National Ambient Air Quality Standards

Move the air pollution needle to smaller and neglected cities

Conversations and policies on air pollution are mostly centred on Delhi and Mumbai but other cities and towns have been facing toxic air too. These are, at best, footnotes in national conversations on air pollution. Authorities here go in for…

Can India’s National Clean Air Programme ensure good air and environmental justice?

The conventional citizenship discourse in India is confined among the socio-cultural elites. Paradoxically, these elites often act as compliant participants, as per Hardin’s “tragedy of the commons”, prioritising individual gain over collective responsibility for shared resources. Their pursuit of short-term…

Wake-up call: India’s air pollution-related deaths among highest in the world

As winter sets in, the air quality in most cities in India turns critically poor. Triggered by climate change, the situation worsens every year, impacting people’s physical and mental health. More than 2.3 million Indians died prematurely due to pollution…