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40c in March? How hot will May and June be?

Rising temperatures during summer months will have serious repercussions on the economy* Baripada town near Odisha's Similipal Tiger Reserve recorded 44.6°Celsius on March 31, 2021 * Chennai set an all-time record of 41.3°Celsius for March on the 30th of the month this year, erasing the earlier record of 40.6°Celsius way back on March 29, 1953* Delhi cracked a blazing 40.1°Celsius on March 29, 2021, making it the hottest March since 1945 * Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu also joined the club of soaring 40s in the last days of March * March 2021 was the third warmest month in 121 years in terms of monthly average maximum temperature, according to the India Meteorological Department(IMD) These numbers tell a scary story.And if March was hot, April is no better with Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh already in the race to be among the hottest states. Delhi,meanwhile, has already had its first hat-trick of 40°Celsius temperatures this season – 40.2°Celsius on April 13, 40.2°Celsius on April 14 and 40.5°Celsius on April

40c in March? How hot will May and June be?

Rising temperatures during summer months will have serious repercussions on the economy* Baripada town near Odisha's Similipal Tiger Reserve recorded 44.6°Celsius on March 31, 2021 * Chennai set an all-time record of 41.3°Celsius for March on the 30th of the month this year, erasing the earlier record of 40.6°Celsius way back on March 29, 1953* Delhi cracked a blazing 40.1°Celsius on March 29, 2021, making it the hottest March since 1945 * Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu also joined the club of soaring 40s in the last days of March * March 2021 was the third warmest month in 121 years in terms of monthly average maximum temperature, according to the India Meteorological Department(IMD) These numbers tell a scary story.And if March was hot, April is no better with Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh already in the race to be among the hottest states. Delhi,meanwhile, has already had its first hat-trick of 40°Celsius temperatures this season – 40.2°Celsius on April 13, 40.2°Celsius on April 14 and 40.5°Celsius on April

India’s electric vehicles face practical, technical hurdles

H.S. Panno, an independent contractor living in a spacious two-story penthouse in New Delhi, had his doubts when he bought his first electric car in September. So far, he’s pleased with his savings on gas and maintenance, which are down by more than half, but disappointed with the practical limitations of driving his Nexon XZ+. For starters, he says he’s only getting 200 kilometers (125 miles) per charge, not the promised range of 315 kilometers (195 miles). And he can’t drive the car outside the city because of a lack of charging stations. EVs are a rarity in India, where more than 300 million vehicles, most of them scooters and three-wheel motorized rickshaws, jam the highways. The country is now making an ambitious push for what it calls “electric mobility,” to reduce smog. But the effort is plagued with technological and logistical hurdles, even for those relatively simple vehicles. The EV passenger car segment may be potentially huge but for now it is a niche within a niche: In March, 25,640 electric vehicles were sold across the country, of which 90% were two and three-wheelers. The total 400,000 EVs registered in India in 2019 accounted for less than 0.2% of all vehicles. Panno got a $1,770 rebate as a government incentive for buying his Nexon XZ+, Indian automaker Tata’s mid-range electric vehicle model. It cost $22,740, about twice the price of the company’s most popular gas-fueled models. “It’s a good car and a pleasure to drive, but I’m still scared of breaking down midway from a lack of charge,” Panno said. Officials see EVs as a solution to the deadly smog choking city streets, even though for the most part heavily polluting coal power plants generate the electricity needed to charge them. India’s capital New Delhi provides a slew of subsidies to first-time EV buyers. EVs are also exempt from road tax and registration fees and there are other incentives to encourage swapping of old gas and diesel vehicles for new electric ones. About half of India’s 31 states have drafted similar EV policies with varying degrees of progress. The New Delhi government recently dropped the Nexon XZ+ and Nexon XM from its list of a dozen four-wheel vehicles eligible for subsidies. The reason? Their low range. Tata said the Nexon XZ+’s 315-kilometer range was verified by the official Automotive Research Association of India. But the actual range depends on factors such as air conditioning, “individual driving style and the conditions in which the vehicle is driven,” the company said in a statement. The EV market has been growing at an annual rate of 20% and is dominated by five major players: Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., MG Motor India, Olectra Greentech Ltd. and JBM Auto Ltd. Startups also are joining the fray. Local automakers have been slow to get into making EVs and their parts, largely because of a lack of demand. Those that have jumped in mostly rely on cheap imports that have added to complaints over poor quality. Last year, India raised tariffs on imports of EVs and their parts, including all-important and expensive lithium-ion batteries. That and other policies are aimed at encouraging domestic production, raising quality and bringing prices down to the level of conventional autos. Some companies, both domestic and foreign, have taken heed and dozens of projects are in the pipeline. Tata plans a $54 million lithium-ion production facility in the Indian state of Gujarat. Japan’s Toshiba-Denzo-Suzuki has set up a factory in the western state of Gujarat, an auto manufacturing hub, to make lithium-ion batteries for Maruti Suzuki and Suzuki motor plants. Elon Musk recently announced Tesla plans to set up an EV factory in southern India. Moushumi Mohanty, head of electric mobility at the Centre for Science and Environment, a nonprofit focused on sustainable development, says the lack of charging stations remains a big hurdle. “For the supply side to work, the government will have to formulate a standardized regulatory framework to monitor the quality of technology and safety parameters,” Mohanty added. India has been striving to follow the lead of the U.S., Japan, and China in building up its auto industry, which already employs more than 35 million people, directly or indirectly, and contributes more than 7% to the country’s gross domestic product. To help repair damage from the pandemic, the country’s leaders are aiming to double exports of vehicles and components in the next five years. The effort to ramp up EV use is part of a global trend. Sales of such vehicles rose 40% in 2019 from a year earlier to account for 2.6% of worldwide car sales, or about 1% of all vehicles, according to the International Energy Agency. But for the foreseeable future, India’s EV market will likely remain the domain of electric scooters and rickshaws, which cost $1,200 to $3,680 and like passenger cars need charging facilities. Ashok Kumar switched to driving an electric rickshaw taxi from working at a printing press three years ago, after hearing the New Delhi government was offering subsidies. However, he never got the promised rebate on his $1,770 electric rickshaw. Kumar sets out each day acutely aware that he has just until lunchtime to earn as much as he can. Then he has to rush home to charge his vehicle.

In drought-prone Marathwada, solar-powered water pumps are a mixed blessing

Loopholes and improper implementation of the solar water pump scheme might harm the environment further. Beed, Maharashtra: Government schemes to solve big problems like water scarcity are, naturally, only as good as their implementation on the ground. In 2019, the Maharashtra government announced the Mukhyamantri Saur Krushi Pump Yojana (MSKPY), to deploy one lakh off-grid solar-powered water pumps within three years. The pumps are also being counted towards a renewable energy target of 22 gigawatts (GW) by 2022 set for the state under the National Electricity Plan 2018. The pumps harness renewable energy, to draw water for agriculture in the daytime. Some villages in Maharashtra only get electricity at night, so the ability to run a water pump during the day is important to local farmers. VDO.AI “I don’t have to go to the farm at night to pump water (now)... There is no fear of getting electrocuted,” says Manisha Pawar, who owns and farms 2-acres in Kalsambhar, a village 59 km from the district headquarters at Beed. Pawar paid 10% of the cost - Rs16,570 - to have the solar-powered water pump installed on her farm in October 2020. Since then, she says, she’s been able to grow vegetables and millets (jowar) in addition to the Kharif crop and fodder she managed in the summer months before. Related stories Future of work: 6 things everyone needs to know about product management Ex-Amrut master distiller on what it takes to make great whisky Officers of the implementing agency, Mahavitaran (also known as MSEDCL), say that 61,069 solar pumps had been installed under the scheme as of December 3, 2020. More than half of them, 32078, in the drought-prone Marathwada region with an average rainfall of 700mm and groundwater below 400-500 ft, according to farmers and reports. Eligibility rules Under the MSKPY, farmers with an assured water source but without an electricity connection are eligible for the scheme. However, Bharat Kamble, PRO, MSECDL, explains that farmers in areas where the groundwater is already below 60 meters can’t qualify for the scheme as per Groundwater Survey and Development Agency (GSDA) rules. “We ask farmers whether the groundwater level is as per rule,” said Chandramani Mishra, a superintendent engineer of the renewable energy section of MSEDCL. “If he affirms, then only we give pumps. However, there is no mechanism to check groundwater level technically with equipment with MSEDCL,” he said. As of now, officials seem to be depending on farmers to know and correctly report the ground water level. “Farmers need to apply online. MSEDCL officials approve the applications if farmers are eligible as per rules. Farmers receive intimation on a mobile phone. Farmers have to choose the vendor of solar pumps from the list available online,” Mishra said. “There is no mechanism or rule to check how deep bore wells are dug up by farmers. Farmers in the forms fill that water level is in the limits as per rules,” Atul Deulgoankar, an environmental activist from Latur, said. According to Pintu Tangde, the sarpanch of Kalsambhar, Pawar's village, the groundwater table on her farm had receded to 400 feet at the time of getting the solar pump. If farmers continue to exploit groundwater, it will be depleted further... government should assess the regions to know how many pumps should be distributed in that area. - Pratha Jhawar, Centre for Science and Environment Additionally, bigger farmers have found ways to avail of the scheme too. Umesh Deshmukh, a farmer from Mirkhel, 40 km from its Taluka Parbhani, in Marathwada, has received a 3 HP pump under the scheme. “We have a total of 35 acres of land. We have divided it among five brothers, my father, wives of two brothers. Thus, technically we all are marginal farmers. Electricity connection is in the name of my father. We all applied for the pumps and we, fortunately, got selected,” Deshmukh said. “Our borewell is more than 250 ft deep,” he said. One meter is 3.3 feet. Still, there are advantages of the solar pumps for farmers. “Earlier, the electricity DP box would explode when the load was high,” Deshmukh said. “I don’t have to face such an issue with solar pump. I don’t have to go to farms at night to water the crops. This year, I have cultivated watermelon, ginger, and muskmelon in the summer and I am hopeful that I will get a good harvest and income,” he said. Experts speak Pratha Jhawar of the Centre for Science and Environment, Delhi, said, “Government, seeing the misery of farmers due to lack of water, gives away pumps to applicants. But if farmers continue to exploit groundwater, it will be depleted further. And solar pumps might not be useful in such a worst (case) scenario. Instead, the government should assess the areas/regions to know how many pumps should be distributed in that area,” she said. Maharashtra “has 1.5 crore farmers and the number of available pumps is only one lakh. How much power subsidy burden will decrease? Or how much pollution caused by diesel pumps will decrease?” another expert asked. Sarpanch Tangde of Kalsambhar village said: “Water level has already gone down to 400 ft in the village. We have to get water from a pond that is 4-5 km away.”

State-owned vaccine manufacturers sit idle as India scours for jabs: Report

While SII and Bharat Biotech, both private firms, struggle to meet India’s domestic requirement besides international obligations, the government is giving no job to seven public sector firms Presently, two private Indian vaccine manufacturers-- Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech -- are struggling to meet India’s domestic demand of 90 million doses every month besides their other contractual obligations. But they are producing about 70 million doses per month, which is considerably below the required quantity. ADVERTISING Shocking as it may be, the Narendra Modi government did not consider any of its own institutes for manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines, an investigative report by Down To Earth (DTE) magazine reveals. These include the Central Research Institute (CRI) in Himachal Pradesh; BCG Vaccine Laboratory (BCGVL), Pasteur Institute of India (PII) and HLL Biotech in Tamil Nadu; Bharat Immunologicals and Biologicals Corporation Limited, Uttar Pradesh; Haffkine Bio-Pharmaceutical Corporation Limited, Maharashtra; and Human Biologicals Institute, Telangana. The state-of-the-art Integrated Vaccine Complex based in Chengalpattu, Tamil Nadu has also been lying idle since its inauguration in 2016, says the report. It is clear by now that vaccination is the only way to combat the highly contagious coronavirus. And it is here that India is falling behind. There is crunch of vaccines across the country as Covid infections and deaths climb at maddening pace. Till the first week of April this year, India has managed to fully immunise barely 0.9 per cent of its adult population with double doses of the vaccine; another 12.7 million people have received a single dose. Reports of vaccine shortages have emerged from across the country including Odisha, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra among others. However, India has disbanded its public sector vaccine manufacturers to make way for private players, finds the DTE investigation. While in a belated move, on April 16, 2021 the government announced a plan to include three PSUs in the vaccine-making process, three major vaccine manufacturing units under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, which have the maximum expertise and capacity to produce vaccines, have not been included in this list, the report reveals. Even the Integrated Vaccine Complex was not included. The report says that on March 17, Maharashtra’s Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray had specifically asked Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a video-conferencing to allow the transfer of Covaxin technology to state-owned Haffkine Institute in Mumbai. The Centre has not yet given a go-ahead. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, India was the world leader in vaccine production. But presently, China and USA are manufacturing more Covid-19 vaccines than India. The DTE report suggests that India’s public sector needs a second chance. Government needs to put money into the public sector to ramp up their infrastructure and vaccine production. Nations the world over are realising that profit-driven private players might not be enough during the unprecedented crisis, the report says. “In India, the public sector should be revived to its full capacity with adequate support to strengthen its inherent strengths on expertise and skilled human resource,” Y. Madhavi, researcher at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research–National Institute of Science, Technology And Development Studies, is quoted as saying. The report also questions the government’s decision to identify only one company (Bharat Biotech) for technology transfer. “Involving more companies in manufacturing could have averted the shortage,” says Vibha Varshney, the lead investigator and writer of the magazine’s report. The three-part investigation also finds that most of the vaccines for the novel coronavirus disease through March 2021 were manufactured in China, followed by the United States, India, the European Union and the United Kingdom. Amongst them the US and UK have kept all their vaccines for domestic consumption. EU countries are sharing within themselves. India and China are the only countries exporting almost half of their vaccines to other nations, mostly those in the developing and underdeveloped world.

‘Ancient India harvested every drop of rain. We must restore this science’

Sunita Narain is director general of the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). Sharing her perspective with Times Evoke, she discusses ancient India’s incredible water harvesting systems — and why we must revive these: The water situation in India is a complex one — we have apparent scarcity. There are fears of running out of water and having wars over it — these are terrifying scenarios. But the fact also is, water is the world’s most replenishable resource — we don’t need to have scarcity. There’s enough for everyone. If there is a looming water scarcity, it’s because we are mismanaging a precious and life-saving resource. Water for thought We need to focus on management practices we must fix. CSE began researching India’s water conservation science in the early 1990s. A team of us were driving through the Rajasthan desert where we found these upside-down ‘flying saucers’ — it turned out to be an extremely clever water harvesting structure with an artificial catchment. Whatever rain fell was harvested and stored in an underground well. The science was incredible — one hectare of land could give you a million litres of water, even in Jaisalmer, which had the driest conditions of the world. The city itself had flourished despite receiving just 50 milimetres of rain in a year, thanks to harvesting every drop. Our book ‘Dying Wisdom’ then documented every region of India, pulling out the knowledge stored in the British Gazetteers of how each state had grown its own unique system of water harvesting, based on catching rain and community management. Ladakh had zings, the Himalayan region had guls, Bihar had its ahar payne, Meghalaya had bamboo drip irrigation, Kerala had water harvesting structures actually built into the Ghats while Tamil Nadu had cascade tanks. Every region valued its rain endowment. ‘Changing India’s agricultural patterns can solve water challenges’ This system fell apart when the British came to India. They didn’t understand this scientific diversity or community-based water management. They replaced this with canals and diversion systems — water was taken out of the hands of communities and given to bureaucracies to manage. Independent India repeated this and these ancient wisdoms declined. By the time we wrote our book, they seemed lost. But a turning point came after this research and today, with the MGNREGA program, many villages are rejuvenating water systems. Restoring this science widely would be a huge help because these systems knew how to live with nature’s excesses and its scarcities. 2 This science was a gentler way of coexisting with nature, as compared to the very masculine way of colonialism, which wanted to conquer nature. Consider Bihar, an endemically flood-prone region. Bihar had developed an amazing system of floodwater management — a British engineer called William Willcocks sent there during the Bengal Famine wrote how the British could do nothing better than to recreate this system. His advice was ignored but he was right. He found ‘kaani nadis’, channels to divert floodwater, spreading this widely across the land. During floods, people depended on this water for food — these lakes and ponds produced makhana or lotus seeds, fish and rice varieties growing above the water. ‘We’ve broken the water cycle — we must work with nature to ensure water security’ But, over time, these channels were seen to be a waste. They were given away for revenue first and then built over. This happened because our mindset changed to thinking, ‘We can tame the river’. The traditional thought was, we’d live with nature and even optimise its excesses like floods. The modern way was, no, we’d build embankments. We’d bind the river down. Today, those embankments have constricted silt — so, the riverbed is often higher than the surrounding areas, making floods even more intense. If we learn to respect nature, we can live with it. But we are working against nature today. I am not against big dams — but their value is smaller than the millions of water harvesting structures we could build everywhere. Once, Jodhpur had the extraordinary Padamsar and Ranisar lakes — the latter was inside the Jodhpur fort. TIMES EVOKE The hills behind the fort were the catchment which first brought water to Ranisar. This would get filled and then, the overflow would go to Padamsar, the lake of the people. The overflow of that would go to all the stepwells which were the groundwater recharge points across the city of Jodhpur. Now, we’ve destroyed that catchment of Jodhpur for mining and quarrying. So, the water harvesting potential has shrunk and Jodhpur depends today on water from the Rajasthan Canal which is very expensive because it has to be pumped over a long distance. This has deepened the cost, the unsustainability — and the crisis. The ecological rationality of these ancient Indian systems must be understood and blended with the challenges of today. The biggest crisis now is climate change. It will bring more rain with fewer numbers of rainy days — this means more flooding in cities. The only way to manage this is to increase the water harvesting potential of urban regions, with lakes, ponds and parks having such systems. Building this is quite simple. It requires you to plan for a pond and a catchment which must be kept clean. It makes you conscious of your local environment. And it requires community participation, from villages to RWAs. We must rebuild our relationship with water now. We can do this by respecting ancient India’s wisdom.

India's 'Solar Man' lights path out of poverty with clean power

KOLKATA, India – Since he was a child, Santipada Gon Chaudhuri had sought ways to help India’s rural poor, so when the electrical engineer was invited to visit a co-worker’s home in the Himalayan village of Herma in the early 1980s, he saw his chance. “I was appalled to see how local communities were living in darkness after sunset,” remembered Chaudhuri, 71, who then worked for the government in the northeastern state of Tripura. “Some used kerosene lamps, but even kerosene was not always easy to get. Since I had both the skill and position to try and provide power to them, it made me act,” he said. The villages of Tripura are located on tough, hilly terrain, where Chaudhuri realized it would be hard to put up power lines. “But they had solar energy in abundance,” he said in an interview. In 1983, he used government funding to install solar panels for 70 homes, as well as running a community television and water pump — the first time anyone in the hamlet had seen electric light. That small project sparked a career dedicated to bringing energy to people in impoverished, remote communities, a mission that earned Chaudhuri the moniker of India’s “Solar Man.” Today, more than 100 homes and businesses in Herma are lit by an updated solar energy system, allowing villagers to be more productive while reducing their use of expensive, polluting fuels like kerosene. “Life in the village would come to a complete standstill after sunset. But with light in our homes now, our children are studying until night,” said villager Sumoti Riyang, 33. “Shops and business establishments remain open in the evening. We can work more. All this is generating more income for us,” she said. In his Kolkata office, adorned with awards he has won since his first project nearly 40 years ago, Chaudhuri said he gets “great satisfaction” from seeing how solar power has changed lives in Herma, connecting residents to the modern world. Career of firsts Herma was the first tribal village in the country to gain access to solar power, and by 1989 Chaudhuri had led the installation of solar technology in nearly 40 villages across India’s northeastern states. Four years later, he developed India’s first centralized solar power station with a distribution network on Sagar Island in the Sundarbans, home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests, supplying 100 households through power lines. The project was considered a breakthrough at a time when solar technology “was largely confined to laboratories and prototypes”, said Samrat Sengupta of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit think tank. By 2000, more than 400,000 people in villages around the Sundarbans national park were using solar power, through a mix of mini-grids and domestic solar power systems. At the time, the area had the highest per-capita consumption of solar power in the world, Chaudhuri noted. The project earned him an Ashden Award, known as the “Green Oscars,” and the Euro Solar Award from Germany. In 2006, it also inspired India’s then-President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to invite Chaudhuri to design a captive solar unit for the presidential palace. “Chaudhuri’s work is a classic example of empowerment of indigenous communities through solar power,” said Arun Tripathi, director general of the National Institute of Solar Energy, an autonomous body under the renewable energy ministry. In 2009, Chaudhuri installed the country’s first grid-connected solar plant in West Bengal’s Jamuria village, a 2-megawatt (MW) project serving 5,000 families. This was lauded as an “environmental breakthrough” because, until then, solar power had been limited to remote areas without access to electricity, said CSE’s Sengupta. Jamuria was the first location to use solar to replace coal power in the grid, bringing clean energy into the mainstream, he said, noting it cut the amount of coal burned locally by 2,000 kilograms per hour and decreased carbon emissions. Floating solar Sengupta and others said Chaudhuri’s work helped pave the way for India’s National Solar Mission, launched in 2010. The initiative, on which Chaudhuri consulted, had an initial target of producing 20 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. Having already nearly doubled that ahead of time, India has set a new goal of 100 gigawatts. But as its solar power expansion has gained pace, a growing population and increasing urbanization have made finding enough land for big projects more difficult. In response, Chaudhuri came up with India’s first floating solar power station. In 2014, after joining the nonprofit NB Institute for Rural Technology, which he now heads, he led construction of an experimental 10-kilowatt government-funded floating solar panel on a lake in Kolkata’s New Town. “Designing the floating structure of the panel and anchoring it in the water body were major challenges,” he said. That project grew into a national program that now generates more than 1,700 megawatts of solar power from floating panels in various coastal states around the country. Despite its progress, India’s solar push has some limitations including high capital costs, scarcity of land and the need for sunny weather, said Partha S. Bhattacharyya, former chairman of Coal India Limited, the world’s largest coal producer, which is also investing in solar energy projects. “Thermal (coal) power is reliable and consistent, due to greater grid stability,” he added. Chaudhuri and his team are currently experimenting with solar-powered pumps that push water up to a higher storage reservoir that can then generate hydro-electricity using micro turbines, supplying villages when needed. “The very concept of solar power has changed from simply providing lights to controlling carbon emissions,” Chaudhuri said. “It is time that we seriously think about how to leave behind a more livable world for future generations.”

Forest fires mount in Indian Himalayan state and climate change blamed

It is not summer yet but Mr Steve Diederichs, who is originally from South Africa, and his colleagues have already battled four forest fires around their farm in Marrora in the northern Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand in the last few weeks. They have done so with little else other than leafy branches, which they use to beat the fires, and rakes to clear biomass, such as flammable pine needles, to stop the blaze from spreading. The last fire they had to battle began on the night of April 10. The fire was raging on a hill above their farm and there was little they could do to fight it at that steep elevation. "It was disappointing," said Mr Diederichs. "Just the previous week, we had controlled a fire and we thought we were done. So to see one again was frustrating and soul-destroying." At the crack of dawn the next day, he and his colleagues set out again to fight the fire that had descended, spending more than 12 hours battling it with several forest guards. This has been a recurring nightmare for many in Uttarakhand in the last few weeks, as wildfires rage across the state that has around 67 per cent of its area covered with forests. More than 2,000 forest fire incidents have been reported in the state in 2021, killing eight people and affecting more than 2,794ha. Even Nepal has reported a recent worrying spread of wildfires, reported to be the worst in a decade which have left the capital Kathmandu shrouded by smog. Soaring pre-summer temperatures and an acute deficit in precipitation have contributed to the Uttarakhand forest fires, already said to be the worst since 2016. The state received only 10.9mm of rainfall from January to March this year against the usual 54.9mm for this period, a shortfall of around 80 per cent. Get exclusive insights into Asia ST Asian Insider newsletter helps you stay ahead of developments in the fast-changing region Sign up By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions. "If there ever has to be a watershed moment in the history of Uttarakhand wildfires, it should be 2021 because it is safe to assume we will most likely cross the maximum record of hectares lost due to forest fires," said Mr Anoop Nautiyal, the founder of Social Development for Communities Foundation, a Dehradun-based think tank. More than 4,800ha was destroyed in 2004. The impact of these fires is more devastating because the fragile Himalayan ecosystem is home to many endangered species and these fires result in black carbon deposits that accelerate glacial melt. Uttarakhand's "fire season" begins usually around mid-February and lasts until June, when the monsoon sets in. With its peak - around mid-May - yet to come, locals as well as the authorities are worried. "While there is not much left to burn around the farm now, we are concerned that over the course of the next few months, if it does not rain, the dry matter that gathers will become fuel for the next fire," said Ms Divya Chowfin, who is married to Mr Diederichs and co-founded Himalayan Haat, a social enterprise that sells local produce from their farm. While there are no "major fires" currently in his division, Mr Koko Rose, the divisional forest officer for the Tehri Forest Division in Uttarakhand, told The Straits Times that they are "still apprehensive because the monsoons are about two months away". A major blaze was put out in Tehri Garhwal district this week. "Due to higher temperature and very little winter precipitation this year, there is a state of extreme dryness," he said, adding that strong winds and the hilly terrain had made the job of putting out fires more difficult. These fires are widely suspected to be man-made, often sparked by crop-stubble burning and wind conditions that fan and spread the flames farther. National Disaster Response Force personnel as well as Indian Air force helicopters have been marshalled to douse the flames, reinforcing attempts by locals and forest guards in Uttarakhand. The state witnessed fires as early as October last year for the first time, with blazes reported through the winter season because of less rainfall, a phenomenon which many experts see as a possible manifestation of climate change. "The winter wildfire was a clear precursor of what lay ahead," said Mr Nautiyal. These fires are widely suspected to be man-made. PHOTO: DIVYA CHOWFIN Yet, he added, the state's forest department had failed to act on this early warning and generate public awareness in time about the impending forest fire season, including by investing in and getting local forest councils involved in preempting wildfires. "This is nothing else but a tragic and classic case of widespread systemic failure, aggravated by public apathy towards preserving forests," Mr Nautiyal told ST. The forest guard corps in the state, which comprises the front-line defence against wildfires, is also severely understaffed. It's sanctioned strength is 3,650 but only 1,552 of these posts are filled. . This prompted the High Court of Uttarakhand to direct the state government last week to fill the vacancies. Locals have been engaged, in the meantime, as "fire watchers" to tide over the manpower crunch and they work under the supervision of the forest guards. The blazes have also drawn attention to the absence of real-time air quality monitoring in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, another state vulnerable to forest fires. Each state has about the same area as the National Capital Region (NCR), which includes Delhi, but neither has a real-time air quality monitor. The NCR has more than 80. Mr Avikal Somvanshi, who manages the Sustainable Cities Programme for the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment, said real-time air quality monitoring that generates pollution data for public use is important not just as part of an early-warning system for forest fires but also for larger public awareness and action. "These fires have been burning since October, but because these fires do not reach major cities, people do not take much interest," he told ST. "Having real-time pollution data is actually a good tool to get the public take interest in this issue and force authorities to take quick action and be more accountable for it."

India's 'Solar Man' lights path out of poverty with clean power

Since he was a child, Santipada Gon Chaudhuri had sought ways to help India’s rural poor, so when the electrical engineer was invited to visit a co-worker’s home in the Himalayan village of Herma in the early 1980s, he saw his chance. “I was appalled to see how `local communities were living in darkness after sunset,” remembered Chaudhuri, 71, who then worked for the government in the northeastern state of Tripura. “Some used kerosene lamps, but even kerosene was not always easy to get. Since I had both the skill and position to try and provide power to them, it made me act,” he said. The villages of Tripura are located on tough, hilly terrain, where Chaudhuri realised it would be hard to put up power lines. “But they had solar energy in abundance,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview. In 1983, he used government funding to install solar panels for 70 homes, as well as running a community television and water pump - the first time anyone in the hamlet had seen electric light. That small project sparked a career dedicated to bringing energy to people in impoverished, remote communities, a mission that earned Chaudhuri the moniker of India’s “Solar Man”. Today, more than 100 homes and businesses in Herma are lit by an updated solar energy system, allowing villagers to be more productive while reducing their use of expensive, polluting fuels like kerosene. “Life in the village would come to a complete standstill after sunset. But with light in our homes now, our children are studying until night,” said villager Sumoti Riyang, 33. “Shops and business establishments remain open in the evening. We can work more. All this is generating more income for us,” she said. In his Kolkata office, adorned with awards he has won since his first project nearly 40 years ago, Chaudhuri said he gets “great satisfaction” from seeing how solar power has changed lives in Herma, connecting residents to the modern world. CAREER OF FIRSTS Herma was the first tribal village in the country to gain access to solar power, and by 1989 Chaudhuri had led the installation of solar technology in nearly 40 villages across India’s northeastern states. Four years later, he developed India’s first centralised solar power station with a distribution network on Sagar Island in the Sundarbans, home to one of the world’s largest mangrove forests, supplying 100 households through power lines. The project was considered a breakthrough at a time when solar technology “was largely confined to laboratories and prototypes”, said Samrat Sengupta of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit think-tank. By 2000, more than 400,000 people in villages around the Sundarbans national park were using solar power, through a mix of mini-grids and domestic solar-power systems. At the time, the area had the highest per-capita consumption of solar power in the world, Chaudhuri noted. The project earned him an Ashden Award, known as the “Green Oscars”, and the Euro Solar Award from Germany. In 2006, it also inspired India’s then-President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to invite Chaudhuri to design a captive solar unit for the presidential palace. “Chaudhuri’s work is a classic example of empowerment of indigenous communities through solar power,” said Arun Tripathi, director general of the National Institute of Solar Energy, an autonomous body under the renewable energy ministry. In 2009, Chaudhuri installed the country’s first grid-connected solar plant in West Bengal’s Jamuria village, a 2-megawatt (MW) project serving 5,000 families. This was lauded as an “environmental breakthrough” because, until then, solar power had been limited to remote areas without access to electricity, said CSE’s Sengupta. Jamuria was the first location to use solar to replace coal power in the grid, bringing clean energy into the mainstream, he said, noting it cut the amount of coal burned locally by 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds) per hour and decreased carbon emissions. FLOATING SOLAR Sengupta and others said Chaudhuri’s work helped pave the way for India’s National Solar Mission, launched in 2010. The initiative, on which Chaudhuri consulted, had an initial target of producing 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar power by 2022. Having already nearly doubled that ahead of time, India has set a new goal of 100GW. But as its solar power expansion has gained pace, a growing population and increasing urbanisation have made finding enough land for big projects more difficult. In response, Chaudhuri came up with India’s first floating solar power station. In 2014, after joining the nonprofit NB Institute for Rural Technology, which he now heads, he led construction of an experimental 10-kilowatt government-funded floating solar panel on a lake in Kolkata’s New Town. “Designing the floating structure of the panel and anchoring it in the water body were major challenges,” he said. That project grew into a national programme that now generates more than 1,700MW of solar power from floating panels in various coastal states around the country. Despite its progress, India’s solar push has some limitations including high capital costs, scarcity of land and the need for sunny weather, said Partha S. Bhattacharyya, former chairman of Coal India Limited, the world’s largest coal producer which is also investing in solar energy projects. “Thermal (coal) power is reliable and consistent, due to greater grid stability,” he added. Chaudhuri and his team are currently experimenting with solar-powered pumps that push water up to a higher storage reservoir that can then generate hydro-electricity using micro turbines, supplying villages when needed. “The very concept of solar power has changed from simply providing lights to controlling carbon emissions,” Chaudhuri said. “It is time that we seriously think about how to leave behind a more livable world for future generations.”

Why Delhi is currently witnessing the worst air quality since 2018

Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases in Delhi, the national capital faces another worrying situation as air pollution levels have also been on the rise. Amid a surge in Covid-19 cases in Delhi, the national capital faces another worrying situation as air pollution levels have also been on the rise. Delhi is currently witnessing the worst air quality since 2018, according to an analysis of air quality data of the last one and half months. The data shows that 2020 was one of the cleanest years in recent times. The nation-wide lockdown imposed on March 25, 2020, saw pollution levels in Delhi reducing drastically. As economic activities resumed post lockdown, the air quality started worsening. Data available through different pollution measuring stations from the capital, established by Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), provides a clear picture about the change in concentration of different pollutants. Particulate matters are the biggest contributors to Delhi pollution. The main reasons behind increase in concentration of PMs include vehicular emission, biomass burning for cooking, electricity generation, smoke released from industries, landfill fire, and episodic agricultural burning. AIR QUALITY COMPARISON OF 2020 AND 2021 If we compare the average of actual concentrations from all Delhi pollution measuring stations, the PM2.5 concentration in March 2020 was 60.2 µg/m3, while in March 2021, it jumped to 98.2 µg /m3. The average PM2.5 of March 2021 is 63 per cent higher compared to the corresponding period last year. If we take data of PM2.5 for April, pollution levels in the first week of the month was 120 per cent higher than the corresponding period in 2020. During this period, the average PM2.5 concentration was 91.2 µg /m3 in April 2021, compared to 41.6 µg /m3 in April 2020. If we take the average of PM2.5 of six weeks (March to April 9) of 2021, it shows a 78 per cent increase in comparison to last year. If we compare the concentration of larger particulate matter PM10, then a similar result can be found. The average concentration of PM10 in March 2020 was 130 µg /m3, while it was 257 µg /m3 in March 2021. WHAT DOES DIFFERENCE IN POLLUTION LEVEL MEAN? Anumita Roy Choudhary, Executive Director of Center for Science and Environment (CSE) and a well-known environmental scientist, explains the difference in pollution levels. "Pollution levels depend on too many factors, both natural and manmade. Last year during the last week of March we started a complete lockdown due to covid pandemic. As most of the vehicles were off road and industries were also shut down, we witnessed a remarkable improvement in air quality. That's why data for the first week of April has a wider gap in comparison to last year," Choudhary said. NATURAL CONDITIONS AFFECTING POLLUTION This year, even natural conditions remain unfavorable to control pollutants in Delhi-NCR. "This year the number of western disturbances were less and hence the conditions were mostly dry. Last year witnessed quite a few wet spells in the month of March. Apart from that the wind speed remained calm in the first half of March and when the wind speed is slow it is difficult to disburse the pollutants," said director of Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Kuldeep Srivastav.

CSE to hold webinar on Joe Biden’s climate summit

Emissions, negotiations ambition, impacts, scientific evidence... get a grip on the latest issues about climate change before US President Joe Biden’s climate summit of world leaders this April. The US President has invited 40 world leaders to a virtual climate summit on April 22-23 to underline the urgency that climate change is real. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend it. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has invited journalists, journalism students and climate change researchers for a detailed and comprehensive briefing to understand the issues and concerns that Biden's summit may put on the table. This is a free webinar, but there are limited seats, hence early registration is advised. Those who register will receive a confirmation from the CSE.

FEATURE-India's 'Solar Man' lights path out of poverty with clean power

Chaudhuri first brought solar energy to tribal villages in 1980s * Pioneered floating solar panels and grid-linked solar plants * India has about 40GW of solar capacity, aiming for 100GW by 2022 Since he was a child, Santipada Gon Chaudhuri had sought ways to help India's rural poor, so when the electrical engineer was invited to visit a co-worker's home in the Himalayan village of Herma in the early 1980s, he saw his chance. "I was appalled to see how local communities were living in darkness after sunset," remembered Chaudhuri, 71, who then worked for the government in the northeastern state of Tripura. "Some used kerosene lamps, but even kerosene was not always easy to get. Since I had both the skill and position to try and provide power to them, it made me act," he said. The villages of Tripura are located on tough, hilly terrain, where Chaudhuri realised it would be hard to put up power lines. "But they had solar energy in abundance," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview. In 1983, he used government funding to install solar panels for 70 homes, as well as running a community television and water pump - the first time anyone in the hamlet had seen electric light. That small project sparked a career dedicated to bringing energy to people in impoverished, remote communities, a mission that earned Chaudhuri the moniker of India's "Solar Man". Today, more than 100 homes and businesses in Herma are lit by an updated solar energy system, allowing villagers to be more productive while reducing their use of expensive, polluting fuels like kerosene. "Life in the village would come to a complete standstill after sunset. But with light in our homes now, our children are studying until night," said villager Sumoti Riyang, 33. "Shops and business establishments remain open in the evening. We can work more. All this is generating more income for us," she said. In his Kolkata office, adorned with awards he has won since his first project nearly 40 years ago, Chaudhuri said he gets "great satisfaction" from seeing how solar power has changed lives in Herma, connecting residents to the modern world. CAREER OF FIRSTS Herma was the first tribal village in the country to gain access to solar power, and by 1989 Chaudhuri had led the installation of solar technology in nearly 40 villages across India's northeastern states. Four years later, he developed India's first centralised solar power station with a distribution network on Sagar Island in the Sundarbans, home to one of the world's largest mangrove forests, supplying 100 households through power lines. The project was considered a breakthrough at a time when solar technology "was largely confined to laboratories and prototypes", said Samrat Sengupta of the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a nonprofit think-tank. By 2000, more than 400,000 people in villages around the Sundarbans national park were using solar power, through a mix of mini-grids and domestic solar-power systems. At the time, the area had the highest per-capita consumption of solar power in the world, Chaudhuri noted. The project earned him an Ashden Award, known as the "Green Oscars", and the Euro Solar Award from Germany. In 2006, it also inspired India's then-President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam to invite Chaudhuri to design a captive solar unit for the presidential palace. "Chaudhuri's work is a classic example of empowerment of indigenous communities through solar power," said Arun Tripathi, director general of the National Institute of Solar Energy, an autonomous body under the renewable energy ministry. In 2009, Chaudhuri installed the country's first grid-connected solar plant in West Bengal's Jamuria village, a 2-megawatt (MW) project serving 5,000 families. This was lauded as an "environmental breakthrough" because, until then, solar power had been limited to remote areas without access to electricity, said CSE's Sengupta. Jamuria was the first location to use solar to replace coal power in the grid, bringing clean energy into the mainstream, he said, noting it cut the amount of coal burned locally by 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds) per hour and decreased carbon emissions. FLOATING SOLAR Sengupta and others said Chaudhuri's work helped pave the way for India's National Solar Mission, launched in 2010. The initiative, on which Chaudhuri consulted, had an initial target of producing 20 gigawatts (GW) of solar power by 2022. Having already nearly doubled that ahead of time, India has set a new goal of 100GW. But as its solar power expansion has gained pace, a growing population and increasing urbanisation have made finding enough land for big projects more difficult. In response, Chaudhuri came up with India's first floating solar power station. In 2014, after joining the nonprofit NB Institute for Rural Technology, which he now heads, he led construction of an experimental 10-kilowatt government-funded floating solar panel on a lake in Kolkata's New Town. "Designing the floating structure of the panel and anchoring it in the water body were major challenges," he said. That project grew into a national programme that now generates more than 1,700MW of solar power from floating panels in various coastal states around the country. Despite its progress, India's solar push has some limitations including high capital costs, scarcity of land and the need for sunny weather, said Partha S. Bhattacharyya, former chairman of Coal India Limited, the world's largest coal producer which is also investing in solar energy projects. "Thermal (coal) power is reliable and consistent, due to greater grid stability," he added. Chaudhuri and his team are currently experimenting with solar-powered pumps that push water up to a higher storage reservoir that can then generate hydro-electricity using micro turbines, supplying villages when needed. "The very concept of solar power has changed from simply providing lights to controlling carbon emissions," Chaudhuri said. "It is time that we seriously think about how to leave behind a more livable world for future generations." (Reporting by Moushumi Basu, Editing by Jumana Farouky and Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live freely or fairly. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Managing plastic waste

The incorrect disposal of plastic and plastic packaging, which does not decompose, is a significant problem. Globally, 26 percent of the total volume of plastics used goes into packaging and only 14 percent of it is recycled. India generated an estimated 3.36 million tonnes per annum of plastic waste during 2018-19, as per the annual report for 2018-19 on Plastic Waste Management Rules by the Central Pollution Control Board. On an average, around 5.6 million tonnes per annum (TPA) of plastic waste is generated in India, which is about 15,342 tonnes per day (TPD). Around 70 percent of total plastic consumption in India is discarded as waste. Atin Biswas, programme director, municipal solid waste, Centre for Science and Environment based in Delhi, said it is difficult to predict what the share of the plastics used is for food packaging. And even when there are claims of a material being biodegradable, the question is how many years does it takes to biodegrade, he said, adding that humans are exposed to huge health risk because of ingesting micro plastics that makes its way into food. “We cannot go on producing something which is not recyclable. The India govt (MOEFCC) has indicated that it is planning to shut down establishments that produce single-use or multi-layer plastics. But we need a roadmap. Until we put a ban, the industry will not find any alternative,” said Biswas, adding that the new draft Plastic Waste Management rules, 2021 which was released recently, gives more clarity in this direction.

Not waiting for winters, want plan to cut pollution whole year: Gopal Rai

Rai, while addressing the conference digitally with experts, said the focus is upon formulating measures to reduce the air pollution in Delhi in future. NEW DELHI: A two day-long round table conference on air pollution was kicked off by Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on Monday. Rai, while addressing the conference digitally with experts, said the focus is upon formulating measures to reduce the air pollution in Delhi in future. This theme for the round table conference is “Measures to be taken to reduce air pollution in Delhi before winter 2021”. With an aim to prepare before the toxic winter arrives in the national capital that causes air pollution problems, the government wants a clear roadmap to deal with the situation. “Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s government does not wish to wait till September when the air pollution increases in Delhi; with the help of the experts, we want to create a long-term action plan to combat air pollution throughout the year,” Rai said. The minister added that the AAP government has taken several steps to combat air pollution wherein various reports have found significant improvement in Delhi’s air quality, but the government does not want to be satisfied with this much and wants more improvement. On the first day, the round table conference focused on the topics of soil or Road dust resuspension and its control, dust pollution due to Construction and Demolition activities and its control, regular pollution control and industrial pollution control. The key speakers were Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director, research and advocacy, Centre for science and environment, Mukesh Sharma of IIT Kanpur, Gufran Beig of Indian Institute Of Tropical Meteorology among others.

Dust and industrial pollution in focus at 2-day conference

New Delhi: A two-day long conference to prepare a plan on how to reduce air pollution in Delhi began on Monday. Experts from various organisations gave suggestions on measures to take before the winter, like focusing on minimising dust and industrial pollution. Officials said the Delhi government will prepare a long-term action plan for reducing air pollution based on the suggestions. Delhi environment minister Gopal Rai in the conference said that they do not want to wait till September when the air pollution increases in Delhi, but want to create a long-term action plan along with the help of experts. “We need to initiate action throughout the year. No one knows on how long the pandemic will continue and therefore, it is not feasible for us to wait it out,” he said. Rai further said, “We will have to parallel run environmental programmes to ensure that the AQI does not deteriorate any further. We want suggestions and feedback to create a positive, effective and popular environment plan for the city. We will continue this discussion on Tuesday to create a sustainable and effective action plan.” Thanking the participants, the minister requested them to submit their presentations so that they can study the matters thoroughly. The environment minister said Delhi government, under the leadership of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, has taken several steps like electric vehicles policy and tree transplantation policy, and many reports have found significant improvement in Delhi’s air quality. “However, we want more improvement,” he said Anumita Roychowdhury from Centre for Science and Environment, who was one of the participants in the meet, said, “This is an important initiative by the ministry to engage with a diverse group of stakeholders to identify priority action for air pollution mitigation in different sectors. We hope this initiative will be carried forward to formulate the next steps to clean up the capital’s air.”