Delhi’s air is so toxic that schools are closing, expats are fleeing
My wife is from noida, a suburb of Delhi. Her mother, brother and other family live there in the NCR area.<p>We talked to her mom two days ago and she says it&#x27;s so bad now she can&#x27;t even see the road when she goes out in an auto.<p>Her brothers latest post to Facebook is &quot;feeling suffocated! Have to get out of this city!&quot;<p>When I was there two years ago, my first time in India, I had no idea what to expect. The second the plane landed and we were pulling up to the gate my very first comment was &quot;Do you smell something burning?&quot; To my wife.<p>The second I got into the concourse I knew what it was. The airport was filled with smog. It was a little shocking.<p>The fact that it&#x27;s gotten so much worse that two years later you can&#x27;t even see the road is mind blowing.<p>I thought kejriwals plan for limiting the roads to odd plate numbers one day then even the next was a good idea to help cut the pollution.<p>The problem was apparently the people, just like here, hated it because it was his plan and not modi&#x27;s, plus the people never would have followed it because well the saying cutting your nose off to spite your face is appropriate here. The people won&#x27;t tolerate that inconvenience even though they are literally killing themselves.<p>The wife&#x27;s mother retires in august. She has two months of vacation built up. We told her to simply take the two months come June and move here to the states.<p>China has bad pollution problems to deal with too. But man looking at India you can see an absolute failure of government to serve the people.<p>There are too many people in their cities. Delhi is a mess. Bangalore as well. 
I don&#x27;t know exactly what indias energy supplies look like but they are certainly past a redline where petrol burning vehicles should be banned. Things moved over to natgas or major mass transit infrastructure should have been the primary focus decades ago.<p>I can see how it hasn&#x27;t been though with the astonishing level of corruption and nationalism preventing foreign companies from coming in and investing and solving some of their problems.<p>It&#x27;s so sad. I loved the country. It&#x27;s beautiful. With such character, potential, and such life! But it&#x27;s just become such a cesspool. Homelessness, corruption, rapes, pollution, human trafficking, poverty.<p>Law enforcement is a joke and couldn&#x27;t enforce anything in that country.<p>If you get hit by a car and it&#x27;s a life threatening injury, say your prayers because you are dead. Help will never reach you in time. There are no traffic laws, none that anyone there follows, no one moves for emergency vehicles, it&#x27;s dog eat dog. Brutal.<p>It&#x27;s almost my definition of a failed state. I think the good nature of the people is the only thing keeping it from the giant flush of collapsing civilization.