Barackface

If you want to know for sure if Narendra Modi has political skills, you look at something like the border swap with Bangladesh. The issue had been festering for decades, and Modi sorted it out. That is skill. If you want to know if Barack Obama has political skills, you look at his health care reform. Presidents had struggled with it for 50 years. Same with Cuba. Obama made the move, and suddenly America finds itself seeking help from Cuba on cancer research. Go figure. Who would have thought!

Similarly, Akhilesh Yadav has impressed me with his land acquisition for the Agra-Lucknow expressway. He did it. Now he is competing. No longer is he facing a definite rout in 2017. There is only one way you can compete with Modi: development. You have to out-development him. That is it.

वैसे भी उत्तर प्रदेश बहुत बड़ा राज्य है। इसको एक बार फिर से bifurcate करना जरुरी है।

Know how land was acquired for Agra-Lucknow expressway

When farmers were protesting across India against the NDA government's land acquisition bill, over 30, 000 farmers in Uttar Pradesh willingly gave their fertile lands to the Samajwadi Party-led government to build its six-lane Agra-Lucknow expressway project. The government's flagship 302-km expressway greenfield project is the longest in the country till date.

Agra-Lucknow Expressway to be operational by Oct 2016

The state has planned to develop agricultural 'mandis' along the expressway to spur the economy by providing faster transport to agricultural produce, handicrafts, small industries etc. This region is known for high dairy, potato, fruits and food grain production.

UP mulls air strip on Lucknow-Agra expressway
Lucknow-Agra e-way to have 8 lanes all along the stretch
Chinese show interest in Lucknow-Ballia expressway

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Africa Deserves To Manufacture

In a sane world, this map would bring about a rapid realignment of forces. Manufacturing and installing these solar panels is the next industrial revolution all on its own.

Quagmire in the Sahara: Desertec's Promise of Solar Power for Europe Fades

Supporters hailed the Desertec Industrial Initiative as the most ambitious solar energy project ever when it was founded in 2009. Major industrial backers pledged active involvement, politicians saw a win-win proposition and environmentalists fawned over Europe's green energy future. For a projected budget of €400 billion ($560 billion), the venture was to pipe clean solar power from the Sahara Desert through a Mediterranean super-grid to energy-hungry European countries. ..... Spain recently balked at signing a declaration of intent to connect high-voltage lines between Morocco and the rest of Europe. In recent weeks, two of the biggest industrial supporters at the founding of the initiative, Siemens and Bosch, backed out. And perhaps most tellingly, though last week's third annual Desertec conference was held in Berlin's Foreign Ministry, not a single German cabinet minister bothered to attend. .... Political backing for energy from the desert, in other words, is evaporating. ...... For all the initial enthusiasm, countries have been hesitant about plunging into a large, cooperative grid in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. ....... "We should say we're closing the whole thing down because we have no political support." ...... Renewable energy projects remain more expensive than traditional fossil fuel plants and tend to require government subsidies. And Desertec is an order of magnitude larger and more complicated than the offshore wind parks currently under construction in the North Sea. The idea is to generate a significant percentage of Europe's energy needs using solar thermal plants in sunny North Africa and then transmitting that power via an ultramodern grid across the Mediterranean. ....... Part of the problem is historical distrust. No country wants to import electricity and energy security is often at the top of national objectives. ....... Exporting the green power involves connecting the countries with the sun to consumer countries like Germany by way of long-distance high-voltage power lines. That is expensive, and any country that is to be part of the proposed new grid, like Spain, can throw a wrench in the works.