Farah Kazi currently works as the Lead of Campaigns at Waatavaran, where she undertakes air quality monitoring studies. She also builds communication strategies that enable public dialogue and advancement in policy reforms. She has recently been selected as an OpenAQ Ambassador. Her interest in air pollution stems from when she began working at IndiaSpend, where she spent a significant part of her time analysing and visualising air quality data. A former Biotechnologist and Data Visualiser, she pursued her post-graduate diploma in Social Communications Media at SCM Sophia College, University ..read more

As India grapples with a surge in COVID-19 cases, much of our collective efforts are going into managing patients, providing care and ensuring that people battling COVID-19 have access to medical care, food and supplies. A big thank you to all the frontline workers and all the community members who are contributing to these efforts on the frontline. Since our healthcare systems are heavily burdened and we are expecting an increase in cases over the coming days, we must also think of prevention- how can we prevent transmission, avoid/reduce cases and #StopTheSpread? A group of air quality an ..read more

Let Me Breathe, a community platform for sharing stories related to environment recently announced the winner of its Clean Air Punjab competition. This was the first of its kind competition focused on sharing stories related to air pollution and health in Punjab. More about the programme here. The team received more than 70 entries on topics related to air pollution including industrialization, vehicular pollution, urbanization, waste burning as well as solutions. A big congratulations to the winners: Akshyae Singh (@saafsaans), an 18-year-old student from Mohali, crowdsourced a video from his ..read more

Dr. Nipun Batra is an Assistant Professor at IIT-Gandinagar. He has a PhD. from IIIT Delhi and completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia. His group broadly works on machine learning/artificial intelligence/sensors/IoT for computational sustainability problems like smart buildings and air quality. We recently spoke with Dr. Batra about his work. Can you tell us a bit about your research? I’m a computer scientist by training. My research broadly involves applying machine learning methods and developing sensors for sustainability applications. During my PhD, I worked on s ..read more

Abhiir is a youth environmentalist and sustainability consultant. Currently a second year student at Ashoka University, he is pursuing a degree in Political Science and International Relations and is currently working as the Director – Operations and Community Engagement at Care for Air, a non-profit working on air pollution. He has over 7 years of experience in the field of environmental conservation. He has worked with a range of organizations including UN Environment Programme, Delhi Metro Railway Corporation, WWF and CSE. He has a keen interest and experience in environmental issues perta ..read more

Dr. Arindam Roy has worked on air pollution and climate change for more than seven years. He has worked on a range of projects and has collaborated with International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative (IPSI), GIZ, IUCN etc. Currently, he is working at EPFL as a as scientist in Laboratory of atmospheric processes and their impacts (LAPI) group. Current research interest includes air pollution and economy, air quality adaptation, practical solutions in low- and middle-income countries. He has a PhD from University of Calcutta/Bose Institute. More about him here ..read more

What are the institutional and informational barriers in the way of India meeting the National Ambient Ait Quality Standards (NAAQS)? To address this all important question, the Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) and Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) conducted a review of the literature and also spoke with members of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) as well as other stakeholders including researchers, bureaucrats and members of the civil society. Findings from the analysis are detailed in a recently released report is entitled Strengthe ..read more

Dr. Sagnik Dey and Dr. Dilip Ganguly at IIT-Delhi have been working on the a new project entitled- Satellite-Based Application For Air Quality Monitoring and Management at National Scale (SAANS). The project is supported by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). Can you tell us about the SAANS project? The SAANS project is conceptualized to fill in the spatial data gap in PM2.5 monitoring in India under the National Clean Air Program (funded by the Central Pollution Control Board). We developed the algorithm based on glo ..read more

As we get into the festive season, one of the questions is- how many firecrackers will we use, and how will that impact air quality, visibility and health? Across the world, people use firecrackers to celebrate- Diwali, Vishu etc. in India, New Year in China and other countries, Independence Day in USA etc. In India, in fact, people burst firecrackers when we win a cricket match, or at a wedding and many other occasions and each time, we expose ourselves to clouds of toxic smoke and dust in the form of firecrackers and others to air pollution. Air pollutants from fireworks typically consist of ..read more

In West Bengal, a new network has been launched to support work on air pollution- Bengal Clean Air Network (Bengal-CAN). The network aims to spread awareness on the cause and effects of air pollution and create a public demand for clean air in West Bengal. Bengal Clean Air Network (Bengal CAN) is an initiative by SwitchON Foundation. It follows a similar pattern with multi-stakeholder approach where the focus is not only on policy level changes but also making lifestyle changes among the citizens of 7 non-attainment cities across Bengal. Since the past 3 years it has been extensively working ..read more