India, Jan. 4 -- Already hammered towards silence and submission by their criminal government gone rogue, the people of Goa are lurching into another annus horribilis, literally gasping for breath. An immense pall of construction debris and automobile emissions hangs over the landscape of India's smallest state, choking vegetation and clogging lungs. All through the last week, air quality has been dire, with AQI (air quality index) readings stuck above "unhealthy". According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), it is damaging to breathe in more than 5 micrograms of PM2.5 (fine particulate matter that can pass through the lungs into your blood) per cubic metre, but we have readings of twenty times higher in Panjim.

It is an existential...