Amending the Electricity Act 2003- Getting the regulatory incentives right

State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERCs) constituted under state level legislation in seven states from 1995 and subsequently under the Electricity Regulatory Commissions Act 1998 (since subsumed into the Electricity Act 2003) have failed, to uniformly tackle the twin problems of high operational cost and distorted retail tariff structures not reflective of the cost of supply. […]

Population growth- Ticking bomb or blessing

Global population growth decelerated since 1965, even before “The Population Bomb”, a 1968 best-seller by Paul and Anne Ehrlich, advocated population control if the world were not to starve to death. In 1972, the Club of Rome published “The Limits to Growth”, which similarly predicted that the world would run out of its natural resources. […]

Acclimatizing India

Climate change seems inevitable. Risk takers who go long on property should check out locations in Canada, Siberia and Greenland. These hitherto frozen places are expected to become attractive relocation favourites in a rapidly warming world. Collective action a distant dream The international institutional architecture for concerted effort has been negligent in protecting future generations. […]

Getting nationalism right

If the term nationalism and the sight of the national flag generates a warm, comforting feeling in your heart, your government is doing a great job. If, however, this term and the flag, leaves you cold, clammy and resentful, there is something the government is not doing right. Nationalism – an abstract construct – acquires […]

Xi and Modi – joined at the hip

Prime Minister Modi and scores of democratically elected leaders, must envy Xi Jinping the President and “uncrowned emperor” of China. The serried rows of compliant and attentive members of the People’s Congress, seated, as if pinned, to identical red upholstery; displaying endless patience through Xi’s three and a half hour over-long, speech, without once dozing […]

Book Review: Just erratic not deranged

Amitav Ghosh’s latest book—The Great Derangement—is an exploration of why contemporary culture, imagination and political systems have failed to prevent global warming, despite its cataclysmic long-term effects and disruptive short-term outcomes. His choice of the book’s title reflects the conundrum facing poor nations. They are not the ones who benefited from the carbon economy. But […]

Small guys always win

Star Wars episode VII tells it like it is, in reel life. The small guys — with fire in the belly and a higher moral purpose as their force — always win in the end. In this universe, big is evil. Thomas Picketty, the celebrated French economist, agrees. The bigger you get the further behind […]

Why no one loves Modi

In sarkari circles, an officer whom no one loves is an outlier — either cruelly termed “sanki” in colloquial Hindi (willful, unreliable) or brutally even-handed since she evenly annoys everyone. But what does one say about a politician in this predicament? Frankly, whilst it is easy for a politician to be so faceless that s/he […]

Stop being a bully State

Does the proposed national “beef ban” and the rabid intolerance for “beef-eaters” illustrate a new and disturbing trend in Indian politics? Are we squandering away our “secularism”? India has been a “secular” state in practice all along. All the bells and whistles to ensure equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of religion, have existed in […]

Climate “warriors” head for the December 2015 Paris joust

Paris in December is not quite what it is in springtime. But who cares if someone else is footing the bill! Paris is the venue of the next Conference of Parties (COP), from November 30 to December 11. An annual jamboree that has been trying, since 1992, to limit carbon emissions and save the planet […]

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