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Narendra Modi government

ALTERNATIVES

Dr. Amory Lovins on India’s ‘sustainable energy future’

11th January 2018

Amory Lovins, Chief Scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, is one of the world’s leading energy experts and a key figure behind China’s ongoing transition to renewable energy. His appointment as a strategic advisor to NITI Aayog suggests that India’s top development policy agency maybe finally be rethinking the country’s present fossil fuel-based energy path….

Conflict/Dispossession

Koodankulam: The world’s most expensive pieces of useless machinery

7th January 2018

Nityanand Jayaraman writes in Dianuke.org: We do not need four more nuclear plants in Koodankulam. The need of the hour is to shut down the existing two risky units and to prosecute the ministers, technocrats and bureaucrats who led the nation up the garden path and wasted more than Rs. 35,000 crores of our money….

Development/Growth

Tejal Kanitkar on the contradiction at the heart of India’s National Energy Policy

6th January 2018

From Newsclick: Prof. Tejal Kanitkar, who heads the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies at TISS, says that while the government’s National Energy Policy claims it will provide 24×7 electricity to the entire nation by 2022, this lies in contradiction with the mode through which they plan ensure its distribution; that is, the market….

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with former environment minister Prakash Javadekar

Development/Growth

India’s political leadership failed the environment in 2017

4th January 2018

From DNA: Under the leadership of PM Modi, governments pushed down the bar on environmental standards this year. At both Centre and state levels, there have been numerous reversals in environmental legislation. Today, there are 2357 applications with the Centre that were rejected approvals by state institutions or have nearly completed construction with no approvals….

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Development/Growth

The price of development: Gujarat’s dams are now drowning the state

2nd January 2018

Sneha Vakharia reports: Gujarat’s chronic floods, underreported and devastating, tell the story of Narendra Modi’s failure to deliver the state from water scarcity, and the onset of a new kind of problem, with crucial political implications. Since the state began its battle to control its water, increasingly and unforgivingly, the water has started fighting back….

Chief economic advisor Dr. Arvind Subramanian delivered the 16th Darbari Seth Memorial Lecture

ALTERNATIVES

Coal vs Renewables: An open letter to India’s chief economic advisor

28th December 2017

With the national energy policy about to be finalised, a recent lecture by Dr. Arvind Subramanian, India’s chief economic advisor, revealed the government’s thinking on the question of coal vis-a-vis renewable energy. This rejoinder by an energy expert flags crucial issues and suggests alternatives that are vastly more healthier for the country and the planet….

Development/Growth

Why the BJP lost rural Gujarat

23rd December 2017

From Rediff.com: In the recent elections, the Congress made stunning gains over rivals BJP in rural Gujarat, winning 62 of 109 seats. According to food policy analyst and activist Devinder Sharma, this is a direct result of Gujarat’s prolonged and acute agrarian crisis being ignored by the ruling party, the urban-centric media and pollsters alike….

Economy

Rs 50 lakh crore: India’s tax bonanza to corporations in the last decade

19th December 2017

Devinder Sharma writes: In the 12-year period between 2004-05 and 2015-16, total tax concessions given by the Indian government to industry almost equals a whopping Rs 50-lakh crore. If these tax concessions were eliminated and the additional revenue generated was instead used effectively for social betterment programmes, India could have made hunger and poverty history….

India Today

Conflict/Dispossession

The Gujarat Model – An obituary and a warning

6th December 2017

Whoever wins the Gujarat elections, its clear that as a political idea, the Gujarat development model is floundering, and may never be revived. It may have been a textbook case of what development should not be like, but given the powerful interests it serves, it’s still likely to haunt India’s policies for years to come….

ALTERNATIVES

‘We’re facing a conspiracy of silence’: Sunita Narain

4th December 2017

Sunita Narain, India’s best-known environmentalist, says the environment challenges we confront-like Delhi’s extreme air pollution-are progenies of “a conspiracy of silence”. “It is a conspiracy because you don’t want the people to know (the harmful effects of environmental pollution),” says Narain, whose new book “Conflicts of Interest” gives a personal account of her green battles….

Michael Safi

CLIMATE CRISIS

How India’s battle with climate change could determine the planet’s fate

2nd December 2017

From The Guardian: Of all the most polluting nations –United States, China, Russia, Japan and the EU bloc– only India’s carbon emissions are rising: they rose almost 5% in 2016. India’s population and emissions are rising fast, and its ability to tackle poverty without massive fossil fuel use will decide the fate of the planet….

Development/Growth

Former regulatory chief: India must freeze all plans for nuclear expansion

14th November 2017

In a significant article in The Citizen, Dr A.Gopalakrishnan, the former Chairman of the India’s Atomic Energy Regulatory Board, writes: An overall evaluation of the status of the Indian civilian nuclear power sector, and the government’s uncertain future plans, do cause a great deal of concern for the welfare of the country and the safety…

Development/Growth

The grave environmental cost of ‘ease of doing business’

5th November 2017

India has just climbed an unprecedented 30 spots on the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” ranking, which’s being celebrated as a historic moment by the mainstream media. This Down to Earth report shows how this ‘achievement’ has come at a possibly permanent damage to the environment, thanks to a steady dilution of regulatory norms….

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Conflict/Dispossession

India’s big dam mania brings achche din to its corrupt dam lobby

29th October 2017

Himanshu Thakkar writes: Can we expect any improvement in state of our water resources under the new minister Shri Nitin Gadkari? It was interesting that after taking over the portfolio from Uma Bharti, Gadkari’s first stop was Maharashtra, to offer the Chief Minister Rs 55 000 crores for same corruption-ridden irrigation projects in three years….

Mural by Bhagwati Prasad at the Majdoor Library, Faridabad

Conserve/Resist

Listen, the revolution blooms in silence

19th October 2017

From Faridabad Majdoor Samachar: “On the train, a person was calling out loudly: From tomorrow, all over India, everyone’s salary will be 18,000 rupees. Equal. No one will be thief, and no one king. Long live the government.” A timely and evocative missive from a monthly workers’ newspaper distributed widely in the industrial belt around Delhi….

Development/Growth

Digging Into Adani: The dubious dealings of India’s corporate colossus

8th October 2017

From ABC News: This eagerly awaited TV-documentary is the result of a months-long investigation into the Adani Group, made in the context of a bitter clash between citizen-groups and the Australian government over the company’s giant coal mine in Queensland. It offers a revealing look into the company’s controversial business practices and their global consequences….

ALTERNATIVES

Resolutions of the National Convention of Green Socialists, Karnataka

2nd October 2017

The National Convention of Green Socialists was held at Tumakuru, Karnataka on 24 Sep 2017, as part of the ongoing ‘Tax Denial Satyagraha’ against the imposition of G.S.T. on handmade products. Among other things, the protesters demanded zero-tax on natural products, grown through natural farming, such as natural foods, etc, treating them as handmade products….

Conflict/Dispossession

Salil Tripathi: The real cost of big development projects

23rd September 2017

It’s been said that the Sardar Sarovar dam would provide many with access to water and power. But there’s no such thing as a free thaali, as Gujaratis, of all people, must surely know. Someone has to bear the cost, and that cost, as with all major development projects, has been borne by the poor….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Climate change and nuclear power: the denials, delusions and deceptions of Modi

21st September 2017

Kumar Sundaram writes in The Ecologist: Dubbing nuclear energy as a solution to climate change has been a key strategy of the Indian government for selling nuclear projects to the public as well as justifying the spree of nuclear agreements with other countries. Here are three reasons why this is not feasible, desirable and cost-effective….

Development/Growth

What exactly is a smart city? The Indian government does not want you to know

18th September 2017

From Scroll.in: How does the government define a smart city under its much-publicised Smart City Mission? This may never be known. An exercise to set clear benchmarks to assess when exactly a city is delivering a high enough quality of life to be declared a smart city was shut down by the urban development ministry….