What Am I

In continuation with my previous blog on the catch-22 situation of renewable energy companies in Andhra Pradesh, India, a probable radical solution as detailed below, may be explored by the Government of Andhra Pradesh. Renewable plants boast about their ability to serve the green agenda but are still dependent on subsidies and one of the subsidy being offered to them is the "must run" category. What if this "Must run" category is revoked. None of the plants would fall in the Merit Order Despatchability Curve and scheduling them will only be subject to the discretions of the DISCOM. While this would definitely send a wrong signal to the investors, but DISCOMs are unable to make good of any pending payments, and hence they might as well explore a legal way to get around.  And what happens when the MUST RUN category is revoked. There is no fixed/variable price component difference in Solar/Wind. 95% is a fixed cost component. Hence, technically the...

This is in the context of the recent attempts of Andhra Pradesh state Government, in India to renegotiate the PPAs of existing Solar/Wind assets. To give you a brief context, the previous Government encouraged renewable power installations in an attempt to encourage green power generation in the state inspite of the government's financial conditions in not such a great condition. The new Govt., came and alleges that the contracts with those renewable assets would be renegotiated as the Govt. cannot afford payments to those companies and also that the contracts were awarded only to a few companies that had alleged relationship with members of the previous regime. AP govt has been insisting upon renegotiating the PPAs that have been signed as it is unable to honour the high cost contracts, inspite of the recommendation from govt of India to not do so. Is there any merit in the approach by AP. Before we get into further analysis, if we take a peek into the ground reality...

Chinese foreign exchange reserves stand at $3.65 trillion. US foreign exchange reserves stand at $113 bn! Chinese debt stands at ~$5.2 trillion. US debt is ~$18.3 trillion! Yet, China choses to devalue its currency by more than 2% w.r.t USD! The devaluation raises some questions. The WTO norms seek for gradual removal of subsidies and also the other economic barriers surrounding any trade between nations. But isn’t the currency devaluation a form of subsidy being extended by the Chinese Govt. to its industries. Subsidies are generally extended in the form of tax exemptions, lower credit or moratorium periods or relaxed accounting guidelines. But an exchange based subsidy (Currency manipulation subsidy) is something that the Chinese Govt. is exploring, if not the first time, to its full potential. Why Can’t other countries chose to do so. Because most of the other countries have a mix of imports and exports and by de-valuating their currencies th...

Any one who has basic understanding of power plants would know that every equipment and the power plant as a total requires how much power to run. For example: a standard 270 MW plant would require so much, a super critical 800 MW boiler would burn so much coal etc. One wonders though why would the total consumption for a power plant change so much. As usual, the ambiguities come from one of Reliance for one of the largest power plants in the world (Sasan UMPP) Here is a brief history of the estimates given by Reliance on its expected coal consumption: In 2007, when Sasan was awarded to Reliance it initially quoted that it would require 16 mtpa (million tonnes per annum) to run its plant In 2007, Reliance quoted that it can mine 25 mtpa of coal from the mines it was awarded. This was 9 mtpa more than the requirement. As per the approved mine plant, Reliance was allowed to use 4 mtpa beyond the requirement of the plant In 2014, NDA government canc...

An enticing article written by Arundhati Roy in Outlook on Prof. Saibaba http://www.outlookindia.com/article/professor-pow/294265 Isn't it ironical that it's been an year that the person mentioned above has been in prison without bail and no charge sheet, whereas our beloved Salman Khan and of course the goddess of many, Ms. jayalalita are acquitted .. (Yeah, I got it .. Salman Khan isn't acquitted, but do you think he won't be!!) Oh, I forgot! Mr. Ramalingaraju is released on bail. ok, I will stop. I will not go down that route. I have no idea about Prof. Sai baba, but the way he is kept under prison is something that questions our ethos. But I also felt sad that I cannot stand up to him. I am also one amongst the millions, living and eventually dying in vain. I shouldn't be acquitted on my unbecoming attitude!! PS: Yes, I have started becoming conscious about my web foot print and hence the diplomatic undertone.

It is clear that Mr. Narendra Modi is the next PM candidate. And if all the dirty politics are kept away and if Mr. Gandhi remains the PM candidate, then in every likelihood the perception is that Mr. Narendra Modi will be the next PM. But, what if Mr. Gandhi is not nominated as the PM candidate? Then, who should that person be who can be nominated from the congress party that can stand the personality of Mr. Modi and has a cleaner image. In the recent past, while congress/ gandhi family has been running the show, the face of the nation i.e. the PM has always been an academician or a shrewd politician, which isn't the trait of the gandhi clan. Hence, even this time the PM candidate may be a person most likely with exemplary clean image and a well rounded and grounded personality. Imagine this! What if the next PM candidate from Congress party is Mr. Nandan Nilekani. He is amazing, excellent credentials and can appease all the youth. And, because he doesn't have the poli...

Leading retail chain Fart Mart has recently signed a deal worth more than $15 bn in India. The news was revealed in a press meet by Congress spokesperson Mr. Raj Babbar. This came after his remarks about Walmart that  “If Walmart has gone, more marts are there. They will come.” It was evident that congress already knew about the FartMart’s investments and hence were not concerned when WalMart said that they cannot procure the mandatory 30% from local small industries. The details of the MoU are yet to be revealed. FartMart is a world’s leading retail store with global supply chain in equipment that support farting. With a huge presence across the developed world, FartMart has recently  forayed  into the Asian space to adhere to the increased demand of farting from the various political groups across the nations. FartMart has agreed to adhere to the 30% norms of local procurement. In its press release FartMart has stated the following: "India has an esta...

I was hearing this famous rendition by Lata ji and the other elite club. ( Link to Youtube version ) I was suddenly awestruck at the Mukhda of the song " Man mohana " bade Jhuthe.. It made me question, who was the song addressed to? It is about "Man" .. the hindi equivalent of 'Heart". But it stuck me again that .. it no longer is intended at "man"...  I need to add "man mohana" .. which actually means dear heart. And then it stuck me again that, even that is incorrect... it actually meant " man mohan " a bade jhuthe... Haa .. I see now, you get it.. "Manmohan"a bade jhuthe.. The rendition was developed 50 years ago protesting against, our Prime minister Mr. Manmohan singh's silence on coal gate scandal, 2G scandal, Hydro power allocation scandal, CBI file read/modify scandal, Land allocation scandal, Chopper procurement scandal, ... ok ok I will stop!! What a song "man mohana" ...

Fucked up is probably the least thing to say, about the mentioned title's status in India! With the latest rape victim case just proving the case once again. So many rapes, gang rapes, blatant violations of the basic human rights .. sorry, I guess the word "human" is no longer relevant to our society. We are animals in a human form... not sure if even that sentence is correct. Every one understands that this is another story line, which will die out soon. Time and again, they keep happening, and now we are looking at some solutions to hasten the punishment process or the so called justice.  What justice are we referring to. What are the cases which actually have given justice in time to the petitioners in India.  The biggest problem behind rapes, gang-rapes or any crimes is the devastation of the legal infrastructure in India. All contracts can be violated, all crimes can be exempted, all criminals can be pardoned.. then what justice and what legal system...

To both Palestine and UN. Palestine for the survival and hard fought battle, and UN for finally standing upto the motto it was initially conceived of. The ramifications are yet to be seen,  and how is it that, such a thing has happened inspite of the strong  lobbying against it.. Guess, the pressure is on India and pakistan to take things forward... I haven't tracked the voting and was surprisingly happy hearing about it.. I guess, it is similar to the response that Israel got in 1940s when it was founded and formally accepted. With differences resolved, one way or the other .. may be and for once, may be we can co-exist. Congratulations again!!

Either you have sex and get pregnant or not have sex at all. Interesting stance that the so called forthcoming religion in the world has. ( Religious views on Contraception ) “This is a direct attack on religious liberty and will not stand in a Romney presidency,”.. so says the spokeswoman of Mitt Romney - the Republican  presidential candidate in US. ( And the reason she says so is to appease the conservative catholic Christians.) Another statistic (Source; NY times) is that 50% of the pregnancies in US are unwanted. And among those 40% end up in abortion. Going by this the 3 million addition to US population last year would have meant ~2 million children unwanted!! So, guess people cannot experiment with this fantasies to without getting pregnant. Not that every time one has sex she will get pregnant, but without emergency contraception or birth control pills, the population explosion would be unstoppable.  Even in India no political party has the co...

If only we were honest, to ensure sanity we should have stuck to 100 cents. Most of the socialist states, have tried to tweak the 100 cents barrier by re-defining their own benchmarks to a lesser number of 55 cents or another value. Confused!!! I am referring to the definition of Poverty line. While the 100 cents itself isn't accurate, but it probably provides some consistency across the world.  But to ensure that the government in power boasts about the economic growth, most countries have come up with their own version of Poverty line. With the divide between rich and poor increasing by the day, it was obvious that the poverty line had to be increased to ensure that people who are not reaping the benefits can actually get access to the welfare schemes. But instead countries like India, rather political parties like Congress have re-defined the poverty line to 64 cents , thereby trying to ensure that the welfare schemes are addressed only to the "Real Poor", but not ...

Did you know that there is a term called as roadology, which means the study of the impact of roads on the areas through which it passes!! Anyways, the article is about "what should be the optimum amount of badness of the road to have a better impact on the society" Did you ever wonder, what is the good thing about Indian roads. They are bad and filled with pot holes in most cases, and hence what good they can offer. On the contrary, I'd say the roads are good because they are bad!! While I understand how a good road helps in commercial transformation of the society, I somehow think that bad roads will do more justice to India than good roads. I am actually referring to the interior roads and not the highways. The potential benefits to be accrued due to bad roads are: A bad road would mean that the vehicles travelling on that road will get depreciated faster, making people purchase a car earlier.  Because of bad road, the traffic slows leading to the potential f...

I was going through the Europe debt crisis and came across the topic that "investors are scared" so many times and then I wondered who are these investors and how many are these investors who seem to determine the fate of the world economy. Effectively these select group of people are determining the fate of 6 billion people. If Gini index were to be made for the influence of people, then I am sure it would be almost close to zero... But, for dumb heads like me, who are these investors whose opinion seem to fluctuate every day. One day the sensex rises on the hope that the Greece debt bail out talks are holding up, and the second day they are scared to the extent that they dump all their shares. Is it so simple that the world economy takes a U-turn every second day? If I look back, the topic of recession appears because either the Dowzone index crashed or a group of investors think that something tragic is going to happen the very next moment. So, I was trying to identi...

While I have my opinion about it being good or bad, Supreme court in its latest decree has ordered that Salwa Judum is illegal. Infact in 2009 itself Supreme court gave its verdict of usage of arms in Salwa Judum is illegal. But it apparently has not stopped the state from supporting the cause. How many of us really came across this news about this latest Supreme court order, which was given couple of days ago. Hardly any news channel covered it (Except Hindu). Even NDTV, one of the most read online Indian news portal  mentioned that the verdict may hamper any anit-maoist efforts. Don't we understand the impact of this judgement. For the past 5 years Salwa Judum has been proclaimed as the first line of defence against the "ill-willed" Maoists. It has been stated as an initiative by the tribals against the oppression of maoist. Highly surprising, when the biggest oppressor has been the state and not the non-state elements. This first line of defence has been a major deterr...

In this particular blog, I do not know what stand should I take. The industry ( first cat ) or the normal junta in the society ( second cat ). While at one hand there is salwa judem which more or less is intended at the demise of the tribal culture and their rights, on the other hand we have industrialists who are forced to shell out so much money and are still not guaranteed of the benefits that they can reap. Let me start on a pro-capitalistic tone. Power plant developers have seen their worst nightmares come true in the last year. While they are banging their heads about how to overcome the fuel crisis to run the power plants, Govt. is running amuck with the licenses given to them. Billions of dollars worth of investments are lying idle or the progress is halted becuase Govt. has taken back the licenses that are earier given to the developers. On top of that Govt. wants 10% of the energy generated from power plants at free of cost to Govt. What nonsense!! If this is not sufficie...

I was travelling across some areas of Telangana region to assess the energy demand and the propensity of the consumers to switch to gas...I actually took this journey to get an idea on how is the situaion beyond the city limits.. I was happy to know that atleast till a stretch of almost 100 kms away from the main city, things are actually not that bad...there are very good roads, power lines are laid out to the interiors and no where did my mobile stop receiving signals...these are acheivements that I was surprised and indeed felt happy... and now the critic in me is back to the fora.. In an area which is some 50 kms from the city, there were lot of autos plying back and forth between two small towns...we wanted to check how many autos were there and that would be they be interested to convert to CNG based systems... I inquired with some autowallas about the same and I was shocked to know that within a distance of 30 kms, there are close to 1000 autos plying every day...!!!...

One person killed in Jaitapur case...and so the total count of people killed in police firing protesting against the power plants has reached 4 in the last one year..and the number of protests huge.. Though the apparent reasons from each place, the protests hang on the same principle that no one wants a power plant in their premises.. If no one wants to have a power plant near their premises, then where should a plant be kept... Recently another power plant's public hearing got disturbed because people complained that a 240 MW imported coal based power plant will cause cancer to them and hence they do not want the power plant. Why don't people say that we do not want power and energy. Because that alone can stop the crisis.. Moreover, I was wondering what is the role of the police in these power plants and why are the firing upon citizens whom they are supposed to protect...and even the police are as ignorant and as intelligent as the normal public is...so, don't they ...

The title means that "Proposition 23 is being debated in california State to suspend Assembly Bill 32" !! What big deal??one may ask Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32) was enacted in 2006 in the state of California to implement tighter regulations on green house gas emissions and hence more opportunities for renewable energy, incentives for R&D in that sector etc. It had a vision 2020 to reduce GHGs below a certain level. It also mandated 33% of electrical consumption from renewable energy sources. But now, due to the very high level of unemployment hovering around 12%, a new proposal (Proposition 23) will be voted next week, to suspend AB32 till the unemployment figures reduce below 5.5% for a continuous span of 4 quarters!! Note: Since 1970, the state of California had only 3 instances of continuous unemployment rate of less than 5.5% for a continuous span of 4 quarters... This proposal would ensure that California will have lesser regulations on green house gas emissions fo...

Its been a month since I've been bed ridden due to back pain, and god knows how many more weeks... I was wondering, if I can perform any activity for the coming months.. But, even in this helpless state..I became confident that if given a chance I can still win a medal in the CWG games.  I can represent any one of those nations, which thanks to Mr. Suresh kalmadi are not willing to send any participants.. And hey, did u hear what Mr. kalmadi had to say about participants opting out of the games..."these are all their excuses of ill preparation. They fear of bad performance and hence are opting out..". Well Mr. Kalmadi, Iam not well prepared but am definitely willing to participate.  I guess now, he would certainly call for a press conference quoting me as an example and blaming other athletes for not turning up. PS: I think I will commute from my friend's place in lajpat-nagar to the stadium instead of staying at the games village..!!