The compounded effects of urbanization and climate change are taking a serious toll on rapidly growing urban spaces around the world. Blue-green infrastructure offers a host of opportunities and benefits for addressing the multiple challenges of environment, social well-being and climate change. Cities can mobilize key actors for crosscutting and inclusive action, bringing diverse stakeholders such as national governments, private sector, civil society and common citizens together.

With an increasing demand for large-scale energy storage systems, there is a need for novel electrode materials to store energy in batteries efficiently. 2D materials are promising as electrode materials for battery applications. Despite their excellent properties, none of the available single-phase 2D materials offers a combination of properties required for maximizing energy density, power density, and cycle life.

In 2016, we at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) were studying the electrification status of various villages in Karnataka. The exercise gave us interesting insights into the scope of employing technologies like solar photovoltaic (PV) mini-grids to electrify such areas, where grid extension is not feasible. This motivated us to further investigate the last-mile electricity solutions. For getting deeper into the energy access issue, we decided to implement a mini-grid pilot project and better understand the ground realities.

The Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) implemented the mini-grid pilot project during 2018–19 in Kudagaon, an un-electrified remote island on the Mahanadi River, in the Angul district of Odisha, where three generations of indigenous people live.

Punjab is at the heart of India’s agricultural success story. Buoyed by the Green Revolution and favourable policy measures, the state contributes to 16% of India’s agricultural exports. The Agricultural Export Policy (AEP) of Punjab, notified in 2019, aims to more than double the value of its total exports of rice, wheat, and fruits from INR 14,000 Cr to INR 32,000 Cr by 2027–28, a staggering increase of 233%.

For millions of years before human activity, the extent of heat radiated away from the earth remained largely unchanged, thus ensuring global climate patterns remained stable. Lately, the effects of anthropogenic climate change have become increasingly obvious in the form of increased incidence of forest fires, icecap melting, and hurricanes. The drastic increase in the levels of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere due to the Industrial Revolution has reduced the level of heat radiated away, thereby retaining more heat within the global climate system.

Emissions from the Indian transport sector currently account for almost 10 per cent of the country’s total GHG emissions, mandating significant sectoral interventions for attaining the ‘net zero’ goal.

Strategies to reduce emissions from the transport sector include electric vehicle (EV) adoption, shift to public transport (PT), and non-motorised transport (NMT). These typically require substantial behavioural change.