At the World Economic Forum (WEF), Davos, Switzerland, Gita Gopinath, former First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund and current Harvard economics professor, stated that pollution poses a greater economic threat to India than global tariffs. This came as a shocking truth and an eye-opener.
She was not wrong. Approximately 1.7 million Indians die annually from air pollution, costing the economy nearly 10 percent of GDP. This observation opened our eyes to the stark reality, particularly in the context of Delhi.
Delhi has been functioning as a toxic gas chamber for almost a decade — a legacy built by incompetent, corrupt, and immoral governance under Arvind Kejriwal, aided amply by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and now being carried forward by Rekha Gupta — an ineffective pawn of her party, ‘bestowed’ upon the electorate of Delhi as a gift in a calculated and deliberate manner so that local, national, and international attention does not get divided from the PMO.
The moral decadence of society — cultivated over the years via populism, the ignition of divisive issues, and the taming of voters through purchasing power, caste, and regional gels— is now so evident that People enter a ‘celebratory’ mode when AQI of Delhi drops from unlivable levels of 800–900 to 250–400, which is still silently killing all of us. Yet, the PMO has not minced a single word on Delhi’s pollution issue. No plan, no blueprint is in sight.
This is the ground reality of my India’s capital.
Note: Environmental degradation is a national issue, and the entire country continues to see the damages.
Meanwhile, let the current political dispensation continue to distract us with the lofty drama of VishwaGuru.
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