India is part of Southeast-Asia and the seventh-largest country by area. The number of inhabitants has increased drastically from 361 million in 1951 to more than 1.3 billion people nowadays. Pakistan, Nepal, China, Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh are neighbouring countries. India has a fast-growing economy and an expanding middle class. And although it has reduced poverty over the last few decades, the economic inequality has increased. It is not the only problem India is facing, child malnutrition, gender inequality and air pollution (Link naar blog post 2) are some of the many socio-economic challenges.
India is a federal union which divides the country in 28 states and 9 union territories. All states as well al 3 union territories have their own legislature and governments. The remaining 6 union territories are ruled by appointed administrators. All in all, this makes India quite diverse in legislation. Not only the legislation divides the country: India’s forest cover is 701,673 km2 and makes it one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. However, the wildlife is perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of India. That is most likely because India is also known for its megacities. In 2011, 31.17% of all inhabitants lived in urban areas and this number is only increasing. Scientists say that in 2030 there will be 60 cities in India with a population of more than a million. This rapid urbanization comes with challenges such as housing, transportation, sanitation, pollution and the increase of infectious diseases.
Delhi and Mumbai account for the two key mega-cities, combined having a population of more than 20 million. Delhi is ranked as the most polluting city in the world. An example of this is the extensive road network, which is the most crowded in the country but it’s capacity still isn’t big enough. Half of the increasing demand for more capacity is added traffic from just the last 5 years. It is important for such areas to find sustainable solutions such as public transportation. Unfortunately, public transportation doesn’t meet it needs, the bus system can only transport 10 percent of the total workforce. This is even more striking in rural areas, where large groups of people have decided to work from home because they simply cannot reach any other working place.
Whilst air pollution from traffic is, logically, higher in urban areas, rural areas are not safe so to speak. The main focus of guidelines in these areas is on indoor air pollution coming from: cooking, light and heating. India has the highest number of total deaths in the world caused by the effect of polluted air on children’s health. Counting almost 61.000 deaths of children under 5 due to household pollution.
All in all, India faces many struggles when it comes to pollution. Addressing this problem will not be easy. However, whilst urban areas such as New Dehli are economically of great influence and receive a lot of attention regarding production of goods, the rural area is not of any less importance. The rural area does not get as much attention, which will be needed to tackle the conflict with the health- and economic burden of air pollution.
Sources:
South East Asia 
Dear group,
Nice lay out of your blog about India! I found it interesting to read about the problem of air pollution in the rural areas. This is not something you immediately think about when you think about air pollution in such countries. Does India already have policies on this kind of air pollution? And does it work? I can imagine it could be challenging to change peoples behavior, especially when they don’t have money to improve their ways of living. Looking forward to reading your next blogs!
Kind regards,
Lisa Kolodziej
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Hi group.
I think it’s great how you guys try to focus on a smaller subject in the double burden of disease in south east Asia, pollution. I think it’s interesting to go deeper into this smaller subject, you guys will be able to discuss underlying determinants.
I do think you guys need to pay attention that you’re clear about what form of pollution you are talking about. The two forms discussed here are both very interesting, but are very different problems with different determinants. It will be interesting to look deeper into both.
Good luck the following weeks!
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Hi everyone,
Fist of all, your blog looks really pretty and professional. Good job on that!
However, I was wondering why you’ve paid so much attention on the general information about India within this blogpost? Maybe you can make a seperate blogpost on that with general information about India? Perhaps you’ve done that already and I missed it..
But if you already have such blogpost, then it is, to my opinion, not neccessary to write such a long part on that within this blogpost. If you don’t have such a general blogpost yet, maybe it is an idea to do so, so you can specify more on the actual topic of this blog..
Since the subject of this blogpost is ‘the battle for most polluting: Urban versus rural’, why have you only spend one short paragraph on the rural issues regarding air pollution. Maybe you can elaborate more on that. So elaborate more on the actual burden of indoor cooking, and also specify a bit on the open fires that many farmers create to burn down their crop waste (this is an important aspect of the whole air pollution crisis in India!!).
Moreover, I like your ‘catchy’ title in a way that it makes you suspicous where the blogpost will be about exactly. However, in this way ‘the battle for most polluting’ sounds a bit as if the urban and rural areas actually WANT to have the high rates of air pollution. as if it is a competition they want to win….
Maybe put it differently without losing the catchy title.
Kind regards,
Eva
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Dear Amber, Jasmijn and Max,
First of all, very interesting blog post. It has become clear to me that the burden of air pollution is really urgent. With a large number of people dying early and becoming ill and losing productive years due to air population, a state of health emergency has been reached. In the coming decades, the pollution levels and health risk needs to decline significantly to prevent Indian society. As you described in your post rural areas in India are mostly facing indoor pollution, I think this is mostly due to a lack of awareness. So with regard to that, I was wondering if you have an idea on how pollution problem could be tackled especially in rural. Do you have any idea on how you could make people more aware of the pollution risks?
I have enjoyed reading your blog, however, your double burden problem was not totally clear for me. Maybe this is something you could more specifically mention.
I am looking forward to your reactions!
Julia Schellekens
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Dear group, I found this post very interesting, as it highlights how big of a challenge the huge population and population growth is! I found it especially striking that a traffic system can at the same time be so big that it causes incredible high amounts of pollution, but still not be big enough to transport the entire workforce. That seems to really give a picture of the dimensions of these cities and their population. I liked that you mentioned indoor air pollution, which I would not have thought of when thinking about air pollution in India. While the pollution in the city seems quite logically (even if still shocking), the indoor air pollution in rural areas gives a new twist on the topic. It would be interesting to see how the different kinds of pollution compare in their effect on health!
I look forward to your further posts and kind regards,
Lydia
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Indoor air pollution is a tricky one. Some solutions can be found with low-tech options, like outdoor cooking areas (private or communal i.e. public bread ovens), chimney pipes and rocket stoves (which also use less fuel). But often poor people are allowed so little space to sleep, cook, eat and store their things, while others have a great deal of space. Solutions that loom at more social equity are, however, not popular with elites 😉 And of course cigarette smoking needs to be tackled, though we have seen how hard that is in developed countries. As Tomris noted in her lecture, public health leaders are up against big companies, advertising, images from film and TV, youth culture etc.
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Dear group,
First of all, nice introduction of this post. It gives a clear view of the socio-economic status of India. I think it is really worthful for this post if you add some examples of the differences in legislature within the country, because now you only mentioned that there are many differences but some people would not directly know where to think of.
Talking about the extensive road network, which is obviously a big issue in cities like Delhi and Mumbai, are there already some interventions from the government to reduce these problems?
In my last comment on your blog about the effect of pollution on cancer, I was wondering what audience you wanted to attract. Also, by this post I cannot figure out what your main goal of this blog is. Maybe something that you could give more attention when you are writing, so who are you writing it for?
Kindly regards,
Tharsini
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