Problems and besides the instability is corruption we listen. Benighted states and President Trump into conflict we meet with global news makers and talk about the stories that matter just 0. Today is the air in the early a silent killer. And here in the stream well take a look at why in 2018 indias capital had 0 good air quality days this is an important topic for our Indian Community and we want to hear from you share your thoughts tweet us or leave them in our live shot and you too can be in the stream. According to a report released this month by the center for science and vironment indias noxious air is responsible for 12. 5 percent of all deaths in the country one of the worst affected indian cities is the capital new delhi where some days breathing the air is equivalent to smoking 44 cigarettes a day. And delhi is deadly air is the subject of a new people in power documentary airing now on aljazeera have a look. The pollution is palpable. Delhi sure is the symptoms of many modern metropolis but its unique features have begotten the crisis. People in power investigates the toxic mix feeding the citys invisible killer and asks why more is not being done to relieve its citizens. By joining us to discuss the problem in the lisa mailed to him hes a clean air campaigner with the nonprofit greenpeace and boston policy pond shes a scientist with the Health Effects institute and in doha and they had tara mithya shes an investigative producer here at aljazeera and the filmmaker behind the documentary you just saw welcome to the stream everyone they had want to start with you because you have a personal connection to this topic you were born and raised in delhi so what made you decide to do this film. You know this january we were at a picnic for my 3 year old niece and it was it was a perfect picnic for you know young kids they were all running around in the red this iconic sally wasnt called to the garden and it could have been the most perfect day but i wasnt because the kids were wearing mosques and there was something so disturbing about that site you know and there were it was a very very. And for me its really it really brought home to me how serious the situation is you know you have a bunch of kids celebrating that sort of state playing mosques no child should be put through this you know on her but they or on any other day but its the sad reality of many children in delhi and thats what thats what really disturbed me and we have a generation growing up very very dirty air and and you know i will also be living abroad for the last few years and theres a tremendous sense of guilt that i feel for not being in delhi during the worst equity days my family still lives and that he and i really wanted to go deep into this and try and understand why is why the city has such today what are the policy roadblocks and what are the Health Impacts on People Living there. So scenario keeping that in mind you tweeted this not too long ago about 2 months ago among confusing numbers on the air quality index categories for air quality and delhi during 2018 here is the simplified depiction of data dont be surprised it tells the same old story air pollution is a year round problem there was no good air day and delhi in 28 team and you can see that chart rate here explain to us what that means. Thanks mel so this secondly that i had mentioned in the. On the truth that. Similar to lucilles and this has been happening for more than a decade and we know has been deposed and got to learn there was a big debate in 2002001 about a listening belly so the chart says that displayed will tell you more soon during july august and september during those periods where when the dinner was dull pollution or the public matter particles from the even then they really didnt have to be and that being your day were not talking by the standard so were literally made this and were talking by the indian in india the c. B. C. His own standards he says sending pollution control board and that i dont need having those in control at the district level at the state level as well as the stand alone and what needs to handle autumn and forest for more than whole decades now we still read it which we are not supposed to be reading and we are facing the consequences. Yeah sure so another thing that i would just want to add to this is you know also that someone like the hell who grew up in delhi and still has Family Living there and someone who has been researching air pollution for you know like a long time i remember the good old days when all the air pollution data used to be so on pen and paper and you had to go to the central position control board and download it its been its been a long ride and its hard to you know forget those images that take dogs so well coming out of auto rickshaws and buses a while ago and we switched over to see and she asked me to talk about you know 2002001 when this is a problem so we made baby steps but i think theres still a lot more that we need to do to bring clean air people so i want to share one anecdote from our community because weve got so many of them and so this is they have. On twitter he says my 4 year old developed allergic cough so putting a 4 year old on medicine feels like the pollution nightmare which so many parents of young kids are facing we have developed air filters in all rooms and in a car we use masks in the winter as our flights back home to send in small so just one little snippet of someones daily life and what thats like for them but they how you spoke to a long cancer surgeon in delhi hes worked there for more than 30 years but now he says hes seeing something new so i want to audience to have a look at that i use release see along with to speak even when im operating on the majors finding big black black deposits and much of this stuck to kumar believes is down to the citys duty in india and he. Only lived quiet meant for you to be afflicted by the ill effects of pollution is there you should be bleeding now that last that you should be breathing the last sentence i mean at last me kind of speechless but if you make about. Absolutely monica this was one of the most disturbing interviews that i did because everything was a doctor said. Is is what i what ive been seeing happening around me and one of the scariest things for me personally was meeting a 26 year old lung cancer patient this was a girl this is a girl much younger than me 5 you know could be somebody i have coffee with could be one of my friends and overnight she developed a stage for medicine lung cancer this is something that doctors say is happening to women in delhi now you know lung cancer is traditionally seen in male smokers in their fiftys and sixtys people whove been smoking for decades and decades and suddenly you have women nonsmokers developing lung cancer now you cant say for sure whether lung cancer is happening because of pollution but in a lot of the cases that you know i that i met and doctors told me about there is no Family History of cancer there is no smoking history and doctors eliminated all of the risk factors that could be leading to lung cancer so for me that was really really disturbing and you know i met this 26 Year Old Girl and i also met the family of a 35 year old woman who died because of complications related to stage 4 lung cancer and and that you know when you see these human stories all these statistics suddenly come to life you know you know its one thing to read about these things being bad and hear dr stock about it but when you see people thats when you really understand how serious a situation this is and policy i know youre trying to get in there but i just want to share with our audience because they have mentioned the story of priyanka because its really striking shes so young i want to our audience to hear a little bit of her story take a look. Im a 26 year old new delhi resident about 6 months ago i got diagnosed with stage 4 met a static lung cancer. Priyanka arjun is a Digital Marketing consultant an only child she lives with her mother in south delhi the right lung is completely damaged the cancer has spread so much that its just not visible an extra. Less than a year ago she used to try for an hour and a half one way to get to her Office Nearly 25 kilometers away. Now many of her journeys are to and from the hospital. Other weird so difficult to look at to see a life affected because of what doctors believe is pollution. No i absolutely i think that you know over the years weve started to really understand how air pollution impact Peoples Health and course you know we see cases of lung cancer which are increasing and could be linked to air pollution and at the same time we see a lot of you know people suffering both but in the really short like a day or week we see people developing long term chronic diseases related to air pollution and i think the other part of it which doesnt get much attention is the Health Care Costs but the Economic Impact on peoples pockets than some people have to move outside the city and you know youve behind the Economic Opportunities in winter in delhi i think the meal in may where the greek people you know missed their flight or get home hours and hours after they were supposed to because air pollution is really you know preventing flights from landing or leaving but there are all kinds of impacts both on health and you know our day to day life that really air pollution is bringing and it is you know terrifying in some cases i want to share a couple more stories just gotten so many of them this is on twitter who says ive lived there for some time and you can check black things in your nose and on your skin theres also a layer of black pollution sometimes when last time i visited delhi after living for years in the village my eyes were itching because of pollution and we also got a comment live on you tube and i want to share this with you because this is pretty striking so this is precious and push ott right its one of the main reasons for us to move from delhi to the us was the impact of pollution on our kids the change was radical after the move but we have been very fortunate so so now having to move cities seems drastic but also when you when you look at those pictures of the 2 lungs you can understand that. The choking to know whats going to happen in the polluted. Nellie and to people like person to many other people and many of us as well who had the choice of moving from the city move from from delhi but in in those millions of cars then there are People Living on the do a those are the people who believe in the homes the people who are poor people and they dont even have a choice of all the resources enough to buy a mosque or be in a protected and waterman but no big used them that are affected an allotment so this is the real issue to these 2 pissing delhi and this is just one talk about the problems of schools on the roadsides and they get directly exposed to the transport layer to loosen and in delhi we have the public transport in fact learning on the compressed natural gas which is a bit being learned there are millions of diesel based god still in belly and talk about one albeit a plant which had been sent to saddam last year which was a little crude but what happens to the 3rd into holding all plants which going to move to about 57 to 58 microgram will be empty when high and let me tell you this goofy sound who feared microgram its 6 times the World Health Organization standard for him 2. 5 or so thats how scary the it is already one of the other things that i would also point out especially since you know this is sort of social Media Community is a lot of times we do things as individuals that have an impact on air pollution not summer i was in delhi and you know through a series of events ended up at one of the landfills and delhi and its a huge mountain now youre not supposed to really be there but i was there and i talking to some of the people who live really close to weigh and you know the reality of whats happening when were using a lot of products in our day to day life and it just ends up in those blanks filled its shocking so as we think about what the impact of pollution are on i think its also helpful to be mine. Well you know my using this plastic bag and by using this knowing like where is it could end up even the shampoo bottles you know the prospect moke bags that a lot of people in delhi would be familiar with its a really personal issue both in terms of impact and how we interact with the problem as well so its so interesting that you mentioned what average everyday people can do and what we should all be aware of that were doing so this is cool now this is a tweet in which canal says citizens are nonchalant youll find only a minuscule number of people using masks regarding the government if it took some strong stance we wouldnt be seeing this problem year after year its only getting worse every year the government run so many ads on the radio for instance on topics like urging people to maintain cleanliness protecting themselves from malaria it could surely spare some resources to educate people on how they can protect themselves from the toxic air so thats one tape but now a ha you did speak to government officials while making this film and i wonder if you were sitting here one politicians view on the euro good air quality days and and what he suggested one of the critical factors in the quality is the meat your logic in fact the continuous live of what you know were duty or this does is the. Prevent the disposal of it here because of the moisture of live in the disposal is very bad and that is why you rarely get to see a good day to have an absolute number of 0 good qualities and. Despite so much Government Intervention doesnt that surprise you well that just means that we need to do more work there is one point to me it can or can should not be the governments responsibility alone peoples participation is a huge thing a miss that happens and individuals start caring for the environment we will not be able to really be no. Matter how you get into think when you were talking to him and say oh i hear you want to jump in there so lets get a heads up here and then you can then you can come in. I am so 1st affair i was very surprised both the federal government and the Delhi Government gave me great access and they were very candid about admitting their lapses that happened on there and you know there is definitely an acknowledgement that air pollution is a very serious issue in delhi and and i think delhi has a complex governance structure theres a federal government is a Delhi Government it is also Municipal Bodies that controls lots of delhi and i spoke to was a federal Delhi Government and there is this knowledge and that look you know we should be doing more and we are not able to do more because as you know a certain number of reasons. So thats one thing and you know so so i got a lot of you know they were very open and honest about where you know where they thought they had been doing enough as far as as you know good quality diesel is concerned i do agree with him and i should correct you hes not hes not a politician he is the top bureaucrat that heads the environment minister that so he it is one of the problems that delhi has its a very very complex city air quality you have and im fortunate geography and you have atmospheric conditions that do a chap pollutants so he is correct in saying that its difficult to see a good quality day but having said that there are lots and lots of sources of pollution that can be tackled from within the city theres also a lot of regional pollution that comes into being that should be you know that should be tackled as well and that should be a government priority they have put in you know a lot of plans in place the courts have been very active in a lot of what you see in Government Policies coming out of court orders and directives but what we all find i think we all agree on this is that implementation is such a challenge and its not just being an absolute its across the board so you dont have the manpower to really enforce a lot of things you dont have in some cases the political will to enforce some of these things so its a huge challenge and also you know city. Have to be mobilized a lot more than they are right now you know you had you had the court stepped in and restrict the use of firecrackers but the thats a very very polluting period for delhi and of course of about 3 days you have a lot of pollution but people will still lighting firecrackers amongst them there needs to be a last or citizen involvement so now as youre talking there i could see both publicly and sunil look like they had so much to say so i promised wed go to you but i want to 1st show this comment weve got live on you tube from who on the on the topic of personal responsibility and people doing things about this says delhi City Residents are still driving old age vehicles using generators too much use of generators somehow people are also responsible for this mess and theres no proper disposal disposal of waste just a list of the things that people are doing wrong in his view but you know what if you want to and. No so i completely agree with what this was said in the comment as well as what matt had but that is some other legion of white anything polluted the job of. Delhi is not ready distinct from many other cities across the world needs help hand it is still being the polluted cities but theyre playing golf so to say that a city will be polluted because of the joel freaks is not entirely correct because the polluted only happens when we meet something today and that emission is the issue and that to target those limits and there have been certain policies at now mentioned in passing be. No that there was a lot of discussion about they already when cars came in 2216 and that was a scheme which doesnt need to be millions of people to change their mindset yes its really necessary to do that its necessary to leave the privatized cars and diesel based cars and go to the public transport and on workplace transport and was walking and cycling but at the same time if behind these measures which are targeted towards changing millions of peoples mindset be what even cars came all this trouble burning which needs to be done each student in a comprehensive and systematic manner and it cannot be done in 23 months but the big polluters which have been hiding behind these people these poor people soon be be allowed to identity mode there are some republicans which are emitting millions of tonnes all of this parliament matter was miscast itself says itself or thats well cried and metal and outside into dead at that are millions of known equal to the Automobile Industry the way they are polluting they have not just in delhi but across the country they had the need to be targeted and they need to target to do the same efforts and same level of actions which are targeted towards individuals and both has to go say hand in hand it cannot mean that millions of people change for the nice. And then after 10 years. Theres been big when sort of meter readings you can get and. So on ill say that yes people have to do a lot but this big bill goes to be it will and this will be forced to have urgent and im glad that you gave us the prescriptions for solutions and what you think needs to be changed because we got this tweet from someone who says we know the problem we need to highlight ask us the solutions at the policy level and Community Level and individual level so i want to share with our audience and i guess one group of people that are doing just that they are behind this website this is r. N. A. Innovations a World Without air pollution you can see their mission here on my screen and one of them sent us a video comment on what they are doing to help this problem have a listen i partly. Because of the 6000000 deaths not. Only distributions we did begin to come to the. Well emissions from coal 1000000000 and size in boston because he was digitally the situation. Of the problem has serious limitations mission is to do study. Says lease of recent ups almost the. Engine exhaust well certainly the challenges of the. So they are in scrapping the particulate matter someone else on twitter says what needs to be done we need to ban gasoline cars and electric vehicles should be the only option for delhi so several solutions their policy whats your take on that you know so i think i want to think of step back and sort of talk about some things that we need also mentioned which is but any action that we take on air pollution will need to focus across all sources so we can you know i one level think about sources like power plants vehicles and also use of solid fuel is a lot of people across india are still using solid fuel to heat to cook and you know just for their general livelihood and its an issue of Energy Access but thats another big source of the National Level i think the other side of the story is that you know the bureaucrats from the ministry also mentioned that theyre taking the policies that are you know deploying different measures on the issue it that it would all have to be done in a very holistic manner so you focus on something at the city level and this will be a different set of sources than you focus on something at the regional and the National Level and this will be a different set of forces and i think in all of that we need to keep in mind that the hardship it is going to be the Institutional Capacity of the pollution control board the other doctors offices that are in the position to really make these changes happen unless we do that unless we provide them with the right technical capacity with the Financial Capacity even were not really going to see the change and then i think the final thing i want to bring to people but then shouldnt here is that even in cities around the world that have been change its not happened overnight right so we need to say positive and keep warm things got air to get cleaner but i think its not going to change tomorrow and its not going to be cleaner next year it will take time its taken decades for many u. S. Cities to get cleaner but the important thing there was good with. And continuous action across all levels of government and you know what of course no levels so i mean its a long battle but we need to keep fighting and a long battle that we will continue to check up on on the stream here on fortunately we are all out of time for now but a big thank you char guest to send mail to. And of course to our community for being part of this with us of course you can check out the entire people and power documentary deadly air now streaming on aljazeera dot com until next time ill see you online. Ready drinks containing. Ready the Building Blocks of a better life. Ready on the stepping stones to owning a family. In america. And downs into the. The journey to work can be a challenge on its own. But for some peruvian villagers traversing one of the worlds most dangerous roads is a risk that comes with the job. We follow the journey of these people as they get there to survive. Risking it all. We break into programming to take you live to lebanon to listen to his eyes a lebanese businessman convicted of spying has been released lets listen in the son of freedom and i missed lebanon i missed our son i have spent a lot of time in. Being a resident away from my family you were the real support to me to phase that despair and to face the depression you have with me a lot because you give me that strength to resist and not to fall into despair because of you i am here with vo nothing has changed still in the stronger im still having my head held high and. One only thing that has been standing which is