While air pollution levels are unsafe across the country all-year-round, they spike to dangerously high levels during the winter months in North India.
This year, as the country confronts the Covid-19 pandemic, the challenge of air pollution is even more pressing, given increasing evidence of levels and transmission of the infection being exasperated by pollution. How can India solve this public health emergency?
In This episode of the Centre for Policy Research’s podcast ThoughtSpace, CPR president and chief executive, Yamini Aiyar, speaks with fellows at CPR’s initiative on climate, energy and the environment, Shibani Ghosh and Santosh Harish.
Ghosh and Harish have closely studied and engaged with this crisis in various capacities. They shed light on crop burning and other sources of pollution, the challenges of governance and state capacity, the new commission set up to manage air quality and the need to build a larger public discourse around the environment that views this problem as a social justice issue.
They recommend a shift from reactive, political quick fixes to more systematic, long-term, institutional solutions.
You can follow the Centre’s work on air pollution on Twitter or visit www.cprindia.org. You can listen to all the episodes CPR’s podcast here.