Summary Background Air pollution is a major planetary health risk, with India estimated to have some of the worst levels globally. To inform action at subnational levels in India, we estimated the exposure to air pollution and its impact on deaths, disease burden, and life expectancy in every state of India in 2017. Methods We estimated exposure to air pollution, including ambient particulate matter pollution, defined as the annual average gridded concentration of PM 2.5 , and household air pollution, defined as percentage of households using solid cooking fuels and the corresponding exposure to PM 2.5 , across the states of India using accessible data from multiple sources as part of the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2017. The states were categorised into three Socio-demographic Index (SDI) levels as calculated by GBD 2017 on the basis of lag-distributed per-capita income, mean education in people aged 15 years or older, and total fertility rate in people younger than 25 years. We estimated deaths and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) attributable to air pollution exposure, on the basis of exposure–response relationships from the published literature, as assessed in GBD 2017; the proportion of total global air pollution DALYs in India; and what the life expectancy would have been in each state of India if air pollution levels had been less than the minimum level causing health loss. Findings The annual population-weighted mean exposure to ambient particulate matter PM 2·5 in India was 89·9 μg/m 3 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 67·0–112·0) in 2017. Most states, and 76·8% of the population of India, were exposed to annual population-weighted mean PM 2·5 greater than 40 μg/m 3 , which is the limit recommended by the National Ambient Air Quality Standards in India. Delhi had the highest annual population-weighted mean PM 2·5 in 2017, followed by Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana in north India, all with mean values greater than 125 μg/m 3 . The proportion of population using solid fuels in India was 55·5% (54·8–56·2) in 2017, which exceeded 75% in the low SDI states of Bihar, Jharkhand, and Odisha. 1·24 million (1·09–1·39) deaths in India in 2017, which were 12·5% of the total deaths, were attributable to air pollution, including 0·67 million (0·55–0·79) from ambient particulate matter pollution and 0·48 million (0·39–0·58) from household air pollution. Of these deaths attributable to air pollution, 51·4% were in people younger than 70 years. India contributed 18·1% of the global population but had 26·2% of the global air pollution DALYs in 2017. The ambient particulate matter pollution DALY rate was highest in the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Delhi, Punjab, a...

Ambient air pollution, specifically particulate matter of diameter <2.5 μm, is reportedly associated with cardiovascular disease risk. However, evidence linking particulate matter of diameter <2.5 μm and blood pressure (BP) is largely from cross-sectional studies and from settings with lower concentrations of particulate matter of diameter <2.5 μm, with exposures not accounting for myriad time-varying and other factors such as built environment. This study aimed to study the association between long- and short-term ambient particulate matter of diameter <2.5 μm exposure from a hybrid spatiotemporal model at 1-km×1-km spatial resolution with longitudinally measured systolic and diastolic BP and incident hypertension in 5342 participants from urban Delhi, India, within an ongoing representative urban adult cohort study. Median annual and monthly exposure at baseline was 92.1 μg/m 3 (interquartile range, 87.6–95.7) and 82.4 μg/m 3 (interquartile range, 68.4–107.0), respectively. We observed higher average systolic BP (1.77 mm Hg [95% CI, 0.97–2.56] and 3.33 mm Hg [95% CI, 1.12–5.52]) per interquartile range differences in monthly and annual exposures, respectively, after adjusting for covariates. Additionally, interquartile range differences in long-term exposures of 1, 1.5, and 2 years increased the risk of incident hypertension by 1.53× (95% CI, 1.19–1.96), 1.59× (95% CI, 1.31–1.92), and 1.16× (95% CI, 0.95–1.43), respectively. Observed effects were larger in individuals with higher waist-hip ratios. Our data strongly support a temporal association between high levels of ambient air pollution, higher systolic BP, and incident hypertension. Given that high BP is an important risk factor of cardiovascular disease, reducing ambient air pollution is likely to have meaningful clinical and public health benefits.

Bhargav Krishna and colleagues call for health driven, multisectoral policy making with defined air quality targets to curb the impact of air pollution exposure in South Asia

Electrochemical (EC) oxidation of distillery wastewater with low (BOD 5 /COD) ratio was investigated using aluminum plates as electrodes. The effects of operating parameters such as pH, electrolysis duration, and current density on COD removal were studied. At a current density of 0.03 A cm -2 and at pH 3, the COD removal was found to be 72.3%. The BOD 5 /COD ratio increased from 0.15 to 0.68 for an optimum of 120-min electrolysis duration indicating improvement of biodegradability of wastewater. The maximum anodic efficiency observed was 21.58 kg COD h -1 A -1 m -2 , and the minimum energy consumption observed was 0.084 kWh kg -1 COD. The kinetic study results revealed that reaction rate (k) decreased from 0.011 to 0.0063 min -1 with increase in pH from 3 to 9 while the k value increased from 0.0035 to 0.0102 min -1 with increase in current density from 0.01 to 0.03 A cm -2 . This study showed that the COD reduction is more influenced by the current density. The linear and the nonlinear regression models reveal that the COD reduction is influenced by the applied current density.