AP Photo

The World Health Organisation's first global list of the most polluted cities in the world released this year features two Indian cities in the top 10 - Ludhiana in fourth place and Kanpur in tenth. And let's not forget our metros; in every similar list of the past few years, they've featured disquietingly prominently. The result? We are paying an increasingly high human and economic cost with respiratory and cardiac diseases on the rise. Given this, Siam's proposal, ambitious though it is, and with certain economic wrinkles to be worked out, is better than the alternative of letting pollution continue unchecked. . .