Pallab Bhattacharya, Author At Newscript EnergyWorld

GST Reform Debate Puts Auto Demand in Focus

18Aug

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

News Update

GST Reform Debate Puts Auto Demand in Focus

India’s finance ministry is weighing a cut in Goods and Services Tax (GST) on small cars and insurance premiums, in a move aimed at boosting consumption but with complex knock-on effects for energy demand. Officials said the proposal reflects an attempt to revive auto sales, which remain subdued compared with pre-pandemic levels. If implemented, the measure could encourage middle-class buyers to bring forward purchases, bolstering an industry that employs millions. Yet energy economists caution that stimulating car sales could add to India’s already steep fuel demand trajectory. Road transport accounts for nearly 40 per cent of petroleum product consumption, and any surge in vehicle numbers would deepen the country’s reliance on imported crude. Insurers, meanwhile, are lobbying fo...

Mumbai Apocalypse : 20 Years After the Deluge

26Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Environmental Accountability

Mumbai Apocalypse : 20 Years After the Deluge

Twenty years on, memory still haunts! On 26th July 2005 , the day began in the usual way. Sky was overcast, Air was thickened with moistures. By afternoon, the rain changed its voice. “The first 20 minutes were just a downpour. By 3 p.m., it sounded like the sky had cracked,” remembers Rekha Patil, a schoolteacher from Kandivali, whose students were trapped in their classroom until the next morning. “The school bell never rang that day. But every other alarm in the city went off—too late.” It was July 26, 2005. . By midnight, Mumbai had recorded an unprecedented 944 mm of rainfall, the highest 24-hour total in India’s meteorological history at the time, according to the IMD’s post-season bulletin. Most of it—709 mm—fell between 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. An unthinkable monsoon fury. The...

25Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Environmental Accountability

The Day Lightning Fell

It began like any other monsoon morning in Bengal’s heartland—quiet, muggy, and deceptively calm. The sky hung low, layered with haze, as farmers in Bankura, East Bardhaman, and West Medinipur stepped barefoot into their fields. They had work to do—transplanting paddy, checking irrigation lines, feeding livestock—before the next round of rain. By mid-morning, the clouds thickened into a metallic mass. At 11:10 a.m., the first bolt of lightning fell. Within hours, the fields turned into sites of loss. By 2:50 p.m., eighteen men lay dead. There was no flood. No cyclone. No warning loud enough to be heard. Just a sky that cracked wide open, and didn’t close in time. It did not crackle. It did not warn. It sliced. By 2:50 p.m., eighteen men were dead—struck down by lightning in the very ...

24Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Environmental Accountability

Monsoon Mayhem lashes India

Wayanad, Kerala — In late June, a hush settled over Chooralmala. The rains that drummed the hillsides last summer—the downpour that fractured the slopes and claimed at least 373 lives on July 30, 2024—had returned, but more gently. This time, the waters stayed at the riverbanks of Punnapuzha, rising slowly enough to avoid catastrophe, yet decisively enough to prompt district authorities to ban access to the damaged Mundakkai–Chooralmala area through July 25, 2025. After so much loss, even a calm monsoon reads as a warning. A Monsoon That Moves Faster India’s weather story in 2025 is one of speed and suddenness. The monsoon arrived in Kerala on May 24, nearly a week early, and had swept across the subcontinent by June 29—marking one of the fastest landfalls on record. Gone are the...

The Quiet Heat: India’s Geothermal Gamble Beneath the Himalayas

23Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Renewables

The Quiet Heat: India’s Geothermal Gamble Beneath the Himalayas

In a silent corner of Ladakh’s Changthang plateau, where the land is so dry that even the wind seems brittle, a plume of steam rises from a field speckled with goat droppings and prayer flags. For centuries, nomadic shepherds here have treated the sulphuric springs of Puga Valley as little more than natural oddities—bubbling pools that boiled yak bones and warmed cracked palms during the long, cruel winters. Now, a different kind of pilgrim has arrived. Wearing ONGC (Oil and Natural Gas Corporation ) coveralls and sporting helmets that look absurdly futuristic against the desolate backdrop, a team of geologists and engineers is drilling 1,000 meters into the Earth’s crust. They’re not looking for oil. They’re looking for heat. And in that heat, they’re hoping to find the future. ...

From Trade Room to Tandoor: Why Energy Lies At The Centre

5Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Uncategorized

From Trade Room to Tandoor: Why Energy Lies At The Centre

Trade, Tariffs and the Tandoor: How India’s Energy Appetite Is Now a Diplomatic Crisis When Indian families across Delhi, Jaipur or Bhubaneswar step into their kitchens this week, they may notice something unsettling. The humble act of boiling rice or making tea now costs more than it did last month. At the heart of this quiet inflation lies an unlikely culprit: America’s steel tariffs and a deadlocked trade deal. India’s multi-layered standoff with the United States, officially about dairy, autos, and genetically modified crops, is fast evolving into something far more consequential. With just days left before a July 9 deadline, the talks between the world’s largest and fifth-largest economies have hit an impasse. But while diplomats bicker, ordinary Indians are paying the price—quite l...

Tata Power’s $2 Billion Green Pivot Puts It at the Centre of India’s Energy Future

4Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Corporate Watch

Tata Power’s $2 Billion Green Pivot Puts It at the Centre of India’s Energy Future

Mumbai, July 4, 2025: Tata Power is not simply transitioning to green energy—it is reconstructing its identity. What began as a cautious shift toward renewables has, over the past year, evolved into one of the most expansive energy transitions in Indian corporate history. Backed by a ₹1.46 lakh crore capital commitment, the Mumbai-headquartered utility is repositioning itself from a conventional generator of electricity into a vertically integrated green energy major, spanning generation, transmission, distribution, manufacturing, and storage. The centrepiece of this pivot is a proposed $2.1 billion acquisition that would give Tata Power complete control over Resurgent Power Ventures, a Singapore-based platform with critical assets in generation and transmission. The company currently h...

India’s Scorching Future: Europe’s Heatwave Is a Warning We Cannot Ignore

4Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Environmental Accountability

India’s Scorching Future: Europe’s Heatwave Is a Warning We Cannot Ignore

Delhi | July 3, 2025: As record-breaking temperatures sweep across southern Europe this week, killing at least eight people and crippling critical infrastructure, the warning signs for India are unmistakable. While Portugal saw the mercury touch an unprecedented 46.6°C, Italy issued red alerts in 18 cities and Switzerland shut down a nuclear reactor to avoid overheating. These are not isolated events. They are symptoms of an accelerating global crisis—and India may be the next epicentre. For a country where large parts of the population already endure 45°C summers without access to cooling, the lesson from Europe is chilling in its urgency. India is not just at risk. It is perilously close to a tipping point. The current European heatwave, one of the worst in decades, is being driven...

Iran’s Nuclear Defiance Sends Shockwaves Through Global Energy Markets

3Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

News Update

Iran’s Nuclear Defiance Sends Shockwaves Through Global Energy Markets

Tehran’s IAEA suspension jolts oil markets, heightens geopolitical risk, and forces import-dependent nations like India to reframe energy strategies The ripples were quite visible among the global diplomatic and political circles when Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a legislative decree on July 2, barring International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from accessing the country’s nuclear facilities, Within hours, oil prices surged over 3%, and nervous chatter filled diplomatic corridors from Brussels to Beijing. But nowhere was the tremor more acutely felt than in the global energy markets—already grappling with post-pandemic demand volatility, supply chain fragilities, and climate transition dilemmas. Iran’s move, described by Germany’s foreign ministry as a “point of...

Noida Bets Big on Urban Renewal with Mumbai Style Housing Overhaul

2Jul

By Pallab BhattacharyaNo Comments

Technology

Noida Bets Big on Urban Renewal with Mumbai Style Housing Overhaul

New redevelopment policy aims to modernise ageing housing, unlock land in core city sectors, and reposition Noida’s urban future Noida has approved a transformative urban redevelopment policy that allows for the demolition and reconstruction of ageing residential complexes across the city, drawing from Mumbai’s landmark slum rehabilitation model but tailored to the region’s housing fabric. Cleared at the Noida Authority’s 218th board meeting on June 14, the policy raises Floor Area Ratio (FAR) limits to enable vertical redevelopment, offering existing residents larger, modernised apartments at no cost, while granting developers additional saleable units. The initiative marks the city’s first formal attempt to address crumbling post-1980s housing blocks, many of which face structural risk...