Terrorism in Bangalore and Ahmedabad

But renewable energy, of which the vast majority is wind power, accounts for more than seven per cent of India’s installed generation capacity – a rate that compares favourably with much of the rest of the world. India is the world’s fourth largest wind-power market.”Wind power is growing tremendously. If you want a wind plant you’ll have to book a year in advance,” said Chandra Bhushan, associate director at the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment.”There’s been years of progressive policies and recognition for a long time that India will face a shortage of fossil fuels.”

Gulfnews: Energy-hungry India slowly becomes wind superpower

Some numbers for comparison: The U.S has about 14,000 MW of installed capacity with 5,000 more on the way. This represents about 1.4% of the > 1 million MW of installed capacity. At least when it comes to one of the cheapest and cleanest forms of renewable energy, India is ahead of the US as far as its renewable energy portfolio goes!

Wind energy in the US has been stymied by objections over the aesthetics of wind turbines. But the American Wind Energy Association has this guide on mitigating buttfugliness issues, including such helpful hints as “do not advertise on your tower, or paint it flaming orange!”

Good stuff, makes this blogger happy.

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Tags: windenergy, India

I had written recently about police firing deaths in West Bengal. It appears that there is a lot more to this story than a case of police overreaction.
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Ten held over India police firing

But there are suspicions that outsiders may have joined the police force to attack the villagers in Nandigram, protesting against the planned acquisition of farmland for an industrial complex.

The West Bengal government has now said it is abandoning the project.

“Outsiders”? That’s informative! Who might these “outsiders” be? More from an Indian source:

The Central Bureau of Investigation -, probing last Wednesday’s Nandigram deaths in police firing, Saturday recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition from Khejuri, a base of the Communist Party of India-Marxist -.

Ten people, presumed to be members of the CPI-M, were arrested by the probe agency during the operation.

The CPI-M is West Bengal’s ruling party, having been in power for more than thirty years. So the emerging hypothesis is that some “operatives” (read goons) from the ruling party decided to “help” the police clear out the protesting villagers. The tragedy has gone national because the CPI(M) is a supporter of the ruling coalition in India.

It’s a complex issue, one that I want to learn a lot more about. But the gist of the story is that the ruling Communist party in Bengal is trying to kick start industrial development that has been stagnant for many years. The Haldia Development Authority has been tasked with this rather difficult task, and has been going about its merry business trying to acquire land and setup industrial parks and so called special economic zones.

The issue here is not the idea, which is sound, but the process, which has been top-down, and designed and implemented with no input from the people who will be affected. Some level of increased industrialization will provide more infrastructure, jobs and money eventually. But the process needed to be planned so that the farmers affected could transition a little more easily from their generations of farm employment. Medinipur, the district where Nandigram is located is predominantly agricultural with 65% of the rural population working as farmers (source Indian Census 2001). There are nearly 6 million people involved in agriculture in this district alone. That’s an arkload of people who will be affected by a major change in the occupational profile, they need to be considered and consulted.

So when the people affected protested and took the site over, the Chief Minister of West Bengal,  Budhaddeb Bhattacharya, asked the police to clear them out, and I guess they took that literally.

These protests are spreading, with unrest in Orissa as well. The good news is that there’s been a lot of outcry, and the whole program has been put on hold pending a national policy on acquisition of land for industries. India is not China, people know how to organize, protest and generally make themselves heard. More importantly, the press will cover stories like these (at least for a few weeks, or until India loses to Bangladesh in the Cricket World Cup! – This happened on Saturday!), so development necessarily takes a slower and more tortuous path. That is not always a bad thing. Will they get the process right the next time they do it, I am not sure, but hopefully, these deaths will not have been in vain.

Half of India’s children are malnourished – Yahoo! News

With about 46 percent of children underweight — a negligible improvement over the last survey, conducted in 1998-99 — India is in the same league as nations like Burkina Faso and Cambodia. In China, Asia’s other rising economic power and the country India so often compares itself with, only 8 percent of children are underweight.

The improved infant mortality rate — down to 57 per 100,000 births from 68 in 1998-99 — remains dramatically higher than that seen in Western nations, such the Netherlands, where it is 4.

In every category where a comparison between the health of people in the countryside and cities was offered, those in rural areas lagged far behind. The rural infant mortality rate, for example, was 62 per 100,000, compared to 42 the in urban areas.

Such statistics show India “should be worried,” said Werner Schultink of UNICEF. “It’s going to be difficult for India if wants to use its human resources to develop the nation but does not make improvements.”

I don’t really know what to say, it is depressing, and points to the enormous amount of basic nuts and bolts infrastructure work that needs to be done in India. Back to themes from yesterday’s sewer post, it is basic government work, not sexy, not exciting, not flashy, just plodding mundane get it right kind of infrastructure building. It HAS to be done, there’s no sense in pointing to fancy malls in Bangalore or a super wonderful space program. One day, when I have time, I will convert all these percentages to numbers, percentages are good for comparing data, but to get a true sense of the magnitude, I think numbers are necessary. Quick calculation,the 2001 Indian Census says there were 350 million children (15 years old or less) in 2001, well, that makes 170 million starving (okay, “underweight”) children, it’s a happy place, ain’t it?