Ex-WHO Scientist Soumya Swaminathan: India's Air Pollution A Slow, Invisible National Crisis

In this special interview, Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chairperson of the M. S. Swaminathan Research Foundation and former Chief Scientist of the World Health Organization, discusses why air pollution is not treated as an urgent health emergency in India despite its severe impacts. She explains that because the threat is often invisible and its health consequences develop slowly over years, it fails to create the immediate panic associated with pandemics like COVID-19, and that responsibility for action is diluted across many sectors. Dr. Swaminathan states, 'That 95% of the country does not have air quality according to our own national standards, which is 40 micrograms per cubic meter, let alone the WHO standards, which is that it should be less than, PM 2.5 should be less than five microgram per meter cube'.