In the 1980s, long before India had woken up to the problems of automobile emissions, Dr Dipankar Chakraborti, then a young professor of chemistry, was out on the streets of Calcutta collecting air samples. He would test the samples during his teaching stints in Europe and bring the worrying results back.
He warned of cancer and asthma and the generally debilitating effects of air pollution. Back then no one was listening, but many of his concerns came true for Calcutta.
Dr Chakraborti was an insightful and public-spirited professor. He forayed far out of the classroom and into. . .