India’s lethal air has become so routine that even mass mortality now struggles to provoke political urgency.   India’s national capital is choking as it always does, under a winter blanket of smog that has long ceased to shock. Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta has responded by urging half the city’s office workforce to work from home - a palliative that only serves to starkly underscore the enduring helplessness of governments in tackling the poison in the air. Delhi is not

The capital’s annual smog crisis is no longer a seasonal aberration but a policy failure in slow motion. In recent years, winter in north India has become a season of dread instead of relief from the monsoons. Nowhere is this more viscerally felt than in Delhi, which has slipped from a polluted megacity into the ranks of the world’s most toxic capitals. Until the early 1990s, Delhi’s air, though imperfect, remained largely breathable. A smaller population, fewer vehicles and

While nearly all plastics are made from fossil fuels, their differences become clear only when we look at the seven RIC codes. Dear Reader, it feels nice to take a journey down the ‘history lane’, and that is what I did over the past three weeks. In the first part, we began with Abeer’s vivid and haunting dream—a child’s gentle warning about the sorrow of our oceans. In the second part, we traced plastics from their origins to their surprising rise as everyday companions in o

A nation aspiring to scientific leadership cannot afford a capital city where breathing becomes dangerous for weeks at a time. Each winter, Delhi descends into a familiar haze so thick that even routine life slows down. Flights are delayed, highways are shrouded in grey, hospitals record a spike in respiratory cases, and millions of citizens breathe air that would be classified as hazardous anywhere in the world. For more than a decade, this pattern has repeated itself with t

Once seen as a way to save elephants and tortoises, plastic has since threaded itself through every aspect of modern living. The invention of plastic was still very much in its infancy in the late nineteenth century. As I mentioned in my earlier article, people across the world were actively searching for a practical, affordable, and sustainable alternative to ivory and other animal-derived materials. At the time, these natural substances were widely used to produce everyday

Plastic has transformed modern life with its convenience — but at a devastating cost to the environment. Plastic, once hailed as a wonder material for its versatility and durability, has become one of the planet’s most persistent pollutants. It traces the origins of plastic to synthetic polymers derived from fossil fuels, and their very strength and resilience now threaten ecosystems worldwide. Plastics have become so deeply rooted in our daily lives that it is almost impossi

We might one day see our planet wrapped in what looks like a massive plastic bag. One morning, my nine-year-old grandson, Abeer, woke up from a frightening dream. He was trembling, his face pale with fear. After soothing him for a while, we gently asked what had happened. Taking a deep breath, he gathered his courage and began to recount his dream. He said he saw himself walking along a beach in Goa with his parents. The sun was shining, the waves lapping gently against the s

Instead of letting plastic waste reach landfills, we recycled it into reusable materials, turning a hazard into a resource for the...

Once barren and debris-filled, the land was transformed into a thriving theme park for environmental education. In my earlier article, I...

What began as a simple idea has grown into a service that safeguards health and the environment across multiple districts. In my earlier...

With TMC land, IIT-Bombay guidance, and a mix of savings and loans, we built a biomedical waste facility. In an earlier article, I...

While machines like Srjanam promise the future, NGOs like Enviro-Vigil have quietly ensured safer present-day practices. In my previous...

Integrating human, animal and environmental health offers India a strategic path to resilience and global leadership. In 2023, two...

Hospitals and healthcare facilities generate vast amounts of biomedical waste every day — from contaminated bandages and syringes to...

Effective treatment is the shield that prevents biomedical waste from turning into a public health disaster. In the earlier stages of...

Ganeshotsav offers an opportunity to push for a plastic-free state Mumbai: Maharashtra generated 4.8 lakh metric tonnes of plastic waste...

Biomedical waste handling is now hi-tech, with the MPCB pioneering real-time tracking of over 140 GPS-fitted trucks across the state from...

Segregation is not just about coloured bags—it’s about protecting people, reducing costs, and preserving the planet. In my last article,...

Proper segregation at the point of generation is the key to successful biomedical waste management. Through my previous articles, I have...

From installing incinerators to logging every gram of waste, the Operator stands between public health and potential harm. In the...