New Delhi: A growing industry unwilling to transform. Financial Times’ Chris Kay and Krishn Kaushik zoom into India’s steel production universe—one of the most polluting sectors worldwide—the staggering growth of which stands in contrast to climate goals.
“In India, steel production is responsible for around 12 percent of total emissions, the highest share of any industrial sector. Much of that output flows from a ballooning proliferation of small and poorly regulated factories, which rely on coal and blast furnace technology whose basic mechanisms have remained little changed since the 1800s,” the report reads.
About 2.5 million people are employed in the sector, which—Jindal Steel’s Sajjan Jindal says—is “politically tough” to “scrap”.
The report delves headfirst into the challenge ahead—decarbonisation.
The European Union’s carbon border adjustment mechanism will kick in next year and “polluting overseas producers” will be taxed, an attempt by the bloc to protect itself from what it calls “cheaper but dirtier imports”.
“The steel ministry is working on financial incentives and may require minimum green steel use in state-funded projects. But last year, it defined green steel as output emitting less than 2.2 tonnes of CO₂ per tonne, which is above the global average for steel production,” the report reads.
“Still, Indian officials, including the country’s finance minister, have lashed out against the EU’s plans calling CBAM an arbitrary ‘trade barrier’ as the country attempts to industrialise and argues that it has not been historically responsible for the world’s build-up of greenhouse gas.”
Chhattisgarh’s Kohadiya, it says, is “one of India’s most mineral-rich but environmentally scarred regions” and locals are “anxious” about a steel and iron ore plant that is to be established there.
“Their concerns echo those across India’s industrial heartlands. In Koppal, a town in southern India close to the UNESCO-recognised Hampi temple monuments, residents recently burnt effigies of a government minister after he unveiled plans for a $280mn steel plant they fear will poison their fields and further degrade air quality,” says the report.
Speaking of sectors, The Economist reports that Indians are becoming “more fashionable” because of easy access to social media by e-commerce websites such as Meesho. “The corollary of a bigger market for sellers is an expansion in customer choice,” says the report.
“What has changed in the past four-five years is access,” Joseph Sebastian of Blume, a venture-capital firm, tells The Economist.
Earlier, shoppers had to travel to urban centres or market towns “because there was nothing around” at the time, says Avi Mehta of Macquarie, a bank.
But, the report points out, the postal system and incomprehensible addresses can be hurdles in making deliveries expensive.
Still, the report says, “the rise of startups such as Delhivery, a firm built around a weak pun, as well as the in-house logistics arms of the big e-commerce platforms, has made it possible to send goods to the most remote parts of India. Nine in ten of Meesho’s shoppers live outside of the country’s eight biggest cities”.
The New York Times’ Alisha Haridasani Gupta, in a profile of Vir Das, writes that “adversity” wasn’t a “new concept” to the comedian, who—like many in his field—stands at a crossroads.
Das, it reads, has the “unique distinction of having his comedy result in an International Emmy for one set and an official rebuke from the Indian Parliament on national television for another”. Das won the 2023 Emmy award for his stand-up special, Vir Das: Landing.
“He and his family received tens of thousands of death threats and they secluded themselves for several months in the beachside town of Goa, where Mr. Das had previously moved in order to escape Covid-19 lockdowns in Mumbai. At one point, he said, he contemplated suicide. All of his film projects and stand-up gigs dried up,” reads the profile, much of which focuses on what it means to be in the government’s line of fire.
Das’ special—‘I Come from Two Indias’—led to the comedian being pilloried back home, supposedly for having embarrassed India on a global stage.
“In the midst of the madness, Mr Das fixated on one aspect of the accusations that he found somewhat funny: That he had embarrassed the country on foreign soil. What if, he wondered, he had said the same jokes on Indian soil?”
(Edited by Prerna Madan)
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