Bechan Lalshah is a farmer and small-time trader in central India. He lives in Singrauli, an impoverished rural district in Madhya Pradesh state. Every morning, Lalshah wakes up sneezing and coughing ash from a nearby coal plant. Waste from the plant covers his crops in a dusty film, driving down yields, and seeps into water sources. Singrauli is the heartland of India’s coal industry. The district produces 10% of the country’s thermal power. The coal plants and mines that blot the landscape are the singular feature of life there.

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