He wouldn’t put it this way, but Secretary of State John Kerry announced this week that the U.S. government will turn the screws on India over the country’s environmental record. This is a bold challenge to the Indian government that could become an extremely effective exercise of soft power. But even if AirNow monitoring doesn’t work a diplomatic miracle in time for the Paris climate conference, at least the fact that India’s pollution problem hurts its people will be well-articulated. That can only increase public pressure to clean up India’s development strategy. --Stephen Stromberg, The Washington Post, 20 February 2015
