AQI: 44
With an AQI of 44, Gangtok’s mountain air feels virtually impossibly contemporary, cool and clear. Start your day at Enchey Monastery, the place fluttering prayer flags catch the breeze, or stroll down MG Marg, the pedestrian coronary heart of the town lined with cafés and memento retailers. Visit the Namgyal Institute of Tibetology to grasp the area’s Buddhist heritage, then drive out to Tashi View Point for panoramic vistas of the Kanchenjunga vary. In a season when most Indian cities are blanketed in smog, Gangtok presents a uncommon breath of readability.
Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala
Evgenii Zotov / Getty Images
AQI: 47
With an AQI of 47, Thiruvananthapuram’s air is as crisp as its coastal breeze, inviting you to decelerate and savour the town’s laid-back rhythm. Start your morning on the majestic Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, its gopuram gleaming under the solar, earlier than heading to Villa Maya for a leisurely Keralan meal in a restored Dutch manor. Spend your afternoon people-watching at Kovalam Beach the place locals collect for sundown. For a dose of tradition, discover The Artisans Village at Kanakakunnu, or wander by means of the Napier Museum gardens close by.
What is the Air Quality Index?
An Air Quality Index (AQI) is a quantifiable measure of the air air pollution stage in an space through eight pollutant classes which is denoted as a composite determine for clear communication.
But past telling you the way clear or polluted your air is, the AQI of your metropolis additionally helps you propose your journey, commute and any outside actions which could be impacted.
On a bigger scale, this information truly helps governments to take measures to enhance the air we breathe. In India, for instance, this information has aided in figuring out non-attainment cities aka cities which have fallen in need of assembly the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for 5 years straight. With this checklist, mitigation of air air pollution has been capable of take a tailor-made, city-wise strategy over the previous few years. This includes a Graded Action Plan Response in New Delhi to handle the rising air pollution ranges with respect to the AQI classes (starting from good to extreme). Globally, this information from internationally additionally helps formulate and revise the WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines (GAQG), which presently advocate air high quality ranges for six main pollution.
A glance outdoors your window right now would possibly provide you with apparent cues about what the air is like. But indexing (*5*) is much more meticulous than noticing mud or smog. It requires an air monitoring scale which might measure the focus of air pollution over a specified averaging interval. The outcomes you get are grouped into ranges, and every vary is color coded, labelled when it comes to high quality and assigned a standardised public well being advisory.
A drastic enhance in AQI ranges may have potential well being hazards from speedy discomfort like eye irritation, an itchy throat and allergy symptoms to extra severe respiratory issues for these with present medical situations or compromised immunity. And because the air quality deteriorates to very poor and extreme, even probably the most wholesome start to run a danger for growing power respiratory ailments.
Currently in India, we use the AQI scale established by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which ranges from zero to 500. EPA launched its AQI approach again in 1999, which was then adopted by many counties internationally. But high quality of air and the elements that have an effect on it differ throughout areas, which is why most of them have altered the index to go well with their necessities.
Now this specific scaling system is linear. So whereas your metropolis may very well be affected by a number of components, the AQI scale will report solely those with the very best values as recorded over a one-hour common. Apart from main emissions from the brick-making industries close to Delhi or the stubble burning in Punjab that make the headlines, your metropolis may very well be affected by stable gas combustion, biomass, diesel mills, wooden burning, development and different irritants. In India, all of those are regulated under eight pollutant classes, specifically: ground-level ozone, particulate matter (cut up into PM10 and PM2.5), carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, lead, ammonia and nitrogen dioxide.
Here’s a helpful breakdown of learn how to analyse the AQI in your metropolis:
0-50: Low danger
51-100: Satisfactory
101-200: Moderate
201-300: Poor
301-400: Very poor
401-500: Severe
AQI is topic to alter relying on time of day. This story was up to date as of 9 am on 7 November, 2025.