Renewables: Making a Case for Wind Power in India

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As winters turn summery and summers become synonymous with living in hot hell with each passing year, there can’t be a better time to start focusing on a more sustainable and non-polluting ways of producing and fulfilling the vast energy needs. 

The governments the world over have initiated dialogue, are formulating and implementing policy measures in a bid to tackle the climate change demon. 

Demand: Supply

The overall world energy demand is set to grow by nearly one-third between 2013 and 2040 with the net growth driven entirely by developing countries. 

According to estimates by 2040, India's net oil imports will easily exceed those of the European Union. India has clearly moved to centre stage in terms of demand for energy, rising to two-and-a-half-times current levels, on the back of high levels of economic growth, a large population base and increasing levels of energy use per capita.

Switch to Renewables 

In the backdrop of the ongoing climate summit in Paris, there are clear indications that there is a paradigm shift in the energy consumption patterns across the globe. In 2014 Renewables contributed almost half of the world's new power generation capacity and have already become the second-largest source of electricity. 

Renewables-based energy generation is estimated to reach 50% in the European Union by 2040, around 30% in China and Japan, and above 25% in the United States and India, according to data.

Winds of Change

As the Indian economy races up the growth track the need for energy is only set to rise. In the current scenario it will be important, more than ever, to develop more and more sustainable sources of energy.   

According to official estimates the total onshore wind power potential has been placed at 302 GW. A bulk of potential for wind energy is pegged from the states of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat. According to estimates wind power generation is set to increase, with installed capacity rising from 23 GW to 142 GW by 2040.

The large-scale development of wind power offers the potential to develop expertise and an industry that can deliver services internationally. The growing demand for sustainable energy sources will only boost the potential for the companies engaged in supporting the sector. India-based Suzlon, now the world’s fifth-largest wind turbine supplier, operating factories in the United States, China and India, is a case in point. In addition, several international players have entered the Indian market space driven by the sheer size and tax breaks.

Woes of Caste Politics

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are two states where caste politics has ever been dominant  during assembly elections. Occasionally , the issue of development is raised but mainly form publicity purposes. Caste factor is never lost sight of, whether in the selection of candidates to contest from specific constituencies or in overall structure of political parties. And political leaders never conceal their intentions.

Once elections are over ,caste considerations become prominent while taking decisions to run the government machinery. This naturally results in injustice to weaker sections. While a few influential persons belonging to castes favoured by the ruling combination are allowed to garner benefits legally or illegally, others are forced to suffer. The victory of particular castes in elections, thus mainly remains notional for the poor and oppressed.

This is an unfortunate situation. More unfortunate has been the conflict between dalits castes and sections of backward castes. The sharp division in the ranks of these two sections has been of more disadvantage to the weak and powerless.

As the elections change the status of those in the government and the opposition, the situation becomes worse.In UP government servants favoured during the Bahujan Samaj Party rule came to the receiving end after Mayawati had lost power. If the situation changes in the next elections, the opposite will take place.

A similar situation seems to be emerging in Bihar with leaders like Lalu Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar, belonging to other backward classes pitted against Dalit leaders like Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi.Victory of any one group is likely to result in worry for the group that loses.This is not a welcome situation for Indian democracy.

PRETENSION AND PRACTICE

Professing a political ideology and sticking to ideological principles in political behaviour are quite different things.It is easier to claim that a political party or leader stands for serving specific principles and bringing about social and economic changes for the good of the people but it is quite difficult to make strenuous efforts to achieve such  objectives. Claims are generally made to hoodwink the gullible masses and serve own interests in the name of serving the society.
Names of political parties may, thus , be misleading. Names may portend  that a political party stands for high political standards but in practice its leaders might be involved in  serving very narrow interests. They may claim to follow the ideals of some great leader but in practice may be doing just the opposite. Samajwadi Party of Mulayam  Singh Yadav and the Rashtriya Janata Dal of Laloo Prasad Yadav  or only two examples.
Samajwai Party claims to stand for the socialist ideology of Dr ram Manohar Lohia. But its behaviour  never reflects that it has to do anything to achieve what Dr Lohia  wanted to. Socialism of Dr Lohia meant annihilation of the caste system  to build a society  based on justice and equality.Samajwadi Party , on the contrary, has blatantly  strengthened casteism to serve the interests of  kinsmen of its leader.Dr Ram Manohar Lohia condemned with equal vehemence communalism of all kinds.For the Samajwadi Party the bogey of communalism is raised only selectively with the objective of polarising votes during elections.
Rashtriya Janata Dal of Lalu Prasad Yadav again professes to work for the uplift of the backward classes.But in practice it serves the interests of one clan.Its secularism is also no different from the secularism of the Samajwad Party.
So long as this gap between political pretension and practice persists, there seems little hope for the people.

DIY #Airtel4GSpeedTest

The launch of new Airtel 4G has opened the new window of web-world with far better connectivity and high speed for internet users.

The Airtel 4G, which one can grab at 3G rate for now looks far more swift in connecting to your favorite App and is widely compatible to our growing internet apatite.

#Airtel4GSpeedTest which is now available with the new Airtel 4G, is also the first of its kind of test, allows its users to find out how much time a particular App would take to be downloaded from all the three networks that is 4G, 3G, and 2G available to its users.

One can also check this test by tweeting to Airtel in the given format -@airtelindia #Airtel4GSpeedTest to find out how much time will a particular app take to download on 4g vs 3g vs 2g. This is admirable! @airtelindia quickly responds with a Twitpic infographic that shows how much time a particular app will take to download on each of the networks. Something like this example: 

Not only this, with the launch of new 4G services Airtel is also offering lucrative deals to its consumers such as '4G at the price of 3G' and double data offer on 4G. This is clearly a good news for the consumers as they can move to a better speed at the price of 3G. The easy and affordable services has also made things favorable for the smartphone market, which has also adopted to the new technology very fast. The 4G compatible handsets are now available at less than Rs10,000 range making the internet services easy, fast and of course affordable.

People's Policy : Edelweiss Tokio Life- MyLife+

Abhay Singhal was a carefree man until one day his friend Akash asked him his age. A shy Abhay, who was there to offer sweets on becoming a proud father, said, “35”.

The following question was, “Do you have a life insurance policy?” Now Abhay was perplexed where the discussion was heading. He had heard the term and seen adverts but hadn’t really thought much about it.

“Be responsible and buy a life cover, my friend,” Akash said with a comforting touch and enthusiastically went ahead.  

When Abhay, an executive at a multinational company, researched about life insurance, he found he was so wrong that just the group life insurance cover provided by his company was enough.

Now Abhay has decided that he would opt for an additional insurance cover to safeguard his family’s future. He has gone through various attractive policies by different life insurance companies in the market and has finally decided to opt for a policy, launched by Edelweiss Tokio, which seems much consumer friendly as compared to other available options in the market and suits his pocket.

The new life term policy Edelweiss Tokio Life-MyLife+ brings many benefits for its consumers part from providing cheap life insurance.

Anyone between the age group of 18-60 can opt for the policy cover. Maximum maturity age is 80 years.

The policy is an online term plan with three death benefit payout options – lump sum payment, income benefit option, and a combination of the two.

Under lump sum payment option, upon the death of the policy holder, the beneficiary gets a lump sum payment. The income benefit option allows you to have monthly payments (which is 1 per cent of the sum assured for the next 130 months).  

Finally, the third option means the policy holder can combine the two to have part lump sum and part monthly payments as per his/her choice.  

For a person of about 35 years of age, the policy comes with a term of 25 years. For an annual premium of Rs8,510 one can get a life cover of Rs1 crore. If the person wants to break this under the income benefits then the beneficiary will get one per cent of the assured cover paid every month for the next 10 years. The total amount received by the beneficiary is about Rs1.3 crore under the income benefit plan but the premium is same.

According to industry estimates, this is one of the cheapest plans available in the segment. The fact that this policy can be tailored is the + factor which even reflects in the name.

In this ever changing times it may be tough to pick an easy insurance policy, which fits in all our requirements but with an option like Edelweiss Tokio Life-MyLife+ life will be an easy journey ahead for sure.

RBI rate cut likely

With the news of output of eight core industry sectors shrinking to 0.4 per cent in April now all eyes are on the Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and the key question is if he would relent this time and come up with the long awaited announcement of rate cut.

The industry experts feel that this is the right time for RBI to come up with CRR cut as this could help liquidity ease a bit. This would help the manufacturing sector as more liquidity with banking institutions may ease heavy EMIs and would thus attract the consumer to go out and shop. 

Most analysts had forecast a 75 bps to 100 bps cut in 2015 at the beginning of the year. So far, 50 bps have been delivered. It is time to do more.   

Meanwhile, the contraction in April, was mainly on account of the poor generation of electricity and declining output of cement, refinery products and fertiliser, came on the back of March’s marginal decline of minus 0.1 per cent.

Coal and steel sectors only saw an output growth, showed official data released on Monday (June 1, 2015. )

Coal production grew 7.9 per cent, steel output grew but at 0.6 per cent in April as against 6.9 per cent in the same month last year.

The eight sectors contribute 38 per cent to the overall industrial production. Output of the core sectors had contracted 6.7 per cent in November 2014, which fell to 2.4 per cent in December 2014 and then to 1.8 per cent in January and 1.4 per cent in February.

The output of crude oil declined 2.7 per cent in April. Natural gas production was 3.6 per cent lower. Electricity generation shrank 1.1 per cent and cement output fell 2.4 per cent. The production of refinery products declined 2.9 per cent and fertiliser output shrunk marginally by 0.04 per cent.

Vodafone to launch 4G services in five circles

Vodafone India announced its plan to roll out fourth generation (4G) services in select cities during the second half of this year.

"We are conducting 4G trials and plan to roll out the 4G services in a few towns later this year," said managing director and chief executive officer Sunil Sood.

The company won 5 MHz spectrum in the 1,800 MHz band in five circles-Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Karnataka and Kerala-where 4G services will be rolled.

The company will also expand its services in the North East. Sood also said that Vodafone is completely for Net Neutrality.

"We are pro-Net Neutrality and would like to see the same rule for the same services. There is a need to create a level playing field," he said. At the same time he said, "Let the government decide the rules of the game but we are open to a healthy debate on the issue."

Announcing the financial performance of the company for FY15, Sood said, "We have witnessed a year-on-year growth of 12.6 per cent in our service revenue at Rs 42,352 crore (against Rs 37,777 crore in FY14) and the company added about 17.2 million subscribers."

Operating profit stood at Rs 12,605 crore, which represents a growth of 16.2 per cent over the previous year. Vodafone has made a fresh capital infusion of Rs 6,000 crore in March to fuel its expansion plans.

It expanded its 3G services from nine to 16 circles during financial year 2014-15. "The company's customer base stands at around 184 million and the average revenue per user at Rs200 in the fourth quarter of 2014-15," Vodafone chief financial officer Thomas Reisten said.

The company made a capital expenditure of Rs 8,598 crore mainly on new site roll out in the last fiscal, he added. The net debt for the company stands at Rs 47,807 crore as of March.

Jabong has no plans to switch to 'app only' platform, says MD Praveen Sinha

Fashion and lifestyle e-commerce company Jabong has decided to buck the trend by not joining other e-tailers, especially its arch-rival Myntra, in switching to a 'app only' platform.

Jabong co-founder and managing director Praveen Sinhatold Ajay Shukla in the national capital on Tuesday, "Today is not the time to make any such move. The main aim of online retail is to provide choice to customers." Any such move would amount to killing the customer base, he further said.

"Industry estimates show that there is still about 50 per cent of the demand originating online. So, we would not consider any such move in the next two years," Sinha added.

"If app-based orders are 90 per cent or more, only then Jabong can change its mind", he further added.

The announcement assumes significance as Myntra announced on Tuesday its shift to become only an app-based store from May 15.

Myntra chief executive officer (CEO) and head of commerce atFlipkart Mukesh Bansal told reporters in Bangalore, "... we have decided that effective May 15, Myntra services will only be available through app on all smart phones."

Sinha and another Jabong co-founder Arun Chandra Mohan also announced $2-million investment as individuals in on-demand laundry service provider Wassup.

The Chennai-based start-up offers services in Bangalore, Delhi and Chennai in a managed marketplace model and will add Pune and Cochin in coming months.

"The intent is to be present in about 100 cities in next three years. We will also add personal care, home care, car care, pet care and handyman services to the portfolio through our technology platform in the near future," Wassup co-founder and CEO Balachandar R said.

The company plans to rake in another $10-$15 million in next 8-12 months as it expands its services across major cities in the country.

"We are looking to service the daily laundry requirements of middle class consumers. About 95 per cent of the market is still unorganised and there is a huge potential to move that to organised online route," Balachandar said.