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You Think the Air in Beijing Is Bad? Try New Delhi

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India’s Air Pollution: Is It Worse than China’s?

India may have just gotten the wake-up call it needed to start getting serious about its growing pollution problem. A study put out this week by Tel Aviv University reports that Indian megacities are seeing a faster increase in pollution than the cities in the classic environmental villain to the east, China. According to the paper, from 2002 to 2010, Bangalore saw the second highest increase in air-pollution levels in the world at 34%, and Indian cities including Pune, Mumbai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad, among others, also saw double-digit increases. Because the pollution measured reflects a combination of industrial and weather-related particles like dust, it’s not possible to say this is entirely a man-made problem. But the fact that India’s population grew faster than China’s in the past decade means that the air in India’s cities is doomed to get worse before it gets better.

It doesn’t seem fair that China gets both the job-supplying manufacturing sector and the relatively better pollution news. (It’s increasing in Chinese cities too — just not as fast
.) But no one in India could claim the information to be much of a shock. Though this is my first winter in New Delhi, everyone keeps telling me that it’s “normal” this time of year for the Indian capital to get smoggy. But how smoggy is normal? So smoggy that companies spam my phone with texts for Ayurvedic asthma cures? Apparently so, because I’ve gotten them. When winter kicks in, the cooler temperatures and still air always bring an annual period of haze to the city, but the pervasive murk that enshrouded the city for the first few weeks of November raised more concerns than usual, and not just mine. According to researchers at India’s Centre for Science and Environment, levels of respirable particulate matter (PM10) in mid-November were up 47% over what they were that time last year, and nitrogen-dioxide levels were up 57%.

Read more: India’s Air Pollution: Is It Worse than China’s? | TIME.com

India’s Air the World’s Unhealthiest, Study Says

India has the worst air pollution in the entire world, beating China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, according to a study released during this year's World Economic Forum in Davos.

Of 132 countries whose environments were surveyed, India ranks dead last in the 'Air (effects on human health)' ranking. The annual study, the Environmental Performance Index, is conducted and written by environmental research centers at Yale and Columbia universities with assistance from dozens of outside scientists. The study uses satellite data to measure air pollution concentrations


http://www.cnbc.com/id/100425374/Indiarsquos_Air_the_Worldrsquos_Unhealthiest_Study_Says
 
http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/31/you-think-the-air-in-beijing-is-bad-try-new-delhi/?_r=0

31-Indiapollution-Indiaink-blog480.jpg

A thick blanket of smog over New Delhi on Thursday morning.

NEW DELHI—Beijing’s air pollution has reached such toxic levels recently that the Chinese government is finally acknowledging the problem – and acting on it.

But in New Delhi on Thursday, air pollution levels far exceeded those in Beijing, only without any government acknowledgement or action. It is not the first time pollution in India’s capital has outpaced that in China.

The level of tiny particulates known as PM 2.5, which lodge deep in the lungs and can enter the bloodstream, was over 400 micrograms per cubic meter in various neighborhoods in and around Delhi Thursday, according to a real-time air quality monitor. That compared to Beijing’s most-recent air quality reading of 172 micrograms per cubic meter. (The “Air Quality online” link to the left of the Delhi website gives you real-time monitoring of Delhi’s pollution levels.)

At the University of Delhi’s northern campus at 12:30 p.m., the reading for PM 2.5 was 402 micrograms per cubic meter; in the eastern suburb of Noida it was 411; at the Indira Gandhi International airport it was 421.

Beijing’s government on Wednesday introduced emergency measures to curb pollution, ordering cars off the roads and factories to shut down, and warning citizens to avoid activity outside. The measures came after two straight days that the readings were higher than 300, a level the United States Environmental Protection Agency considers “hazardous.”

The forecast for Delhi’s air pollution Friday is “critical,” according to the Ministry of Earth Sciences. So far, though, Delhi’s government has made no announcements about the city’s air pollution, nor introduced any emergency measures, a spokesman for chief minister’s office said. Sheila Dikshit, the chief minister, said in an interview in December that the city could not keep up with the factors that cause air pollution.

Beijing’s air quality is so bad that living there is like living in a smoking lounge, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. The levels of air pollution Bloomberg cited as Beijing’s average were half that of New Delhi early Thursday afternoon.



additional reading material :

India’s Air Pollution: Is It Worse than China’s?
India’s Air Pollution: Is It Worse than China’s? | TIME.com
 

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