Blogs

This blog post first appeared in Hindustan Times.

Air pollution is a health emergency. Schools are shut, many offices have offered work from home to their employees. The air outside is so bad that doctors are asking people to leave Delhi NCR, if possible. In this forced vacation, my 10 year old daughter asks me if I also had pollution break during my school days?

The question has been puzzling me. It was last year when we experienced ‘pollution break’...

This blog post first appeared in The Wire.

After a few months of respite, Delhi’s air quality plunged to unhealthy levels a week or so ago, rekindling concerns about the approaching winter, and debates on managing crop burning, vehicular pollution and cracker-bursting during the upcoming Diwali festival. Since September, the national capital...

This blog post originally appeared in Hindustan Times.

Over the past few years, around the time when Diwali ends and winter sets in, Delhi’s plummeting air quality reaches dangerous levels, initiating a series of debates and actions among environmental experts, governments and citizens. Experts have attributed this post-Diwali decline in air quality to polluting firecrackers, crop burning, a change in the wind directions, and vehicular...

The Asia Pacific region, which includes India and China, constitutes 60% of the global population and has contributed to nearly half of the global annual CO2 emissions in 2017. It is also the fastest growing region in the world economy, expected to account for 60% of the world’s growth in energy...

This blog post originally appeared in WRI Insights.

India’s parliament approved the Motor Vehicles Amendment Bill on July 31, 2019, the result of a five-year effort to improve national legislation on road safety. After the president’s approval, India’s streets may finally become safer places for both pedestrians and drivers.

Road traffic deaths have reached alarming levels across the world, with...

This blog post originally appeared in WRI Insights.

After the largest election in history, India's government faces important decisions on how to respond to climate change, including preparing for its increasing impacts on the lives and livelihoods of millions of Indians. While climate and environmental issues such as deforestation, water stress and floods were largely absent in the election campaign, several...

India suffers from the highest burden of road crashes, contributing to nearly 10% of global road deaths. In just the last decade (2008-2017), road crashes in India have increased by 23%, with an average annual increase of about 2% every year. The problem is particularly acute in urban areas, which witness nearly 42% of all crashes in the...

This blog post originally appeared in WRI Insights.

Chennai, India faced a devastating flood in 2015 that killed hundreds of people and displaced many more. Today, the southern Indian city’s four main reservoirs are virtually dry.

This crisis is not only due to lack of water. Lack of proper management is exacerbating dry conditions in Chennai and many other...

As India awaits monsoons, many parts of the country are already reeling under drought-like conditions. The government, private agencies and even residential associations are issuing directives and messages, highlighting the need for water conservation and the parsimonious use of water. Thermal power plants in the country constitute a class of water users that is often overlooked.

Thermal power plants consume significant amounts of water during their process of...

The last two decades have seen a rampant rise in environmental challenges being faced by cities and countries globally. In India, too, challenges related to air pollution, waste management, scarcity of water, conservation of natural resources, and loss of biodiversity, amongst others have been increasing. This photo essay uses animations based on satellite images to show the effect these challenges have had on our country.

Urbanisation

In the last two decades, India has urbanised at an unprecedented rate. This image shows the growth of Bangalore between 1990 and 2015....