How Polluted is the Air we breath???
Chennai had the distinction of hosting the release of the first report by a Community initiative to monitor and broadcast the ambient air quality in India recently (on the 5th June the 'World Environment Day'). It is an example of people taking control of not merely solving issues, but, doing what the regulatory bodies in India cannot do (Claude Alvares, a member of the Supreme Court Committee on Hazardous Waste Management in this meeting said that, "The Regulatory Authority in India has no way of measuring the nature of Air quality and it wont happen for another 20 years". The community testing that took place in 12 locations using a rather simple looking bucket methods went about with a simple idea to get to know the list of commonly found toxic gases in ambient air across the country. A total of 45 toxic chemicals including 13 carcinogens were found in the air samples tested. The chemicals target virtually every part of the human body - eyes, central nervous syste