Down To Earth recaps the primary environment, health and developmental news from 2023
Photo: Midhun Vijayan / CSE Air pollution was in the news in 2023 too, like the preceding years. Starting from November 2, Delhi witnessed its first smog episode of the season.
However, Down To Earth (DTE) also highlighted the plight of India’s future generations this year. We showed a generation of children, especially in the northern part of the country, growing up in a highly toxic environment. This would have grave consequences for them and for the country in the coming years, DTE noted.
Here is some of the DTE coverage on air pollution this year:
We started 2023 on a hopeful note. The winter of 2022-2023 was the cleanest for Delhi-National Capital Region since 2018, when large-scale air quality monitoring started, according to a new analysis by New Delhi-based non-profit Centre for Science and Environment.
Cut to October 28. DTE wrote about how children in the Indian capital had no place to hide from the impact of air pollution as the AQI of the city slipped into the ‘very poor’ category, buoyed entirely by Delhi’s own emissions.
DTE also explained why children bear the brunt of toxic air in Delhi.
DTE reporters spread out on the ground in Delhi and other parts of north India as soon as the season’s first smog episode took place on November 2.
Children under five years of age were the worst sufferers of respiratory diseases in the national capital, DTE discovered through its ground reportage.
An analysis by DTE of 25 research studies and papers published between 2018 and October 2023, showed the impact of air pollution on India’s children was not restricted to Delhi or north India.
Of course, Delhi is Ground Zero for air pollution in India. Its residents breathe in PM2.5 almost 30 times WHO safe limits, DTE highlighted.
Senior DTE cartoonist, Sorit Gupto, showed the cruel reality of growing up in the highly toxic of north India.
The Indo-Gangetic Plain, which dominates north India, is its most air pollution-affected region. India’s largest state by population, Uttar Pradesh, has a population equal to Brazil. But its future generation, especially in the more thickly populated eastern part, are suffering, DTE found in its field reportage from Gorakhpur, one of eastern Uttar Pradesh’s bigger cities.
Air pollution is damaging the lives of children in Bihar too. The state is located in the Indo-Gangetic Plain, like Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
One in every two children in Kolkata suffers from air pollution, DTE found. Kolkata and West Bengal are also part of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.
Another of Sorit Gupto’s cartoons on pollution’s impact on Indian children.
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