After age-reversing billionaire Bryan Johnson opened up about leaving Zerodha co-founder Nikhil Kamath's podcast in the middle due to the poor air quality in the Mumbai hotel, Kamath's brother and Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath said the incident made him realise that it wasn't only Delhi that has an air pollution problem.
"The biggest takeaway for me after meeting Bryan Johnson was debunking the myth I once believed: that only Delhi in India has an air quality problem—and that it occurs only in winter," Kamath wrote on X. "We recorded Nikhil Kamath's WTF podcast in a sea-facing apartment in Bandra, Mumbai, and the AQI [air quality index] was a whopping 160+. If the AQI was this high in Bandra, just imagine the levels in the more crowded parts of the town."
The Zerodha CEO said after recording the podcast, he got an AQI meter for their JP Nagar office located in a "quiet corner of Bengaluru" but was "shocked" to see the reading to be more than 120. "Imagine how much worse it might be in the busier parts of the city. What makes matters trickier in Bengaluru is the dust from the ongoing construction boom and poor roads," Kamath said.
He also said how most places in the US and Europe have a good AQI of below 50.
The billionaire, who has a separate philanthropic organisation (Rainmatter) aimed at working on issues related to climate change, wondered how people who invest in filters for purified water, don't think of investing in air purifiers.
"We seem to have gotten used to the fact that air pollution is just a part of life, and we’re okay with breathing low-quality air—even though clean air is a fundamental right granted to citizens by the Constitution," he said.
Remarking on the limited research done in India on the poor air quality and its effects on public health, Kamath invited researchers working on this field to get in touch with him. "If you are a researcher thinking about or working on this topic, we’d love to connect with you. Perhaps some large hospital chains would be willing to provide anonymized data sets on health issues for researchers to work on," he said. "Please let us know if you are working on AQI, its impact on both personal and public health, or if you intend to explore it further. We at Rainmatter would like to collaborate. We are trying to improve quality of life, and air quality plays a significant role in many cities across the country."
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