NEW DELHI - Every year around October, farmer Satinder Sharma would toss a lit matchstick and torch his field. The 62-year old in Haryana had to burn stubble on his 2.2ha rice field to clear it for a wheat crop.

       Mr Sharma is not alone. He is one of thousands of farmers in north India who burn more than 2.3 million hectares of paddy stubble every year at the onset of winter - contributing to an annual pollution crisis that obscures the sky across India's northern plains and harms millions of its residents.

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