SHIVANI SINGH

American astronaut Scott Kelly spent a year watching the earth from the space. The clouds of pollution over India and China shocked him.

For a single day last summer, Kelly could see the eastern part of China, its 200 cities, clearly. “The next day I heard that the Chinese government had turned off a lot of the coalproducing power plants, stopped the cars from running in that part of the country for this national holiday, and the sky had completely cleared,” Kelly told PTI in Washington last week.

“It’s interesting to see just how quickly we can have a positive impact on (environment) if we decide,” said Kelly, who returned to earth in March 2016. He did not mention if he ever had a clear view of India from up there. He probably did not get any.

If China could clear its skies, albeit for just one day, India manages the opposite in a matter of hours every Diwali evening when cracker-bursting and fireworks turn towns and cities into mass gas chambers. Every year, our courts, administrations and citizens promise to be kinder to the environment the next time. But each Diwali turns out to be worse than the last.

Delhi is rated as one of the most polluted capitals of the world. Air pollution is making us vulnerable to lung infections, heart attacks and cancer. A 2008 study by Central Pollution Control Board found that more than two-fifths of Delhi’s schoolchildren had reduced lung function and the damage was likely to be irreversible. The Centre for Science and Environment found that air pollution-related diseases