The G8 summit in Hokkaido, Japan concluded yesterday with little progress on global warming. The biggest polluter, the US refuses to sign any treaty unless India and China also pledge to reduce pollution which they are loath to do. When Bush says that India is a producer of green house gases he has a point but not what he thinks it is. Every person in India confesses to suffering from 'gas' and every ailment from headache to pain in the knees and anything in between is blamed on gas. It is very difficult to convince a patient that he is having a heart attack. Inspite of an ECG showing massive changes his relatives will insist that it is gas and that a noisy exit from either end will cure the problem. However, even after so long, it is still mystifying to me that when a patient is unconscious with an obvious paralysis on one side of the body pointing to a stroke, the relatives still insist that it is gas putting pressure on the brain. So much gas in a population of more than a billion people is surely contributing to global warming. The solution is simple - clean water. Every Indian tries to have some water purifying mechanism at home. People use various filtering devices or boil water if they have the time. But these methods do not get rid of dissolved salts of calcium, magnesium and even heavy metals. The rich have started using Reverse Osmosis systems. If the government ensures clean water at the taps we can reduce our emissions of green house gases and feel better physically. However politicians continue to exploit the people by producing copious amounts of noxious gases and they will not stop. If only Bush offered us a 'gas' deal instead of a nuclear one how nice that would be.