WHO ranked Delhi the world's most polluted city

[American_Millenium]

At the same time we also have the potential to be the greatest nation on planet earth.
We have previously rejected the guilt money from Britain and will do the same in future. I have a good feeling about India and we in India have no regard for feelings of Americans.

That potential is rapidly whittling away as the "demographic dividend" is turning into a "demographic disaster"

 

[IPen]

the western media will ignore this soon and continue to bark at china

whatever,i wish both india and china can improve this situation

 

[tranquilium]

How is India so bad? I mean China has factories that run 24/7 and a huge manufacturing base. But at least China got economic growth, infrastructure, and rising human development rankings for all of its bad air. Meanwhile India has polluted air and an economy smaller than that of Italy. What the hell is India doing? Apparently open defecation is worse for air quality than being the world's factory.

Here are my thoughts on the subject.

Factories are hardly the biggest pollution contributor of pollution even in countries with heavy industrial base such as China, US and Germany. The biggest contributors are typically power stations (unless you are a country like France, which is 80% nuclear), motor vehicles and population.

This is for a good reason. Factories, especially large factories, generates a lot of revenue and can afford pollution control expenses. They are also relatively easy to control with regulation because they are often well established with a clear chain of legal responsibility. This means while they produce pollution, they also tends to have good pollution control. (This is why China has to shut down a lot of small factories, because their pollution control is NOT up to par because they don't have the funds for it and they are difficult to control with regulation)

That potential is rapidly whittling away as the "demographic dividend" is turning into a "demographic disaster"

Turning the demographic dividend into actual advantage is a very difficult process. The bigger population means bigger difficulty. Take China for example, the family planning policy is about the most unpopular policy ever implemented by the Chinese government in the past six decades and comes with no ends of complains. So why did the Chinese government do it? Well, the Chinese government is certainly not masochistic. The policy is implemented because that is the level of effort required to actually turn a population dividend into solid advantage. Basically, you need to feed, house and educate all your people. Then give them jobs, organize these jobs so they run in cooperation with each other and maintain a long period of social stability. On top of this, you also need to response to outside changes induced in your society. Failing any one of these task basically means your huge population is actually a liability than advantage.