Latest News
Most Popular on DTE Site
- Health ministry sets timeframe for keeping animals treated with antibiotics out of food chain
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- India's genome saviours
- Illegal GM cotton spreads across India
- Auroville’s alternative galaxy 2
- In celebration of biodiversity 5
- CSE volunteer barred from filming public hearing for Ultratech cement plant
- Chaos in the iron age 4
- Become iron woman, eat veggies
- Kicking up a stink 4
- Environment ministry wants to restore night traffic through Bandipur tiger reserve 52
- A green facade 44
- Diesel: when bad policy makes for toxic hell 38
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- What’s good insulation? 30
- How vulnerable are India's nuclear power plants to disaster 28
- Grand distraction called river interlinking 28
- Eat at your own risk 27
- Green energy takes toll on green cover 26
- Temporary solution, permanent jam 25
On Facebook
Kushal Pal Singh Yadav
Kushal Pal Singh Yadav
Articles by the Author
2012-8-15
About 40 kilometres from Delhi, in the bustling real estate market of Noida-Greater Noida, lies the biggest irony that the renewable energy industry faces. Indosolar, the country’s largest manufacturer of solar photovoltaic cells, has set up a 400 megawatt unit. Its entrance is slick and ultra-modern, typifying the product it manufactures. Stepping into the 28,000 square metre production unit, one is struck by the shimmering clean, futuristic and sleek production line, symbolic of the clean future that solar power promises.
Polysilicon wafers, the raw material, can be fed at the starting point. Solar cells, efficiently packed in boxes, can be collected at the end point. But none of this is happening. The production line stands still. One production line of Indosolar stopped making cells in January last year. The other was shut down a few months later in September. In fact, at present, 80 per cent of the country’s manufacturing capacity is shut.
Herein lies the irony. Why is India’s largest solar cell maker not producing at a time when the country is in the midst of implementing its most ambitious and arguably the world’s quickest solar energy mission?
The answer is simple, yet perplexing. “We have no orders,” says Rahul Gupta, who set up Indosolar in 2009. “We took the pains to get the most modern manufacturing units designed in Austria. Our in-house research and development increased the efficiency of our cells remarkably. As Rajasthan and Gujarat have gone into an overdrive and are installing hundreds of megawatts of solar energy, it should have been heydays for Indian manufacturers. Instead, there is bankruptcy, loan restructuring and pleas to the government for support against international competition,” he rues.
The sunshine industry, literally and figuratively, has been allowed to fade away. There are loopholes in the existing policies. While foreign manufacturers dump their products at dirt cheap prices in the country, domestic manufacturers are finding it hard to compete.
Kushal Pal Singh Yadav and Jonas Hamberg analyse what ails the country’s solar manufacturing industry and how it can be revived
2009-11-15
As Copenhagen nears, Obamas America sees new hope Yes, we can...dump climate multilateralism. In Bangkok, most developed countries joined the charge. Their methods jettison equity, peddle domestic actions and dangle carrots to break developing country unity. Some, like India, show signs of wavering. Kushal Pal Singh Yadav tracks negotiations in Bangkok
2006-6-30
"We may find in the long run that tinned food is a deadlier weapon than the machine-gun." -- George Orwell in his 1937 novel The Road to Wigan Pier
Seventy years down the line, Orwell could not have been more correct.
2003-12-15
Bhopal is a metaphor for disaster, industrial and human. It has been the object of much speculation and typically endless litigation. A case study in regulatory law, it could serve as wonderful proof in an argument to uphold the precautionary principle. Reams of paper -- research unpublished or not undertaken -- and crores of cash -- money unspent, or non-funding -- facilitate the entry of a new generation of the city's residents into the 21st century, and death by unknown illness
2010-7-31
EXIM Bank nearly denied funds to Reliance’s coal-fired plant
2009-11-15
As Copenhagen nears, Obamas America sees new hope Yes, we can...dump climate multilateralism. In Bangkok, most developed countries joined the charge. Their methods jettison equity, peddle domestic actions and dangle carrots to break developing country unity. Some, like India, show signs of wavering. Kushal Pal Singh Yadav tracks negotiations in Bangkok
2007-5-15
Book>>Windpower development in india edited by G M Pillai Wise, Pune 2007
2006-7-31
EU frames stringent rules against toxic chemicals
2006-7-31
Yet another white paper but little work on the ground
2006-7-31
Captive mines get green light
2006-2-28
Jim Knight, UK's minister for biodiversity, landscape and rural affairs, responds to Kushal Pal Singh Yadav's queries on the British government's intention in helping India tackle wildlife crime and illegal trade in wildlife
2005-7-15
Rajasthan police kills more farmers demanding water, this time in Tonk district
2004-6-30
Pesticides Action Network's report says Americans carry high pesticide levels in their bodies
2004-4-15
Sam Pitroda, regarded by many as the father of India’s telecom revolution, was in India recently for the Fourth Annual Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development. Kushal P S Yadav caught up with him
2004-3-31
In February, 100-odd people got together at the quaint little town of Baramati. All had a common goal: to exchange ideas on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for development. Tucked away in the heart of south Maharashtra's sugar belt, Baramati has, for four years now, played host to what is called the Baramati initiative on ICT and development. And for the first time the annual event had a theme: Connected for Development: Information Kiosks and Sustainability. "This is our annual pilgrimage," is how Akhtar Badshah describes it. Badshah is the president of Digital Partners, a US-based non-profit body and one of the co-organisers
2004-2-29
JPC report sets serious reform agenda on food safety, water security and public health
2004-2-29
The Joint Parliamentary Committee has finally delivered its verdict. Affirming that the Centre for Science and Environment's findings about the presence of pesticide residues in aerated water were correct, the panel dismissed as hot air soft drink manufacturers' claims that their products are safe
2003-12-31
The strong case against endosulfan just got stronger. Environmental Health Perspectives, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of international repute, has published the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health's damning research on the organochlorine pesticide in its December 2003 issue. Not only does this vindicate nioh, fresh doubts have also been cast on the integrity of the expert committee that had trashed the same study and pronounced endosulfan 'not guilty' in March this year
2003-10-31
September saw a slew of developments giving renewed impetus to the global movement against asbestos
2003-8-31
Cash-strapped Uttaranchal embarks on industrialisation. However, its policies are frightfully blind to green issues
2003-8-31
On August 1, 2003, Madhya Pradesh made a plea in the Supreme Court seeking a fund-generating mechanism for forest protection. Earlier, in June, Himachal Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh asked the Union government to provide them annual reimbursement amounting to Rs 200 crore and Rs 250 crore, respectively, for not being allowed to sell timber
2003-8-15
On June 16, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's exhortation to "implement the river conservation programme with a greater sense of urgency and commitment" was an allusive reference to the states' tardiness and cursoriness in executing sanctioned projects. What he mentioned even more obliquely was that the plan itself needed drastic course correction
2003-8-15
In a move that threatens to dislocate the lives of millions of Orissa's tribal people, the state government has decided to allow transfer of land in fifth schedule areas for mining and industrial operations. En route, it has interpreted the Supreme Court's landmark Samata judgement of 1997 to suit itself
2003-7-31
Sadly, preserving Taj Mahal appeared to be the last thing on the authorities' mind when they allowed land reclamation work to continue for six months on the dried-up Yamuna riverbed right in the monument's backyard. They may actually end up scripting its epitaph, because experts fear that the monsoon-ravaged new embankment could weaken the very foundations of the Taj
2003-7-31
In an unprecedented development, the members of a gram sabha in Himachal Pradesh exercised rights conferred on them under the fifth schedule of the Constitution and disallowed the Rs 7,759-crore Karcham Wangtoo Hydroelectric Power Project
2003-4-30
Good news for the ever manipulative pesticide industry: the Dubey committee -- a panel of experts set up by the Registration Committee of the Central Insecticides Board -- has concluded that endosulfan is not responsible for the health problems prevalent in Kasaragod district of Kerala. Inexplicably, endosulfan gets a clean chit despite a National Institute of Occupational Health study proving that it is the "causative factor" in the incidence of all crippling illnesses in the area
2003-4-15
The Jaipur bench of the Rajasthan High Court has ordered the relocation of Sanganer's polluting dyeing and printing units within a year. Failure to comply with the directive would result in their closure
2003-3-15
The CSE's recent expos has blown the lid off the bottled water industry's tall claims on the purity of its products. Simultaneously, it has brought to the surface a much larger problem: contamination of groundwater by pesticides
2003-2-28
India's road networking plan, one of the few projects that are progressing ahead of schedule, is flouting a number of environmental guidelines
2003-2-15
Tug-of-war between basic service providers (MTNL, Reliance, Tata) and cellular operators has intensified after wireless in local loop (WLL) launch
2002-12-15
Bioprocessing - the Indian leather industry braces itself for an environmental facelift
2002-11-15
Haryana's politics-mining nexus plays havoc with the environment
(Read full article)
2002-7-31
As the endosulfan controversy erupts afresh, the Kerala government finds itself in a tight spot
2002-4-15
As polluting asbestos units and illegal mining thrive amid lax laws, lakhs of workers become easy prey for dreaded diseases
2002-2-28
The Andhra Pradesh government is all set to purify Musi river, which has been given top priority under the National River Conservation plan, by dumping effluents
2002-1-15
Villagers around Tawa reservoir in Madhya Pradesh are finally allowed to retain fishing rights
2001-12-31
From imposing restrictions on harvesting of shark species to having second thoughts about them, the authorities seem utterly confused
2001-12-15
Andhra Pradesh is in choppy waters over a proposed ship breaking yard at Vodarevu
2001-11-15
As the Supreme Court cracks down on Agra's iron foundries, the begrimed Taj Mahal may finally breathe easy
2001-10-15
The Union government's ineptness in dealing with technology finds a new victim: Delhi's metro rail project
2001-9-30
Illegal smuggling of insects from the Himalaya comes into focus with the arrest of two Russians in Sikkim
2001-4-15
The de-sealing drive of the Delhi government is yet to take-off as a bureaucratic maze greets factory owners
2000-12-15
Mineral or drinking water? Government sets new standards to reorganise the bottled water industry
Is Narmada water being made to flow in Sabarmati not supplied to city of Ahmedabad? This has furthered the idea of river...
Hello,
I have been selling glass for commercial buildings talking about light, thermal/solar heat gain etc.etc..but I...
Dear Saxena ji,
Thank you for inquiry.
West facing windows can be a big source of heat, first measure which you...