India, Dec. 5 -- Each winter, Delhi descends into its now-familiar public health emergency. As temperatures fall and winds weaken, a heavy grey blanket settles over the NCR, pushing daily life into crisis mode - schools shut, construction halts, and citizens track AQI readings as routinely as the time of day. Yet this seasonal panic obscures a deeper truth: Delhi's pollution is not a winter anomaly but a year-round structural failure. Meteorology merely exposes what governance has failed to fix.
Having worked within the Delhi government ecosystem and now leading a data and AI centre, it is clear to me that the science of the problem and the strategy of our response remain misaligned. To move beyond temporary relief, the capital needs syste...