Monthly Archives: May 2023

2023: A Strange, Tumultuous Year in Sustainability

January 1, 2024Current Affairs, GENERAL STUDIES & GKPadho Leekho

2023: A Strange, Tumultuous Year in Sustainability

The year 2023 contained several important sustainability narratives and trends. The author outlines three key ones — the anti-ESG movement, China’s acceleration of a clean economy, and the rise of reporting regulations — and then suggests a series countervailing forces pushing against each. He also outlines several smaller stories that leaders need on their radar as well.

This was a rough year. The world’s biggest challenges generally got worse, or at least more complicated. Our biggest existential threat, climate change, is no longer a scientific model of the future; it’s now a relentless daily challenge. This year, yet again, heat records were shattered, wildfires and dangerous air spread over unprecedented areas, and flooding and storms destroyedthousands of lives. Even the (seemingly) world’s most powerful woman, Taylor Swift, had to postpone a concert in Brazil because of the heat. Scientists tell us that we’ve pushed the planet beyond its ability to support us in critical areas such as availability of water, biodiversity, and, of course, carbon emissions.

The good news is that even though we’re not moving fast enough, sustainability in business is mainstream — a must-do, not a nice-to-do. With both significant bad and good news, I’m frequently asked if I’m optimistic or pessimistic. I can’t answer that easily. The forces driving companies toward sustainability are relentless … yet we’re not doing enough and some powerful counter-pressures are in play. I see duality. As a society, we are winning (more companies doing more than ever) and losing (emissions and inequality still rising). As the clean economy grows, or human rights and equality get more attention, those who do not want these changes also work to slow progress. So, my core takeaway from the year is that there’s a yin-yang of interconnected, opposing forces.

So, let’s look at three themes in sustainability from 2023 that really dwarf other stories. One side of the tug-of-war generally has an advantage — and it leans toward more sustainability and more clean tech — but none of these trends were unobstructed.

1. The Anti-ESG Movement Plagues Companies

This was the biggest topic in sustainable business by far, even as we struggled to clearly define “ESG.” To me, ESG — which stands for environmental, social, and governance — is mostly a term used by the financial world to look at the risk to companies from environmental and social issues. It’s not the broader idea of sustainability, which covers the role of business in society and its contribution to a thriving world. But the terms got conflated, with ESG opponents using it as “a proxy for opposition to the spread of ‘liberal values,’” as the then-head of sustainability for the financial services firm Morningstar pointed out. Anti-ESG is an American creation, and it has a number of flavors, but I heard discussions of it all over the world.

It’s influence played out in a number of ways. Some companies and brands — like M&Ms, Target, and Bud Light — faced firestorms of protest for actions critics found too “woke,” and took heat for their often awkward responses. Most famously, the governor of Florida kept battling one of the world’s most beloved brands, Disney, over the company’s position on state laws targeting the LGBTQ+ community. CEO Bob Iger hit back, calling the attacks “anti-business” and thencancelled a $1 billion office development.

In response to a significant amount of talk in the media and amongst employees on these issues, many companies decided to go silent, embracing a sustainability word-of-the-year, “green hushing.”

On the other hand…

There’s been a bit of a waning of anti-woke rhetoric on the U.S presidential campaign trail, and the significant amount of noise does not seem to be derailing action. A Bloomberg Intelligence surveyfound that the “trend of increasing focus on ESG by both businesses and investors … appears to remain intact.” The report found that three quarters of executives think the benefits of ESG are worth the increased risk of scrutiny. Around 90% of investors felt ESG was mainstream, part of their fiduciary duty, and helped them make better decisions.

Some in the investment community even pushed back on anti-ESG laws — partly because, as one analysis concluded, those state laws could cost taxpayers $708 million. Banks are also making more money from loans and underwriting to clean energy than to fossil fuels. One memorable headline read, “Morgan Stanley Doubles Down on ESG Despite the Politics.”

Other coverage of company action found plenty continuing their work on sustainability, even in states that are hostile to it. For examples, South Carolina steel-maker Nucor is working to make low-carbon steel and set a goal for net zero across value chain by 2050.

The reality is that there wouldn’t be such powerful backlash if there weren’t real progress. On some level, it doesn’t matter too much if companies speak less as long as they continue to do the hard work of decarbonizing and tackling inequality. But it is a concern, as it might make it less likely they will work on the larger, systemic problems we need to solve. It’s hard to collaborate if you don’t talk. The silence should lessen. Some corporate leaders are just changing language — BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says he’ll stop using the “weaponized” term ESG (but the firm kept launching ESG funds).

2. China Leads the World to Clean Economy Tipping Points

The year in clean tech started with the amazing news that the world had spent more than $1 trillion on green tech, which topped investment in fossil fuels for the first time. And the International Energy Agency, which has been underestimating the growth of clean tech for decades, now sees the light, describing an “unstoppable” energy transition. Many regions and countries accelerated their efforts; for example, the EU is banning sales of new internal combustion engine cars by 2035 and calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels. And France banned short-haul domestic flights in favor of trains.

Great news all around. But it was China that blew everyone away. In what may be the single biggest sustainability headline of the year, China’s national oil company, Sinopec, said the country had reached peak gasoline demand (in part by radically increasing sales of EVs). Some analysts believe China may have peaked in total carbon emissions already. The country was on track to add 150 gigawatts of solar this year (versus adding 87 gigawatts in 2022), more than the total capacity in the U.S. And in a rare positive moment in U.S.-China relations, the countries agreed to ramp up renewables. If all the estimates are true, it’s a monumental and fundamental shift in global energy and transportation systems — which has enormous ripples for many gargantuan value chains. And it goes directly against the persistent myth that “China isn’t doing anything” on climate.

On the other hand…

As critics point out, China is permitting more coal plants, but this can get misconstrued. (People say to me that China is building two plants per week when, in reality, many don’t get built.) The new plants are much cleaner, it’s generally backup power, and China is also cancelling and shelving plants rapidly as well.

There are more important countervailing forces, including some indication that exponential growth rates of some techs, like solar, may slow in 2024 due to supply-chain issues. But more pressing is the swing toward conservative leaders globally, which generally correlates with being pro-fossil fuels and actively anti-renewables. For example, Mexico has been making renewables projects much harder and pushing fossil fuels. The UK retreated on some climate policies, like delaying a ban on combustion engines in cars to 2035.

And the global climate summit in Dubai, COP28, included the meeting president (and CEO of the UAE’s national oil company) sounding like a climate denier. Fossil fuel interests now dominate COP, and they’ve inserted into the discussions the language of “abated emissions” — i.e., you can keep burning fossil fuels if you can capture the carbon (a big if). The final language of the COP28 agreement seems to support a fossil fuel phase-out, but we’ll see. We’ve also seen some serious citizen pushback in a number of countries to policies that are perceived to raise the cost of living.

There’s also increasing concern about one aspect of the clean tech transition: There are problematic working conditions in the mining supply chain for clean-economy metals like lithium and cobalt. These are real concerns that should be addressed. The clean tech transition is necessary for our thriving and survival, but we must simultaneously address human rights issues that have plagued all forms of energy. As part of this work, the U.S. and EU are working to secure sourcing under better conditions, as well as sourcing more broadly than from just China.

Finally, I want to note the persistent myth that EVs are “just as bad” as (or worse than) fossil-fuel cars in terms of carbon emissions because of a) the energy needed to make a battery-powered vehicle, and b) the fact that it’s often plugged into a dirty grid. Yes, of course EVs have a footprint, but they are much more efficient users of energy and they are a key part of a systemic solution, including cleaning up the grid. This is a much longer conversation, but the short version is that the footprint of a combustion and oil-based transportation system is wildly higher than a battery and electricity-based one.

3. Rising Requirements and Regulations for Reporting

The biggest tactical discussion about sustainability in business is focused on reporting. It’s wonky and unsexy, but rising regulations covering “non-financial” reporting are creating a lot of work and stress for companies. Most of the attention is focused on the requirements measure and report on carbon emissions — both their own and, increasingly, their suppliers’ and customers’ as well (called “Scope 3” emissions). But these new rules also demand discussion of impacts on water, biodiversity, human rights, and more.

It’s a fundamental shift in what companies have to measure and disclose, and the EU is leading the charge. The European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) create new sustainability reporting obligations for an estimated 50,000 companies. Multinationals, even if headquartered outside the EU, realize they must prepare as well.

But the EU is just one player. In 2023, new laws in Canada and Germany, for example, will require that companies report on the emissions and targets for their supply chains. As a country, California would be the fifth largest economy in the world, so its two climate-related disclosure bills have an enormous impact. One bill, the Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, requires any company operating in the state (with more than $1 billion in revenue) to disclose their GHG emissions as well as Scope 3 emissions. Almost all of these new bills also hold companies to extensive standards of climate reporting, most notably the guidelines provided by the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD).

On the other hand…

These are laws, so they’re not exactly optional, but pushback, or at least some nuance, is growing. The alphabet soup of regulations and guidelines is not easy to navigate, so companies are raising important concerns about how, for example, they can gather Scope 3 data from suppliers that may not have it. Also, data and tracking are good things, but it’s possible that extensive reporting is getting in the way of real action by sucking the air out of the room. I’ve seen internal data from consultants that have surveyed sustainability executives on their priorities. In 2022, the top issue was integrating sustainability with strategy, which is what we want to see. Now, the top concern is about how to answer all the new requirements.

The way out of this morass is partly about dedicating enough resources. Companies need more people working on ESG and sustainability reporting. But in parallel, I also hear companies making the case that we shouldn’t seek perfection anyway — after all, precise Scope 3 data is going to be hard to come by (and actually non-existent further up supply chains — picture a small apparel company in China that does not have tracking systems on carbon emissions or human rights). Many aspects of financial statements are estimated today (for example, goodwill on the balance sheet), so some leeway on sustainability data should be expected.

A conservative-led quasi-rebellion against ESG, the continued explosion of clean tech, and the rise of new, detailed sustainability regulations — these are the big three stories of the year in corporate sustainability. Of course, many other things are going on. So, here’s a rapid-fire list of other areas that caught my attention and will likely become much bigger stories in the next year or two.

Emissions-heavy industries — the so-called “hard to abate” sectors like cement, steel, and aluminum — are starting to turn the ship. Extensive partnerships to develop low/no-carbon manufacturing technologies, growing commitments from buyers to guarantee revenue (like this “green steel” buying network), and new financing approaches (such as the Sustainable Aluminum Finance Framework) are proliferating.
Company positions on policycontinue to get scrutiny, as there’s a clear disconnect for many between their own big goals and what they, or their trade associations, lobby for.
Insurance companiesare starting to bail on places hit hard by climate-enhanced weather, like State Farm discontinuing new home insurance policies in California because of wildfires.
Consumers may finally become a force for sustainability. A fascinating McKinsey study shows that products with ESG claims on packaging experienced faster sales growth.
Engaging Gen Z stakeholders directly in sustainability and activism (versus leaving them to despair about their future; consider the shocking data on how more than half are not planning to have kids, in part because of climate change) is a rising topic. One cool example: Puma’s “Voices of a Re:Generation” program brought in some young influencers to help guide their sustainability thinking.
The value of nature — i.e., the many trillions of dollars of services it provides society and business, as well as our very existence — has always been hard to quantify precisely, but efforts continue. In 2023, we saw the development of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
Living wages, a critical element of fighting inequality (especially in supply chains), are unfortunately nearly nonexistent in large companies, according to a Just Capital study (but I remain optimistic that this is shifting).

In total, the tipping points are clear. But countries and companies are not on track to hit net zero targets as fast as science requires. The overall story remains one of a crooked path to inevitable change. A cleaner, more just economy and world is being born, but it’s not going to be smooth sailing. I remind myself that resistance is just a sign that sustainability is winning. Onward to 2024.

Source:- https://hbr.org/2023

The Dark Side of Solar Power

January 1, 2024GENERAL STUDIES & GK, News UpdatePadho Leekho

The Dark Side of Solar Power

Summary. Solar energy is a rapidly growing market, which should be good news for the environment. Unfortunately there’s a catch. The replacement rate of solar panels is faster than expected and given the current very high recycling costs, there’s a real danger that all..

It’s sunny times for solar power. In the U.S., home installations of solar panels have fully rebounded from the Covid slump, with analysts predicting more than 19 gigawatts of total capacity installed, compared to 13 gigawatts at the close of 2019. Over the next 10 years, that number may quadruple, according to industry research data. And that’s not even taking into consideration the further impact of possible new regulations and incentives launched by the green-friendly Biden administration.

Solar’s pandemic-proof performance is due in large part to the Solar Investment Tax Credit, which defrays 26% of solar-related expenses for all residential and commercial customers (just down from 30% during 2006–2019). After 2023, the tax credit will step down to a permanent 10% for commercial installers and will disappear entirely for home buyers. Therefore, sales of solar will probably burn even hotter in the coming months, as buyers race to cash in while they still can.

Tax subsidies are not the only reason for the solar explosion. The conversion efficiency of panels has improved by as much as 0.5% each year for the last 10 years, even as production costs (and thus prices) have sharply declined, thanks to several waves of manufacturing innovation mostly driven by industry-dominant Chinese panel producers. For the end consumer, this amounts to far lower up-front costs per kilowatt of energy generated.

This is all great news, not just for the industry but also for anyone who acknowledges the need to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for the sake of our planet’s future. But there’s a massive caveat that very few are talking about.

Panels, Panels Everywhere

Economic incentives are rapidly aligning to encourage customers to trade their existing panels for newer, cheaper, more efficient models. In an industry where circularity solutions such as recycling remain woefully inadequate, the sheer volume of discarded panels will soon pose a risk of existentially damaging proportions.

To be sure, this is not the story one gets from official industry and government sources. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)’s official projections assert that “large amounts of annual waste are anticipated by the early 2030s” and could total 78 million tonnes by the year 2050. That’s a staggering amount, undoubtedly. But with so many years to prepare, it describes a billion-dollar opportunity for recapture of valuable materials rather than a dire threat. The threat is hidden by the fact that IRENA’s predictions are premised upon customers keeping their panels in place for the entirety of their 30-year life cycle. They do not account for the possibility of widespread early replacement.

Our research does. Using real U.S. data, we modeled the incentives affecting consumers’ decisions whether to replace under various scenarios. We surmised that three variables were particularly salient in determining replacement decisions: installation price, compensation rate (i.e., the going rate for solar energy sold to the grid), and module efficiency. If the cost of trading up is low enough, and the efficiency and compensation rate are high enough, we posit that rational consumers will make the switch, regardless of whether their existing panels have lived out a full 30 years.

As an example, consider a hypothetical consumer (call her “Ms. Brown”) living in California who installed solar panels on her home in 2011. Theoretically, she could keep the panels in place for 30 years, i.e., until 2041. At the time of installation, the total cost was $40,800, 30% of which was tax deductible thanks to the Solar Investment Tax Credit. In 2011, Ms. Brown could expect to generate 12,000 kilowatts of energy through her solar panels, or roughly $2,100 worth of electricity. In each following year, the efficiency of her panel decreases by approximately one percent due to module degradation.

Now imagine that in the year 2026, halfway through the life cycle of her equipment, Ms. Brown starts to look at her solar options again. She’s heard the latest generation of panels are cheaper and more efficient — and when she does her homework, she finds that that is very much the case. Going by actual current projections, the Ms. Brown of 2026 will find that costs associated with buying and installing solar panels have fallen by 70% from where they were in 2011. Moreover, the new-generation panels will yield $2,800 in annual revenue, $700 more than her existing setup when it was new. All told, upgrading her panels now rather than waiting another 15 years will increase the net present value (NPV) of her solar rig by more than $3,000 in 2011 dollars. If Ms. Brown is a rational actor, she will opt for early replacement. And if she were especially shrewd in money matters, she would have come to that decision even sooner — our calculations for the Ms. Brown scenario show the replacement NPV overtaking that of panel retention starting in 2021.

If early replacements occur as predicted by our statistical model, they can produce 50 times more waste in just four years than IRENA anticipates. That figure translates to around 315,000 metric tonnes of waste, based on an estimate of 90 tonnes per MW weight-to-power ratio.

Alarming as they are, these stats may not do full justice to the crisis, as our analysis is restricted to residential installations. With commercial and industrial panels added to the picture, the scale of replacements could be much, much larger.

The High Cost of Solar Trash

The industry’s current circular capacity is woefully unprepared for the deluge of waste that is likely to come. The financial incentive to invest in recycling has never been very strong in solar. While panels contain small amounts of valuable materials such as silver, they are mostly made of glass, an extremely low-value material. The long life span of solar panels also serves to disincentivize innovation in this area.

As a result, solar’s production boom has left its recycling infrastructure in the dust. To give you some indication, First Solar is the sole U.S. panel manufacturer we know of with an up-and-running recycling initiative, which only applies to the company’s own products at a global capacity of two million panels per year. With the current capacity, it costs an estimated $20–$30 to recycle one panel. Sending that same panel to a landfill would cost a mere $1–$2.

The direct cost of recycling is only part of the end-of-life burden, however. Panels are delicate, bulky pieces of equipment usually installed on rooftops in the residential context. Specialized labor is required to detach and remove them, lest they shatter to smithereens before they make it onto the truck. In addition, some governments may classify solar panels as hazardous waste, due to the small amounts of heavy metals (cadmium, lead, etc.) they contain. This classification carries with it a string of expensive restrictions — hazardous waste can only be transported at designated times and via select routes, etc.

The totality of these unforeseen costs could crush industry competitiveness. If we plot future installations according to a logistic growth curve capped at 700 GW by 2050 (NREL’s estimated ceiling for the U.S. residential market) alongside the early-replacement curve, we see the volume of waste surpassing that of new installations by the year 2031. By 2035, discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times. In turn, this would catapult the LCOE (levelized cost of energy, a measure of the overall cost of an energy-producing asset over its lifetime) to four times the current projection. The economics of solar — so bright-seeming from the vantage point of 2021 — would darken quickly as the industry sinks under the weight of its own trash.

Who Pays the Bill?

It will almost certainly fall to regulators to decide who will bear the cleanup costs. As waste from the first wave of early replacements piles up in the next few years, the U.S. government — starting with the states, but surely escalating to the federal level — will introduce solar panel recycling legislation. Conceivably, future regulations in the U.S. will follow the model of the European Union’s WEEE Directive, a legal framework for the recycling and disposal of electronic waste throughout EU member states. The U.S. states that have enacted electronics-recycling legislation have mostly cleaved to the WEEE model. (The Directive was amended in 2014 to include solar panels.) In the EU, recycling responsibilities for past (historic) waste have been apportioned to manufacturers based on current market share.

A first step to forestalling disaster may be for solar panel producers to start lobbying for similar legislation in the United States immediately, instead of waiting for solar panels to start clogging landfills. In our experience drafting and implementing the revision of the original WEEE Directive in the late 2000s, we found one of the biggest challenges in those early years was assigning responsibility for the vast amount of accumulated waste generated by companies no longer in the electronics business (so-called orphan waste).

In the case of solar, the problem is made even thornier by new rules out of Beijing that shave subsidies for solar panel producers while increasing mandatory competitive bidding for new solar projects. In an industry dominated by Chinese players, this ramps up the uncertainty factor. With reduced support from the central government, it’s possible that some Chinese producers may fall out of the market. One of the reasons to push legislation now rather than later is to ensure that the responsibility for recycling the imminent first wave of waste is shared fairly by makers of the equipment concerned. If legislation comes too late, the remaining players may be forced to deal with the expensive mess that erstwhile Chinese producers left behind.

But first and foremost, the required solar panel recycling capacity has to be built, as part of a comprehensive end-of-life infrastructure also encompassing uninstallation, transportation, and (in the meantime) adequate storage facilities for solar waste. If even the most optimistic of our early-replacement forecasts are accurate, there may not be enough time for companies to accomplish this alone. Government subsidies are probably the only way to quickly develop capacity commensurate to the magnitude of the looming waste problem. Corporate lobbyists can make a convincing case for government intervention, centered on the idea that waste is a negative externality of the rapid innovation necessary for widespread adoption of new energy technologies such as solar. The cost of creating end-of-life infrastructure for solar, therefore, is an inescapable part of the R&D package that goes along with supporting green energy.

It’s Not Just Solar

The same problem is looming for other renewable-energy technologies. For example, barring a major increase in processing capability, experts expect that more than 720,000 tons worth of gargantuan wind-turbine blades will end up in U.S. landfills over the next 20 years. According to prevailing estimates, only five percent of electric-vehicle batteries are currently recycled — a lag that automakers are racing to rectify as sales figures for electric cars continue to rise as much as 40% year-on-year. The only essential difference between these green technologies and solar panels is that the latter doubles as a revenue-generating engine for the consumer. Two separate profit-seeking actors — panel producers and the end consumer — thus must be satisfied in order for adoption to occur at scale.

None of this should raise serious doubts about the future or necessity of renewables. The science is indisputable: Continuing to rely on fossil fuels to the extent we currently do will bequeath a damaged if not dying planet to future generations. Compared with all we stand to gain or lose, the four decades or so it will likely take for the economics of solar to stabilize to the point that consumers won’t feel compelled to cut short the life cycle of their panels seems decidedly small. But that lofty purpose doesn’t make the shift to renewable energy any easier in reality. Of all sectors, sustainable technology can least afford to be shortsighted about the waste it creates. A strategy for entering the circular economy is absolutely essential — and the sooner, the better.

Source:- https://hbr.org/2021

BJP win in 2024

January 1, 2024Current Affairs, GENERAL STUDIES & GK, News Update, PoliticsPadho Leekho

BJP win in India’s 2024 general election ‘almost an inevitability’

Concerns raised over what a third term for Narendra Modi would mean for the country amid rising Hindu-Muslim tension

India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has cut a confident figure in recent weeks. As his Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) swept three major state elections in December, Modi did not hold back from predicting that “this hat-trick has guaranteed the 2024 victory”.

It was a sign that with less than six months to go before the general election, in which Modi will be seeking a third term in power, campaign season has begun with gusto.

In India’s current political landscape, the consensus among political analysts is that a win for Modi and the BJP is the most plausible outcome.

The prime minister’s popularity as a political strongman, alongside the BJP’s Hindu nationalist agenda, continues to appeal to the large Hindu majority of the country, particularly in the populous Hindi belt of the north, resulting in the widespread persecution of Muslims.

At state and national level, the apparatus of the country has been skewed heavily towards the BJP since Modi was elected in 2014. He has been accused of overseeing an unprecedented consolidation of power, muzzling critical media, eroding the independence of the judiciary and all forms of parliamentary scrutiny and accountability and using government agencies to pursue and jail political opponents.

A shopkeeper displays rings with BJP and Indian National Congress party symbols. Photograph: Reuters

While regional opposition to the BJP is strong in pockets of south and east India, nationally it is seen as fragmented and weak.The main opposition Indian National Congress party won the state election in Telangana this month but is in power in only three states overall and is perceived as hierarchical and riddled with infighting.

The recently formed coalition of all major opposition parties – which goes by the acronym INDIA – has yet to unite on crucial issues, though it has vowed to fight the BJP collectively.

“The general sense is that a BJP win is almost an inevitability at this stage,” said Neelanjan Sircar, a fellow at the Centre for Policy research. “The question is more: what factors will shape the scale of the victory?”

The BJP has begun a nationwide pre-election push. A roadshow, titled Viksit Bharat Sankalp Yatra, will see thousands of government officers deployed to towns and villages across the country over the next two months, tasked with speaking about the BJP’s successes over the past nine years – despite criticisms of politicizing government bureaucracy and resources for campaigning purposes.

The Ministry of Defence is also setting up 822 “selfie points” at war memorials, defence museums, railway stations and tourist attractions where people can take photos of themselves with a Modi cutout.

The BJP’s recent domination in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh appeared to reaffirm the popularity of Modi. Though the prime minister has little to do with state elections, which are designed to elect local assembly members, the BJP strategically put Modi front and Centre of their campaigns in the place of local leaders, where he appeared at dozens of rallies to directly appeal to voters and present himself as the embodiment of the party.

Modi’s messaging in these campaign speeches combined an emphasis on the BJP’s paternalistic welfare schemes – which provide large amounts of free food and cash handouts – with nationalistic and religiously communal rhetoric, offering a glimpse of how the BJP intends to fight the election on a national scale.

Modi’s role in elevating India as a global power – be that in international politics or in the recent its moon landing in August – it was the first country to successfully land a spacecraft near the lunar south pole – was also prominent.

A member of the public in Andhra Pradesh watches the launch of the Chandrayaan-3 rocket to the moon. Photograph: Idrees Mohammed/EPA

Asim Ali, a political scientist, said the recent state election campaigns in the north were “some of the most religiously polarising I have seen” as the BJP played heavily on Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) sentiments to win the majority vote.

In Rajasthan, Modi repeatedly evoked an incident where a Hindu tailor was murdered by extremist Muslims to claim that the opposition Congress party, which ruled the state, was “sympathetic to terrorists” and that it was their appeasement of Muslims that had led to the killing.

The BJP’s candidates included four Hindu priests, some with very hardline views, but no Muslims. In the tribal dominated state of Chhattisgarh, the BJP played on fears of forced conversions of tribal people away from Hinduism.

Modi was brought to power in 2014 largely on the back of an anti-incumbency wave while his re-election victory in 2019 was all but secured after India carried out airstrikes on Pakistan, after a terrorist incident a few months before the polls, resulting in a storm of national security sentiment in his favor.

However, whether the BJP will win the same sort of sweeping parliamentary majority it secured in 2019 is unclear. Its position in certain crucial states, such as Bihar and Maharashtra, is uncertain and the party’s weakness on economic problems, particularly jobs and inflation, could also affect voting.

Ali was among those who feared a Hindu-Muslim divide would be stirred up further to become “the dominant issue, at least in the Hindi heartland”.

“Hindu-Muslim communalization has become completely normalized, not just through political campaigning but by the television news channels and the messages people see on social media and WhatsApp,” said Ali. “It can be activated by the BJP at their grassroots at any time. Just one or two slogans from Modi and other senior BJP leaders, a few coded communal do whistles, and people get the message.”

Indeed, one of the biggest issues likely to dominate the BJP’s agenda pre-election is the long-awaited opening of the Ram Mandir, a grand Hindu temple that has been built in the place of a demolished mosque. Construction of the building, in the north Indian town of Ayodhya, has long been a focal point of the Hindu nationalist movement in India, and the fanfare around Modi’s inauguration of the temple later this month in January is expected to be a national event.

A man walks in front of posters of the 2019 Bollywood film PM Narendra Modi, a biopic on the Indian prime minister, in Mumbai. — Posters in Mumbai of the 2019 Bollywood film PM Narendra Modi, a biopic on the Indian prime minister. Photograph: Indranil Mukherjee/AFP/Getty Images

Baijayant Panda, national vice president of the BJP, said the party was very confident about the parliamentary elections. He credited the confidence in part to “the Modi premium”, which meant the BJP tended to perform better in national than state elections because of the “stratospheric popularity” of the prime minister.

“On the ground, there’s a huge surge of optimism, even in areas which we haven’t traditionally won,” said Panda. “Having had this kind of victory in the state elections completely cements our position.”

Exactly what a third term for Modi would mean for India, particularly if it was another outright majority, was a cause for concern among some analysts and human rights groups. While Panda said it would be defined by economic success, and India becoming the world’s third largest economy, others feared a continued erosion of democracy and the rights of the Muslim minority, who exceed 200 million.

Ashutosh Varshney, the director of the Center for Contemporary South Asia at Brown University in the US, said he expected the rights of Muslims to continue to come under attack.

He warned that a situation similar to the Jim Crow laws, which existed in southern American states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and disenfranchised black people on the basis of race, could become a reality in India under a third Modi term.

“If Modi comes back to power we can imagine a scenario of a Jim Crow-style Hindu nationalist order in BJP-ruled states,” said Varshney. “It will establish Hindu supremacy, deprive Muslims of equality and create a secondary citizenship for Muslims, which will likely eventually remove their right to vote.”

Panda pushed back against allegations of BJP communalism. “I dare anyone to point out where a minority, whether a Muslim or a Christian or Buddhist or a Sikh has been discriminated against in the governance of India, you will not find a single example,” he said.

Source:- https://www.theguardian.com/

Amazing images of Universe

January 1, 2024Astrology, GENERAL STUDIES & GK, Science & TechPadho Leekho

Amazing images from James Webb telescope, two years after launch

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched to orbit just two years ago, but already it’s starting to redefine our view of the early Universe.

CASSIOPEIA A The expanding shells of debris from Cas A, an exploded star, or supernova. The main ring is about 15 light-years across.

JUPITER The largest planet in the Solar System, Jupiter, viewed in infrared light. The brightest features are at the highest altitudes – the tops of convective storm clouds.

Without really stretching its capabilities, the infrared observatory has been peering deep into the cosmos to show us galaxies of stars as they were up to 13.5 billion years ago.

A lot of them are brighter, more massive, and more mature than many scientists thought possible so soon after the Big Bang, which occurred 13.8 billion years ago.

“We certainly thought we’d be seeing fuzzy blobs of stars. But we’re also seeing fully formed galaxies with perfect spiral arms,” said Prof Gillian Wright.

“Theorists are already working on how you get those mature structures so early in the Universe. In that sense, Webb is really changing scientific thinking,” the director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre told BBC News.

An image showing M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy

M51 The Whirlpool Galaxy can be seen in the night sky with just binoculars. Here, the most powerful space telescope ever launched uses its incredible capabilities to study the intricate spiral arms.

CHAMELEON I The Chameleon I molecular cloud is about 630 light-years from Earth. It’s here, at temperatures down to about -260C, that Webb has detected types of ice grains not previously observed.

SAGITTARIUS C Webb looks to the centre of our galaxy, close to where a supermassive black hole exists. This region of space contains tens of thousands of stars, including many that are birthing inside the bright pink feature at centre-left. The cyan colour highlights excited hydrogen gas.

And it’s not just the efficiency with which these early galaxies were able to form their stars that’s been a surprise, the size of their central black holes has been a marvel, too.

There’s a monster at the core of our Milky Way that’s four billion times the mass of our Sun. One theory suggests such behemoths are made over time by accreting lots of smaller holes produced as remnants from exploded stars, or supernovae.

“But the preliminary evidence from JWST is that some of these early giants may have completely bypassed the star stage,” said Dr Adam Carnall from the University of Edinburgh.

“There is a scenario where huge clouds of gas in the early Universe could have collapsed violently and just kept going, straight to being black holes.”

NGC 3256 This is what you get when two galaxies crash into each other, an event estimated to have occurred about 500 million years ago. The collision drives the formation of new stars that then illuminate the gas and dust around them.

CRAB NEBULA The famous supernova remnant first recorded by Chinese astronomers in 1054. It’s located some 6,500 light-years from Earth in the constellation Taurus.

When James Webb was launched at Christmas 2021, it was thought it might have 10 years of operations ahead of it. The telescope needs its own fuel to maintain station 1.5 million km from Earth. But the flight to orbit on an Ariane rocket was so accurate, it’s estimated now to have fuel reserves for 20 years of life, if not longer.

This means, rather than racing through their observations, astronomers can afford take a more strategic approach to the telescope’s work.

“We thought we’d be skimming cream; we no longer need to do that,” said Dr Eric Smith, Webb’s programme scientist at the US space agency Nasa.

One activity that’s sure to accelerate is the practice of making “deep fields”. These are long stares at particular patches of sky that will allow the telescope to trace the light from the faintest and most distant galaxies. It’s how Webb is likely to spot the very first galaxies and possibly even some of the very first stars to shine in the Universe.

SATURN The famed ringed planet appears quite dark to Webb in this image because methane in the planet absorbs infrared light strongly. Three of Saturn’s moon are seen to the left.

A baby star launches energetic jets from both poles

HH212 A baby star, no more than 50,000 years old, launches energetic jets from both poles that light up the molecular hydrogen in pink. The entire structure is 1.6 light-years across.

The Hubble telescope famously expended many days just looking at a single corner of the cosmos. “I don’t think we’ll need the hundreds of hours of exposure that Hubble used, but I do think we’ll need multiple deep fields,” said Dr Emma Curtis-Lake from the University of Hertfordshire.

“We’ve already had some quite long exposures with JWST and we’re seeing quite a lot of variation. So, we can’t put everything into one teeny-tiny area because there’s no guarantee we’ll find something super-exciting.”

JADES-GS-z13-0, the earliest confirmed galaxy

JADES The JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, otherwise known as Jades, has the earliest confirmed galaxy, called JADES-GS-z13-0, which is observed at just 325 million years after the Big Bang.

STAR CLUSTER IC 348 Wispy filaments of gas and dust stream between a cluster of bright stars. Webb found the lowest mass brown dwarf, or “failed star”, in this image – an object about three to four times the mass of our Jupiter.

The Space Telescope Science Institute’s Dr Massimo Stiavelli dreams of spotting a star that is primordial – that has the signature of the original chemistry that emerged from the Big Bang; that hasn’t been polluted with elements that were forged only later in cosmic history.

“We’ll need to see them as supernovae, when they explode,” the head of the Webb mission office said.

“To achieve this, we need to start looking at the same patches year after year to catch them before and just after they go off. They’ll be extremely rare and we’ll need to be very lucky.”

Earendel, the most distant single star ever observed

EARENDEL The most distant single star observed to date is called Earendel. James Webb confirmed its light has taken 12.9 billion years to reach us. Its light has been boosted by the gravity of foreground galaxies.

ORION NEBULA The famous star forming region can just about be seen by the naked eye as a smudge on the sky. It would take a spaceship travelling at light-speed a little over four years to traverse this Webb scene.

Marvel at the extraordinary collection of James Webb pictures on this page – from the most distant reaches of the Universe to the nearby familiar objects in our own Solar System.

It’s amazing to think that imaging isn’t actually the telescope’s majority workload.

More than 70% of its time is spent doing spectroscopy. That’s sampling the light from objects and slicing it up into its “rainbow” colours. It’s how you retrieve key information about the chemistry, temperature, density and velocity of the targets under study.

“You could think of Webb as a giant spectrograph that takes the occasional nice picture,” joked Dr Smith.

RHO OPHIUCHI This cloud complex is the nearest star forming region to Earth, being just 400 light-years away. The star lighting up the white cavity is just a few million years old.

Source:-https://www.bbc.co.uk/

India deploys three warships to Arabian Sea after attack on tanker

January 1, 2024Current Affairs, Politics, Trade & Export-ImportPadho Leekho

India deploys three warships to Arabian Sea after attack on tanker

India has said it is sending three warships to the Arabian Sea after a drone hit an “Israel-affiliated” merchant vessel off its western coast last week.

MV Chem Pluto was attacked about 200 nautical miles (370km) off the coast of the western state of Gujarat.

The attack triggered a fire but it was quickly extinguished by the crew. There were no casualties.

The vessel’s crew included 21 Indians and a Vietnamese citizen.

The MV Chem Pluto is Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated chemical tanker. British Maritime Security firm Ambrey said the ship was linked to Israel but didn’t specify the connection.

Indian media reports said the vessel was transporting oil from Saudi Arabia and was heading to the Mangalore Port in southern India when the attack took place.

After the attack, an Indian Coast Guard ship accompanied the MV Chem Pluto to Mumbai on Monday.

“Considering the recent spate of attacks in the Arabian Sea, Indian Navy has deployed Guided Missile Destroyers, INS Mormugao, INS Kochi and INS Kolkata in various areas to maintain a deterrent presence,” the navy statement said.

The navy added that it was also regularly flying a long-range maritime reconnaissance aircraft to monitor the situation.

India heavily relies on fuel shipments from the Middle East, particularly from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Any disruption in this route can be problematic for India.

“India plays the role of a net security provider in the entire Indian Ocean region,” Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday.

Indian Navy Warship INS Kolkata arrives at Hamad Port during the Doha International Maritime Defence Exhibition & Conference (DIMDEX) in the Qatari capital Doha on March 20, 2022. — Indian Navy warship INS Kolkata is among the vessels deployed by the country

He said the Indian Navy had increased its surveillance of the seas. “We shall find whoever is responsible for this attack and strict action will be taken against them.”

No group has admitted responsibility for the drone attack. The United States blamed Tehran for the attack but a spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry called the accusation “baseless”.

A spate of attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea by Houthi rebels, who are opposed to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, have triggered concerns for the global shipping industry.

The US Central Command says at least 15 commercial ships have come under attack by Houthi militants so far in the past two months.

Several shipping companies have already changed the course of their vessels to avoid the Red Sea.

That is triggering concerns for exporters in South Asia.

“We are worried. Our shipping agents say the transport cost could increase by 10 to 15% and the travel time will increase by five to seven days,” said Syed Nazrul Islam, vice president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association told the BBC.

Bangladesh exports billions of dollars’ worth of ready-made clothes to Europe and the United States.

Though the cost of transport is usually paid by the clothing brands in the West, Mr Islam said Bangladeshi exporters were worried that the buyers would ask for a discount next time when they order.

Source:- https://www.bbc.com/news