An Indian street scene. Photo by Satbir from Flickr.

Last week the New York Times and the International Herald Tribune ran a story on the new Tata Car priced at $2,500 coming out in India in 2008. Some time ago NextBillion covered the new car from the “Bottom of the Pyramid,” angle and the NYT and IHT did more of the same, framing the debate around its affordability; like Ford’s Model T, it’s a car designed for the masses. What’s conspicuously absent from the reporting is what cheap cars actually mean to India.

With poor air quality already a major problem in many Indian cities, the increase of cars will only make things worse. And because poor air quality is directly linked to respiratory diseases such as asthma, bronchitis, and lung cancer we can expect more people to fall ill as millions of new cars flood the roads. Read the rest of this entry »

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