But personal action can help. Environmentalists are cheered by new programs that ask rural residents to join in the protection of nearby forests and then ply their traditional trades within them. The country's nascent green lobby has found an ally in the 25-member Supreme Court, which has ordered several polluting factories to close. In some places, alas, it seems to be too late. For centuries the eastern Indian town of Cherapunji, the wettest place on earth, averaged a prodigious 1,200 cm of rainfall a year.
Rains still come, but the destruction of pine forests has led to runoff and a water shortage.
The question echoes across a subcontinent.