Growth needs more electricity; Five shows
Growth needs more electricity
There is a lot of optimism in India that plenty of renewables capacity is coming up. Akshay Jaitly and I wrote in the Business Standard on 18 September, where we worry about how this is shaping up. Thermal capacity addition has ground to a halt. The unreconstructed grid and incumbent government-dominated electricity establishment are reaching the limits of their ability to add renewables or tolerate open access transactions as a sideshow, without a deeper transformation of the electricity sector. These constraints are feeding back into state actions that hamper investability.
There are many states in India where the engine of private investment and economic growth is not in place. Those states have a more basic set of constraints to worry about. In the places where private firms and private investment are actually humming, and there is the possibility of sustained economic growth, electricity availability may shape up as an important constraint upon economic growth.
Five shows
There was a time when the Indian pension reform was a shining success story. Things look much more daunting now. Renuka Sane, Amit Varma and I did a conversation on The seen and the unseen, on the difficulties of pensions and policy in India today.
I did an episode of Shortcast over Coffee, on XKDR Forum and climate change.
And, three episodes of Everything is everything: Episode 11 (The greatest productivity mantra: Kaator re bhaaji!), 12 (Nothing is Indian! Everything is Indian!), 13 (What Bruce Springsteen means to us).