Why can't India overcome its pollution woes?

Every year in November, clouds of white smoke waft over New Delhi. This is from the billions of pounds of crop residue, like leaves and stalks, burned on farms in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana

As millions of Indians watched a televised cricket match this week between the national teams of India and Sri Lanka, the game suddenly stopped.

The pollution in New Delhi is especially bad right now, and one of the Sri Lankan players could barely breathe. He leaned over, put his hands on his knees and started throwing up on live television.

The Sri Lankan cricketers were clearly not ready for New Delhi’s foul air, which this week contained 22 times the level of hazardous particles that the World Health Organization considers acceptable. It was an embarrassing moment for India, and the National Green