Every year, about this time, we need to remind the leaders of society, academia and SAARC, about the Indo-Gangetic fog. Himal raised the matter a year ago ("Huddled masses, yearning for warmth", February 2001), and it should be repeated now, even though the prime ministers and presidents are probably not listening. This is truly a 'regional' problem.
There is increased incidence of the fog in the plains of the Indus and Ganga, due to the expansion of embankments, dykes, barrages, irrigation canals – and eveything else that leaves more water lying around on the ground in the winter months than what is natural. When the air temperature drops, these water bodies release mists and fogs, which then hug the ground and do not disperse for days, weeks and, in bad winters, a month or more.
Fog is basically a cloud formed at ground level, and during these winter months they extend several hundred feet into the atmosphere. Above the fog, the winter sun shines, but its warmth cannot reach the huddled masses underneath. Just a few hundred feet up into Uttaranchal, Nepal or the Darjeeling and Bhutan hills, the sun shines bright and warm. But this is cold comfort for the plainsfolk.
The overall impact of this Indo-Gangetic fog on the population must account for the biggest incidence of mass misery in the modern world. With their living spaces and clothing geared more for the long hot summer of the plains, the poor and not-so-poor, from Lahore to Delhi to Patna to Guwahati, shiver in un-heated rooms wearing inadequate woolens as the ground and air turn frigid. In the poor visibility, the trains run late and planes are diverted. The potato crop dies in the fields, and bricks will not bake in the sun's absence.