Report reveals India’s air pollution crisis

Bloomberg

Roughly 1.24 million people died in 2017 from India’s air pollution, according to The Lancet.
The research released found 13 percent of India’s deaths — one out of every eight — could be attributed to bad air, underscoring the scale of the South Asian nation’s battle with the world’s deadliest air.
More people died from smog than from household smoke generated by cooking fires. That’s important because PM Narendra Modi’s government has distributed millions of liquefied petroleum gas canisters to stop people burning dung cakes and wood inside their homes. Despite that, researchers found more than half of Indians remained exposed to indoor smoke from cooking fires. In poor states like Bihar and Jharkhand, the percentage of people using fires was above 75 percent.
The smog was concentrated in northern India and was the worst in the country’s infamously smoggy capital, New Delhi. However, researchers found 77 percent of India’s 1.4 billion people were exposed to air far dirtier than recommended limits.
India’s life expectancy would increase by 1.7 years nationally and by two years in north Indian states, such as Uttar Pradesh and
Rajasthan, if air quality was at a healthier level.