India, Oct. 25 -- The planned artificial rainfall through cloud-seeding this month is meant to ease the air pollution crisis, typical of Delhi winters in recent years.
However, the city's brush with the first-ever artificial rain experiment was actually in the monsoon of 1957, said an Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) report. The Delhi Government's attempt this year - with a test run in Burari on Thursday - marks the third chapter in the history of artificial rainfall in the city, with the second attempt traced back to the wintertime of the early 1970s, according to the report.
The trials in 1971-72 were carried out at the National Physical Laboratory campus, covering roughly a 25 km radius over central Delhi.
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