“Air pollution is never recorded as a direct cause of death. It’s always a contributing factor,” says Dr Aparna Birajdar, a consultant pulmonologist in Pune. She adds that it is difficult to get data on the impact of air pollution in India because doctors are overworked and have little time to research, while most lung infections are multi-factorial. This is why air pollution and its health consequences are rarely addressed with the urgency they demand.  Moreover, studies of air pollution's effects largely focus on adults, with data on children scarce. In 2019, air pollution caused about 6.7 million deaths globally,…

“My child’s commute to school is a half-hour ride, but it takes an hour for her to reach home everyday. The commute itself makes her so tired and the dust is so high during the after-school hour that her cough almost always worsens when she comes back home,” says Tanu, worried mother of a second-grade child in Bengaluru. Tanu is just one parent among the vast numbers across our cities, as air pollution puts their children's health and well-being at grave risk. In 2021, 15% of all global deaths in children under five were linked to air pollution. As per…