Re-Center the Human.

It’s truly been the year of the ‘social’ lah.
Whether health or ESG, we need to genuinely humanise in this pandemic.

India-Singapore Relations: Time to move beyond Infrastructure and Finance?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Singapore on the 23^rd November for a State Visit to Singapore in a longer follow up visit to earlier on this year when he visited the island city state to join other world leaders after the founding father of Singapore, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew passed away. The general discourse around India-Singapore relations is a prosperous Singapore as an investor in a booming BRIC country market. This narrative driven by the business media is however under-nourished. The Singapore Model of Development pioneered by the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew which brought the city state global fame in transforming itself from ‘The Third World to First World’ has undoubtedly inspired the 100 Smart City program of the Modi Government. The new Greenfield capital of Andhra Pradesh: Amravati is being designed by Singaporean Urban Planners and has cemented the relationship of Singapore as a symbol of urban excellence¹. Singapore is the largest source of Foreign Direct Investment in India² and testament to this unique fact is the recent visit of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and a team of bankers including the Managing Director of the State Bank of India to lure institutional investors in to India. The commercial relationship is a deeply symbiotic one. State Bank of India and ICICI Bank along with others have retail banking licences in Singapore.

Many Indian Start Ups move to Singapore for easier access to capital and regulatory clarity. In the past Spice Group moved base to Singapore. Singaporean Water Technology Major Hyflux has picked up Desalination Projects in Modi’s Gujarat; Singaporean Banks and Sovereign Wealth Funds are increasing their investment footprint in India. Hyderabad based Environmental Infrastructure group Ramky maintains parking lots as a Facilities Management firm all over Singapore.

These examples are however fleeting reflection of the Singapore-India Relationship which shares a deep historical diasporic bond. Singapore is home to a large minority of people of Indian Decent with Deepawali a public holiday and Tamil an official language. There is a significant presence of minsters of Indian decent in the Singaporean Cabinet including Deputy Prime Minister Tharman Shanamugaratnam. The Indian expatriate community makes its presence felt from blue collared work to the heads of Multinational Corporations including the CEO of DBS Bank, Piyush Gupta, a former Indian National.

The truth is India does not give Singapore the same diplomatic attention as the USA, UK or Canada where there are similar large Indian diaspora communities. Singapore was the first country to embrace enthusiastically India’s ‘Look East Policy’ in the early 1990’s with then Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong visiting Narsimha Rao and his ministerial team.

Last week, the Chinese President visited Singapore to mark 25 years of diplomatic relations and signed a range of agreements including the third joint industrial park in western China and macroeconomic agreements³. Singapore is majority ethnic Chinese but its relationship with China is layered. Singapore has been an ally of the USA from the Cold War era and has hosted American Military Ships in the past. Pragmatic Singaporean policy has nurtured a close relationship with China from the 1970’s since Chairman Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore and opened up the economy after visiting it. The writer does not sense the same intensity in the relationship between India and Singapore at the diplomatic level. The gap however is more than adequately filled up by Indian community organizations and people to people contact. The same story is repeated in Oman, where I grew up.

The Narendra Modi visit has generated a lot of buzz among the Indian Community in Singapore, with community organizers taking the lead to arrange for the logistics for his ‘Madison Square Garden’ style address at the Singapore Expo⁴. However, only Indian Nationals are encouraged to attend the event as per media reports.

The major language in the Indian diaspora here in Singapore is Tamil and with Narendra Modi’s predisposition with Hindi, how much of it cut will ice with the same community that he is attempting to touch base with, is of question at the present juncture. There has also been a contradictory voice in the Singaporean media in the run up to the visit when Indian American Academic at the National University of Singapore Prof Mohan Jyoti Dutta wrote an opinion piece in the Straits Times on the contemporary politics of identity based on beef and the crackdown on activism in India in the present Modi regime⁵.

“The violence on the margins of Indian society is accompanied by the quick spread of a chilling climate, with a number of prominent rationalists being attacked and/or murdered, allegedly by right-wing religious groups.”

Increase the Soft Power Lens

Singapore is a major mercantile port hub in Asia and a few months back an Indian Coast Guard Vessel on a South East Asia goodwill tour docked at Changi Naval Base, with many of the young sailors in white seen shopping in the Little India Area in Singapore. India competes for influence in the South East Asia region with Asia, where China has a natural advantage with influential diaspora communities who are better connected to structures of power. India’s engagement with Singapore and the region is more effective at an informal business and community level. The overseas Indian Intelligentsia is based here in Singapore with plenty of think tanks at the National University of Singapore and the Nanyang Technological University focused on research themes based on India such as Institute of South Asian Studies. Thousands of Indian Students study in Singapore, and some of them will head back to India to work with the knowledge imbibed in Singapore. Indian Films and TV series have been shot in Singapore since the 1960’s including the Hrithik Roshan starrer ‘Krrish’ which had frames shot in the Business District in Singapore. Indian films both Tamil and Hindi are screened in theatres here as soon as they are released in India, and run to packed houses. The extent of cultural inter-weaving is dense, and the key pillar in the Singapore-India relationship.

The writer hopes that this state visit by Prime Minister Narendrabhai Damodardas Modi would take the Singapore-India Relationship deeper by engaging the non-elite diaspora who send back remittances and leveraging common areas of strength such as a shared understanding of culture missing from the realpolitik world of diplomacy.

References:

Regionalism Reloaded : It is time to call it Federalism

I am back from a half month long work sojourn to Coastal Tamil Nadu from Chennai to Kanyakumari with stops at Kumbokonam, Rajapalayam and Madurai. I also had a pit stop at Thiruvananthapuram, which is being swamped by images of Dr Tharoor. Tamil Nadu was the first state in India to have a regional party administration in 1967 after the failure of the Kamraj Plan to decouple the Congress from the fate of the Nehru-Gandhi Dynasty. They have a history of distinct identity politics even bordering on separatism in the initial years after independence. The once impactful Congress is a marginal force in Tamil Nadu with a few posters of GK Vasan and P Chidambaram in Kumbokonam were observed (the Late GK Moopanar’s legacy in coastal Tamil Nadu). Everywhere else I could observe Putraichi Selvi Dr. J Jayalalitha’s poster across the state from posters pasted on tea stalls to framed photos in District Collectors Office in Thiruvarur and Thanjavur. DMK still retains a presence in Chennai and Vijaykanth’s DMDK in smaller coastal hamlets in Tirunelveli as far as the initial perception is gauged from.

In this post, I am attempting to reframe the rhetoric on regionalism from one as being a purely identity politics driven vector to one where powerful regional players are driving the discourse on development. The decentralization of political powers to regional satraps has led to evolved, differentiated models of development, Bihar and Tamil Nadu being case in point. Regionalism has a pejorative secessionist ring to it. It is time to re-label it as federal now.

Nitish has done a remarkable in job in restoring Law & Order and enhancing social infrastructure. International Projects such as plans to launch the Nalanda University is a cornerstone initiative to revive Bihari Pride lost under Lalu’s era of misrurule.

In regional parties, a linguistic or a caste based focus is present which is critical for a bottom up approach. The Grassroots are represented, and orders on internal party or political matters in far away Nagercoil Town in Kanyakumari are not determined from Lutyens Delhi. Regional forces like AIADMK and DMK or even a MDMK in Rajapalayam, Viruthanagar (Vaiko’s District in Southern Tamil Nadu) have a better understanding of the problems and aspirations of the electorate than the mainstream national players.

Extending this mature Tamil Nadu regionalism metaphor, we have other major regional players in Nitish, Naveen, Mamata, Maya, Pawar, Badals and many other sub regional actors such as Raj Thackeray and Ramadosses. India has had a bitter taste with a freak regional experiment in 1997 with the United Front Experiment. A weak leadership in Deve Gowda and IK Gujral gave India a taste of decision paralysis under a distributed ‘un-leadership’ model.

The politics of regionalism has since matured in the past 16 years. The splintered Janata Parivar has resulted in Lalu, George, Nitish, Mulayam transform in leaders of National repute with a significant mass base. Regional Parties fight regional parties; a Maya versus Mulayam, Jagan versus Naidu. The centralised political model of 10, Janpath has resulted in Pawar, Mamata, Jagan to leave the parental fold to lead platforms with regional aspirations. Trinamool Congress is emerging as an eastern regional player to note. The BJP is non-existent in many states in the country. It is ironic that the BJP in Modi’s Gujarat speaks of evoking a ‘Gujarati Asmita’ or pride. Distinctly regional in character.

Development is occurring in the states as regional satraps have bargaining power in the centre to bring in funds for Infrastructure Development. Rail Projects in West Bengal were rapid when representatives from the State at the Rail Bhawan occupied it. A J&K based PDP or a National Conference or a one MP Party from Sikkim can have a seat on a federal table of Decision makers which was unthinkable in a single majority administration. This is the power of coalition politics.

The Voice of Neyvelli is now heard in the corridors of power in New Delhi thanks to a more mature federalism . More Power to a Federal Politics.

The Aam Aadmi Party is a Delhi based urban regional outfit. Think about it?

Politics in Urban India needs a reboot: an exegesis

India is rapidly urbanizing as cities expand into the hinterland and form urban mega clusters like the National Capital Region and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region among others. Even Kolkata has a ‘New Town’ and Rajarhat to contend. Cities are economic engines of growth with densely packed spaces and brimming with activity. By the year 2030, as per an influential Mc Kinsey Report on urbanization states that, India will be predominantly urban. Most state capitals are urban agglomerations, and provide most of the revenue for the state. Mumbai contributes India’s lion share of corporate taxes but gets peanuts in return from politicians whose voter base is hooked on ‘sugar’ in Western Maharashtra. Mumbai is a Cash Cow for these rural politicians to milk Mumbai dry in order to fund their ‘Pork Barrel’ projects (sorry borrowing an American Political Nuance 😛 ). Mumbai on the same lines as Delhi will not be given autonomy for this very reason as other backward regions in Maharashtra are financially on a drip line called Mumbai. Cultural reasons apart, the devolution of power to Mumbai is difficult only for the cash question in contention. As a third generation Marathi speaking Mumbaikar, who has lived in first world capitals in our very own Asia; am honestly appalled by the traffic quicksand which I face at the bottle neck at Ghatkoper and Saki Naka everyday when I travel from far away Navi Mumbai. Mumbai is currently going to have a Mass Transit Line soon; unfortunately we are two decades late. A commercial backwater (or an art centric vanguard which ever pov one looks at) such as Kolkata had a Metro System way back in the 1980’s.

The urban voter’s needs are neglected. Municipal Corporations are archaic institutions with no teeth; no policing prowess and normally short changing on financing options. A government in a union territory like Delhi has no jurisdiction over Law and Order and Land Issues and has two to three Municipal bodies with the Central Governments over arching Big Brother attitude. It is quite a quagmire of overlapping scope of work in Consultant Speak. With the rest of NCR either lying in Haryana (Gurgaon) or UP (NOIDA)- Urban Governance needs a new operating system.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region has the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Kalyan-Dombivali Municipal Corporation and Vasai-Virar Municipal Corporation as its stakeholders with Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) as the focal point for Infrastructure development in this megapolis. The MMRDA is under the Maharashtra State Government’s Urban Development Ministry which is under a Congress Chief Minister, the Public Works Ministry with its unfriendly coalition partner NCP and the MCGM is under the control of the Opposition BJP-Shiv Sena. The MCGM’s budget is more than many a budget of a smaller state like Goa and Manipur. These political conflicting turfs make for haphazard planning and execution of mega infrastructure projects. There should be a single window clearance mechanism for such projects which reshape the economic landscape.

India needs a new social contract with its urban citizens. Parliamentarians from urban India are not able to reflect the aspirations of a rapidly globalizing youth. The Politics of this nation is stuck in 1970’s with Right to Food, Education and other welfarist legislations. Social Infrastructure public sector initiatives are fully supported by the author but in order to power these projects, one needs the cash, hard cold cash. The cities are the growth incubators. Empower them with good politics. Effective governance is tied in to good politics. A new politics is required for reform; new operating system which captures the aspirations of urban India. The existing parties are terribly falling short. A Milind Deora or a Sandeep Dixit is great, but we need a sea of them. We need the ‘Citizen Elite’ to rise and usher in a new wave of caste neutral development centric urban politics.

Politics of the Urban Voter is not new. The Swatantra Party, the Jan Sangh and especially the Mumbai and Marathi centric identity politics of the Shiv Sena. The Right Wing Parties with their emphasis on free market and physical infrastructure focus have been better at capturing the urban imagination. The Swantantra Party decayed and declined in the 1960’s as socialism became the voice of economic thinking during Nehru ji and Indira ji. Even the Congress has appropriated some of these tactics to win in Delhi and Mumbai over the past decade. Sheila Dixit with the Delhi Metro is a case in point where urban development has worked for a left of centre Congress in a totally urban electorate.

The Shiv Sena is a ‘Made in Mumbai’ urban ideological product. The Shiv Sena founded by cartoonist turned Hindutva icon Late Balasaheb Thackeray in 1966 at Shivaji Park, Dadar distilled the grudge of native Marathis in Mumbai against the ‘Outsider’ over the decades till it reached its zenith of power in 1995 when they reached Mantralaya in the aftermath of the 1993 riots. Although the urbane politics of the Shiv Sena was narrow and parochial; they transformed Mumbai City with 72 flyovers in five years from 1995-99. The Mumbai-Pune Expressway was a signature project of the regime.

The Aam Admi Party with Civic Society Activist Arvind Kejriwal has transformed a volunteer led citizen movement in to a political fighting force. In the opinion polls in the run up to the Delhi Assembly Polls it is poised to do phenomenally well for a first time entrant. If they succeed, they are poised to be India’s first and truly urban political voice. Lok Satta is another one down south. Such actors are needed, as microbes in the governance gut to clean up the digestive system known as politics.

It’s a ‘Dammed’ affair: Energy, Politics and Development in Uttaranchal

In the past couple of weeks we have seen man made environmental disasters in two contrasting ecosystems in the Himalayan north of India and in the Urban & Ecological Jungles of Southern Malaysia and Singapore. The Singapore Haze Story is a man made healthcare scare and has had severe economic implications for the City State with a billion dollar hit according to Barclays. The Indonesians will perennially clear the forests for cropping and the rest of the region will to suffer unless a regional resource commons governance initiative propelled by hard cash is devised. The meritocratic and innovative Singaporean government lead by the PAP kept the population abreast of the air haze news by the minute through social media and a National Environmental Agency Smart Phone App which is commendable and a benchmark for disaster governance. The Government could not have done any more as it is a trans-boundary issue. Quite a contrast to the abysmal standards of disaster governance at Uttarakhand vis-a-vis Singaporean standards of excellence.

The Tragedy was triggered by a cloud burst and torrential downpours in the Himalayan Uttarakhand State, which is a hydel power hotbed with numerous dams. These dams have amplified the ecological sensitivities which have contributed to the cataclysmic landslides, killing hundreds making the Uttarakhand tragedy a humbling experience for the priests of aggressive developmental drive paradigm. In a rush to feed an energy hungry northern grid, Uttarakhand led by callus leaders who ‘damned’ literally every available water stream dug their own grave, with the temple towns collapsing like a flimsy pack of cards. With job hungry Uttarachalis whose main occupation has traditionally aligned with armed forces, looking for work outside the government, the so called renewable energy industry came to the rescue. The same armed forces, which are India’s only Disaster Management competent agency, are now saving the day, in a nation which is woefully inept at saving ones backside. The Congress which is ruling the state with a wafer thin majority is all set to face the electoral music in 2014, with the state having ten seats for the Lok Sabha. The important point being, that the congress is competitive in this state where in other places it is losing its deposit.

Environmental Issues are Force Multipliers. They might not win anyone one an election; but it will aggregate a small crisis to a regional disaster, which will surely make one lose a poll. Will the consultants/bureaucrats who did the environmental clearances for the dams be held accountable for this disaster? When will the corporate-political cartel take environmental compliance seriously?

Uttarakhand is an inflection point in the developmental & environmental governance narrative in this nation. It is time that we do not dust these lessons in to garbage bin of history and wait for another one to happen.

Is the Secularism Question, really secular?

In India the reality is that the discourse on secularism boils down to trivial politics. As per the 42^nd amendment (in 1976) to the constitution the politically contentious term ‘secular’ was added to the preamble. So it seems that Secularism is a relatively recent addition to our dictionary of political discourse. A ton of writings has already been authored by intellectuals and scholars from the social sciences, so I would not mind adding my two cents to the burgeoning literature volumes with this post. This question about secularism is overbearing the entire national conversation in the run-up to the next national polls, hence it is vital that secularism as a notion is de-constructed to release its essence, to make meaning out of the term.

Secularism essentially calls for the separation of the Mandir and the Mantri-land, but India has been a state where religion has been a personal affair but at the level of the state, faith is not a guiding force as in the case of Islamic Theocracies in the Mashreq. Secularism as a term is mis-construed as minority appeasement as it is equated with reservations and soft approach towards terrorism (which is highly debatable as left wing extremism has been in India since the late 1960’s and Mahatma Gandhi was killed by a right wing hindu fanatic). It has been intensely politicized to the extent that ‘Sickularism’ is a term imposed by the Indian Right on their left wing ideological cousins. The Indian Right treats the Hindu community as a monolith, but as a 79% block it has many sub-divisions such as backward and schedule castes who do not align themselves very comfortably with the ideology of Upper Caste Dominated Right. There are also states in India where Christians (North East), Sikhs (Punjab) and Muslims (Hyderabad City, J&K) are in the majority along with major minority populations in large states. In short, the whole secularism debate is a complex one. Minorities too have to shed the victim mentality mindset to be a part of the national conversation on growth. It is a two way traffic always. Give and Take; business and trade-off are the most important tool in ensuring secularism.

Power Politics is played out in the name of secularism. We have the 2^nd largest Muslim Population in the World and the right has no option but to accept it. The Left has to make peace with the fact that India has been culturally as a Civilization: ‘Hindu’. The Congress also has to offer India development along with minority protection which in 1984 it miserably failed in Delhi. The BJP has to make overtures to moderate Muslims to be the part of its growth story plan, which in Gujarat it has conveniently excluded. Every major political party is guilty of a political sin in a mission to garner votes. And I have not started to even comment on linguistic politics in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu where Hindu from Samastipur is politically pitted against Hindu from Konkan.

The conversation on secularism has to be elevated on a practical platform. How do we embed secular ethos in policy design and planning?

The questions should address broader notions of secularism such as ecological and social justice, equity and economic efficiency in access to welfare rendered by the state. Petty Power Politics in the name of Faith and Identity is easy but regressive; can win one election but there are larger, critical matters at stake in governance.We need to raise above trivial definition based contests on secularism to one, on inclusive growth coupled with equity.

Development not Digital Democracy!

Public engagement on social media came of age with the 2008 US presidential polls with the Obama Campaign leveraging the various social media technologies when it was an upcoming medium to connect with the youth. By the time, the re-election bid in 2012 came up; Obama had a crack technology team using Social Media to engage the crowd, for fund raiser and use the power of data analytics to tailor the electoral strategy. In democracies, perception management is the name of the game. Politicians had it relatively easier in the Cable TV era, Web 2.0 time is a 24×7 beast where impression micro-management is a total strain. Every little action performed by a leader is dissected by millions of pairs of eyes. The term ‘Public-Figure’ has indeed taken on a new life. With Modi Bhai and his 3D act in December 2012 polls demonstrating how technology will be critical in transforming politics.

Technology changes every two decades and so does the manner political communication is delivered to the masses. As ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ as was proved in the latter half of the 20^th century, with the first presidential poll debate in 1960, brought about a sea change in how political leaders are held accountable. Churchill would have never won a TV debate, because the fact is that he was not visually appealing enough; Sarah Palin was a local beauty queen and Ronald Reagan, a former Hollywood actor and looking good is important for politicians now a days. Maharashtra Politician Raj Thackeray is known to use a vanity van before addressing major rallies. I have to add, he does have movie star looks as well.

Southern India has a track record of movie celebrities, making it big in politics. The era for show business entering politics is passé as politics is itself show business as the desi maxim ‘joh dikhta hain who bikhta hain’ or lossely translated from Hindi as whatever is seen, sells. The lines are blurred for good. Politicians in Urban India hire PR agencies to manage their social media outreach and over all image communication. Modi bhai is a leader in this domain, he hired APCO Worldwide to manage his Government’s lobbying efforts. PR man Dilip Cherian works with political parties, as does Congress leaning activist Sanjay Jha. Mr. Jha’s counter hash tag coinage of #Feku to blunt #CIIPappu ihas turned Twitter into a political battleground of trolls and visceral attacks. Social Media helped catalyze revolutions in the Arab World as well as mobilize the Shahbhag Phenomena, but it is in danger of getting hijacked from an honest platform for free conversation to one driven by manufactured consent.

We do not caste our vote online yet and internet penetration is still fairly poor in India too. Technology especially Web 2.0 tools are awesome in terms of community engagement. Democracy is still fought in the heat and dust of Bundelkhand and not by the denizens of SoBo on their Galaxy Tabs. Communication is cool, but deliverable Development is the crux of hard democracy.

Tweets are not Counted as votes yet, Right?

Environmental Governance as inclusive Developmental Architecture: Time for action

There are a few issues with the public discourse on Environmental issues. Environment matters are essentially political as they are backward integrated in to public values. Environmental issues are livelihood concerns for native communities off the economic grid. The retinue of ‘Quality of Life’ Indicators is contingent upon the environment. Free Market Capitalism and Environmentalism since the days of Rachel Carson, are always at odds. As the pioneering Environmental economist Herman Daly once quipped that what will a saw mill be worth without a forest captures the paradox of the relationship between the scent of money and the fresh breeze of the forest. Robert Costanza’s 1997 paper on Valuation of Ecological Services was a watershed moment, in academic circles but incorporating these lessons in mainstream policy frameworks is all together a different cuppa. Valuing and taxing Greenhouse gases through CDM and other market oriented vehicles have resulted in a mixed bag. These instruments have been appropriated by neo-liberal forces to extract money out of multi-lateral institutions rather than catalyze foundational transformations which take longer timelines. My environmental policy professor at grad policy school at the National University of Singapore was right when he meant that it is only money that prompts people towards normative ends and not good intentions alone.

The real issues regarding the metastructure of Environmental Governance get drowned in the cacophony of the rhetoric between Growth Fundamentalists and Ecological Activists. The price here at stake is usually quite basic; clean air and water. Investment Bankers drinking beer on a Friday evening at a South Bombay Pub will like to breathe cleaner air, as a person cannot buy clean air in a can. The Bottom-line matters but the biosphere does count slightly too.

This seems very simple but political will backed by resources along with active community engagement is the key. I can visualize another pitfall. The policy community is good at theorizing problems, but activating those ideas in to concrete action is the chink in the Developmental Architecture. There is a slip between the cup and the lip. Civil Society, Industry and Government all have their own agenda and there is no synergy in thought processes for concrete action.

The National Advisory Council of celebrity academics and activists are bent towards entitlement welfare legislations. Environmental and Social Justice go hand in hand, and the writer of this post would suggest the esteemed body to focus on incorporating Environmental issues while designing welfare mandates. The Environment Ministry has been tainted with the tag of being the fore-bearer of a new Green Tape License Raj regime. While the perception exists, statistically it’s in correct.

Our focus ultimately needs to be re-calibrated to solve real issues, and embedding environmental drivers in to policy design is a good way ahead.

Is the Green Tape killing Development: a pragmatic environmentalist’s take?

I prefer to read the pink papers as I feel they address more relevant issues of the day rather than the usual general papers which are prone to cover more Bollywood and Cricket than actual news for the people. But the pink papers are so driven by financial data that they sometimes forget that the economy is not run in silos, but is dependent upon society and natural resources to run the economic growth engine. People and Ecology hold more value than sheer balance-sheet numbers. Capitalism runs on the ideological framework of ‘QSQT’ or Quarter se Quarter Tak. The Balance Sheet counts more than the Biosphere.

Well, India has massive developmental challenges too. We are short on power generation, and the coal which is needed to fuel the furnaces to rev up the turbines of growth is often not available. In Ruchir Sharma’s book ‘Break Out Nations’ an anecdote is shared that it is easier for Indian Mining Companies to procure coal in Indonesia than in India. It is not available due to so called delay in regulatory clearances. This is the Green Tape which is blamed for the delay. According to Public Intellectual Pratap Bhanu Mehta this is a perception as statistics show on the contrary, that India has a pretty lenient regulatory regime.

Cases from Orissa and Goa show that regulatory clearances are politically driven by motivation. The centre uses tribal rights as a whip to crack on the opposition lead Orissa government’s developmental agenda. Judicial Activism has lead to mining being banned in Bellary and Goa, although the BJP Government banned it earlier to the Supreme Court order. Environment is inherently political in nature as different ideologies with separate normative ends, conceptualize the utility of ecosystem services in a different context.

Recently, due to the negative criticism of the Green Ministry, the perception has been created that environmental clearances have been speeded up with Hydel Power Projects in Himachal and the North East given the ‘green’ signal. A recent incident of an environmental ministry official taking a bribe, does not help the reputation of the already over stretched body. The delays in clearances are due to the under-staffed employee roster of the Green Ministry, and not due to some malicious intent to derail the progress of the nation. The Single Window Clearance National Investment Board was a good idea in retrospect as the global investment climate is competitive. POSCO and Vedanta sites in Orissa illustrate this matter really well. In a rapidly urbanizing country with increasing living standards, such debates will be perennial in nature but we have to address them with rapid pace taking in to consideration the needs of the native community and the natural environment. This is a million rupee question, but we cannot afford to die from smog as the Middle Kingdom’s Forbidden City is now suffering.

Its the Energy Paradigm Stupid: Equity and Development in Rural India

I read articles and research oriented works on Energy Governance in Grad School where i took courses on Environmental Policy. Prof. Benjamin Sovacool’s course at LKYSPP@NUS in Sustainability has had a profound impact in the manner i visualize energy poverty and its impact on human development landscape. That was the text book version of Professor Tourists heading out in to the field for understanding the cultural notions of energy technology. Dr. Sovacool and Anthony D’Augustino (currently a PhD Student at Columbia SIPA) wrote a working paper on Solar based lighting in Papua New Guinea was fascinating. Both are inspirational folks at a personal level.

I had my brush with the Renewable Energy- Rural Setting- Energy Poverty nexus recently as I visited the Rayalseema region in Andhra Pradesh in Southern India. This arid, dry region better renowned for pilgrim town Puttaparthi and is recent convert to alternative energy through wind farms as this is a region with high wind potential. Reigning paradoxes prevail in this area, with excellent road connectivity with national and state level highways with access to a knowledge economy hub such as Bangalore in three hours. I would observe bullock carts plying people and motorbikes ferrying both goats and homo sapiens. Traditional homes which have DTH boxes and livestock, and one of the local level political leaders had even a treadmill at his place. But this region primarily depends on rain fed agriculture, is low on water potential and agriculture is mainly single crop. Some months of the year, the local folk work as construction labor. The crux of the problem with everything is the lack of power, with electricity only there for six hours a day. Without Power, there is economic darkness and all development depends on energy access.

Wind Energy has potential to transform the region by creating employment and providing access to badly needed electricity. But a government policy driven sector such as alternate energy is not well served by a senior statesman who is more interested in urdu poetry and golf than negotiating hard with the finance ministry for proactive measures. Political gridlocks have resulted in wind energy dipping in profitability. The Suzlons of the world are steeped in debt.

Then there are local challenges such as political interference due to land acquisition matters. Politicians simply cannot understand the developmental agenda buy-in being created by alternate energy. Feed in Tariffs cannot be a panacea; but it will go a long away, towards lighting up lives.

Atleast in this sector, good politics would mean good economics. Gujarat and Tamil Nadu politicos have understood the dividend.

Let the ‘winds’ of change blow.

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