Besieged by pollution, Indian cities live immersed in a permanent haze.

A little enviable record of pollution is held by India which, due to its large population, from urban gatherings and from a sublime environmental policy, is counted among the countries that produce the greatest air pollution in the world.

Perhaps it is a fact of culture that the environmental problem is not widely felt in the country, so that the sources of pollution are part of the daily life of the population. 

The use of charcoal for cooking, the crazy traffic made up of means of transport that do not have systems for the reduction of polluting emissions, the habit of burning garbage especially plastic , coal-fired power plants that support the production of electricity , the incineration of stubble in the countryside to prepare new crops and atmospheric emissions from factories.

At this moment, China , considered the country that produced the most pollution in the world, is gearing up to deal with a problem that has also become social, public health, leaving India with a sad record.

Pollution deaths increased from 740,000 deaths in 1990 to 1,100,000 in 2015 , covering the fourth leading cause of death in India, with a growing progression that never ends, as, for now, an overall project to reduce the polluting sources not seen yet.

Despite the launch of the Ncap project , which envisages the reduction of PM 2.5 and PM 10 in metropolitan areas, the results are currently not visible and assessable.

In the meantime, the Coronavirus has arrived , which has imposed the lockdown for a few weeks by closing factories, blocking air flights, road traffic, subways, thus giving the country an environmental respite.

Following these total restrictions, a drastic reduction in fine dust and other pollutants usually present in Indian skies occurred within two weeks, making new aspects of nature discovered.

In some areas of the country, hundreds of kilometers away, we returned to admire the Himalayan chain which, according to the inhabitants of Panjab, had not been seen for 20 years.

The children had a marvelous view of a mountain range which they only knew existed in the books.