Bangalore is India's Silicon capital and one of the country's fastest growing metropolitan city.However, the city's toxic air is choking the lungs of its children. Nearly seven to eight lakh children (over 50 per cent) suffer from coughing, wheezing and other respiratory ailments due to the alarming air pollution levels. A study by the Lakeside Medical Centre and Hospital here has found that asthma and other respiratory ailments accounted for 50 per cent of the emergency cases among children in hospitals. Doctors attributed only six per cent of asthma cases in children to genetic causes. "Coughing and wheezing among children, specially of school-going age is on the rise because they inhale air that has high content of sulphur-dioxide and carbon-monoxide due to uncontrolled vehicular emission. Inhaling sulphur dioxide causes inflammation of the lungs. Thousands of children need emergency help and our hospital alone has treated over 2,900 such children from January to December 2002," H.Paramesh, pediatric lung specialist at the Lakeside hospital told TNN. The study found that while 32 per cent of children studying in schools located at heavy-traffic zones suffered from respiratory problems, 11 per cent of those studying in schools located at low-traffic zones were affected. "Children who travelled to far off schools, which may not be located in heavy traffic zones, were not spared either as they inhaled the poisonous air while travelling to their schools," Paramesh said. The incidence of respiratory ailments in Bangalore's children has risen sharply from 9 per cent in 1979 to 30 per cent in 1999. "All our studies have proved that air pollution is the culprit and not the climate, which has not changed for the last 20 years in our city. The pollen count in Bangalore has come down due to largescale construction," Paramesh added.[sOURCE: Times of India]