In the News
January 12, 2024
For the first time since I arrived in Delhi about 40 years ago, I skipped winter in the city for two months expressly to avoid air pollution and stayed in a coastal town. I would have been away longer if I could have helped it. This would have been unimaginable about 10 years ago. I loved Delhi winters—the chill, the fog, the charcoal fires and aromas wafting from tandoors. But the charm is now clouded by smog: thermal inversion makes Delhi a chamber of toxic gases and particles in winter.
The government might have to take measures to depopulate the city or considerably slow its population growth. Ill health might do it for the city otherwise. A well-known pulmonologist says he has not seen a pink lung in his city hospital for many years. And the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago says in its India Fact Sheet that people in NCR lose 11.9 years of their life because of air pollution. Isn’t that too high a price for economic growth?