India's air pollution season is off to a terrible start.

Toxic air in northern India this week has prompted school closures, traffic restrictions and internal political struggles. "We don't breathe air, we smoke it," said one activist.
NEW DELHI — This year's air pollution season air in northern India started off catastrophically, even by the standards of a region with one of the worst air in the world.
The particles that hovering over New Delhi, the capital and neighboring areas in recent days have turned skies into a muted gray and led to widespread suffering, school closures and other disruptions. Politicians trade bitter accusations about who is to blame.
"We don't breathe air but smoke it," said Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an environmental activist in New Delhi and the author of "Breathing Here Is Injurious to Your Health", a book on air pollution in the country.
Public Attention focused on pollution in New Delhi this week, she added, but hundreds of millions of people in northern India are also suffering from some of the worst air pollution they have seen in decades. years.
Air quality in India, never great to start with, tends to get worse in the fall when farmers burn the remaining straw of their rice crops to make way for new plantations. The pattern was no different this fall, but the latest air quality readings were particularly dire.
Thursday afternoon, 18 cities across India looked "very bad", according to government data that tracked air quality figures well above what the World Health Organization would consider healthy. Air quality in 12 other cities was "severe," the worst on the nation's six-point air quality scale.
ImageView of New Delhi shrouded in smog on Friday. " role="group">ImageA farmer burning straw after a rice harvest in the outskirts of Jalandhar, Punjab, on Thursday. The practice contributes to air pollution in India, but efforts to discourage it have failed The Delhi government has asked residents to work from home or carpool, truck traffic in the city has been halted and several school districts in the region have moved classes online.
On Friday Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi's chief minister, ordered primary schools to close at the end of Friday and told schools to stop outdoor activities for older children The country's top human rights commission has also summoned officials from Delhi and neighboring states for a meeting on crop burning.
The latest India's air pollution crisis already has a clear political advantage ique, perhaps because some politicians are starting to look ahead to the country's general election in 2024.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kejriwal, Delhi's chief minister, suggested that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

World Nov 4, 2022 0 54 Add to Reading List

India's air pollution season is off to a terrible start.

Toxic air in northern India this week has prompted school closures, traffic restrictions and internal political struggles. "We don't breathe air, we smoke it," said one activist.

NEW DELHI — This year's air pollution season air in northern India started off catastrophically, even by the standards of a region with one of the worst air in the world.

The particles that hovering over New Delhi, the capital and neighboring areas in recent days have turned skies into a muted gray and led to widespread suffering, school closures and other disruptions. Politicians trade bitter accusations about who is to blame.

"We don't breathe air but smoke it," said Jyoti Pande Lavakare, an environmental activist in New Delhi and the author of "Breathing Here Is Injurious to Your Health", a book on air pollution in the country.

Public Attention focused on pollution in New Delhi this week, she added, but hundreds of millions of people in northern India are also suffering from some of the worst air pollution they have seen in decades. years.

Air quality in India, never great to start with, tends to get worse in the fall when farmers burn the remaining straw of their rice crops to make way for new plantations. The pattern was no different this fall, but the latest air quality readings were particularly dire.

Thursday afternoon, 18 cities across India looked "very bad", according to government data that tracked air quality figures well above what the World Health Organization would consider healthy. Air quality in 12 other cities was "severe," the worst on the nation's six-point air quality scale.

ImageView of New Delhi shrouded in smog on Friday. " role="group">ImageA farmer burning straw after a rice harvest in the outskirts of Jalandhar, Punjab, on Thursday. The practice contributes to air pollution in India, but efforts to discourage it have failed The Delhi government has asked residents to work from home or carpool, truck traffic in the city has been halted and several school districts in the region have moved classes online.

On Friday Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi's chief minister, ordered primary schools to close at the end of Friday and told schools to stop outdoor activities for older children The country's top human rights commission has also summoned officials from Delhi and neighboring states for a meeting on crop burning.

The latest India's air pollution crisis already has a clear political advantage ique, perhaps because some politicians are starting to look ahead to the country's general election in 2024.

On Wednesday, Mr. Kejriwal, Delhi's chief minister, suggested that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi