A Week of Unanswered Questions – Issue #56
An eventful week unveils SEBI/Adani Controversy, NCERT's curriculum changes, and a tragic train crash, raising unanswered questions
News of the Week
Last week was eventful. It started with news about SEBI/Adani; moved onto NCERT’s decision to drop evolution and the periodic table from school curriculums; and ended with the tragic train crash at Balasore, which raises new questions about state priorities.
Where does one start? The Supreme Court-appointed expert committee in the Adani-Hindenburg matter might not have found a link between the group and stock market volatility – a development reported by many as a “clean chit” for Adani and SEBI – but neither has gotten away scot-free either. “While assessing regulatory failure, the report points out that the regulator had made significant changes to its FPI regulations in 2018 which resulted in foreign investors not disclosing their ultimate beneficiary,” writes Lokeshwari NK for Hindu Businessline. “However, this serious lapse is stated in such soft tones that it appears as if this is not important.”
One fallout? SEBI’s new discussion paper which wants FPIs to disclose granular details of their ownership. This is a welcome development. In Adani’s case, a small group of FPIs held almost all of the group’s free float, making it easier for the company to manipulate share prices. Their ownership remains unknown.
In the meantime, the game is evolving beyond investment funds. News came that Adani will raise $3.5 billion through a share sale in three group companies. This will be a QIP. The investors backing some of these actors, like GQG, remain unclear.
In the meantime, though, the group’s hitting pause on green hydrogen and fresh acquisitions, its auditors have begun taking their job a little more seriously. Simultaneously, however, it is mulling a possible $3 billion expansion into Vietnam.
Continuing with the theme of opaque firms, Gatik Ship Management has lost its industry-standard insurance. As the Financial Times had reported, the mysterious firm working out of a mall in Mumbai had rapidly added tankers – jumping from two chemical tankers in 2021 to 58 by May this year – and was almost exclusively moving Russian oil.
Meanwhile, Indian state-backed oil cos Oil India Ltd and ONGC Videsh are looking to pick equity in an oil-field in Kenya.
Move from oil to coal – and you will find yourself stumped about the government’s outlook on the fuel.
Last month, the draft National Electricity Policy said India wouldn’t need new coal-based power plants. The news was feted as a “major boost to fight climate change”. Now comes the National Electricity Plan, saying India will need another 51 GW of coal-based power by 2032. How does one understand this? Both reports have been produced by the union government -- the National Electricity Plan by the Central Electricity Authority; the National Electricity Policy by the Ministry of Power. Between them, does India want to add fresh coal capacity or not?
What is more incontrovertible is the crackdown in recent months on those opposing coal expansions. The Washington Post reported on recent raids by state agencies on Environics, LIFE and the Centre for Policy Research.
Speaking of coal, also came news that Adani’s Australian mine has emitted much more than projected. “In its first year of coal extraction, Adani's mine emitted 800 per cent of the amount it estimated it would emit per tonne of coal,” reported ABC. Similar tales continue to come from India. Here is one dispatch from Godda, Jharkhand.
Other news. Arunachal has scrapped 44 hydel MoUs with private firms – and will hand them over to central PSUs.
Even as Tata Motors announced plans to set up a $1.58 billion Lithium-Ion plant in Gujarat, rivals Hyundai and MG are trying to threaten its current dominance in EVs. India’s two-wheeler EV market has found itself in some hot water in recent months.
India’s plans for dominating emerging industries took another hit last week. The Indian government has decided against giving incentives to the Vedanta-Foxconn JV -- which was to make semiconductors in India despite a manifest lack of experience – after it failed to meet its milestones. This is another sign – after PLI – that the Make In India approach needs a rethink.
And then, there is NCERT - India's national body responsible for setting the school curriculum. Its decisions to drop the periodic table; sources of energy; pollution; and the theory of evolution have been flagged by Nature.
The development has also left a clutch of scientists aghast. “So here we have the world’s largest democracy dumbing down its curriculum, making some of the greatest ideas in science unavailable to its citizens,” wrote evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne. In his blogpost, he examines possible reasons for these deletions but finds himself stumped. This decision comes when India’s youth is already struggling with joblessness (much like their counterparts in China, as it were) and threatens to strip them of further opportunities.
Ours is also a time when, as Nature reported this very week, the earth is careening past its safe limits for humans. And yet, NCERT is working to diminish students’ understanding of the world they will have to live in. Is this antipathy to Western science? A desire to boost pass percentages by (over) simplifying curriculums? A regressive logic (arguably rooted in India's caste culture) that only those opting for science or heading into college need to know these concepts?
News from elsewhere in the world. Pakistan has finally cut fuel prices. Bangladesh is using micro-loans and insurance to extend climate finance to vulnerable communities. This deserves a closer look. Microfinance, with its inflexible repayment schedules, has pushed families in Bangladesh and elsewhere deeper into poverty. More creative models are needed. Here is one little-known but outstanding instance from India. Bangladesh also found some respite in its struggles to supply its gas-dominated power infrastructure. QatarEnergy has signed a 15 year LNG supply deal with state-owned PetroBangla.
Europe is unloading its coal stocks – amassed last year to hedge against energy shortages in winter – to Asia and Africa.
Elsewhere in the world, water scarcity made headlines. Given dwindling water supply, Arizona is limiting construction around Phoenix. Also came news that the UK is rushing to fix its broken water systems.
More consequentially, the World Bank is under pressure from the Bridgetown Initiative to provide $100 billion in fresh climate finance.
Biodiversity Champion of the Week
Savitriamma, came to #Bannerghatta Biological Park by accident when she was offered the job in 2002 on compassionate grounds after her husband passed away. She soon became a motherly figure for many animals. Watch the story of #BannerghattaBiologicalPark’s own animal whisperer.
RIP, Manoj Misra
Manoj Misra, a stalwart defender of the Yamuna, has passed away.
Here is an obit from fellow crusader SANDRP.
Podcast of the Week
NPR on Lithium. The Ghost in Your Phone, featuring author/activist Siddharth Kara
Climate long-reads of the Week
What if northwest India starts migrating in droves? (The Ken). Also see this report on Bundelkhand’s water crisis turning people into climate refugees.
On the existence of a perennial river in the Harappan heartland, and how its slow demise resulted in the end of the Harappan civilisation (Nature)
Mapping the Semiconductor Supply Chain: The Critical Role of the Indo-Pacific Region (CSIS)
Friends With (Metal) Benefits (Phenomenal World). On Australia’s Lithium-packed place in the new world.
Last week also saw actor Rowan Atkinson (who has, as one learns, a degree in electrical and electronic engineering and a masters in control systems) weigh in with a critique of electric cars – which resulted in this spirited counterview. Both are worth reading.
Apple and Foxconn lobbied India to relax its labor laws. Unions are fighting back(Rest Of World)
Will electric vehicles change the world as much as railroads and internal-combustion engines did in centuries past? (Niall Ferguson in Bloomberg)
India’s Transition To EVs Threatens Millions Of Auto Sector Jobs, At A Time Of Rising Nationwide Unemployment (Article-14)
Book of the Week
We are very excited. Ecologist Madhav Gadgil's memoir will be out in August. In the meantime, to understand his role in shaping independent India's policy towards wildlife, forests and the communities around them, check out Michael Lewis's excellent Inventing Global Ecology. In the book, he looks at how the Western science of conservation biology was implemented in India. Spell-binding book, this one.