DELHI'S GAMBLE TO BREATHE EASIER

As the capital gears up for another smog-choked winter, the government turns to an ambitious experiment of cloud seeding, hoping that artificial rain can momentarily cleanse the city's toxic air and offer relief, reports Prabhat Shukla

- Prabhat Shukla

As winter approaches and the monsoon retreats, Delhi braces for its annual descent into haze. Daylight dims under a heavy veil; mornings begin in a muffled grey. For millions of residents, the air turns into a threat. This year, the Delhi government has decided to deploy a controversial, high-stakes experiment: cloud seeding, or artificially induced rain, in the hope of sweeping away particulate pollution and delivering momentary relief.

The question looms: if rain is created on demand, will it breathe life back into Delhi's strangled air, or will this gamble misfire?

The familiar descent into smog

Delhi's tryst with smog is long and fractious. For decades, policy debates, citizen protests and scientific warnings have circled the same sad truth: as winter deepens, the city turns into a haze chamber. The relative clarity of the monsoon gives way to months in which emissions accumulate, winds slacken, and air stagnates.

Seasonally, Delhi also incurs smoke from crop residue burning in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, which drifts into the capital when the winds align. Over recent years, Delhi has logged many consecutive days with AQI in the "severe" or "very poor" categories during November and December, with fine-particle concentrations sometimes several times above the WHO's safe guideline.