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  AN ACHIEVABLE REALITY Eliminating Air Pollution From Crop-Residue Burning PDF Seema Paul and Priya Shyamsundar ★ Air pollution is now ranked among the top five leading health risk factors in India, contributing to both premature mortality and ill health (Dandona et al. 2017).1 While the problem needs to be addressed across the country, the case for action in Delhi is most urgent as the Air Quality Index (AQI) here rarely displays moderate, let alone good, air-qual...

THE VOICE OF COMMON CAUSE And an Enduring Romance with Public Causes PDF Dear readers, The journal you are holding in your hands has completed 36 years since it was launched in 1982. Prior to that, it was called Public Notice for a few years but was discontinued for the new title, Common Cause, launched in February 1982. Our legendary founder Mr H D Shourie called it “The Voice of Common Cause” in both literal and figurative sense. At Common Cause, we try to make sense of ...

RIGHT TO CLEAN AIR, A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT A Glimpse at the Legal and Regulatory Frameworks PDF Swapna Jha ★ Aren't poverty and need the greatest polluters? Asked the then Indian Prime Minister Mrs Indira Gandhi at the first global United Nations Conference on Human Environment held in 1972 at Stockholm, Sweden. The question rings true even today and the situation has not changed much. The environmental challenges and concerns we face today are a result not only of industri...

Understanding Air Pollution and Its Economics PDF Prof. E. Somanathan ★ Many years ago, I spent several hours in a basement kitchen in a friend’s house in a Himalayan village. Although there was an outlet for smoke, it was nevertheless very smoky in the kitchen and it took some time for my watering eyes and coughing lungs to partially adjust to it. It was only much later that I learnt that prolonged exposure to the smoke from such a wood fire is more than just a nuisa...

A CLEAR VIEW BEYOND THE HAZE A Survey of Public Perception and Awareness PDF Anumeha ★ If you live in a large Indian city and are anxious about breathing unsafe air, your concern is spot-on. But what should make you even more worried is that you are also one of the worst hit in the global air pollution crisis. Your exposure to toxic air is way higher than those living in developed countries, according to global air quality databases. Let there be no doubt that air pollutio...

Supreme Court: PDF Allahabad High Court RTI Rules: In a petition by Common Cause, the Supreme Court (SC) in a landmark order on March 20, 2018, directed that the fee per application should not exceed `50 and `5 for document photocopying, for individuals keen to access information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. This order, applicable to all government authorities, addresses concerns expressed by our organisation and other RTI activists about excessive fees being a deterrent to in...

TACKLING AIR POLLUTION IN SMART CITIES Policies and Guidelines PDF Anisha Raman & Shambhavi Shukla ★ According to the Census 2011, one-third of India can now be categorised as urban and the population of the cities is expected to rise from 285 million in 2001 to 590 million by 2030. Projections show that 68 Indian cities will have a population soaring over a million by 2030. Cities have always been considered engines of industrial growth because they bring employme...

PDF In 2017, the PM 2.5 concentration in Delhi was more than 1200 microgram per cubic metre, i.e. 48 times the guideline value established by the World Health Organisation (WHO). While it may be the most polluted city on earth, Delhi is not the only place affected by air pollution. This is a global epidemic, with 92 per cent of the world population living in places where the WHO air-quality guideline levels were not met in 2014. According to the Lancet Commission on pollution and hea...