Personal View

State is punishing clean energy to save inefficient and corrupt utilities Alok Tiwari By all accounts, Maharashtra’s solar train was chugging along nicely. With 18 GW of installed solar and wind energy capacity, it ranks third, behind only Rajasthan and Gujarat. It overtook Tamil Nadu last year. Its total renewable power capacity has increased nearly 160% in the last decade. The state now produces about 40 million units of electricity daily through renewable sources. The renewables constitute a third of total energy mix with plans to take it to over half by 2030 and two thirds in another 10 years. Then, suddenly Maharashtra started to apply brakes on solar generation. At least on some parts of it. While it remains supportive of pure play solar generation projects, it has stopped looking kindly at rooftop solar power. It has come up with several measures that seek to significantly increase cost for rooftop generators. The worst of these leave out small household installations fo...

Poll considerations, not empowerment, prompted delimitation and women’s bills Alok Tiwari Last week the opposition won a rare victory in parliament when it blocked the government’s bills to undertake a fresh delimitation exercise for the Lok Sabha and state assemblies and provide a 33% reservation for women in expanded houses. Had the move passed, it would have taken the Lok Sabha strength to 850 from the present 543. It would have also increased the strength of all state assemblies from the present just over 4,000 to over 6,000. The opposition had no problems with reserving one third of the seats for women. It saw red in linking the move with expanding the Lok Sabha and carrying out new delimitation process. That would have upset all political calculations. Southern states have long been against delimitation fearing losing political clout even more owing to relatively slower rate of population growth that they have achieved over the decades. They argued they have done better i...

The versatile singer made every era of music her own Alok Tiwari When someone lives to be 92, you kind of anticipate their passing. Not immediately, not tomorrow, maybe not for another decade if they are in good health. But it is something that can happen anytime. Yet, when Asha Bhosle passed into history last Sunday, it felt strangely remiss, like something that should not have happened. It even felt as if it could not happen. For a lot of us, her voice was like seasons, that was always around. From long before we were born. Perhaps, it was her longevity, or longevity of her career. She had been singing for nearly eight of her nine decades on this earth. Perhaps, it was the fact that she continued singing almost till the end. We could never call her a singer of yesteryears. Perhaps because she appeared to be the last link to a musical age that seems well and truly over. With her passing there is finality to that end. A handful of people from that era may still be around but it...

A series of bad faith moves has eroded credibility of election process Alok Tiwari It appears Bengal elections will go ahead with over 20 lakh voters who were in 2002 list excluded from the rolls this time. This is not a small number. Across the state, it can influence the outcome. Many close contests are decided by margins of less than a few thousand votes. This is being done on mere doubt raised by the election commission under the hotly contested Special Intensive Revision of rolls undertaken in the state just before the assembly elections. It is astounding that the supreme court has okayed this exclusion citing lack of time to decide on the voters’ appeals for inclusion. In doing so, the court has placed convenience of EC, the constitutional body most under suspicion, over constitutional right of the citizens. What happened to the principle of innocent until proved guilty principle? Court could have just as easily allowed them to vote in the election pending adjudication of t...

Banning liquor and meat smacks of intolerance more than social reforms Alok Tiwari This month Madhya Pradesh implemented a liquor sale ban in 19 cities, towns, and villages in a dramatic expansion of prohibition policy in the state. All these are Hindu pilgrim places and it is another step by chief minister Mohan Yadav to appease the Hindu sentiments. Having nothing much to show for by way of governance, Yadav has been resorting to such gimmicks pretty much like most other BJP chief ministers in the country. Earlier in his term, he had launched a drive targeting the meat shops, mostly belonging to Muslims, in the name of hygiene. Prohibition is certainly not new for the country. Large swathes have come under prohibition at various times only to be withdrawn eventually. However, it remains in place in significant pockets. Gujarat is one state that has been under prohibition for decades as a misguided and dishonest homage to Mahatma Gandhi. So has been Wardha district in Maharash...

After SC judgment in TN case, it is time to rethink need and role of the office Alok Tiwari After several years of nudging the state governors to behave, the supreme court last week finally cracked the whip. It ruled Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi’s recalcitrance on giving assent to bills passed by the state assembly was illegal. It invoked a rarely used provision to give assent to the pending bills itself. The court also set clear deadlines by which the governors ought to give assent to the bills. The apex court went a step further and set deadlines for the president to do the same. This was necessitated by the fact that governors referred bills to president as another delaying tactic. The hard SC intervention came after continued meddling by governors in the affairs of states run by parties other than ruling party at the centre. About a year and half ago the top court had warned the then Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit. It then asked the Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan to r...

There are better uses for money govt plans to spend on UDAN Alok Tiwari There is little doubt that India’s aviation sector is booming. FY 2025 saw nearly four crore people taking to the skies. The market is growing at over 8% each year, more than double the global average of about 3.5%. India’s airlines have about 1500 airliners on order. The sector contributes 1.5% to India’s GDP and employs more than 75 lakh people. It would, then, seem odd to trash a scheme designed to boost this sector. The reference here is to Ude Desh ka Aam Nagarik (UDAN) scheme, now in its fifth iteration, that has just got an allocation of Rs 28,800 crore from the central government, albeit to be spent over the next ten years. The scheme specifically aims to open newer routes for aviation sector by subsidising the tickets to an extent. These routes must link to smaller towns and cities or relatively remote and underserved areas like the northeast. In its latest avatar, it also aims to provide funding for...