Watch Nidhi Razdan: Air pollution problem haunts India again

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Transcript

00:00It's that time of year again in the national capital of India, where we're all gasping

00:08for breath. Our eyes are stinging. We have a cough. We are literally gasping for air.

00:14And that's because the pollution season has kicked in. And this has been the story of

00:19Delhi and North India year after year for more than a decade now. And it is astounding

00:25that even today we are not looking at this as a national health emergency, with the central

00:30government desperately needing to take the lead. There's been a political blame game.

00:35It continues to happen. The Delhi government of the Aam Aadmi Party blames stubble fires

00:38from Punjab and Haryana and the other neighboring states for the pollution in Delhi, where studies

00:44show that while stubble burning does contribute to Delhi's pollution, it's only really a fraction

00:50of what is actually causing this problem. And this is something that requires a multi-pronged

00:55approach. It requires leadership. And that can really only come from the central government.

01:00And until governments, until we as citizens take air pollution as a national health emergency,

01:07as a big election issue, nothing is going to change. We all assume that this is seasonal.

01:12It's going to come and go. Three months of bad air. But it's actually bad air pretty

01:16much throughout the year that we witness in this part of the country. And it's time

01:21for the center to take a lead. We need to stop the finger pointing and do something

01:25about it.