Introduction

Hindus usually greet the wali, their great festival of light, by letting off an awful lot of firecrackers. But this year in deli, they've been banned. The atmosphere is too polluted already. Although dirty air is killing many indians, politicians aren't doing much to clean it up. Air pollution is one reason the chinese authorities give for their disapproval of to day's winter clothing. When people burn paper replicas of clothes to keep their deceased loved ones warm in the after life, it's actually one more sign of the increasing control over people's lives.