Over the Barrel: Year 2 must be greener

The government’s policy pronouncements over the past year have thrown into sharp relief the conflict between its energy policy and its green agenda. It should endeavour to settle this conflict over the coming year. The purpose of this article is to recommend the steps it should take to do so.

The government has announced that it will treble coal production from the current 500 million tonnes per annum to 1.5 billion tonnes by 2022. Coal is the dirtiest fuel in the energy basket. Separately, it has committed to increasing solar energy capacity from the current 2.5 gigawatt (GW) to 100 GW, and wind energy from 25 GW to 50GW (approximately), also by 2022. This is in line with the prime minister’s commitment to push economic development on to a low-carbon growth path, and his call for a saffron (solar) revolution. The chief economic advisor has, in an article in this paper (‘Green road to Paris’, IE, May 13), reinforced this “green” message by arguing that India has moved from a regime of “carbon subsidisation” to “carbon taxation”. He has based his argument on the fact that the benefit of low oil prices has not been fully passed on to the consumer. His logic could be challenged, but it is important to note the use of the term “carbon taxation” by a government official.

Read separately, each of these pronouncements is defensible. India sits on the fifth largest reserves of coal in the world and the goal to provide secure, reliable and affordable energy to the public on a 24/7 basis cannot be achieved unless these indigenous deposits are harnessed. But India is also highly vulnerable to global warming. One hundred and fifty million people live along its 7,500 km coastline. Their livelihoods would be severely impacted if sea levels rose. Further, there are millions of farmers in north India who are dependent on the waters from the 10,000-plus glaciers that mark the Himalayas. Were these glaciers to recede, the impact on agricultural output could be severe.

The point is that coal offers the least-cost option for energy security, and cannot but be encouraged. Equally, the green agenda has to be accorded high priority. We can no longer afford the option of developing first and cleaning up later.

Read together, however, these statements are in conflict. The commitment to push the dirtiest fuel in the energy basket does not sit comfortably with the commitment to move the economy on to a low carbon, clean energy and environmentally responsible growth path. The target to fast-track solar and wind energy loses its clean energy sheen when, in parallel, a target is set to burn more coal than perhaps any other country in the world (more so than even China ). The claim of “carbon taxation” gets knocked on the head by a distortionary pricing mechanism that discourages investment in the exploration and production of the environmentally more benign natural gas.

So how does one square this circle? What must the government do to reconcile these understandable but conflictual objectives? I would suggest the following steps for consideration in the coming year.

One, the price of natural gas should be aligned to trade parity levels. The current price has been administratively set at below market levels. This has discouraged the flow of risk capital into exploration and choked the development of discovered reserves. Natural gas is a relatively clean fossil fuel and pending the shift to renewables, it should
be seen as the transitional bulwark of our fossil fuel-based energy system.

Two, carbon taxes should be explicitly acknowledged and integrated into our pricing mechanism. The final price of products should reflect the external costs on society of carbon emissions. It should not be, as is suggested by the CEA, an implicit claim on the peg of a revenue-generating exercise. No one likes taxes and few governments have bitten this particular bullet. But now that the notion of such a tax has been publicly aired, it might make sense to derive the tax by direct reference to levels of emissions.

Three, the measurement of carbon emissions by different industries and economic segments must be sophisticated, and the data held in a centralised bank. Lack of accurate and reliable data is an impediment to effectively tackling environmental pollution.

Four, old power plants running on subcritical and inefficient turbines rank amongst the heaviest emitters of greenhouse gases. State governments should be persuaded to either upgrade or close down these plants.

Five, the present grid infrastructure is not strong enough to absorb a massive influx of variable and intermittent renewable energy. The requisite “smart” capacity cannot be built quickly. The focus next year should be on decentralised power and, in particular, small-scale solar.

Six, urban air pollution has now reached deathly proportions. Thirteen of our cities rank amongst the most polluted in the world. One reason is the exponential increase of vehicular traffic. There are a number of excellent studies that have suggested a number of non-exclusive actions to reverse this trend. These range from strengthening public transport to discouraging city driving to influencing behavioural change towards matters like car-sharing. The governmentshould dust off these reports and look at implementing these recommendations.

Seven, demand-side management is a powerful instrument to tackle the problem of energy deficit and energy sustainability. So far, it has not been effectively deployed because of pricing distortions and subsidies. Kerosene, LPG, power, water and urea are still heavily subsidised. These distortions will have to be corrected to effectuate this instrument.

Eight, emissions norms, building standards and efficiency standards have not been comprehensively implemented because of weak and ill-defined regulatory structures. These structures must be strengthened.

Nine, the clean energy fund is flush with cash, but its management is opaque. This should be corrected and the money effectively and transparently deployed to leapfrog old technologies.

Finally, it must be recognised that energy policy and the green agenda are two sides of the same coin. They have to be tackled conjointly. The institutions of governance must be redesigned to reflect this fundamental reality.

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/over-the-barrel-year-2-must-be-greener/#sthash.yRASYabg.dpuf

No sweeping changes in IHR advisory board: Sudershan Rao

In an interview to The Hindu, Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) chairperson Y. Sudershan Rao talks about the reasons for bringing about sweeping changes in the council.

You have effected some sweeping changes in the advisory board of the Indian Historical Review. What prompted you to make the changes?

This is a usual and normal practice. The advisory committee or editorial committee of Indian Historical Review (IHR) is not a statutory panel. It was formed a few years ago in 2009 by the IHR Committee, which designated itself as the editorial board. Whenever a new council is constituted, all the committees are reconstituted by replacing the old members. All committees are periodically reconstituted. This cannot be taken as ‘sweeping changes’ and it cannot be construed as being ‘prompted’ by any extraneous reasons. In a democratic set-up, no one can enjoy any position for life, how much one may desire. Everyone who has some basic acquaintance with the working of the council knows this. I was surprised to see that some former members had raised this issue in the press. They might be having their own “good reasons,” which I fail to understand.

From what is known, the IHR journal was doing fine largely due to the efforts of the 22-member advisory board. Why did you feel the need to bring about a change at this point in time? Were there any problems with the content of the journal?

The IHR journal was earlier printed and published by the ICHR. Since the council is not a professional publisher, it does not have the necessary paraphernalia to market its journal. Many ICHR publications lack market exposure. Despite our fat offers of 30-50 per cent concessions on occasions like conferences, seminars etc., which are very frequent with us, bulk numbers of copies of all our publications are simply stored unsold creating us problems of space. The voluminous works having reference value are unsold. It doesn’t mean that this pathetic situation has any reflection on the standards of these works.

IHR is being printed, published and distributed by the Sage Publications since the past few years (from about 2010). The ICHR was subsidising its printing cost and receiving nominal loyalties, which, however, could not match our investment. Only this year we could break even. This was mostly possible because of the marketing abilities of the publishers. One should know at what cost it was achieved. It was also due to commercial ratings of subscription almost not in the reach of individual scholars. The standard of a journal only depends on the articles published in it, not on well-known names on its advisory.

The advisory committee is not a regular committee. It has no stipulated powers and functions. The role of the advisory body is minimal if not nil. They never met and perhaps were never asked to give any advice on any issue, in particular by the previous councils. It was for all practical purposes a sleeping one continued indefinitely, in the fond hope, expecting extra miles without actually treading any extra paces. The number of its membership is not fixed. Whenever ‘one’ felt, members were added to the existing committee. Reconstituting the board on the lines of other committees does not amount to ‘breaking’ and ‘fixing’.

I think it is not out of place to clarify here the issue raised by the media regarding the replacement of Prof. Sabyasachi Bhattacharya as the chief editor of IHR by Prof Dilip Chakravarti. The chief editor is not an office or a post as such. It is honorary. The head of the IHR committee will be its chief editor, while the chairman of ICHR happens to be its ex-officio chairman. Whenever a new committee is formed, the chief editor is nominated by the committee. The council may also nominate those who are not the members of the council, to this committee by co-option. Prof. Sabyasachi was the chief editor when he was the chairman of the council and subsequently, he was co-opted by the succeeding committee. He continued as the chief editor even for one year during my term. He is my esteemed elderly friend. He is also very kind and affectionate to me. I don’t think he said that he was ever ‘troubled’ by me or that the ICHR was ‘taking to rightward direction’ under my chairmanship as the reasons for his resignation. This might be a media-construct. On knowing that Prof. Dilip Chakravarti was made the chief editor, he welcomed it and wrote a very courteous letter relinquishing his responsibility as chief editor. I also thanked him acknowledging his valuable contribution to ICHR in various capacities. I requested him to feel free to make any suggestions and offer guidance in my work. I do not have any differences with him.

Are you planning to give the journal a certain focus and direction? If yes, can you spell it out for us?

The IHR journal does not focus on any theme in particular and it is not supposed to give any direction to historical research. It encourages research and any scholar can present his research study for publication on any research problem. It will be published after being evaluated by the experts in the field concerned. It is open to every research scholar, Indian or other than Indian.

What happened to the Freedom Project started during the first term of the NDA in 2000? Are we going to see some changes there? Is it nearing completion?

‘Towards Freedom’ project of the ICHR, started more than three decades ago (not during the first NDA rule), is long and even now seemingly an unending saga. It is taking time perhaps as long as our freedom struggle was fought. We regret to say that some chief editors and editors of some volumes could not live to see its fruition. A few volumes are yet to come. The project is funded by ICHR, written by somebody, edited by some other, printed and published by Oxford Press, however, without text being cleared by the council.

The ICHR has been charged with mixing fantasy with history. Your emphasis on Vedas, Puranas have lead to concern on the direction you want historical research to take. How would you respond to the charge?

As far as I know, the ICHR was not charged with ‘mixing fantasy with history’ before my nomination to the council as chairman. Such allegations have only been pointed to me after I became the chairman. The ICHR has never taken up any project on its own worth mentioning to study culture, society, economy, polity, science, technology, art, religion etc, of ancient and medieval times, which are recognised areas in the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR (1972). When I assumed the chairmanship, I said on one or two occasions that the ICHR should also, if possible, meet this deficiency in proposing its projects. When we turn to these areas, we have to invariably examine our ancient and medieval literary texts — Sanskrit, Prakrit, Pali, Arabic and Persian— to cull out historical data. The importance of these literary texts for an academic study should not be disputable.

You are entrusted with the Mahabharata Project? What does it entail and how far have you succeeded in your research?

I was never ‘entrusted’ with any research project either by the government or any private funding agencies. I was drawn to study the epic Mahabharata if I could get any flinching evidence to precisely fix the date of the Great War, which I consider serves as the sheet anchor of the ancient Indian chronology. Many scholars have worked on the date of the war. Recently, many research works have come out suggesting the date to about 3000 BC based on scientific data. ‘Some’, of course, deny ascribing any historicity to the epics and Puranas, again for their own ‘good reasons’. It doesn’t mean that ‘others’ should not work on these sources. In research, one cannot foresee the conclusion. One has to arrive at it.

As a historian are you treating the Ramayana and the Mahabharata as indisputable facts?

For the construction of history, we have to at least begin examining the historical content. The Puranas mention a long list of dynasties and it is not difficult to corroborate the content with facts. I am a professional historian and will examine the facts available.

Govt.’s ‘khoyapaya’ website to help trace missing children

With 11 children disappearing every hour in the country, the government will on June 2 roll out a web platform for people to directly report, track and upload information on missing children.

The web portal will be launched by the Women and Child Development Ministry. It will serve as a platform for people to not only report a missing child but also track the efforts towards his or her recovery.

The website, www.khoyapaya.gov.in, will answer all queries as to what action is to be taken when a child goes missing.

A joint initiative of the WCD Ministry and the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, the website will have three sections - ‘My child is missing’, ‘I have sighted a child’ and ‘Search a missing child’.

The website will also provide links to court orders wherein police have been mandated to register an FIR in the matter of a child gone missing and treat it as either abduction or trafficking unless it is proved otherwise in the investigation.

“There is always a lack of information as to what can be done when a person loses a child. Since police play a very important role, the website will assist them in taking better help of police,” said a ministry official.

Keywords: Women and Child Development Ministry, missing children

SCHOLARS WORLD: International Refereed Multidisciplinary Journal Of Contemporary Research_CALL FOR PAPERS

Online ISSN: 2320-3145
Print ISSN: 2319-5789 

Call for Papers

VOLUME-III, ISSUE-III July 2015 
Date of Submission: 20th June 2015.

Date of publication: 1st July 2015.

For Online Paper Submission click here: Scholars World - IRMJCR

OR

Submit your Articles/ Manuscript/ Papers on following emails: 

editor@scholarsworld.net cc: scholarsworld0@gmail.com

Submission Guidelines

Online Submission

About the Journal: "Scholars World- International Refereed Multidisciplinary Journal Of Contemporary Research" is a Quarterly research journal. It is an open access peer review journal. It publishes the articles comprising the Arts, Science & Commerce area.


The journal is very especially intended for professors, Scholars, Academicians, Professional & research scholars those who want to seek genuine authentic research material. It is an internationally approved journal.

INDEXING:

• Directory of Open Access Journals, Sweden
• Ulrich’s Web-Global Serials Directory, USA
• Directory of Research Journals Indexing, India
• Open J-Gate, India
• Pub- Res- (International Research Library)

Contact Address:
Maaz Publications, Plot. No. 117, S.No. 170/1, Rahman Pura, East Iqbal Road, Malegaon Nasik (MS) India- 423203.
Mobile: +91-9226161375
Email: contact@scholarsworld.net

Vedanta - Absolutely Maybe

PURUSHOTTAM MAHAJAN





Nothing exists apart from the absolute. Yet, the absolute, being transcendent, does not suffer from the limitations of the sense organs, of attributes, of time. It is imperceivable, eternally pure, unqualified and is bliss. By knowing the absolute, everything is known, and fear and delusion no longer remain. Our world is deeply rooted in what we may call the dialectic, or duality . It manifests its nature in terms of rise and fall, birth and death, cause and effect, one and many , here and there, I and you.There is nothing in this world that can be said to be permanent. Being subject to its inherent nature, the world is tran sient and infirm. Bles sed are they with the gift of knowledge who realise the unity of being in the middle of the dualistic world. The knower of the absolute is one who realises and experiences the same reality in everything.
Only a mind that has gained a certain amount of stability can comprehend that the objects of experience, although the cause of much ill, are not bereft or devoid of divine presence. An object becomes the source of ill at that moment when the intellect not only objectifies it, but also objectifies the divine presence due to which the object exists.
Each object, in fact, does not exist in itself. As such, the objects of perception are nonreal. It follows, then, that the intellect that objectifies the non-real objects, too, is nonreal or apparent.

In a first, China unveils facial-recognition ATM

Beijing:





New Machine Can Also Identify Counterfeit Notes

Chinese researchers have successfully developed the first automated teller machine (ATM) with facial recognition technology to reduce the risk of theft, reports said.The developers include Tsing hua University and Tzekwan Technology , a Hangzhou firm in eastern China's Zhejiang province that provides security protection for financial transactions.Tzekwan chairman Gu Zikun, an anti-counterfeit technology expert, believes the technology will curb ATM-related crimes. The product has already passed certification and would soon be available for sale.
China currently relies mostly on imported ATM technology , the report said, but the new machine, which combines high-speed banknote handling, improved counterfeit-bill recognition and facial recognition, was wholly Chinese.
However, it is unclear who will manufacture the ATMs and how it will collect facial data.
The news come a week after the state launched its “Made in China“ campaign, which aims to transition the mainland from a manufacturing hub for low-end goods to high-quality products within the next 10 years.
Cash machines using fingerprint authentication have sprung up in countries like Chile and Colombia, though these biometric ATMs have not found favour with some countries like the United States because of privacy concerns and its high cost.
The new ATMs are expected to connect with the country's banks and public security networks, which allows only cardholders to withdraw money , even if someone else knows the password.
But opponents to the technology have voiced their concerns about privacy and accuracy online. “What happens if someone had plastic surgery to look like someone else,“ one user asked.“How much will it take to turn my face into Jack Ma's (founder of Ali Baba)? questioned another. PTI

the speaking tree - When To Know That Enough Is Enough

Marguerite Theophil





While visiting some temples in Bali, each person was handed a sash to wrap around the waist. This was explained as a symbolic gesture of `containing the appetites' while one prayed; a beautiful reminder to ask only for what is really needed, not more.I also recall a wise theologian, leading a group through the Lord's Prayer, saying that the line “Give us this day our daily bread ...“ should be seen as a guide to ask for what was `just enough' in the faith that it would repeatedly and constantly be given. It should also act as a reminder to us to avoid a `stockpiling mentality', where we might wish to end up with a lot more than others, perhaps leaving others with less or with nothing at all.
The novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote a lovely poem honouring the writer Joseph Heller. This is how it goes: Joseph Heller, an important and funny writer now dead, and I were at a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island. I said, “Joe, how does it make you feel to know that our host only yesterday may have made more money than your novel `Catch-22' has earned in its entire history?“ And Joe said, “I've got something he can never have.“
And I said, “What on earth could that be, Joe?“ And Joe said, “The knowledge that I've got enough.“ Not bad! Rest in peace! When we speak of `enough' many people connect this idea with deprivation. Contentment, a way of understanding `enoughness', is not about depriving oneself, but about being happy with what one has. As this Mullah Nasruddin tale teaches: Nasruddin's neighbour one day lamented, “I'm really having trouble fitting my family into our small house.My wife, three children, my mother-in law and I, all share the same cottage.Mullah, you are a wise man. Do you have any advice for me?“ “Of course,“ replied Nasruddin. “Do you have any chickens in your yard?“ The man replied, “Yes. Ten.“ Mullah ordered: “Put them in the house.“ “But,“ the man protested, “our house is already so cramped.“ Nasruddin urged: “Just try it.“
Desperate to find a solution the man followed Nasruddin's advice, but the next day said: “Mullah, with the chickens in the house, things are even worse now.“ “Don't worry ,“ replied Nasruddin, “Now take that donkey of yours into the house.“ The man resisted, but Nasruddin convinced him to do it. The next day , the man, more distressed than ever grumbled, “This is terrible! Between my family , the chickens and that donkey , there is bare ly any room to move!“ “Hmmm,“ went Nasruddin, “any other animals in your yard?“ The man hesitated, “Well ... we do have a goat.“ Mullah smiled: “Perfect! Take the goat in your house too.“
The man once again raised a fuss and seemed anything but eager to follow this advice, but Nasruddin once again convinced him it was for the best.
The next day , the man burst out, “My family is really upset now.Everyone is at my throat complaining about the lack of space. Your plan is making us miserable.“ Nasruddin nodded, “It's time to take all of the animals back outside.“
So the man followed and did as he was told, and the next day , dropped by Nasruddin and declared, “Mullah ­ you are wise indeed. Your plan has worked like a charm. Our house feels so spacious that none of us can help but feel pleased; no one complains anymore.“