India's toxic air claimed 1.24 million lives in 2017 — 12.5 percent of total deaths recorded that year — according to a study published in Lancet Planetary Health on Thursday.

More than 51 percent of the people who died because of air pollution were younger than 70, said the study, conducted by academics and scientists from various institutions in India and around the world.

It was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Indian government and the Indian Council of Medical Research.