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Citizen air-quality platform

JanVayu जनवायु

India’s air, made visible: live data, the health toll, the money and the tools, for every citizen. A walkthrough.

janvayu.inNon-partisan · citizen-led · open source · free forever
The problem

India breathes the world’s most dangerous air

1.72M
ambient PM2.5 deaths a year
(Lancet Countdown 2025)
3.5 yrs
average life-expectancy lost
(AQLI 2025)
48.9
µg/m³ national average, nearly 10 times the WHO guideline (IQAir 2025)

India is 6th most polluted country; Loni is the world’s most polluted city. The problem lasts all year, not just in winter.

janvayu.in
What it is

A citizen-led public record

  • Non-partisan & citizen-led: names problems and sources, endorses no party.
  • Built on public data: CPCB, WAQI, OpenAQ, NASA, Open-Meteo.
  • Open & free forever: anyone can read, reuse or improve it; no ads.
  • Every figure sourced & checked against it: on every change, and re-verified against primary sources periodically.

JanVayu turns India’s scattered air-quality data into one record any citizen, journalist or policymaker can use, and keeps it honest.

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Under the hood

Independent sources, made useful

How JanVayu worksindependent sources, verified, made usefulWHAT WE READWHAT WE DOWHAT YOU GETLive feeds · every hourCPCB CAAQMSWAQIOpenAQ + community sensorsNASA FIRMS (farm fires)Open-Meteo (weather)The measured record · yearsCPCB's daily AQI bulletinsXKDR station database (CPCB + US)Open-Meteo weather archive… what the models get checked againstSatellite + boundariesSatPM2.5 · yearly + monthlyLandsat 8/9 · surface heatESA WorldCover · land coverLGD + Swachh Bharat Mission… every place, not every hourLive AQI: 160 citiesfrom the monitor networkThe map: every place in India68,596 wards · 319,287 panchayats584,615 villages · blocks · districtsCPCB's own bulletin, 2015–2026298 cities · days in each categorywith the monitor count beside each figureWeather removed from the trend44 cities, 2018–2024 · wind or policy?Ask JanVayu (AI)answers, with its sourcesForecast + farm fireswhat is coming, and from whereRTI + rights · alerts + open APItools to act on itJANVAYU ENGINEVerifyComputeContextualizeevery figure sourced + open · no ads · free forever
janvayu.inindependent public feeds → verified → made useful
Live air

Real-time PM2.5 for 157 Indian cities

  • Live dashboard: 33 cities refresh every 10 minutes; the rest load when picked.
  • Station-level map: across India, colour-coded.
  • City rankings: cleanest & most polluted, now / 7-day / 30-day.
  • 5-day forecast & fire tracker: will it be bad tomorrow?

Pick your source (CPCB, WAQI, IQAir, community sensors). JanVayu explains why they differ instead of hiding it.

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For you

What today’s air means for you

  • Cigarettes/day equivalent: today’s air, made tangible.
  • Disease-risk read-out: asthma, heart, respiratory, children.
  • What to do today: masks, purifiers, go-outside advice.
  • Alerts: push & email when your threshold is crossed.

The live number, translated into what it does to a body, and what to do about it right now.

janvayu.in
Health

More than a lung problem

How PM2.5 travels through your bodyparticles ~30× smaller than a hair, small enough to cross into the bloodPM2.5 you breathe inBrainstroke · dementia · cognitionHeartheart attack · irregular rhythmKidneyslower eGFR (2026 cohort)Lungsasthma · COPD · lung cancerBloodstreamparticles cross into the bloodPregnancypreterm · low birth weightPM2.5 reaches nearly every organ in the body, well beyond the lungs.
janvayu.inPM2.5 crosses into the blood and reaches nearly every organ
The money

The bill nobody sees

How dirty air drains the economyone polluted year, three ways it drains India’s economyPM2.5pollutionPremature deathsmonetised by Lancet CountdownIllness & sick daysnot in the $339.4 bnHealthcare billsnot in the $339.4 bnTHE BILL$339.4 bnvalue of 2022 deathsoutdoor PM2.5 · ≈ 9.5% of GDP$339.4 bn: Lancet Countdown 2025. Older study: $36.8 bn lost output, 2019 (1.36% of GDP; Pandey et al., Lancet Planetary Health 2021).Every rupee here is avoidable. Clean air is economic policy as well as health policy.
janvayu.in$36.8bn lost output in 2019 (1.36% GDP); $339bn value of 2022 premature deaths (9.5%)
Accountability

Following the promises & the money

  • NCAP & GRAP trackers: targets, deadlines, stage history.
  • Budget tracker: per-city NCAP spend, CREA-sourced.
  • One-click RTI: pre-filled Right-to-Information templates.
  • City scorecards: who’s acting, who isn’t.

Only 23 of the 100 cities with sufficient data met the NCAP 40% PM10 target by the 2026 deadline (CREA). The record is public.

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Learn the number

The AQI hides up to eight pollutants

How the AQI number is builtone index, several pollutants, and it always reports the worst6 POLLUTANTS, each measuredPM2.5306PM10182NO₂88SO₂41CO64O₃112take the MAX(the worst sub-index)THE AQI NUMBER306Very PoorTwo cities both at "200" can have completely different air: the label hides which pollutant is driving it.
janvayu.intwo cities both at “200” can have completely different air
The toolbox

Everything in one place

  • Ask JanVayu: AI answers in 10 languages, with sources.
  • Learning games & walkthrough: for classrooms and newcomers.
  • Photo gallery & testimony wall: the human record, 14 languages.
  • Open Data API: every dataset, free with attribution.
  • Boundary atlas, 983,149 areas: your neighbourhood at any level, nine measures each, plus a district-level “this year so far”; your MP’s air on the map.
  • Every village in India: all 584,615, each with an annual PM2.5 figure.
  • Installable app + push alerts: works offline.
janvayu.in
Trust

Every number, checked against its source

  • Periodic deep audit: every statistic re-verified against primary sources.
  • Public findings: corrections logged in the open repository.
  • Never invent: unverifiable figures are flagged, not guessed.

Clean air is a right, and the case for it never needs an exaggerated number. If a figure looks off, tell us. Being corrected in public is the point.

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What the data says

Was it policy, or was it the wind?

  • 44 cities, 2018–2024: weather statistically removed from every daily reading.
  • 33 improving, 11 not: once the wind can no longer take the credit.
  • Meerut −14.6, Varanasi −14.2, Lucknow −14.0: µg/m³ a year, the steepest real falls in India.
  • Chandigarh +3.1, Mumbai +0.8: getting worse, and not because of the weather.

A city’s air can improve because it emitted less, or because the wind blew harder. Every “air improved by X%” headline rests on not knowing which. This separates them, though what is left is not proof that policy did it.

janvayu.in
Independent · open · free forever

Clean air is everyone's right.

Explore it, use the data, add your voice, or contribute at github.com/JanVayu/JanVayu.

janvayu.incontribute@janvayu.in
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Speaker notes