The whirr of a threshing machine outside her school was a familiar sound for Pooja Pal. So was the dust it threw into the air.

One afternoon, as the machine worked nearby, thick husk-filled air drifted into her classroom in a small village in Uttar Pradesh. Students began coughing. Breathing became difficult. Lessons came to a halt.

Pooja, then in Class 8, could not shake the moment. The dust was part of everyday life in farming communities, yet no one seemed to question its impact. She began wondering if the machines separating grain from stalks could work without filling the air with debris.

She took the question to her science teacher, Rajeev Srivastava. He encouraged her to explore it further, pushing her to think of a solution that could work on the ground, not only on........

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