Even by the standards of poor countries, India is alarmingly — and unnecessarily — dirty. It needs to clean up. Most time of year, its capital, Delhi，smells as if something is burning. That is because of many things: the carcinogenic diesel（柴油）that supplies three quarters of the city's motor fuel, the dirty coal that supplies most of its power, the rice stalks that nearby farmers want to clear after the harvest and so on. All these make Delhi's air the most poisonous of any big city.

    This does not just make life unpleasant for a lot of Indians. It kills them. Recent estimates put the annual death toll from breathing PM 2.5 alone at 1.2—2.2 million a year. The lifespan of Delhi residents is shortened by more than ten years, says the University of Chicago-Consumption of dirty water directly causes 200,000 deaths a year, a government think-tank estimates, without measuring its contribution to slower killers such as kidney disease. Some 600 million Indians, nearly half the country, live in areas where clean water is in short supply. As pollutants taint groundwater, and global warming makes the vital monsoon（季风）rains more abnormal, the country is poisoning its own future.

    Indian pollution is a danger to the rest of the world, too. Widespread dumping of antibiotics（抗生素）in rivers has made the country a hotspot for anti-microbial（抗微生物）resistance. Emissions of carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, grew by 6% a year between 2000 and 2016, compared with 1.3% a year for the world as a whole.

    In the past India has explained its failure to clean up its act by pleading poverty, noting that richer countries were once just as dirty and that its output of waste per person still lags far behind theirs. But India is notably grubby（肮脏的）not just in absolute terms, but also relative to its level of development And it is becoming grubbier.

    It is true that some ways of cutting pollution are expensive. But there are also cheap solutions，such as undoing mistakes that Indian bureaucrats（官僚）have themselves made. By funding rice farmers, for instance, the government has in effect cheered on the overusing of groundwater and the burning of stalks. Rules that encourage the use of coal have not made India more self-reliant, as intended, but instead have led to big imports of foreign coal while blackening India's skies. Much cleaner gas-fired power plants, meanwhile, sit idle.

    Reliant on big business for funding and on the poor for votes, politicians have long ignored middle-class complaints about pollution, failing to give officials the backing to enforce rules. That is a pity, because when India does apply itself to ambitious goals, it often achieves them

    Next year it will send its second rocket to the Moon.

    Narendra Modi, the prime minister, promised with admirable frankness when he took over to rid the country of open defecation（缺陷）. Four and a half years and some $9 billion later, his Clean India campaign claims to have sponsored the building of an astonishing 90 million toilets. This is impressive, but India is still not clean. Its skies, its streets, its rivers and coasts will remain dangerously dirty until they receive similar attention.

    Genetic engineering, in its broadest definition, means to control a species so that a particular trait is increased in the population. A trait is how an organism (有机体) looks or acts or what it does. Having brown eyes is a trait. Flying in circles is a trait. Climbing trees is a trait.

    The earliest forms of genetic engineering occurred on farms. People selected seeds from plants that had more fruit production or tastier leaves than other plants of their types. Then they chose to save the seeds from the best of that group to sow the next year. So, year by year, the farmers produced better and better crops. This type of activity probably has been going on since mankind first settled in villages and began making a life for themselves in one location, about 12,000 years ago!

    The same sort of thing would have also happened with animals. For example, people chose to eat the animals that didn't have favorable traits and let the animals with the favorable traits reproduce. It was thousands of years before mankind figured out how plants and animals reproduce themselves. With this knowledge, people could pollinate (授粉) plants by hand or keep a pair of animals together in order to deliberately cause an increase in a favorable trait.

    It was only in the last 250 years that scientists began figuring out chromosomes (染色体) and genes and the role they play in the way one generation passes its traits on to the next. And it's only been in the last 30 years that scientists have been able to cut out specific genes from one organism and put them in another. It is this 30-year-old technology that is described by the narrow definition of genetic engineering. Mankind has long been able to have a deliberate impact on the world around him. He now possesses the tools to deliberately impact himself. Some people are afraid of what might be done with that power.

    Deisha walked up and down as she waited backstage. This would be her most important piano performance yet. At ten years old, she was the youngest performer in the recital (音乐演奏会). She had practiced playing her song more than 30 times that week. When she closed her eyes at night the music played over and over again in her head.

    Now that the day had arrived. Deisha was not sure she was ready. She smoothed her hair and picked a piece of lint (绒毛) from the new dress that her mother had bought for her. She noticed that her hands were shaking. How could she play the notes of the song if her hands were shaking? She tried to concentrate on steadying (稳住) them, but they play only shook more.

    Deisha's piano teacher, Ms Neal, walked up to speak to her. "I have something for you." she said, putting a smooth black stone into Deisha's hand. "It's a special stone. There's no other one like it in the world. You've practiced so much: you don't need anything else."

    The stage lights reflected off the rock. "Thank you," Deisha said.

    When Deisha's name was called, she rubbed the stone, stepped onto the stage, and played better than ever.

    After her performance, she noticed that Ms Neal had a whole bag of black stones. "Why did you say this one was so special?" she asked. The teacher responded, "Because, like your talent, it belongs only to you."

    Who doesn't want to live life in style? Life is like a road on which you never get a chance to return, and is not a very long road either. So we should try to live life to the fullest and enjoy every bit of it.

    Every individual has unique likings and preferences, and all of us try to live the lives that suit us best. The world is like a painting cloth on which different people with different races, different languages, and different cultural backgrounds interact. But among these, the arts provide an easy and natural way for people to connect.

    People with a knack for the arts usually discover it in childhood. But art isn't only for the talented; it can help everyone grow. Those with a strong artistic background are often more energetic, and more successful in all fields of life. Art widens the range of a person's life.

    Painting is one of the most popular art forms. Those who are interested in taking it up as a career need to go through extensive training to get familiar with the various styles. Professional painters often host art exhibitions, with art lovers from all over the world coming to see and buy their creations. Sometimes the paintings are sold at high prices.

    Performing arts are equally popular and admired. Dance, instrumental music, drama and so on require unusual artistic talent as well as a long period of education and training before audiences start to applaud the performances. But anyone with some artistic sense can make art part of his/ her life, and benefit from it.

    Now, more than ever before, people are wondering what life is all about, and what it is for. Seeking material success is beginning to trouble large numbers of people around the world. They feel that the long-hours work culture to make more money to buy more things is eating up their lives, leaving them very little time or energy for family or pastimes. Many are turning to other ways of living and downshifting is one of them.

    Six percent of workers in Britain took the decision to downshift last year. One couple who downshifted is Daniel and Liz. They used to work in central London. He was a newspaper reporter and she used to work for an international bank. They would go to work by train every day from their large house in the suburbs, leaving their two children with a nanny(保姆). Most evenings Daniel wouldn't get home until eight or nine o'clock, and nearly twice a month he would have to fly to New York for meetings

    They both earned a large amount of money but began to feel that life was passing them by.

    Nowadays, they run a farm in the mountains of Wales, I always wanted to have a farm here, says Daniel, "and we took almost a year to make the decision to downshift. It's taken some getting used to, but it's been worth it. We have to think twice now about spending money in car repairs and we no longer have any holidays. However, I think it's made us stronger as a family, and the children are a lot happier."

    Liz, however, is not quite sure. "I used to enjoy my job, even though it was hard work and long hours. I'm not really a country girl, but I suppose I'm gradually getting used to looking after the animals. One thing I do like, though, is being able to see more of my children. My advice for other people wanting to do the same is not to think about it too much or you might not do it at all."