India Last Week #38
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment -
“A total of 21 renewable energy tenders with a cumulative capacity of 4,419 MW were issued in January 2025, according to a report by JMK Research & Analytics. Among the tenders, NTPC issued a tender for setting up 1,200 of ISTS-connected solar PV power projects with 600 MW / 2,400 MWh (600 MW x 4 hours) Energy Storage Systems (ESS) anywhere in India. India’s renewable energy installed capacity reached 209.4 GW by December 2024. Between January and December 2024, 24,546 MW of solar capacity and 3,426 MW of wind capacity was added. In January 2025, 4,426 MW of renewable energy capacity was allocated to various developers through auctions… Investments in the renewable energy sector in January 2025 stood at $1,621 million. The Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) Green Day Ahead Market (GDAM) traded 695 million units (MUs) in January 2024, registering a 10 per cent decline compared to the previous month.” Read more: Saurav Anand, EnergyWorld
“The Indian government relaxed national security protocols along the Pakistan border to make way for a renewable energy park, a project ultimately handed to one of India’s richest men, Gautam Adani, official documents reveal. The Adani Group is constructing the Khavda plant, the largest renewable project in the world, in the state of Gujarat… Now, national security concerns have been raised over the project after private communications and confidential government minutes seen by the Guardian showed the defence ministry amended security protocols on behalf of developers to make sensitive territory on the India-Pakistan border commercially viable. The Adani Group is constructing solar panels and wind turbines 1km (0.6 miles) from the border with Pakistan in the Rann of Kutch, on land leased out by the government of Gujarat… Previous national defence protocols did not allow any major construction beyond existing villages and roads up to 10km from the border with Pakistan, preventing any large-scale installation of solar panels. But documents show that the Gujarat government, which is controlled by Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), lobbied at the highest levels for the protocols to be relaxed to make land in the Rann of Kutch available for both solar and wind construction. According to official communications, a letter was written prior to April 2023 by Gujarat officials to the prime minister’s office, requesting the matter be raised with the ministry of defence.” Read more: Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Ravi Nair, The Guardian
“India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corp. aims to boost its investment in new energy projects like wind and solar power 100 times over by the end of the decade to cut its carbon footprint. The country’s largest explorer wants to invest 1 trillion rupees ($11.5 billion) to build a renewables portfolio of 10 gigawatts by 2030, up from 10 billion rupees in the current fiscal year. “We are getting into green energy because we do believe India requires lot more energy in addition to fossil fuels,” Vivek Chandrakant Tongaonkar, director of finance at the New Delhi-based, state-owned company said in an interview. “For us, it is a logical case to move into newer sources of energy.” Globally, oil and gas majors like BP PLC and Equinor ASA are scaling back investments in clean energy due to low returns and shareholder pressure. India’s state-owned firms are doubling down on the same type of projects to ensure energy security for the world’s biggest and fastest-growing population. Alongside 193 megawatts of solar and wind, ONGC wants to channel capital expenditure toward 25 compressed biogas plants, hydro projects, and 1 million tons of green ammonia, including 180,000 tons of green hydrogen capacity.” Read more: Rakesh Sharma and Stephen Stapczynski, Bloomberg
Economy -
“The world’s fastest-growing major economy is losing momentum. After impressive post-pandemic growth, India’s economic expansion has slowed for three consecutive quarters. In the current fiscal year, growth is forecast to be 6.4 per cent — which would be the country’s slowest in four years. Higher, jobs-rich growth is essential to take advantage of India’s vast young workforce. At home, high unemployment, persistent food inflation, subdued consumer spending and weak investment are acting as a drag. Global economic conditions are also becoming less supportive. US President Donald Trump has ignited trade tensions and supply chain uncertainty. The Indian rupee recently fell to a record low against the US dollar following Trump’s global tariff threats, raising costs for importers. If Indians were hoping for answers on how the government planned to crank up long-term growth, there weren’t many in last weekend’s budget. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman focused on propping up consumers. She raised the income tax threshold and recast tax brackets, which will boost India’s stretched middle classes. But the majority of Indians work in the informal sector and will see no benefit from the tax changes. Capital investment was increased only slightly.” Read more: Financial Times
“Middle classes form the bulk of depositors in the banks. It is these deposits that in turn form the bulk of the working capital that allows banks to operate. This year’s Economic Survey, in fact, rejoices in the double-digit growth in bank deposits. And yet, middle-class depositors have been shortchanged over the years by the dwindling interest rates on their savings bank deposits. “The interest on savings bank accounts, which was 5% in 1977, was brought down to 3.5% in 2003, and now it has come down to 2-2.5%,” says Thomas Franco, former general secretary of the All India Bank Officers Confederation. “If the middle classes were paid their fair share of interest at say 5%, they would have earned near about Rs 1.8 lakh crore more last year.” This is far more than the Rs 1 lakh crore that the finance minister claims to have “foregone” with the tax rebate she bragged about… The Economic Survey released the day before the Budget, while evaluating the government’s performance in the banking sector, applauds the “consistent improvement” in the profitability of banks. It celebrates the fall in the Gross Non Performing Assets (GNPAs) to a “12-year low”. What the Economic Survey doesn’t not mention, however, is the scale of the massive write-offs being orchestrated backstage. The banks have written off a whopping Rs 16.5 lakh crore in bad loans over the last decade. In fact, Rs 1.69 lakh crore has been written off in 2024 alone! It is the public sector banks (PSBs) that have taken the major share of these write-offs and it is the corporates who account for the major share of these bad loans or NPAs.” Read more: Anirban Bhattacharya and Pranay Raj, The Wire
“India’s central bank has cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time in almost five years in an effort to shore up economic growth and reverse a broad downturn in the world’s most populous country. The decision to cut the headline repo rate by 0.25 percentage points to 6.25 per cent was unanimous and widely anticipated by a consensus of economists… The RBI’s move comes as policymakers seek to revive a slowing economy. India is still recording the fastest GDP growth of any major country, but it is grappling with elevated price pressures, stagnant wages, weak consumption and a disappointing set of recent corporate earnings. GDP growth slowed to 5.4 per cent in the quarter to the end of September, the lowest in nearly two years. The government has forecast growth of 6.4 per cent for the current fiscal year, its weakest rate in four years and down from 8.2 per cent in 2023-24… The cut also came despite India’s currency hitting new lows. The rupee has lost about 2 per cent of its value against a strengthening dollar this year, raising concerns about imported inflation.” Read more: Chris Kay and Krishn Kaushik, Financial Times
“India’s industrial output growth dropped to a four-month low of 3.2% in December, with manufacturing and mining sectors rising just 3% and 2.6%, respectively, and consumer non-durables’ production slipping 7.6% from a year ago… The National Statistics Office (NSO) also downgraded the industrial production growth assessment for November 2024 to 5% from 5.2% estimated earlier. This brings the average factory output growth in the third quarter of 2024-25 to 3.95% from 2.73% in the second quarter… Consumer non-durables remained a worry, with production shrinking 7.6% in December and the mere 0.6% growth estimated for November being revised downward to 0.4%. However, output levels for these consumption-linked items were at an 11-month high in December and 5.1% over November. In fact, the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) was at a nine-month high of 157.3 points, 6.1% over November. The Manufacturing as well as the Mining sectors recorded their best index reading in this fiscal year… Terming the latest IIP a sign of subdued industrial activity and worsening performance of the consumption-oriented goods segment, Crisil chief economist Dharmakirti Joshi said this was in line with the Reserve Bank of India’s latest consumer confidence which showed weakening consumer sentiment in urban areas.” Read more: Vikas Dhoot, The Hindu
Foreign Policy & Security -
“Amidst outrage in India over the treatment of Indian deportees, the United States doubled down on its decision to fly the alleged illegal immigrants shackled and handcuffed aboard a U.S. Military C-17 plane. This is the first time a military plane has been used for such a flight, according to officials, and its use had been expressly ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump. When asked about the reason for the unusually harsh transport methods, that caused a furore in Parliament as well, U.S. Embassy spokesperson Chris Elms emphasised that the U.S. considered the move “critically important”… The tough statements indicate that the U.S. decision to use military planes for deportations is deliberate. Apart from India, the U.S. military’s C-17s and C-130s have been used for a number of countries including Guatemala, Peru, Honduras and Ecuador as well as Colombia, whose President Gustavo Pedro objected to the use of the “undignified” manner of transport. In a video he released online, U.S. Border Patrol chief Michael W. Banks showed how the Indian deportees were lined up for the flight, with legs in chains and wrists held in cuffs. They entered the military transport plane with its rows and rows of seats crammed together for the longest such deportation flight thus far by U.S. military aircraft. The 24-second video showed masked security personnel grinning broadly while overseeing boarding, and the video was set to loud and seemingly ominous music.” Read more: Suhasini Haidar, The Hindu
“A civilian truck driver was killed in a firing incident involving Army personnel on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway near Sopore in Kashmir. While the Army claims he jumped a checkpoint and was chased for 23 km before tyres of the truck were fired at “to deflate” them, the death has stirred up a storm after his family and political leaders questioned the official version. According to the police, a civilian truck driver was killed when the army fired at him near Sangrama village of Sopore on the Srinagar-Baramulla national highway. Police have identified the slain truck driver as Waseem Ahmad Mir, a 32-year-old resident of Bomai village. The village is some 15 km from Sangrama, the site of the shooting. This comes at a time when the district administration and the police in Kathua ordered inquiries after the custodial death of a Gujjar youth in Kathua… “If the army is telling the truth, let them share the CCTV footage with us. There is a CCTV camera installed on every security force vehicle,” Mir’s cousin Abdul Rashid told The Indian Express. “They (army) are saying they chased him for 23 km. There are many (security) camps on this stretch and every camp has CCTV cameras installed on the roads… Let them show it to us to satisfy us”… A doctor at the Baramulla Hospital said Mir was brought in by the Army at 1 pm. “He had a single bullet injury with both entry and exit wounds. The nature of injury suggested that he was shot at from close range,” he said.” Read more: Bashaarat Masood, Indian Express
“The second Trump administration has an opportunity to take this relationship to new heights and help India play that stabilizing role by advancing defense technology cooperation, enhancing joint military operational cooperation, and updating and reinvigorating the bilateral defense framework… The White House can also encourage India to reform its procurement process, fix its inverted tariff structure, and support Indian private sector partnerships with the U.S. defense industry for rapid scaling of capabilities. India could also reprioritize its defense dollars — of its latest $78 billion defense budget, we estimate only 20 percent will go to capital acquisitions. In its first few months, the new administration should also demonstrate its intention to accelerate approvals and licensing for U.S. exports to trusted allies and partners, and reform the export control community… As part of contingency planning, India and the United States should also begin serious discussions and mutual assessments of a Taiwan Strait crisis or another India-China border crisis, which are arguably the pacing scenarios for both respective defense establishments.” Read more: Sameer Lalwani and Vikram J. Singh, War on the Rocks
“On February 10, for the first time, the tarmac of the Yelahanka Air Force Station near Bengaluru witnessed a breathtaking face-off: two of the world’s deadliest stealth fighter jets, the F-35 of the US Air Force and Russia’s Su-57, standing just metres apart. But amidst this high-stakes display of global airpower, eyes remained fixated on a new contender—India’s own fifth-generation stealth fighter, the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA)… While Russia is aggressively pushing India for co-production of the Su-57, the US is leaving no stone unturned in courting with its own offers. But India’s aerospace planners are firmly betting on the AMCA. Defence minister Rajnath Singh, who inaugurated the 15th edition of Aero India, made the government’s stance clear. “We have made a firm resolve to manufacture the fifth-generation fighter aircraft within the country,” he said.,,, The full-scale engineering development phase of the AMCA began in April last year after approval from the central government’s Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS). A 10-year development roadmap has been laid out for the rollout of five prototypes for rigorous flight tests. If all goes as planned, the first prototype will be ready by 2028, followed by its maiden flight soon after. While approving the project, the CCS made it clear to AMCA designers that any cost overruns and delays should be directly addressed to it instead of the defence ministry. Despite the ambitious vision, the AMCA’s production plan has hit hiccups. The government is yet to finalise the aircraft’s manufacturing partner. While the Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA), an entity under the defence ministry, advocates roping in the private sector, the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) is unwilling to relinquish its dominance over the project.” Read more: Pradip R. Sagar, India Today
People & Politics -
“It was intended to be a peaceful protest on January 30, Gandhi Jayanti—a sort of culmination of a four-month-long relay agitation by a section of former and current workers of Maruti Suzuki India Ltd. (MSIL) against the carmaker’s alleged illegal and unethical labour practices. Rallying under the aegis of the Maruti Suzuki Struggle Committee, the workers had been protesting peacefully in Haryana’s Manesar, an industrial hub. One of their main demands was the regularisation of contract workers and disbursement of salaries at par with permanent employees. A notice for the January 30 meeting had been given to the administration in advance. The protest was to take place with support from other parts of the industrial belt of Gurugram and Manesar. A demand charter had been submitted to both the Haryana administration and the MSIL management. A day earlier, the State police had dispersed workers from the protest site, citing law and order issues. They removed banners and posters, erasing all traces of the agitation. Frontline was warned not to take photographs of the shamiana, emptied of workers, but where policemen lounged. When the police were told that the workers had a court order with permission to protest, they feigned ignorance saying that Section 144 (Section 163 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita) had been imposed in the area.” Read more: T. K. Rajalakshmi, Frontline
“In December 2024, The Reporters’ Collective exposed how the Union government manipulated a poverty index to claim that 25 crore Indians were lifted out of poverty since the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. Our investigation revealed that these statistics heavily relied on new bank accounts opened for the poor, which in turn was used as a key measure to show poverty reduction in India. However, a recent paper on India’s financial inclusion story highlights a major flaw: a significant proportion of these accounts remain inactive, undermining their impact… In August 2024, the Union government proudly celebrated what it called a decade of “successful implementation” of its National Mission for Financial Inclusion. This mission, launched in 2014, aimed to bring India’s poor “into the economic mainstream” by encouraging them to open bank accounts. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman declared, “The success of the initiative is reflected in 53 crore people being brought into the formal banking system through the opening of Jan Dhan Accounts.”… In December 2024 economist and researcher Suyash Rai published a paper on financial inclusion titled Economic Development and Digital Transformation: Learning from the Experience of Aadhaar and Financial Inclusion in India… It exposes a striking paradox in the Modi government’s flagship scheme: while a record number of bank accounts have been opened, a significant proportion remain inactive.” Read more: Shreegireesh Jalihal, The Reporters’ Collective
“Until 2016, Rajeev Sijariya had won a handful of best faculty awards from business schools where he had taught and an “Award of Honor” from the Association of Kirloskar Dealers of Rajasthan – both achievements he found worth mentioning in his official profile on the Jawaharlal Nehru University website. Since then, he has risen sharply. He was dean of JNU’s Atal Bihari Vajpayee School of Management and Entrepreneurship (ABVSME) and the chairperson at the Special Centre of E-Learning, both of which came into being in 2018. As Visitor’s nominee, he has represented the President in Banaras Hindu University’s court, the National Institutes of Technology (NIT) and Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology (IIEST Shibpur). He’s been a member of the CMAT Advisory Committee of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). On Saturday, Sijariya was one of 10 people arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) – including members of a National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) inspection committee – for seeking bribes from a private Andhra Pradesh deemed university in exchange for higher grading… According to CBI's First Information Report (FIR), there was a cumulative demand for Rs 1.80 crore for the inspection team; negotiations with Sijariya brought the favours down to a laptop and Rs 3 lakh to each of committee members, Rs 10 lakh to the team chairperson and travel expenses of the accompanying wife of one of the visiting members.” Read more: Musab Qazi, Careers360
“Over the last decade we have read many an obituary about the Right to Information Act. Let me add to that long list of obituaries by narrating how I lost eight out of nine cases before one Information Commissioner – Heeralal Samariya, a former IAS officer who was first appointed to the Central Information Commission in August 2021 and then subsequently appointed Chief Information Commissioner in November 2023… Regrettably, the CIC is no longer an institution with a reputation for fairness. I say this based on my personal experience of losing eight out of nine cases before Samariya in a series of astounding decisions delivered between October 2022 and December 2024… I have used the RTI Act for over 15 years now mainly to collect research material for my scholarship or books that I was writing on drug regulation and India’s policy on intellectual property. In fact, the acknowledgment sections for both my books begin with a note of gratitude to those behind the RTI Act and the public information officers who provided information. Much of this successful information collection happened during the Modi years. However, the last five years have marked a downward trend in the quality of information being provided under the RTI Act. In fact, the quality of replies I’ve received under the act have deteriorated significantly. I suspect this downward slide is because public information officers have figured out that the CIC is not going to hold them accountable.” Read more: Prashant Reddy T, Newslaundry
Tech -
“As the Aadhaar case was reaching the Supreme Court, the Unique Identity Authority of India (UIDAI) began to restrict private access to its authentication infrastructure. It now seems that hard stand is beginning to soften. A new amendment to Aadhaar authentication rules could finally allow us to leverage our identity infrastructure to better unlock greater efficiencies in digital services… Last week, we got an indication that this approach might be about to change. The UIDAI notified the Aadhaar Authentication for Good Governance (Social Welfare, Innovation, Knowledge) Amendment Rules, 2025, describing how private entities could use the Aadhaar infrastructure for authentication. All provisions that previously limited Aadhaar authentication to only those purposes that relate to good governance and preventing the leakage of public funds have been deleted, expanding the ways in which the infrastructure can be used for any activity that “promotes the ease of living of residents.”… Since this use of authentication infrastructure neither gives private entities access to biometric information, nor the UIDAI an ability to track how people are using these private services, there should be no privacy concerns around such use. What’s more, the UIDAI offers various features (such as virtual ID and offline verification) that could further safeguard privacy.” Read more: Rahul Matthan, Ex Machina
“Anyone who does not register with telecom companies to send commercial communication and still sends out commercial messages will be treated as a spammer under the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s amendment to India’s spam regulations. The authority has amended the definition of unsolicited commercial communication (UCC or spam) under the Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulation (TCCCPR), 2018 to state that any commercial communication without user consent or against registered user preferences falls in the scope of spam... TRAI says that deceptive calls and messages pretending to be commercial communication “will also be treated as unsolicited commercial communication in so far as the misutilisation of telecom resources by the sender is concerned.” The regulator also requires telcos to use advanced and reliable AI/ML-based solutions to proactively detect, prevent and monitor UCC… In case a telecom company fails to curb spam from telemarketers, TRAI can impose financial disincentives on them in each service area for each calendar month. Besides the financial disincentives, TRAI can also require telcos to pay Rs 1000 per valid spam complaint that the telco declared invalid on unjustified grounds.” Read more: Kamya Pandey, Medianama
Watch/Listen -
In conversation with Amartya Sen at Shantiniketan | Ravish Kumar
India-Africa Relations: Strengthening Strategic Cooperation | Centre for Social and Economic Progress
Bonus -
“The Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) recently conducted a raid at Dwarkesh Dairy Products in Ahmedabad. They seized 1,500 kilos of contaminated paneer and raw materials used for its production. The FDCA's special squad from Gandhinagar carried out the raid on February 4, 2025. They were acting on a confidential tip-off. During the operation, the officials found adulterants, including palm oil and industrial-grade acetic acid, which were allegedly being used in the manufacturing process. Authorities collected three samples from the site for further testing, while the remaining stock-valued at Rs 3.15 lakh-was confiscated in the interest of public health. According to the FDCA, the government is committed to ensuring safe and hygienic food for Gujarat's citizens… Between April and September 2024, authorities in Gujarat tested 4,316 food samples, with 360 (approximately 8.3 per cent) failing to meet safety standards. Over the past three years, the state reported 824, 978, and 910 samples failing quality inspections in the fiscal years 2021-22, 2022-23, and 2023-24, respectively. In a 15-day drive conducted in October 2024, the Food and Drug Control Administration (FDCA) seized 233 tonnes of suspected adulterated food products across Gujarat. Earlier in the year, in April 2024, FDCA officials confiscated over 60,000 kg of adulterated spices, including chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder, and pickle masala. Despite these enforcement efforts, the rate of legal action against offenders appears limited. Over the last three years, out of 41,509 food samples evaluated, only 4,506 civil complaints and 168 criminal cases were filed, resulting in a prosecution rate of just 11.2 per cent.” Read more: Toshita Sahni, NDTV