Smog is created when our smoke and pollutants combine with the fog.I translate it to Urdu as ‘Zehrund’ (combination of fog and poison). Headlines on print, social and electronic media every year during the smog season are the same: “Punjab Under Smog As Farmers Burn Stubble” But is farmer the only contributor?
When we look at the imagery from NASA, which has been monitoring it since 2013, it shows red dots in Punjab on both sides of the Indian border.
Those red dots depict the stubble burned by the farmers and the brick kilns but when we analyse smog, and ask the scientists, they tell us that substandard fuel, large-scale construction, and excessive burning of biomass are major contributors to smog But govt only targets the farmers