In India, New Delhi schools have closed for one week amid spiking levels of toxic pollution. Air quality in the Indian capital has been further exacerbated by the widespread burning of crop residue. Farmers say they have been left with no other choice but to burn the agricultural stubble to prepare for more cultivation.

Vijer Singh: “The prices of crops are decreasing. The farmers are helpless, and hence they have to burn it. The government should provide some solution, give us subsidies and machinery, or some organizations should provide us with machinery to decompose it. There won’t be a need for farmers to burn it then. They won’t do it.”