India needs to grow a lot more food, and do it sustainably to be able to meet its future food security and also keep its climate commitments. Precision farming is still nascent in the country, but could offer a way forward.

A spate of EV explosions in India has raised safety concerns about the technology. However, it is too early to write off EVs on the evidence of these incidents. Only detailed investigations and analyses will reveal whether the battery explosions in Hyderabad and other parts of the country occurred due to extreme weather conditions, battery mismanagement, or other reasons. 

Low-cost air quality sensors are the talk of the town. By addressing cost issues and bringing in portability, these sensors are quickly becoming the game-changers in efforts toward better air quality. Low-cost sensors (LCS) enable dense monitoring of air pollution, allowing policymakers to target interventions at highly polluted areas, thereby improving air quality. But their large-scale use needs careful consideration, given the concerns around the accuracy and reliability of LCS data.

This paper presents our analysis of the impact of integrating electric vehicles (EVs) and rooftop photovoltaic (RTPV) on the power system distribution feeders at the 11 kV level. For the assessment, we selected a sample urban feeder that served both domestic and commercial consumers within Bengaluru city limits. The EV-demand projection was considered on the basis of a report by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, while the RTPV potential was estimated using CSTEP’s Rooftop Evaluation for Solar Tool (CREST).

Over two-thirds of Indian goods are transported on roads. About 11 million freight vehicles carry 2.1 trillion tonne-km of freight annually (Bernard Aritua et al., 2018). These vehicles are largely dependent on fossil-based fuels (90% is diesel) for their movement (NITI Aayog et al., 2021). The road freight sector consumes about 70.5 million tonnes of oil equivalent (Mtoe) and emits 213 Mt of CO2 annually. Thus, it accounts for approximately 53% of the country’s transport fuel consumption and about 54% of CO2 emissions.

The Government of India, in 2015, had set an ambitious target of installing 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. The target included 40 GW of rooftop solar (RTS) systems and 60 GW of ground-mounted utility-scale solar (GMS) systems.

Recently, TPPs across India experienced an acute coal shortage. The shortage was also felt throughout the Asian subcontinent. Many internal and external factors have contributed to the situation and are under investigation. Stakeholders have identified some of the most common causes of this situation.

Several parts of India reeled under a heatwave in April with temperatures soaring from 43 Degree Celsius to 46 Degree Celsius - the highest since 1901. The grim news is that in the decades to come, India is expected to suffer more frequent and intense heat waves as a result of climate change, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and district-level climate projections made for India at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy.

 

Meeting India’s short- and long-term climate commitments made at COP26 entails a complete economic transformation, which can have considerable developmental tradeoffs. Many long-term energy and climate models that project low-carbon pathways for the country consider the gross domestic product (GDP) to be exogenously driving growth in various sectors. However, low-carbon policies or technologies will also impact GDP, as well as other economic variables like employment and income.