India’s battle with air pollution has long been seen through the lens of health and visibility ~ smog-filled skies, wheezing citizens, and the occasional winter air emergency. But an unsettling truth is now emerging: pollution is also stealing India’s sunlight. Across vast stretches of the country, the Sun itself is growing dimmer, its rays scattered and weakened by clouds and aerosols that have thickened in the atmosphere over the past three decades. This slow eclipse has quietly reshaped India’s natural rhythm. Meteorological data show that sunshine hours, the time direct sunlight actually reaches the ground, have declined persistently since the late 1980s.

The dimming is most pronounced over northern and coastal India, including regions like Amritsar, Kolkata and Mumbai, where industrialisation, traffic, and construction dust are at their most intense. The causes are........

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