How to Die in India ft. Air Pollution

Since 2016, there has been a terrorist group that wants to destroy our country. Every year, this terrorist group kills 20 lakh Indians. And those who survive, their lives are also destroyed.

Because of the weapons of terrorists, survivors lose 3. 5 years of their lives. Despite such a big terrorist attack, neither the politicians nor the citizens are worried.

Do you know why? Because this terrorist group doesn't have a religion. And their weapon is air pollution.

"The air quality of Delhi NCR is getting poisonous each passing day. " "Because of the smog, you can't see the Taj Mahal. " "In many areas, the air quality index has crossed 1200.

" "Everywhere, you can only see smog. " People think that pollution is just an issue of Delhi and winters. But this is completely wrong.

In 2023, none of these cities has clean air for 100 days. People have started believing that Delhi's AQI is 1200, ours is only 200. At least, our condition is not that bad.

But this paper has clearly shown that an AQI of 100-300 is more dangerous than an AQI of 1000 for a few days. That's the case with most of the cities. People are fighting for their lives in hospitals because of air pollution.

But don't worry, your state government will definitely protect you. In 2020, the AAP government launched a new strategy with a lot of hope. To reduce stubble burning.

They launched a biodecomposer, which was developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. Two years later, it was found that the state government spent Rs. 68 lakhs on this decomposer.

And Rs. 23 crores on its marketing. I repeat, Rs.

68 lakhs on this decomposer. And Rs. 23 crores on its advertising.

You can see the condition. This is the scene of Delhi. This is a national emergency.

But India's Environment Minister, Bhupendra Yadav, has not said a word. Not a single word. Our politicians are so deceitful that instead of solving the problem, they will do everything else.

For example, in Agra, it was found that the air quality reading there suddenly improved. Now that the air quality has improved, foreign tourists will also come to the Taj Mahal. But do you know what was on the news two days ago?

That Agra's Municipal Corporation was sprinkling water from a water sprinkler near the Air Quality Monitoring Station. So that AQI goes down. The Supreme Court did hold an emergency hearing on pollution.

And asks why construction hasn't stopped in Delhi. But the lawyer replies, my lord, forget about the country. Construction is still going on inside the Supreme Court.

This is the condition of our country. Now, it is very easy to blame the politicians. What have the citizens done?

Have we made this a political priority? No. "The biggest problem is that there is no urgency.

" "It's all very important. It's all very good. " "But nothing is urgent.

" Take AQI readings, post them on social media. And when the time is right, come on the streets and protest. If a terrorist group was doing things that air pollution has done, then everyone would start receiving WhatsApp forwards.

And because we can't see any enemy, everyone is silent on WhatsApp. And this is what I want to change from this video. My throat is swollen.

The AQI is 1200 outside. And I am making a video to show you what the situation is. Now, of course, there are many people who are acting like fools by burning crackers when the AQI level has reached 1200.

These people are retarded. This video is not for them. This video is not for those people who keep commenting under my videos that India will never change.

These pessimists will take us nowhere. India and our world need more optimists who believe that change can happen. This video is for you.

China's Beijing has shown how pollution can be reduced. This video is for those who want to solve this problem. Those who know that if a terrorist doesn't have a weapon in his hand, it doesn't mean that he can't kill our families and children.

For us, any kind of health emergency should be a wake-up call. Because it is like an uninvited guest. And it's not just about air pollution.

Heart issues, fractures or road accidents are all unexpected. And if you are not prepared for emergencies, all your personal savings can be lost. In such situations, health insurance is very important for you and your family.

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There is a link in the description and the pinned comment so that you can choose the best health insurance plan for you and your family. Now let's come back to the video. Now, none of us would want us or our family to go through what Karishma has gone through.

All of a sudden, I woke up early in the morning. It was Diwali. I was breathless.

I was numb. Later on, day by day, it started getting worse. Karishma is a 21-year-old district-level badminton player who has no history of smoking or health issues.

But she was diagnosed with a chest infection. Let's understand India's air pollution problem in detail. Let's first understand what air pollution is.

Air pollution is measured using very small particles known as particulate matter or PM. These particles come in different sizes like PM 2. 5 or PM 10.

But our main focus is on PM 2. 5 because the smaller the particle, the more damage it can do to our respiratory system. WHO recommends that the PM 2.

5 level in the air should be less than 15 micrograms per meter cube. Our national standard is 4 times higher than WHO. Our limit is 60 micrograms per meter cube.

On the basis of the PM 2. 5 level in the air, we create an air quality index which you can see here. Now let's understand the main causes of air pollution.

We can measure air pollution in different ways. We can measure it daily, monthly, and seasonally. We can also measure air pollution annually.

There are some causes that you can find throughout the year. For example, car pollution or industrial pollution. Because of this, AQI remains high throughout the year in cities like Delhi.

But there is a specific cause that makes North India a hell, especially in November. This is stubble burning. Due to stubble burning, in cities like Delhi in October-November, the contribution of stubble burning is 32% in air pollution.

I used the data from Delhi and not from cities like Banaras or Patna because Delhi has the most data available about pollution sources. But we can assume that this is the case in other cities of the Indo-Gangetic Plains in North India. We all know that stubble burning causes pollution.

But one thing that we don't know is that MSP causes millions of deaths every year due to air pollution. I repeat, every year, millions of people die due to MSP. Farmers in Punjab and Haryana burn their stubble to prepare their fields in winters.

You must know that farmers in North India plant their crops twice a year. In summer and winter. After harvesting crops in summer, farmers have to remove stubble from their fields so that they can plant their seeds in winter.

Why do farmers burn this stubble instead of removing it? Because burning is the cheapest and fastest way. Farmers don't have much time to plant their seeds in winter.

Now you'll ask, why don't farmers plant their summer crops early? Because they can't do this legally. Farmers are told that they can plant their summer crops only after 15th June in Punjab.

Because in 2009, the Punjab government passed the Preservation of Subsoil Water Act. According to this law, farmers can't transplant paddy before 15th June. If they do this, their electricity supply can be disconnected and their paddy nurseries can be destroyed.

Why did the Punjab government pass this law? To save water. In April, a paddy field requires 4,500 liters of water per hectare.

Because it doesn't rain then. And in June, when it starts raining, this requirement becomes 3,000 liters. So the faster farmers start planting paddy, the more water they'll need.

And to save water, the Punjab government has said that you can start your program only after 15th June. And because of this, farmers have very little time left between summer and winter. Now the question is, why are farmers in Punjab and Haryana planting paddy that require thousands of litres per hectare?

And the reason behind this is MSP. The government has given so much MSP to crops like wheat and paddy. That's why farmers want to cultivate these crops, no matter how much water is needed.

And because of this MSP, thousands of people die in our country due to air pollution. It's not that before 2009, farmers weren't burning their crops. In fact, a report from 1991 says that 25 years ago, in September and October, it was difficult to walk in the villages of Punjab due to smoke.

A 32-year-old Punjabi farmer says, I don't remember when we didn't burn our crops on our 12-acre land. The only difference is that earlier, farmers used to burn their crops in September. But because Punjab passed a law, now they burn their crops in October and November.

And this difference is very important. Because before October, when it's monsoon season in our country, the direction of the wind is different. And because of the wind, the pollution that comes from burning crops is blown away.

It doesn't come to Delhi and Northern areas. But in November, when crops are burned, the monsoon season is over. And the direction of the wind changes.

This means all the smoke comes to Delhi and other North Indian cities. Now, you'll see many reports that say that stubble burning has decreased. For the last 3-4 years, the Punjab government and other governments have worked a lot on this.

For example, a report by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute shows that these incidents decreased between 2021 and 2023. But a NASA scientist, Hiren Jethwa, said that this data is wrong. He noticed that when he started checking the satellite data, the number of stubble-burning incidents decreased.

But the pollutants resulting from burning haven't decreased. So he got confused. Stubble burning is decreasing but the pollutants in the air aren't decreasing.

Why is this happening? Then he found out that the NASA satellite that records stubble burning, records it from 1. 30 to 2 in the afternoon.

And according to this satellite data, the stubble burning has decreased. But when you look at this data from another Korean satellite, which records every 15 minutes, according to that, the number of stubble burning incidents didn't decrease. This means that the farmers of Punjab and Haryana have somehow found out that the recording is between 1.

30 and 2. And because of this, they're burning their stubble after 2. In fact, look at this map.

On the left, you can see the fires that were seen between 1PM and 2PM in the 4 days of November. And on the right, you can see what's happening between 4 and 5 in the evening. Now think about this.

This is a problem that we know everything about. What are the farmers actually doing? Why are they doing it?

And what impact is it having on people's health? We know everything. But we're still not able to solve this problem.

Maybe the solution is that Delhi and Punjab should have the same party government. Oh wait. It's not just the farmers of Punjab who are doing this.

This is also the case in other states. In 2015, the National Green Tribunal banned crop burning in states like Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Punjab. But despite this ban, nothing is happening because there's no enforcement from the government.

Now if the farmers have a way to remove stubble, which is cheap and doesn't require a lot of effort, then why would the farmers use other options? And there's no better and cheaper way than burning. Don't think that solving stubble burning will solve the entire problem.

Another problem is that we start complaining only when we see air pollution. The AQI of 100 and 300 has been normalized so much that our eyes open only when the AQI exceeds 1000. We should ban seasonal sources like Diwali firecrackers and stubble burning.

It's a low-hanging fruit. But this won't solve the entire problem of air pollution. Like it's clearly shown in this paper that more people die at lower AQI levels.

Because when the AQI exceeds 1000 for a few days, it doesn't have as much of an impact as the AQI of 100 and 300 that we have to face every day. Now imagine a teenager who eats unhealthy food every day. He has become very fat.

Despite being fat, on his birthday, his family gives him chole kulche, chocolate cake, and jalebis. Because of such low-quality food, he dies of a heart attack one day. He didn't die because of the food he ate on his birthday.

He died because he had been eating unhealthy food for the past 364 days. This is also the case with air pollution. More focus is on birthday parties--stubble burning, and firecrackers.

These things are wrong and we have to fix them. And this problem will be solved only when we pay attention to non-seasonal sources of air pollution. Dust is a major source of air pollution.

In cities like Delhi and Bengaluru, 30-40% of PM2. 5 pollution is due to dust. But dust enters into the air due to rough roads or construction.

You must have seen how much dust enters into the air when a car passes through a rough road. We don't realize this, but it's a major cause of air pollution. You'll also see government officials sweeping the roads with big brooms.

But this doesn't stop air pollution or cleanliness. They just sweep the roads and dust flies away. But it doesn't come out of the system.

Dust goes from one place to another. A temporary solution to stop air pollution is to use sprinklers. That's why the Delhi government is using these sprinklers to add moisture to the dust and prevent the dust from entering into the air.

That's why when it rains heavily in a city, you can see clearly because dust doesn't fly. But rain is also a temporary solution. A permanent solution comes only when you can remove the dust completely.

That's why we have to build more paved roads. In November 2019, 5 years ago, the Secretary of the Union Environment Ministry, C. K.

Mishra, announced in a press conference that all unpaved roads in Delhi would be fixed by August 2020. It's been 5 years since that press conference. But even today, there are 500 km of unpaved roads in Delhi, out of which only 68 km have been fixed this year.

Tanushree Ganguly from Epic India told us that fixing roads will create a multiplier effect. When unpaved roads will be removed and paved roads will be built, which will reduce dust, people will start cycling, pedestrians will start walking, and emissions from vehicles will also be reduced. Then we'll have to stop sweeping.

Instead, we'll have to use mechanized sweeping to remove dust from the system. But the problem is that our governments don't have these machines. For example, in Bengaluru, there are about 1300 km of roads, out of which mechanized sweeping is done only for 600 km.

When there's construction, a lot of dust enters into the air, especially when digging is involved. Now, there should be a green cover on the construction site so that dust doesn't reach the city. But you'll see a lot of construction sites without a green cover.

The reason behind this is that there's no proper enforcement. Basically, if we remove the dust from the road and construction, then the 30-40% of a year's pollution in many cities will be reduced. In Delhi, the contribution of dust is 38% in pollution.

The second biggest source is pollution from vehicles. Vehicle emissions, which is 20%. So if you solve the dust and vehicle emissions, 60% of the problems are solved.

But it's even more important to remove the smoke from vehicles. Because PM 2. 5 particles, which are created when we burn something, whether it's petrol, diesel, or coal, are more dangerous for humans.

So, the particles created by burning are more dangerous than dust. And according to IIT Delhi, 79% of the emissions from vehicles come from trucks and two-wheelers. Now, the government has also created regulations.

For example, the government has said that if it's an old car, it shouldn't be allowed on the road. Because it creates more pollution. But the problem in our country is that there are laws, but there are no people to enforce them.

For example, if we talk about Delhi, more than 60 lakh vehicles have become old. And till September of this year, only 2,000 out of 60 lakh vehicles were removed. That's why we need to electrify our vehicles so that pollution isn't created in the first place.

But electrification won't solve the problem. Remember that a major source of pollution is dust from the road. So if your vehicle is running on diesel or electricity, dust will still enter the air.

That's why the optimal solution is to increase public transport infrastructure. But India's public transport infrastructure is facing two challenges. The first is that our cities are growing so fast.

The population is increasing so fast that no system is able to keep up. The main problem is that there are very few cities in such a big country where people can come to work. That's why there is so much pressure on public transport in these cities.

The second challenge is that because our country is so poor, the government subsidizes public transport. When they get subsidies, the companies that run public transport can't earn that much money. Because they can't earn money, they can't upgrade or maintain the system.

And when public transport worsens, people buy cars and motorcycles which increases pollution. And the road infrastructure is so bad that most people buy SUVs. There was a time when people used to buy sedans.

But now, most Indians buy SUVs which increases the chances of traffic. As I told you earlier, more than dust, those particles are dangerous which are created by burning something. Like when industries burn coal, people burn fuel to cook food, people burn leaves to stay warm, or when many cities burn their garbage.

All these activites have a 10-30% contribution to our air pollution. Delhi's Sukhdev Vihar has a huge plant that burns waste to generate electricity. This is a very innovative solution, and it's being used in many countries.

But the problem is that the standards in Delhi are not being followed. As a result, the pollution created is moving towards the city. In fact, the people who live near this plant in Delhi's Sukhdev Vihar are facing a lot of respiratory problems.

So if we can solve these three problems, we can solve India's air pollution problem. Like removing dust, solving car emissions, and stopping things from burning. And none of these are rocket science.

India won't be the first country where paved roads will be built, where construction is done, where industries use coal, or where waste management is a problem. We know all these solutions. In fact, if you read the document from my sources, you'll find the link in the description, there are many government documents.

So the government knows what the problems and solutions are. The issue is not that we don't know the solutions. The issue is that we don't know how to execute them because there are no incentives and accountability.

First of all, there is no emergency in the public. People don't value clean air. Even my friends and family don't understand air pollution.

For example, windows and doors are opened so that ventilation can be done, even if the AQI is 1200. Air pollution has been normalized so much that a family member asked me what's the topic of the next video. I said, air pollution.

They said, air pollution is gone now. According to them, air pollution only exists when AQI is 1200. When it's 400, there's no problem.

That's why we need to talk more about air pollution so that people start valuing it. In 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced a war on pollution. Imagine, 10 years ago, the Chinese Premier said in a public declaration that he's announcing a war on air pollution.

We need something like this. But have you heard a Prime Minister or a Chief Minister announcing a war like this? People will have to take to the streets to demand clean air.

When the public will demand this on the streets, then Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, and the Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra will probably wake up. Secondly, there's no pressure on government officials to solve this problem. Let me give you an example of China.

In 2007, the Chinese government introduced a system to reduce the amount of sulfur dioxide in the air. To ensure that government officials take this seriously, the Chinese government announced that government officials who don't follow this will be punished. So if a city official didn't achieve their pollution target, they'd get official warnings and some were even removed from their positions.

This was happening at the city level. Then at the provincial or state level, the central government announced that if they don't achieve their state level targets, they'd be removed. This is accountability.

But what's happening in India? 5 years ago, the Union Ministry Secretary announced in a press conference that all unpaved roads in Delhi would be fixed in a year. But after 5 years, this didn't happen.

Did anyone lose their job? I talked about this in my previous video that IAS officers are not accountable enough. Whether it's a promotion or a salary, it's tied to their seniority.

Is pollution decreasing? Are kids studying? Are our industries performing better?

IAS officers don't have to meet any targets. So why should they worry? Forget about incentives, at least half of the pollution boards in the country are still vacant.

So whether it's the Prime Minister, Chief Minister, or an IAS officer, they don't want to take any accountability. Everyone has the attitude that it's okay. It's not like there are no pollution targets in India.

According to the National Clean Air Programme, more than 100 cities will have to reduce their pollution by 20-30% between 2017 and 2024. First, they changed the date. So now the target is not 2024, but 2026.

Then tell me, if this target is not achieved by 2026, will someone lose their job? If not, how will people take accountability? I showed you in my previous video that our politicians are very smart.

If they find out that a topic is going viral politically, they will take it up. We saw this in the case of Sushant Singh Rajput. All the media channels started talking about it.

All the political parties started talking about it because they knew that in the Bihar elections, voters might vote on this basis. So Indian politicians are very reactive. They just need an issue about which voters actually give importance.

So if we want to solve air pollution, voters like you need to priortise it. Otherwise, nothing will happen. When this happens, accountability will be established at the level of politicians and bureaucrats.

But the most important step is not to normalize pollution. The day I started shooting this video, the AQI was 1200. Today, it is 450.

But people think that there's no air pollution. When this attitude changes, the problem will be solved. As I told you earlier, health emergencies can come at any time.

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