Time for India to become a top nation by per capita income

 

Photo by Sohel Patel: https://www.pexels.com/photo/50-indian-rupee-banknote-68912/

India has doubtless achieved a seminal milestone by surpassing its erstwhile colonial master, the UK to become the 5th largest economy in the world with a $4.1 trillion[1] GDP to its credit. It is all set to become the third largest economy after the U.S. and China overtaking Germany in the next three years and even touch $7 billion by 2030. India is also a formidable space and nuclear power right there at the top among the US, Europe, China and Russia. Considering that India was an impoverished nation with an almost non-existent industrial base and often required foreign help to feed its people at the time of independence, its growth is very impressive indeed.

But the constant tom tomming of the nation's arrival on the world stage as a global colossus is misplaced and shows us in a very poor light. It is all very well for a nation of 1.4 billion people to aggregate an annual income of $4.1 billion, but the real test of a nation's prosperity is its wealth ranking in terms of per capita income. With a per capita income of $2848, India ranks a poor 143rd out of 195 countries.[2] The corresponding figure for the UK in contrast stands at $51,070 placing it at a creditable 21st place worldwide. India also fares quite poorly on the Global World Hunger Index at 111 out of 125 countries, despite the green revolution and the massive subsidized distribution of food grain.

It does not behove a nation of India's standing, capability and expertise to have to bear the stigma of such basic and fundamental problems. There needs to be a reorientation of priorities to ensure that there is equitable distribution of wealth allowing India to rapidly ascend the rankings as soon as possible. If India can send probes to the Moon, Mars and the Sun and think of staging the Olympic Games, it can surely devise the means to make the country truly rich in real terms. It is all a question of realigning one's priorities. If a first-world country like Australia can pass on the opportunity to stage the much smaller Commonwealth games because it thought that its funds could be put to better use in serving its people, perhaps India could defer its grandiose aspirations till the time that it at least comes near a middle-income status.

---

[1] https://cleartax.in/s/world-gdp-ranking-list

[2] https://statisticstimes.com/economy/country/india-gdp-per-capita.php#google_vignette

Please don’t go about searching for extraterrestrial life!

 

Photo by Miriam Espacio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/two-alien-inside-car-wallpaper-365625/

Just read that NASA is planning to send a $5 billion probe to determine if there is extraterrestrial life on one of Jupiter's moons. Why do we do it? To me, it's like poking a bear in the eye or entering a lion's lair. Things are bad enough on Earth with survival of the fittest determining the success or otherwise of life on the planet. We have a goddamned food chain where the strong prey on the weak in order to thrive.  We can't even figure out corporate stress and here we are sending intergalactic probes and radio signals into deep space. Why do we do it?

Do we have a death wish? (Judging by the way that we are pushing artificial intelligence, it seems that we do.) Nature has endowed many plants, insects and animals with camouflaging ability that lets them merge with their surroundings so that their predators don't notice them. The militaries of the world similarly seek to camouflage their troops and equipment from the prying eyes of the enemy. There is a reason why fifth-generation aircraft need stealth abilities. We humans don't trust each other enough to live in harmony as one species and here we are boldly seeking extraterrestrial life. Why? Are we cuckoo? Do we look forward to enslavement, genocide or extinction? Or are we stupid enough to believe that a benevolent superior civilization will come and help us be like them?

One of the brightest human minds ever, Stephen Hawking, was of the view that searching for extraterrestrial life is a dangerous idea. He likened it to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the New World which led to the annihilation of the Native Americans. We don't have the foggiest idea about what extraterrestrial life is like, but if we are to hear from them, it will likely be from a life form that is vastly more advanced than ours for them to be able to communicate with us.

Going by how contact and interaction between a technologically advanced civilized and relatively primitive one has generally panned out in our world, things won't end well for life on Earth as we know it. It is better that we restrict our rendezvous with aliens and extraterrestrials to sci-fi and movies and television series. Logical Mr. Spock?

Is growing EV adoption really good for India?

Photo by Kindel Media: https://www.pexels.com/photo/ev-charger-in-california-usa-9800004/

 There is no doubt about the fact that EV adoption has taken off in India. The evidence of this is most prominently visible in the shape of e-rickshaws and electric two-wheelers that seem to be proliferating all around us. We also see a sizeable number of electric cars parked in Indian residential areas or moving around the roads of the larger cities of India. The EV sales in 2023 surpassed 1.5 million in 2023, a whopping 50% increase over the previous year. Overall EVs contributed to an already impressive 6.38% of India's total auto sales. [1]

All of this seemingly is in line with the nation's strategy of reducing the reliance on fossil fuels and contributing to the fight against environmental pollution. But is it really? While it is a fact that electric vehicles have no tail-pipe emissions, the source of the electricity being used to charge the batteries of these vehicles determines how much net pollution is caused by EVs. With coal accounting for 75% of the electricity produced in the country, [2]the increased use of electric vehicles may not actually contribute much to a cleaner environment.

Add to that the fact that electricity is heavily subsidized or even provided free to many in India's rural hinterland and you begin to create a problem for yourself. There is already a proliferation of demand for electric two-wheelers in the rural areas. Sensing opportunity in this fast-growing segment a large number of emerging entrepreneurs have entered the electric two-wheeler segment, pushing up the number of start-ups to over 150 from 54 in 202.  With the political parties of the day falling over each other in a race to provide the most subsidized or free power to rural areas, the environmental cost of coal-based generation is something that doesn't seem to have been taken into account.

Till the time that all EV charging stations source clean electricity produced using non-polluting renewable sources the unbridled expansion of electric mobility should receive a second look.  While electric cars by themselves are a lot more environmentally cleaner than internal combustion ones, one should also bear in mind the environmental problems associated with the materials (lithium) that go into the making of an electric car battery.

The growth of EVs in India is all very welcome but should be tempered with a lot of caution. Apart from ensuring that the vehicles are charged with clean electricity, an effort should also be made to encourage people to use public transport run using cleaner fuels like CNG. The growth in information technology has meant that people don't really need to commute as much as they used to in the past and the less people travel, the better it is for the environment. Till the time EV charging stations can boast to be 100% clean and green, ICE (Internal Combustion Engine) manufacturers can continue to refine their engines with regard to their producing fewer environmentally harmful emissions. The road to a green future is a long and arduous one and is anything but a linear journey.

---

[1] https://energy.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/power/indias-ev-sales-surge-to-1-5-million-in-2023-up-50-report/106971357#:~:text=adoption%20of%20EVs.-,

[2] https://www.coal.nic.in/en/major-statistics/generation-of-thermal-power-from-raw-coal#:~:text=In%20India%2C%20power%20is%20generated,of%20the%20total%20power%20generation.