1. In Rama Tirtha’s woods of God-Realisation
2. Regulation to end unethical marketing practices of pharma hanging fire for 10 years READ MORE
3. NO ONE IS SMALL in God’s scheme READ MORE

1. World’s leading financial institutions continue to bankroll deforestation READ MORE
2. In Thar desert, indigenous systems that help preserve water are fast vanishing READ MORE

1. How Direct Benefit Transfer scheme has transformed social welfare in India READ MORE
2. We can make India poverty-free, in our lifetime READ MORE
3. Less poor but hungrier: Two reports underline country’s complex problems READ MORE

1. Whose pleasure? The Constitution has no provision for a Governor to sack Ministers READ MORE
2. Clean it up more: Electoral bonds ensure white money donations but fall short of full transparency READ MORE
3. Need to free cops from clutches of politicians READ MORE
4. Electoral Bonds: Non-Transparent and Unaccountable READ MORE

(Newspapers, PIB and other important sources)

Prelim and Main

1. Japan seeks Geographical Indication tag for nihonshu, an alcoholic beverage READ MORE
2. Giraffes brought to India 150 years ago from Africa may be a critically endangered species READ MORE
3. International Solar Alliance approves funding facility READ MORE
4. S. returns 307 antiquities, valued at nearly $4 million, to India READ MORE
5. Dilip Mahalanabis: The ORS pioneer who helped save millions of lives READ MORE
6. Tussle in Kerala: Can Governor Khan dismiss a state minister? READ MORE
7. Govt hikes MSP of Rabi crops by 2-9%, lentils and mustard get better hike READ MORE

Main Exam

GS Paper- 1

1. World’s leading financial institutions continue to bankroll deforestation READ MORE
2. In Thar desert, indigenous systems that help preserve water are fast vanishing READ MORE

GS Paper- 2

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Whose pleasure? The Constitution has no provision for a Governor to sack Ministers READ MORE
2. Clean it up more: Electoral bonds ensure white money donations but fall short of full transparency READ MORE
3. Need to free cops from clutches of politicians READ MORE
4. Electoral Bonds: Non-Transparent and Unaccountable READ MORE

SOCIAL ISSUES

1. How Direct Benefit Transfer scheme has transformed social welfare in India READ MORE
2. We can make India poverty-free, in our lifetime READ MORE
3. Less poor but hungrier: Two reports underline country’s complex problems READ MORE

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES AND RELATIONS

1. Diplomacy Is India being abrasive with US? READ MORE
2. India-China War and unending security dilemma READ MORE

GS Paper- 3

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. India plays a crucial role in US semiconductor plans READ MORE
2. Insuring India: PM-JAY’s targeting problem READ MORE
3. Don’t blame Nirmala Sitharaman. India has a historical obsession with rupee value READ MORE
4. US-China tech rivalry will have spillover effects. India must hedge itself READ MORE

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. Paddy straw: A hurdle in the clean air dream READ MORE

GS Paper- 4

ETHICS EXAMPLES AND CASE STUDY

1. In Rama Tirtha’s woods of God-Realisation
2. Regulation to end unethical marketing practices of pharma hanging fire for 10 years READ MORE
3. NO ONE IS SMALL in God’s scheme READ MORE

Questions for the MAIN exam

1. Political parties are just representatives of the Indian people, but this is the Indian people, who are sovereign in India schemes like Electoral Bonds are making Indian democracy fragile. Discuss.
2. ‘Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity but an act of justice’. Analyse how philanthropy can be the catalyst for making make India a poverty-free country?

QUOTATIONS AND CAPTIONS

• Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
• Political parties are vehicles of representation for the Indian people –the Indian Constitution makes the Indian people sovereign and not political parties of Government –and the Electoral Bonds Scheme takes away the right of people to know about the information related to political parties.
• Governors seem to have an exaggerated notion of their own roles under the Constitution.
• Governor are expected to defend the Constitution and may use their powers to caution elected regimes against violating the Constitution, but this does not mean that they can use the absence of a time-frame for decision-making and the discretionary space given to them to function as a parallel power centre.
• An enabling policy regime, proactive government initiatives and supportive regulatory administration allowed the private and public sector entities in the financial sector to overcome longstanding challenges of exclusion of a large part of the population.
• Philanthropy can be the catalyst for innovation and action, while markets and governments can bring the much-needed scale to on-ground efforts.
• The US doesn’t have the people to help industry grow. That’s where India can step in, with its high-quality innovators and researchers.
• While there may be reasons to quibble over terms such as ‘hunger’ or ‘nutrition’, the upshot of the reports is that India still has the world’s largest number of poor and the highest number of malnourished children.
• Gene-editing has been a major scientific advancement, but the limits of such endeavours must be known as there are inherent dangers in doing so.
• Trust deficit mars Sino-India relations, as the tense Line of Actual Control poses a big challenge for the leadership.

ESSAY TOPIC

• Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.
• Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity but an act of justice.

50-WORD TALK

• The government can very well dismiss the findings on poverty and hunger made by international agencies, but its rejections lack credibility. The only way to convincingly counter such studies is by releasing official data. Endless delays in the publication of official data mean researchers are forced to use other sources.

Things to Remember:

• For prelims-related news try to understand the context of the news and relate with its concepts so that it will be easier for you to answer (or eliminate) from given options.
• Whenever any international place will be in news, you should do map work (marking those areas in maps and exploring other geographical locations nearby including mountains, rivers, etc. same applies to the national places.)
• For economy-related news (banking, agriculture, etc.) you should focus on terms and how these are related to various economic aspects, for example, if inflation has been mentioned, try to relate with prevailing price rises, shortage of essential supplies, banking rates, etc.
• For main exam-related topics, you should focus on the various dimensions of the given topic, the most important topics which occur frequently and are important from the mains point of view will be covered in ED.
• Try to use the given content in your answer. Regular use of this content will bring more enrichment to your writing.

[WpProQuiz 356]

THE CONTEXT: The progression to electric vehicles(EVs) is important for India because such vehicles are sustainable and profitable in the long term. Reducing dependence on crude oil will save the government money, reduce carbon emissions, and build domestic energy independence. Besides being an economically and environmentally viable option, India’s transition to electric vehicles will allow us to fine-tune our infrastructure.

THE TRANSITION TOWARDS ELECTRIC MOBILITY

The transition towards electric mobility offers India not only an opportunity to improve efficiency and transform the transport sector but also addresses several issues that the country is currently grappling with. The concerns regarding energy security and rising current account deficit (CAD) on account of rising fossil fuel imports can be addressed with the uptake of electric mobility.

India is a power surplus country and is currently witnessing lower plant load factors due to lower capacity utilization. As per the conservative estimates, demand from electric vehicles (EV) could greatly improve the utilization factor of underutilized power plants, as charging pattern of EV users is considered to coincide with power demand during the non-peak hours in the country.

India has a clear intention of multiplying its generation from renewable energy (RE) sources which are inherently intermittent. Several reports suggest that EVs can complement the intermittent nature of power generated from RE by absorbing power at off-peak hours. The batteries in EVs can act as ancillary services for the proliferation of distributed generation resources (DER).

Apart from supporting RE generation, EVs with feasible vehicle to grid technology can act as a dynamic storage media and can enhance the grid resilience through ancillary market. This can reduce the burden of exchequer to create static energy storage systems, especially in distribution networks, to support proliferation of grid-connected roof top solar and DERs.

ELECTRIC MOBILITY INITIATIVES IN INDIA

Electric mobility initiatives in India, initially, were led by the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises (MoHIPE) who launched the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) in 2013 and Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME India) in 2015. Over the years, identifying cross-sectoral complex linkages of electric mobility and achieving a multi-stakeholder development NITI-Aayog was mandated to anchor and coordinate the Electric mobility efforts in India.

Coordinated efforts resulted in six key facilitative initiatives, namely, FAME II, Urban facilitation, power sector facilitation, evolving tax regime, public private alliances and demand aggregation, which are attributed for the development of electric mobility in India.

The FAME India Scheme

• The FAME India Scheme is aimed at incentivizing all vehicle segments.

Two phases of the scheme:

1. Phase I: started in 2015 and was completed on 31st March, 2019
2. Phase II: started from April, 2019, will be completed by 31st March, 2022

• The scheme covers Hybrid & Electric technologies like Mild Hybrid, Strong Hybrid, Plug in Hybrid & Battery Electric Vehicles.
• Monitoring Authority: Department of Heavy Industries, the Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

Fame India Scheme has four focus Areas:

1. Technology development
2.  Demand Creation
3.  Pilot Projects
4.  Charging Infrastructure

Objectives of FAME Scheme:

• Encourage faster adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles by way of offering upfront Incentive on purchase of Electric vehicles.
• Establish a necessary charging Infrastructure for electric vehicles.
• To address the issue of environmental pollution and fuel security.

SHIFTING ENERGY RESOURCES FROM MIDDLE EAST TO LATIN AMERICA

The government has allocated $1.3 billion in incentives for electric buses, three-wheelers and four-wheelers to be used for commercial purposes till 2022, and earmarked another $135 million for charging stations. Besides these incentives, a proposal for a $4.6 billion subsidy for battery makers has also been proposed by the NITI Aayog.

These policies are embedded with the vision to have 30% electric vehicles plying the roads by 2030. In September 2019, Japanese automobile major Suzuki Motor formed a consortium with Japanese automotive component manufacturer Denso and multinational conglomerate Toshiba to set up a manufacturing unit in Gujarat to venture into the production of lithium-ion batteries and electrodes.

Developing domestic battery manufacturing capacity may fundamentally change India’s relationship with resource-rich Latin America as the government plans to buy overseas lithium reserves.

India’s energy security dependence will shift from West Asia to Latin America. India imported 228.6 MT of crude oil worth $120 billion in 2018–19, which made it the third-largest oil importer in the world in terms of value.

Lithium triangle

Latin America’s famous lithium triangle that encompasses lithium deposits under the salt flats of northwest Argentina, northern Chile, and southwest Bolivia holds about 80% of the explored lithium of the world. In Latin America, most of the production comes from Argentina, Chile, and Bolivia.

At present, India’s lithium-ion battery demand is fulfilled by imports from China, Vietnam, and Hong Kong. In the last two years, India has had a growing appetite for lithium-ion batteries, and so, lithium imports have tripled from $384 mn to $1.2 bn.Notably, the government has intercepted this growing demand from its incipience. With its policy intervention to support battery manufacturers by supplying lithium and cobalt, this industry is more likely to grow domestically to support India’s goal to switch to electric mobility.

CHALLENGES FOR INDIA’S ELECTRIC MOBILITY INITIATIVES

Presently, India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but its increasing dependency on oil imports, rising environmental concerns and growing need for sustainable mobility solutions are posing serious economic and social challenges for the country. Some of these changes are following:

Rising crude oil imports –an energy security challenge

Since the early 2000, India’s crude oil imports have risen exponentially reaching a record high of 4.3mb/d in 2016. The demand for oil grew by 5.1% in 2016, higher than the world’s largest net importers, the US (0.7%) and China (2.9%), making India the world’s third largest crude oil consumer.

India’s crude oil deficits stood at US$52 billion in 2017 and accounted for almost 50% of the total trade deficit of US$109 billion. This crude oil deficit is further expected to almost double to US$100 billion against the total trade deficit of US$202 billion in 2019.

Rising pollution levels –An environmental challenge

India ranks as the third largest carbon emitting country in the world accounting for 6% of the global carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion. According to the WHO Global Air Pollution Database (2018), 14 out of the 20 most polluted cities of the world are in India.

Rising population –A sustainable mobility challenge

India’s current population of 1.2 billion is expected to reach 1.5 billion by 2030. Out of the 1.5 billion people, 40% of the population is expected to live in urban areas compared to 34% of 2018 population projection. The additional 6% population growth is likely to further add strain on the struggling urban infrastructure in the country, including a rise in demand for sustainable mobility solutions.

Evolving global automotive market –A manufacturing transition challenge

India is the world’s fourth largest producer of internal combustion engine (ICE) based automobiles. The growth in automotive market in India has been the highest in the world, growing at a rate of 9.5% in2017. The recent shift in global automotive technology and an increasing uptake in electric vehicles is likely to pose a challenge to the existing automotive market if the country does not plan its transition towards newer mobility solutions and develop the required manufacturing competencies.

ELECTRIC MOBILITY: A POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS FOR INDIA

In India, majority of the oil demand comes from the transport sector. The sector accounts for over 40% of the total oil consumption with around 90% of the demand arising from the road transport.

By 2020, 330 mt(million tons) of carbon emissions are expected to arise from the transportation sector, 90% of which may be from road transport alone.

The premier think tank of GoI, NITI Aayog (National Institution for Transforming India), reports that India can save 64% of anticipated passenger road-based and mobility-related energy demand and 37% of carbon emissions by 2030 if it pursues electric mobility in future.

This would probably result in an annual reduction of 156 MToE in diesel and petrol consumption for 2030, saving India INR3.9 lakh crores (or ~US$60 billion (at US$52/bbl of crude)).

The cumulative savings for the tenure 2017-2030 is expected to reach 876 MToE of savings for petrol and diesel, which totals to INR 22 lakh crores (or ~US$330 billion), and 1 gigaton for carbon-dioxide emissions.

WAY FORWARD:

The Indian market needs encouragement for indigenous technologies that are suited for India from both strategic and economic standpoint.

Since investment in local research and development is necessary to bring prices down, it makes sense to leverage local universities and existing industrial hubs.

Breaking away the old norms and establishing a new consumer behaviour is always a challenge. Thus, a lot of sensitization and education is needed, in order to bust several myths and promote EVs within the Indian market.

Subsidizing manufacturing for an electric supply chain will certainly improve the EV development in India. Along with charging infrastructure, the establishment of a robust supply chain will also be needed. Further, recycling stations for batteries will need to recover the metals from batteries used in electrification to create the closed-loop required for the shift to electric cars to be an environmentally-sound decision.

CONCLUSION:

Operationalizing mass transition to electric mobility for a country of 1.3 billion people is a great challenge. Thus, a strong common vision, an objective framework for comparing state policies and a platform for public-private collaboration are needed. In the present scenario, India must need to change its energy policy- from the Middle East to Latin America.