In India, pollution and environmental degradation have reached alarming dimensions due to poverty, deforestation, industrial development without adequate environmental safeguards, and sheer greed. Fortunately, public concern, rooted in the country's past, has revived. Major pollutants and critically affected areas have been identified. Pollution control of water, air, and land has been established by both official and private organizations and the work on environmental protection is steadily growing. The Ganga purification plan is a representative case study. Poverty alleviation is a longterm process. It is India's major problem and is being tackled with help from private enterprise and by international assistance. Simultaneously, environmental protection through pollution control, is also receiving administrative and legislative support and fiscal assistance through direct and indirect tax incentives. The country's courts are rendering valuable help to environmentalists by pronouncing far-reaching decisions in public-interest litigation. To boost the existing environment-protection movement, greater emphasis is urgently needed for environmental education, peoples' participation, population control, and cost-effective pollution control measures.