Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Delhi Jal to Spend $646 Million to Modernize India Water

Delhi Jal Board, the main water supplier for India’s capital, plans to spend 40 billion rupees ($646 million) modernizing New Delhi’s treatment and distribution infrastructure, Chairman Debashree Mukherjee said.

The state-run utility will invest as much as 15 percent more in the financial year ending March 2014, or 40 billion rupees total, in new water works and upgrades compared with the year-earlier period, Mukherjee said today in India’s largest city. Metropolitan New Delhi has about 22 million residents.

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IMF favours removing energy subsidies to tackle climate change

Emphasising that climate change must be high on the priority list for all nations, the IMF has called for getting the pricing right and removing subsidies on energies that amounts to nearly USD 485 billion. 

"Climate change transcends time... If we do not deal with it in the short term, it will come to haunt us, our children and our grandchildren. This is an issue that we have to address constantly," IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said at a panel discussion here on climate change. 

Asserting that the climate change should be very high on the priority list of finance... Read more..

Buying fixed amount of hydro power may become mandatory

The government is considering making it mandatory for power distribution utilities to purchase a fixed amount of hydro power to reduce dependence on coal-fuelled electricity plants and improve the country’s energy security.

The proposal to introduce hydropower purchase obligations or HPOs aims to provide incentives similar to those extended to renewable energy, which require the signing of renewable purchase obligation, or RPOs. It would also provide a safety net for hydro power developers by guaranteeing the purchase of electricity... Read more..

Climate change talks: Who's looking at India's carbon budget plans & why is it important?

It was largely decided in the wee hours of the morning, after intense discussions, only a few hours before the report was released. Late last month, the Inter-governmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) meeting in Stockholm announced a carbon budget for the planet, a maximum amount of carbon dioxide the world can emit without inviting dangerous climate change. 

On the surface it seems like a simple correlation: human beings can emit only another 350 giga tonnes of carbon dioxide if the warming has to be within safe levels of 2... Read more..

India tops in priority to tap renewable energy potential: Bryson

John Bryson, former US secretary of Commerce and head of The Bryson Climate Initiative said that his top concern is to explore potential for adoption of renewable energy in India, China and Taiwan. At an interactive session on 'Renewable Energy and Climate Change' organized by CII in Bangalore on Monday, he said that energy efficiency, role of Green Building concepts and larger penetrations of renewable energy will boost economical growth also.

Aroon Raman, past chairman, CII Karnataka and managing director of Raman Fibre Science,... Read more..

Bihar's first-ever energy park soon

The Karbigahia thermal power station, now being used for dumping scrap, would be developed as the first ever 'Energy Park' in the state. The existing site has an imposing structure which would be developed as one of the finest city destination. CM Nitish Kumar would lay its foundation stone on Friday.

The site, located in the heart of the city, is near Patna Junction and Mithapur bus stand. Several new educational institutions like Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP) and Aryabhatta Knowledge University (AKU) have come... Read more..

Mega Trends Create Enormous Opportunities In The Environmental Sector In Asia Pacific

Urbanization, economic changes, connectivity and industry convergence are the top mega trends steering the environmental sector in Asia-Pacific. As a result, evolution in the trade of environmental goods, equipment, and services will lead to reinforced concepts in green jobs, carbon economy, investments, R&D, and technological development in the water, waste, and air pollution markets, and change the way businesses are run.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific Environmental Sector—Macro to Micro Implications of... Read more..

Now, domestic nuclear industry too protests against liability law

 Its not just the US, France and Russia that have a problem with India's nuclear liability law. The Indian nuclear industry has asked the department of atomic energy (DAE) that the provisions of the law should not apply to their supplies for nuclear reactors, marking the first clear domestic opposition to the law. Thus far, opposition has come largely from US companies and the Russian government. 

Sources said Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and DAE have acknowledged the opposition of Indian suppliers. No contract has been signed between NPCIL and Indian suppliers... Read more..

'Better post-harvest handling can help save 25 mt foodgrains'

An estimated 25 million tonnes of foodgrains, accounting for about a tenth of country’s output, could be saved from wastage if farmers are trained to adopt proper post-harvest management practices, a study has revealed.

The study “Value Addition in Agricultural Products in India,” carried out by industry body Assocham said if farmers are educated on how to handle post-harvest cleaning and grading, it would help avoid significant spillage and wastage at various points from farm-to-market yard.

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World Bank 'gambling assets' by investing in private water firms

Civil society groups are pressuring the World Bank to disinvest from private water companies, saying that privatising ownership and management of this natural resource has failed to improve access to clean drinking water.

The World Bank is subsidising private profiteering from an essential resource by lending public money to private corporations that manage or run water utilities but have failed to improve services, says Corporate Accountability International (CAI), a Boston-based advocacy group that focuses on corporate abuse and represents an international coalition of water... Read more..

Life of a mobile phone in india

The average life of a mobile device in India is eight years, perhaps the longest compared with anywhere in the world. How?

A majority of us are familiar with the front yard of the mobile landscape: the device, the design, the cost, the features, navigability, access and connectivity. Not unreasonably. We are living in a mobile age and our identification is mobile identities. In the race for mobility, the focus certainly is not on the backyard of the mobile ecosystem that has far many issues of concern to address.

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