India Last Week #3
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment -
“A new study published in the journal Weather and Climate Dynamics found a seasonal shift in western disturbances: They are now occurring more frequently in summer months when they were once rare. Western disturbances have become twice as common in June in the past 20 years than during the previous 50 years… “We had anecdotal evidence of western disturbances interacting with the monsoon, but now we have been able to show the trend [in shifting patterns] more clearly,” Hunt said. Flash floods in 2013 in the Himalayan state of Uttarakhand claimed around 6,000 lives. They happened in June, when western disturbances struck during the summer monsoon. The same happened in July 2023, leading to floods in many northern Indian states, including in the capital, New Delhi.” Read more: Rishi Pardikar, EoS
“If confirmed, 2024 will mark the seventh consecutive year of heat stress in India, highlighting a significant and concerning pattern of rising temperatures. This makes managing heat-related economic risks one of the biggest challenges to India’s ambitions of becoming the world’s third-largest economy by 2030. A 2020 McKinsey study estimated that outdoor working hours lost to heat may cost India up to $250 billion or 4.5% of its GDP by 2030. Heat stress is expected to affect each of the nine major economic activities listed by India’s 2021-22 Periodic Labour Force Survey, in addition to farming and construction. Each year nearly 740,000 excess deaths in India can be attributed to abnormal hot and cold temperatures related to climate change, according to a 2021 study by the Lancet Planetary Health journal.” Read more: Archana Chaudhary & Kartiki Negi, Carbon Copy
“In 2023, India overtook Japan to become the world’s third-highest producer of solar power, said a report by international energy analytics agency Ember on Wednesday. India generated 113 billion units (BU) of solar power in 2023 compared to Japan’s 110 BU. In terms of installed power capacity, which includes sources of renewable and non-renewable energy, India at 73 gigawatt ( 1 GW is one billion watts) ranks fifth in the world while Japan is at third place (83 GW), according to data computed by Ember.” Read more: Jacob Koshy, The Hindu
“Climate-induced risks like extreme heat are a significant issue for gig workers, a sector that is rapidly growing in India. According to a report by NITI Aayog, India currently boasts a contingent workforce of 7.7 million gig workers, a figure that is projected to rise to 23.5 million by 2029–30. Furthermore, BCG estimates indicate that the number of gig workers within India’s non-farm economy is expected to soar to a staggering 90 million over the long term. Delivery agents are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures as they spend long hours exposed to the heat while cycling or riding motorbikes. Without a company-mandated health insurance policy, risks such as dehydration, heat exhaustion, and even heat stroke are often undiagnosed or untreated and can be fatal.” Read more: Ashali Bhandari & Charu Pragya, India Development Review
Economy -
“Tata now appears to be just as firmly embedded in Modi’s agenda as Ambani or Adani. The Indian state has always relied on private corporate capital to generate growth, while capitalists have always sought the holy grail of “state assistance” without “state discipline.” But the relationship between the state and corporate capital has grown exceptionally close under Modi, encompassing favorable treatment in awarding contracts and bank loans and in selectively loosening regulations.” Read more: Mircea Raianu, Phenomenal World
“In the past three years, vegetable prices were nearly 25% higher on average than in the pre-pandemic years (FY15 to FY19), a Mint analysis showed. In those five years the annual average of the consumer price index for vegetables hardly moved — not because prices stayed calm, but because up-and-down cycles meant relative stability in yearly averages… of late, the effects of climate change – in the form of heatwaves and low, uneven or excess rainfall – have caused lengthier surges. This was evident throughout FY24, when uneven rains caused tomato prices to rise before unseasonal rains led to costlier onions.” Read more: Payal Bhattacharya & Pragya Srivastava, Mint
“Sustained growth has given the economy a heft that it did not have before. The IMF’s numbers for 2024 put India’s GDP at $3.94 trillion (in nominal dollars), only fractionally smaller than Japan’s at $4.11 trillion. Germany is bigger at over $4.59 trillion. Given faster growth, it is reasonable to expect that India’s GDP will be bigger than that of both those countries in the next few years, emerging as the world’s third largest, though many leagues behind the first two (US and China). More importantly, though, per capita income (measured using purchasing power parity, since it is a better comparator for standard of living), at $10,123, is only 43% of the world average of $23,444 (China’s is over $25,000). India’s rank here is an unflattering 125th. In nominal dollars, India’s per capita income is lower than that of all but one (Bangladesh) of the 50 largest economies, and slightly ahead of Cambodia, which is not flattering company. So there is a long road ahead.” Read more: T. N. Ninan, The India Forum
Foreign Policy & Security -
“The Ministry of External Affairs has consistently held that extra-judicial killings are not “government policy”, and called the Washington Post article “unwarranted and unsubstantiated”. However, two issues cast a cloud over New Delhi’s statements. One, the variance in the government’s responses on U.S., Canada, Australia and Pakistan: silence on Australia; angry denials and punitive measures against Canada; the setting up of a “high level inquiry” into the U.S.’s indictment; and an unabashed acceptance by top leaders that the government has killed terrorists inside Pakistan. “Today, India doesn’t send dossiers. Aaj Bharat ghar mein ghus ke marta hai (Today India kills terrorists in their own homes),” Mr. Modi said at an election rally in Gujarat this week, ostensibly referring to strikes in 2016 and 2019 on Pakistan, but possibly to other operations as well. Secondly, Indian operations against Khalistani sympathisers have a long history. In 2019, A German court handed prison sentences to an Indian couple charged with spying on Khalistani and Kashmiri activists in the country and sending information to a R&AW official.” Read more: Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
“Over the last seven months, numerous articles in the western media have called on democracies to re-examine relations with India because of its alleged hand in the killing and attempted killing of Khalistani terrorists in North America. In the last couple of days, charges have expanded to include espionage. Referring to recent revelations that the two diplomats expelled from Australia in 2020 were Indian, news outlet ABC said, “It does raise a lot of questions about Australia’s trust and relationship with India”. This begs the question: do friendly countries spy on each other? Answering this question reveals that the right to spy is not tied to ‘values’ as is currently espoused, but to the question of ‘power’.” Read more: Dheeraj ParameshaChaya, Times of India
“At a time when the West is preaching the virtues of freedom, democracy, accountability, human rights, and rules-based international order, we only see their continued support for occupation, discrimination, impunity, and violation of international humanitarian and human rights laws in West Asia… PM Netanyahu has proclaimed defiantly that he would attack Rafah with or without a ceasefire deal. And yet again, the West does not want to stop a potential carnage. The rules-based international order has hardly any rules or order left in West Asia.” Read more: T. S. Tirumurti, Hindustan Times
Tech -
“Semiconductor serial entrepreneur Dasaradha Gude recalls that when he set up India’s first chip design company Qualcore in the early 1990s, there was barely any skilled semiconductor talent available in India. “We had to train people,” he says. Today, India has one of the biggest semiconductor design bases in the world. Semiconductor manufacturing talent in India today is where design talent was in the early 1990s - barely any.” Read more: Sujit John & Swati Bhardwaj, Times of India
“Unlike some countries, India does not have a single dedicated national-level technology policy. In practice, technology and innovation policies are variously designed and implemented by an assortment of government agencies. The Ministry of Defence, the Department of Atomic Energy, and the Department of Space are responsible for mature strategic technologies including nuclear energy, space policy, and weapons systems. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) is leading efforts to develop India’s semiconductors and electronics ecosystems… Despite the opportunities for international collaboration on technology, there remain challenges. Crucially, sunk costs, pre-existing supply chains, prior technological and human resource advantages, and resource disparities vis-à-vis China will have to be navigated. In other instances, India will find itself competing for investment with mid-sized emerging markets, such as Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mexico, and Morocco. India’s R&D ecosystem, infrastructure, ease of doing business, subsidies, workforce, and market access will be benchmarked not against an India of the past, but against current competitors.” Read more: Dhruva Jaishankar & Tisyaketu Sirkar, ORF America
In October 2023, the Indian government initiated a discussion regarding a proposal to set up 25,000 GPUs in the country, with the vision to make compute accessible to Indian companies engaged in the development and use of AI… in March 2024, the cabinet approved a Rs. 10,372-crore outlay for the IndiaAI Mission, under which the government aims to establish compute capacity of at least 10,000 GPUs through the public-private partnership model. These developments have sparked debates within academic and policy circles on India’s approach to compute, and the role of the government and the private sector in providing access to compute. Given the increasing focus on compute, there is a need for a cohesive understanding of the term in order to develop and inform policy and build a robust AI ecosystem in India.” Read more: Aadya Gupta & Adarsh Ranjan, Carnegie India
superbly written
A detailed research has been done on the facts, its amazing to know in such a brief manner.