28 member states move forward on the last Sunday in March and fall back on the last Sunday in October.
• India does not follow daylight saving time.

What is the problem with this?

• One hour of lost sleep in the US increases the fatal crash rate by 5.4% to 7.6% for six days following the transition.
• Higher rate of workplace injuries after the switch, leading to lost days of work; a slight drop in stock market performance; health problems as a result of disruption of the circadian rhythm (body clock) and even longer sentences ordered by judges deprived of sleep.