The Supreme Court’s directive to the Commission for Air Quality Management, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and pollution control boards of the northern states to come up with measures to prevent air pollution within three weeks, ahead of winter when pollution levels spike is a welcome development but the court’s suggestion that farmers be put behind bars for stubble burning as a warning to others reflects a regressive and authoritarian approach which offers a cure worse than the disease.

Clearing the agriculture fields ahead of the new crop season by stubble burning is a farming practice. It indeed causes air pollution but the villagers never complained about it, as it is a short-duration issue which has its own solutions. However, urbanisation extended cities to the villages,

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