English: A traditional outdoor cookstove - a chulla - in rural Tamil Nadu fired, as you can see, by any readily available material, here branches pulled from the rapidly deforesting barren lands, some salvaged scrap wood, dried dung cakes and coconut shells. In rural villages, much of the cooking is done outside in the dry months, which saves on indoor smoke inhalation. Much effort is being touted for improved cookstoves - more efficient or less smoke hazard - but to crack the rural market they have to meet what villagers want, be as flexible and be nearly as cheap. And low awareness and knowledge is often a factor: for example while a more efficient stove might make perfect sense to a Westerner for fuel use, a rural family might not fully understand that. They might instead just notice that the food cooks faster on the new stove and prefer it for that. And similarly, the household often will not understand or believe the link between smoke and health.