Policy Matters - March 2021
A monthly newsletter featuring CSTEP commentary, publications, events, and other developments.
India’s 24 cr school students need to be green-jobs ready. Give them climate literacy
India is one of the few countries where environment education is compulsory at all levels of formal education. The concepts introduced at school are centred on the need to conserve for future generations, halt resource depletion, reduce pollution, and protect wildlife, with very limited focus on the effects of greenhouse gases, impacts of chlorofluorocarbons, and other topics of immediate concern.
Fire and Ice: The Signs of Climate Breakdown
Forest fires are on a rampage in Uttarakhand. Snow on the Tibetean plateau aka the world’s roof, surrounded by Mount Everest and K2, two of the highest mountains in the world, is melting at a rapid rate. The national capital witnessed one of the coldest Novembers recently, with temperature dipping to 10 degree Celsius. Do we need more reasons to realise the world is on the edge of a precipice?
Sad Demise: Dr Rangachari Krishnan, Former Chief Advisor to CSTEP
CSTEP former Chief Advisor Dr Rangachari Krishnan passed away in Bengaluru on 16 April 2021. He was 85. He was associated with CSTEP from 2008 to 2011. He is survived by his wife and children.
Smart Cities in Karnataka: Experiences and the Road Ahead
The Smart Cities Mission was launched in 2015 to enable cities that ensure a decent quality of life. Five years later, it’s time for stocktaking—to see how far we have come, and the experiences and challenges along the way.
CSTEP Conducts Capacity Building Workshop for IoRs
CSTEP conducted a hands-on-training workshop on 5 April 2021 for Institutes of Repute (IoRs). The online workshop was held to build the IoRs' capacity in identifying data sources, data collection, and data management and storage for developing an emission inventory.
CSTEP Partners With IIT Kanpur for Policy Conclave
CSTEP partnered with Public Policy and Opinion Cell, IIT Kanpur, for Lok Niti, a public policy hackathon. The event was held from 9 April to 11 April 2021 as part of the third edition of IIT Kanpur's annual flagship event Policy Conclave.
Lok Niti aims to encourage young minds to come up with innovative policy solutions and contribute to the development of frameworks to overcome challenges. The participants had to develop pragmatic solutions to a case study or problem.
CSTEP Signs MoU With BESCOM
CSTEP signed an MoU with the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company Limited (BESCOM) on 7 April 2021 to expand the scope of collaboration and pursue high-impact research projects in areas of mutual interest. As part of the agreement, CSTEP would be a "Knowledge Partner" to BESCOM for projects of importance at both national and state levels.
Indoor air: Is it as safe as we assume it to be?
With many of us being forced to spend more time indoors due to work-from-home policies and digital classrooms, it is important to take the quality of air inside our homes more seriously than before. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) fact sheet, indoor air pollution is one of the main reasons for respiratory diseases and premature deaths in developing countries, contributing to nearly 40 lakh deaths annually.
Power Markets in India
Electricity, like any manufactured product, can be bought and sold in a market — in this case, a power market. The buying and selling transactions of electricity occurs in the units of either power (in megawatts, MW) or energy (in million-units, MU). Like all transactions, power transactions involve a buyer and a seller, which can be a distribution company (DISCOM), a generation company (GENCO), a power exchange, or a bulk consumer.