It's easy to blame the people and the gov't for pollution, but having lived in both India and China the story is quite different. You have swathes of population

It's easy to blame the people and the gov't for pollution, but having lived in both India and China the story is quite different. You have swathes of population that need employment . In order to keep the economy productive you have to have manufacturing activity. To support the manufacturing activity one must produce energy. Naturally coal being abundant and cheap becomes the first choice for governments to use for energy production. While we can criticise the coal plants for being polluting without them there is no source of employment. Most renewables are too expensive/unreliable to use and nuclear power plants alway come along with a lot of controversy. Another thing to note is that the overall pollution per capita in India or China is far less than any of the western nations. Its just that these countries have way too many people in too less space. As for schools closing due to pollution, I can say that this is common all across asia. The thing is many of the industries that pollute go unchecked partly due to corruption and partly due to the fact that if they are fined they will just withdraw from the area of operation causing many to loose their means of living. In a place like india this becomes a question of life or death because many earn too less to save enough. The question that lies ahead is more "how can we solve this issue" than to lay blame. Perhaps the government needs to look at what the pollution is made up of and specifically target those industries.