IITH researcher leads international air pollution study for Indian cities

An international air pollution governance study, funded by the US National Science Foundation and Azim Premji Foundation, has been led by a researcher from Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IITH) for the Indian cities.

Originally there were six cities in the study with research groups in Beijing, Bangalore, Houston, Philadelphia, New York City, and Albany. The study has now been expanded to include four more Indian cities-Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Pune besides Los Angeles in the US.

IITH researcher Aalok Khandekar is coordinating the 'Air Pollution Governance Across Cities Study in five Indian cities with the funding from the Azim Premji Foundation to characterise how coordination between understanding and governing air pollution is happening in different cities.

"We hope to characterise a city's air pollution governance style as an effect of the ways different communities involved in the city come together, prioritising some things while discounting others. Our hope is that comparative perspective on air pollution governance styles will advance both fundamental understanding of environmental governance and practical work on the ground,"Aalok Khandekar said.

Air pollution has received escalating attention in recent years, with leading international bodies such as World Health Organisation(WHO) identifying air pollution as the world's largest single environmental health risk.

Research groups based in each city- as well as researchers focused on themes across cities- are coordinated out of the University of California Irvine, Department of Anthropology by professors Kim Fortun and Mike Fortun while Aalok Khandekar, assistant profession of Anthropology/Sociology, Department of Liberal Arts, IITH, is coordinating the research India, according to a press release.