THE NITROGEN BOMB – The Story Of An Element That Feeds And Chokes Us By JACOB KOSHY

Every winter, as Delhi and cities across the Indo-Gangetic Plain disappear beneath hazardous smog, the conversation around India’s air pollution typically turns to vehicles, industry, construction and stubble burning. But there is another, less visible contributor to the air we breathe: reactive nitrogen. In The Nitrogen Bomb, science journalist Jacob Koshy investigates how ammonia released from agricultural urea reacts with industrial and vehicular emissions to create fine particulate matter, adding to the PM2.5 burden that engulfs India’s cities. It is a striking shift in the way we understand India’s pollution crisis, and one with implications far beyond air. Following nitrogen from the laboratory to the farm, the book reveals how the element that helped feed billions is now simultaneously contaminating our air and water, damaging ecosystems and contributing to climate change.

At the heart of The Nitrogen Bomb is a paradox: India cannot simply abandon nitrogen fertiliser without confronting its dependence on it for food security, yet continuing on the present path carries environmental and public-health costs. Koshy traces that paradox across centuries: from the chemists who isolated the gas and named it azote, “without life”, through the age when Europe ransacked the world for nitrogen it could not manufacture — Peruvian guano islands, Chilean nitrate deserts, the saltpetre pits of Bihar, dug and shipped to feed Europe’s fields and arm its wars — to Haber-Bosch, the Green Revolution, India’s fertiliser-subsidy regime, MSP politics, the farm laws and today’s debate over nano-urea.

Drawing on nearly two decades of reporting across science, environment, energy and climate, he connects the chemistry of nitrogen to some of India’s most immediate questions: Why does fertiliser policy matter to the air in Delhi? What is the environmental price of feeding a nation? And can India reconcile food security with cleaner air, healthier soil and a changing climate?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jacob Koshy is Science Editor at The Hindu where he has spent more than a decade reporting on science, technology, environment, climate and energy. An engineer by training, he has previously written for Mint, The Week, HuffPost India, Newsweek Europe and The Economic Times. His reporting has taken him across some of the most consequential scientific and environmental questions facing India, from climate policy and energy transitions to air pollution and ecological change. His work is recognised for combining scientific accuracy with accessible, deeply reported storytelling.

The Nitrogen Bomb is a work of narrative science nonfiction that brings an overlooked environmental story into sharp focus: the pollution crisis in our skies may begin much further away than the city street, and much closer to the farm.

Month of Publication : October 2026