E ach day, Kiran Kasbe drives a rickshaw taxi through his home neighbourhood of Mahul on Mumbai’s eastern seafront, down streets lined with stalls selling tomatoes, bottle gourds and aubergines–and, frequently, through thick smog.

Earlier this year, doctors found three tumours in his 54-year-old mother’s brain. It’s not clear exactly what caused her cancer. But people who live near coal plants are much more likely to develop the illness, studies show , and the residents of Mahul live a few hundred metres down the road from one.

Mahul’s air is famously dirty. Even behind closed car windows, there is a heavy stench of oil and smoke.

“We are not the only ones facing health challenges in the area,” said Kasbe, who is 36. “It’s all covered with filth.”

Two coal plants plant run by the

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