-IANS   Bangalore: A study by an international team using satellite and ground-based instruments has shown that crop residue burning, a common practice in northern India and particularly in Punjab, is contributing to atmospheric pollution over the entire Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) that may have climate and health implications. "Every year, during the post-monsoon season (October-November), extensive agricultural crop residue burning takes place mainly in the northwestern Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, and western...

-The Business Standard Chulhas - cook stoves of poor women who collect sticks, twigs, leaves and every other biomass material they can find to cook meals - are today at the centre of failing international action. The concern is that women are breathing toxic emissions from the stove and that these same emissions are also adding to the world's climate change burden. The Global Burden of Disease Study 2010 established that...

-Down to Earth Report lacks region specific-information; methodology used is questionable, say experts in India A recent World Bank report recommending reduction of common pollutants like soot or black carbon and methane in the Himalayan region to slow global warming has drawn severe criticism from Indian scientists. Reducing emissions of black carbon and methane can not only save lives by reducing air pollutants in atmosphere but also bring down ice melt which is...

-Down to Earth 'CPCB underestimating pollution from coal-fired thermal power plants' Data released by NASA's Aura satellite calls into question the veracity of Central Pollution Control Board's (CPCB) claim made in 2012 that the mean sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions in India decreased in 2010 as compared to 2001 level. A new study led by Zifeng Lu of Decision and Information Sciences Division of Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, USA, based on images...

-The Hindu There has been "a phenomenal increase" in the levels of fine particles in the atmosphere over India, especially those generated by human activity, according to research published recently by a team of Indian scientists. Such particles, known as Aerosols, contribute to the growing levels of pollution in the country. In addition, these particles scatter and absorb light. As their levels in the atmosphere increase, they can cut the amount sunlight that...