In the News
November 23, 2021
Gulpreet Singh begs for food from a dirty hemp mat spread on the sidewalk outside Delhi’s South Campus metro station.
Like millions of Indians who survive on handouts or daily wages, the 84-year-old says he has no choice but to be outside, breathing air thick with smog in the Indian capital.
“I come here and wait. Sometimes, people give me food,” said Singh, his voice straining over the noise of auto rickshaws and cars belching fumes just meters away.
Delhi is often ranked among the world’s most polluted cities, and air pollution there reached “hazardous” levels in early November, according to India’s National Air Quality Index (AQI), which tracks the presence of harmful particles in the air.
But some Delhi residents have become so accustomed to bad air that it’s a part of daily life — they barely notice it, they say.
Others say it’s making them sick.
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The ‘silent killer’
Delhi is not the only Indian city choked by smog.
Last year, nine of the world’s 10 most polluted cities were in India, according to monitoring network IQAir.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution causes an estimated 7 million premature deaths a year globally, mainly as a result of increased mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancers and respiratory infections.
Bad air could be reducing the life expectancy of hundreds of millions of Indians by as much as nine years, according to a recent study by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC).
The study also found that every single one of India’s 1.3 billion residents endure annual average pollution levels that exceed guidelines set by WHO.