Haryana

In normal times, the road to Sonipat, the Haryana town 45 kms from Delhi, gets so congested that it would make the distance seem double of what it is. Known initially only for the National Sports School located there, in the late 80s Sonipat also became known for exporting exotic horticultural produce to Delhi and Europe. A few years ago, the Ashoka University, with its focus on liberal arts and the ambition of giving a run to Ivy League schools abroad, made Sonipat its home. It was by no stretch of imagination a centre for healthcare, like Gurugram with its…

Farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh are peeved at being blamed for Delhi’s smog. “We have been burning crop residue for the past 50 years now,” said a leader of the Bharatiya Kisan Union from Haryana, who does not want to be named. “If anybody is affected it should be the surrounding villages. We don’t face any such problem. So why is this problem in Delhi seen just during these past few years?” Every winter, not just Delhi but the entire northern region is frequently enveloped in a thick blanket of smog, caused by air pollution from vehicular and…

Sarsa, a small river that flows through Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, is considered a holy river in Sikh religious tradition. It was on the banks of Sarsa that Guru Gobind Singh’s Khalsa Army fought the Mughals. Though the Khalsa army lost that battle, its effect was far reaching. It led to Guru Gobind Singh’s separation from his family and the martyrdom of the Guru’s four children. To avenge their deaths, Banda Bahadur, a disciple of Guru Gobind Singh who was especially sent by the Guru to avenge the martyrdom of his children, laid the foundation of a professional Khalsa Army, which…

The first ten days of November 2017 has seen a furious and unprecedented level of dialogue and mainstream-media conversation around the topic of air quality, specifically in and about the city of New Delhi. While the situation in the national capital is indeed dire, a large part of that conversation has been aided by citizens, journalists and community activism groups having access to scientifically validated real-time, hourly-updated data of the air quality levels in their neighborhoods and surrounding areas. The conversation around air quality levels for several years primarily involved scientists and researchers from leading Indian institutes and a few…