Why cleaner-looking air is not necessarily healthier air
Delhi’s air debate is dominated by numbers—daily AQI values, PM2.5 averages, counts of “good”, “poor”, and “severe” days. These numbers served an important purpose. AQI did what it was meant to do: it made air pollution visible, urgent, and politically unavoidable. It forced governments, courts, and citizens to acknowledge a crisis that had long been…