Responding to three articles that appeared in the EPW (13 September 2014) by Nachane, Shah and Mehrotra, the authors call for clarity and debate on the ethos of the new "think tank" that is to be instituted in the place of the Planning Commission of India.

A novel approach to determine the non-dimensional heliostat field boundary for solar tower plants.Solar tower technology has gained considerable momentum over the past decade. In a solar tower plant, the power collected by the heliostat field is strongly coupled to the height of the tower and its location with respect to the field. This paper provides a methodology to fix the boundary of the field (non-dimensionalised with respect to the tower height). 

The most vulnerable countries of the world had specific concerns going into the Paris meeting of the Conference of Parties on climate change. Some of these concerns were met at the conference, although the long-term implications remain to be seen.Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted by 160 countries. The purpose of the INDCs was to get commitments from all countries with the overall goal of bending their trajectories sufficiently by 2030 so that dangerous climate change could be avoided.

Urban Transport Planning in Bengaluru: A Polycentric Governance System

An explicit J–V model of a solar cell using equivalent rational function form for simple estimation of maximum power point voltage

A neural network based approach to predict high-voltage Li-ion battery cathode materials.This paper introduces the concept of using Artificial Neural Network (ANN)techniques for predicting electrochemical potential of cathode materials in combination with first-principles based quantum mechanical calculations. The proposed method can be used to predict the Lithium ion battery voltage if a new material is chosen as cathode.

Energy storage will play an important role in the Government of India’s efforts to meet the ambitious targets with regards to electric mobility and renewable energy. Among the different types of storage technologies, lithium-ion battery (LIB) is considered to be the best suited for electric vehicles (EVs). LIBs can also address intermittency problems in renewable energy integration with the grid. It is estimated that 13.8 GWh of battery capacity is required by 2020 for the EV sector and 15 GWh battery capacity is needed for grid storage requirements.

India is targeting an ambitious GDP growth rate of 8 per cent and for that the power sector needs to grow in tandem.This paper makes an assessment of the potential for capacity addition from various energy sources such as coal,natural gas, hydro, wind and biomass and concludes that these sources will be found wanting in closing the gap between desired growth and business as usual growth. In this background, the recent India-US declaration on cooperation in nuclear power provides an opportunity for accelerated growth.

Crude oil prices recently crossed US$ 75/bbl, fuelling serious concerns whether India’s rapidly expanding economy can sustain a high and growing level of crude imports There are also serious concerns of global warming from burning of fossil fuels .It may be time for India to explore options which can substitute petrol and diesel and are climate-friendly In a series of two articles, we examine a few such technology and policy options Part I focus on options for substituting petrol by ethanol from sugarcane: molasses, sugarcane juice and cellulose (bagasse) Part II analyses options for diesel