Indian winter

摘要

Ntational monuments skulk in the smog. Pedestrians and traffic policemen mask their mouths in a vain attempt to keep out the fetid vapours. Children choke in their schoolrooms. Two years ago such scenes would have been set in Beijing, then suffering an "airpocalypse"-alarming levels of airborne pollution which focused public attention on China's dismal environmental record and forced the government to do more about it. Today they are more likely to feature in India's capital, Delhi, the most polluted city on Earth. India's mission in the next 30 years is to grow as fast as China has in the past 30-but without all the pollution (see page 38). The global climate could not bear India following China's path; and the health of Indians could not stand it. Instead India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, needs to improve India's environmental laws by drawing lessons from China.