“Schools are shut down so children are less likely to be exposed to air pollution but who knows what they are exposed to at home? For the vast majority of people who work in Delhi, there is no option of working from home. They cannot afford an air purifier. We are really reliant on the government to execute effectively the policies laid out” – Bhargav Krishna speaks to BBC World on how air pollution directly affects the vulnerable.

“Stricter norms around emissions from power plants, enhancing public transport in Delhi, a lot more political participation from people across classes, and holding local authorities accountable” – Anannya Mahajan on the BBC World on possible solutions to NCR’s air pollution.

“PM2.5 is closely linked to severe health conditions, including heart attacks, strokes, and chronic lung diseases, as highlighted by evidence from India. The impacts of air pollution have a lifelong imprint on human health.” Bhargav Krishna spoke on Ravish Kumar’s show ‘आज भी AQI 500 है, कहां भाग कर जाएं लोग, दूसरे शहर भी बेहाल’.

“You feel like everything around you is burning in some way, and that smoke is palpable at all times” – Bhargav Krishna speaks to Diaa Hadid, from NPR on rising smog levels in Delhi.

“We need to look at our forecasts, which are not accurate, and how they feed into proactive implementation of GRAP. We also need to know what means of review CAQM undertakes to ensure continuous improvement in its process” – Bhargav Krishna was quoted in Hindustan Times.

“The focus on crop residue burning which seasonally occurs for 2 weeks every year only contributes to 15-20% of Delhi’s air pollution, and annually roughly 3-5%, is taking away focus from all the other reasons- local transport emissions, industries, waste burning sources etc” – Bhargav Krishna on rising air pollution levels in Delhi.

भार्गव कृष्णा कहते हैं कि वायु प्रदूषण के लिए सबसे ज्यादा पराली पर चर्चा होती है, पर हकीकत ये है कि अगर हम पूरे साल में वायु प्रदूषण की बात करें तो पराली की हिस्सेदारी औसतन पांच फीसदी से ज्यादा नहीं है। हवा में 20 फीसदी से ज्यादा प्रदूषण ट्रांसपोर्ट, इंडस्ट्री, पावर प्लांट और आसपास के शहरों से आता है।

“A daily exposure of 15ug/m3 PM2.5 is considered acceptable by the WHO. On a good day in Delhi, we see maybe 5 times that.” Bhargav Krishna was on BBC World to talk about a new study in The Lancet co-authored with Jeroen de Bont, Poornima Prabhakaran, Petter Ljungman, Joel Schwartz and others.

ndia has a fairly high threshold for what can be classified as a heat-related death, Bhargav Krishna in Bloomberg. Impacted families may be “eligible for certain compensation” which can result in physicians being “more conservative in declaring a heat death,” he added

द लैंसेट प्लैनेटरी हेल्थ में प्रकाशित एक हालिया अध्ययन में बताया गया है कि भारत में वायु प्रदूषण ने लोगों के स्वास्थ्य को किस तरह प्रभावित किया है. ईटीवी भारत के शंकरनारायणन सुदलाई के साथ एक विशेष साक्षात्कार में, लैंसेट अध्ययन के लेखक, जाने-माने पर्यावरणविद् भार्गव कृष्ण ने कहा कि यह कम प्रदूषित माने जाने वाले शहरों में अल्पकालिक वायु प्रदूषण के संपर्क से होने वाली मृत्यु दर पर अपनी तरह का पहला शोध है. उन्होंने यह भी बताया कि भारत में मौजूदा परिवेशी वायु गुणवत्ता मानकों पर फिर से विचार करने की आवश्यकता क्यों है.

“Building a smog tower or a seawall will gain (immediate) political benefits, but will that seawall save a city during coastal floods in the future? That’s the political conundrum at the heart of climate adaptation.” Aditya Valiathan Pillai said.

காற்று மாசு குறித்த லான்சட் பிளானட்டரி ஹெல்த் ஸ்டடி ரிப்போர்ட் என்ற (Lancet Planetary Health study report) சமீபத்திய ஆய்வறிக்கை காற்று மாசினால் இந்தியாவில் ஆண்டுக்கு 33,000 பேர் மரணமடைவதாக எச்சரித்துள்ளது. சென்னையைப் பொறுத்தவரையிலும் கடலோரத்தில் இருக்கும் நகரம் என்பதால் காற்று மாசுபாட்டின் தாக்கத்தை நம்மால் உணர முடியிவில்லை என்கிறார் இந்த ஆய்வுக்கட்டுரையின் முதன்மை ஆசிரியர் முனைவர் பார்கவ் கிருஷ்ணா. ஈடிவி பாரத் தமிழ்நாடு ஆசிரியர் சங்கரநாராயணன் சுடலை-க்கு அவர் அளித்த பேட்டியின் சுருக்கத்தினை இந்த கட்டுரையில் பார்க்கலாம்.

Watch: Bhargav Krishna on NDTV’s ‘Left, Right & Centre’ on his study in The Lancet – “India needs to set a long-term goal of aligning more closely with WHO air quality guidelines. Currently, even cities meeting national standards are seeing a significant number of deaths, underscoring the need to strengthen our standards and redouble action.”

Across 10 cities — Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Shimla and Varanasi — more than 33,000 deaths could be attributed to air pollution every year on an average, study, co-authored by Bhargav Krishna, said.

Report in The Lancet, co-authored by Bhargav Krishna, found that across 10 major cities in India — Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Shimla, and Varanasi – around 33,000 deaths every year are attributable to PM 2.5 pollution levels

যে ১০টি শহরে বায়ু দূষণের কারণে মৃত্যুর ঘটনা ঘটছে, সেই তালিকায় রয়েছে আহমেদাবাদ, বেঙ্গালুরু, চেন্নাই, দিল্লি, হায়দরাবাদ, কলকাতা, মুম্বই, পুনে, সিমলা, বারাণসী। সমীক্ষায় দাবি করা হয়েছে যে, বায়ু দূষণের কারণে মৃত্যুর নিরিখে ওই ১০ শহরের তালিকায় শীর্ষে রয়েছে দিল্লি।

दिल्ली (Deaths due to air pollution in Delhi) में सर्दी का मौसम आते ही वायु प्रदूषण की समस्या बढ़ जाती है। एक रिसर्च में चौंकाने वाली रिपोर्ट आई है। इस शोध के मुताबिक राजधानी में हर साल करीब 12 हजार लोगों की जान वायु प्रदूषण के कारण हुई। इस आंकड़े को और आसानी से समझे तो 100 में से लगभग 12 लोगों की मौत खराब हवा के कारण होती है।

Delhi had about 12,000 deaths per year, while the lowest rate among the 10 cities surveyed is Shimla, with 59 deaths per year between 2008-19 – a study in The Lancet Planetary Health, co-authored by Bhargav Krishna, found.

Recording accurate and comprehensive information is the backbone of good climate policy. Without highly localized warnings, for example, people do not have the information that allows them to take precautions – Aditya Valiathan Pillai in Bloomberg.

The work of effectively targeting vulnerable groups begins with making it a government mandate to compensate for the loss of work hours from heat stress, said Aditya Valiathan Pillai.

“You need to sit down with three data sets—income, electricity and water provision—and see where those are lowest. That’s where you need to go.” Aditya Valiathan Pillai on planning responses to deaths due to heat in India.

In the New York Times, Aditya Valiathan Pillai outlines how to ensure key elements of the democratic process such as election rallies and voting continue in a hotter, climate-stressed world : information on real-time local temperatures with color-coded risk levels, water stations, shade and cooling centers, and early warnings about heat.

“The nature, quantity, and intensity of the heat we experience today is going to change every year, and it seems we have underestimated how rapidly these changes will escalate. Ultimately, managing heat is a question about how we should structure our societies.” – Aditya Valiathan Pillai on The Times of India podcast.

“In India, there is a massive black hole in understanding heatwave deaths and illnesses.” – Aditya Valiathan Pillai on NPR’s Morning Edition program.

“There is a long way to go in developing the next generation of heat action plans that are actually focused on implementability.” – Aditya Valiathan Pillai in part two of the Economic Times Morning Brief podcast on India’s extreme heat.

Heat is something that affects every social group in this country and every part of this country in terms of geography – Aditya Valiathan Pillai talked to The Economic Times Morning Brief podcast on the impacts of heatwaves. (Part one of a two-part series)

“There is a real opportunity for the new government to radically rethink its strategy by doubling down on renewable energy and storage rather than on investments in new, uneconomic and unreliable coal plants.” Ashwini Swain is quoted.

“Focusing through evidence syntheses on narrow and concrete climate policies may crowd out attention to broader policies that are harder to categorize but may be used more in developing countries”. Navroz K Dubash is quoted.

“The heat action plan (HAP) is a guidance document. However, it needs to be financed and monitored to ensure effective implementation. The plan also needs to be notified under some act or law so that it has more weight and measures recommended are implemented properly” – Aditya Valiathan Pillai on Delhi’s HAP.

Shibani Ghosh talks about her experience as an environmental lawyer, the significance of the right against adverse effects of climate change, the need for an umbrella climate law for India, and more. “How do we make a climate law that is more enabling than regulatory?” – she discussed.

Suravee Nayak talks about on the need to address the larger developmental problem of coal geographies by building communities’ capacities – from education to employment – so they can have alternative, sustainable livelihoods.

“Policy emphasis on ‘resource adequacy’ comes from a long history of scarcity in Indian electricity and leads to a perception that to meet higher demand we need to add more.” – Ashwini Swain says in the article.

In Economic Times Morning Brief podcast, Shibani Ghosh spoke about the Supreme Court recognising the right against the adverse effects of climate change as a fundamental right and on climate litigation in India.

Aditya Valiathan Pillai on elections in extreme heat: Having the right infrastructure (cooling centers, shade provision, etc.) is important, but it must be integrated into India’s long-term heat planning so that come election time, “it doesn’t take away the possibility of political life and prevent democratic participation.”

“It is important for political parties and district administration to know the localised temperature within a maidan or a polling centre and communicate that to local residents instead of relying on the nearest weather station which could be several kilometres away,” Aditya Valiathan Pillai said.

Aditya Valiathan Pillai discussed the impacts of extreme heat on various vulnerable groups, why heatwaves are a public policy concern, and how we can combat them effectively.

“Restarting a knowledge sharing platform across South Asia would be a useful first step in acknowledging and addressing transboundary air pollution” – Bhargav Krishna is quoted.

There are two perspectives to consider when approaching systems thinking in the context of the climate emergency—the physical perspective and the transition perspective, Aman Srivastava said.

Navroz K Dubash discussed the COP28 declaration, which calls on countries to “transition away” from fossil fuels.

The commission to help manage air quality in New Delhi and the surrounding regions can direct states to take very specific actions that reduce pollution. But it’s chosen not to utilize the full range of its powers, Bhargav Krishna said.

Navroz K Dubash talked about international climate talks and COP28 as well as India’s role in it.

Bhargav Krishna talked about the impact air pollution in India is having on people’s health.