Category: India

British Deputy Prime Minister said energy and climate change would be near the top of his agenda during a three-day visit to India. "There is already $26.5 billion of trade every year between India and the U.K.," he said before leaving Monday. "India invests more in the UK than it does in the rest of the European Union combined, and no country in the G20 invests more in India than Britain does." The deputy prime minister led a delegation to India this week to discuss British opportunities in the growing Indian economy . His office said climate change and energy were expected to be near the top of the agenda for this week’s meetings. A report from financial firm Dun & Bradstreet said last week the Indian gross domestic product should grow by 5.5 percent next year, up from the 5.2 percent expected this year. Dun & Bradstreet India […]

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Miners haul baskets full of coal as they load a truck in the northeastern state of Meghalaya, in this file photo. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images NEW DELHI—India’s Supreme Court ruled on Monday that all coal-mining licenses distributed since 1993 are illegal, dealing a significant blow to operators and providing another setback to the image of the country’s administration. The three-judge bench led by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha said the allotments by past governments weren’t carried out in a transparent manner and no objective criteria were followed. Guidelines were also breached, it added. However, the court didn’t immediately cancel the 200 or so licenses given out since 1993 whose fate now hangs in the balance. "Further hearing is required to determine whether there is a need for canceling all the coal block allocations," the bench said in the order. It will next hear the case on Sept. 1. The order follows […]

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India ranks among the top energy consumers in the world, with demand increasing at a double-digit rate, analysis from the U.S. Energy Department found. The Energy Information Administration, a division within the Energy Department, said economic growth and modernization in India is leading to increased demand for energy . "India’s dependence on imported fossil fuels rose to 38 percent in 2012, despite the country having significant domestic fossil fuel resources," EIA said in a Thursday brief. The government in April said it expected natural gas demand to more than double by the beginning of the next decade. According to the terms of a five-year energy plan , the Indian government has said it wants to add at least one transnational pipeline to the midstream sector from either Iran, Oman or Central Asia. "Because India has not been able to produce an adequate supply of domestic natural gas and has […]

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India’s dependence on imported fossil fuels rose to 38% in 2012, despite the country having significant domestic fossil fuel resources. India ranked as the fourth-largest energy consumer in the world in 2011, following China, the United States, and Russia. The country’s energy demand continues to climb as a result of its dynamic economic growth and modernization. India is the third-largest economy on a purchasing power parity basis and has the world’s second-largest population, according to World Bank data. As India modernizes and the population moves to urban areas, the country has shifted from using traditional biomass and waste to relying on other energy sources, including fossil fuels. India’s newly elected government, with the Bharatiya Janat Party as the majority party, faces challenges to meet the country’s growing energy demand, to secure affordable energy supplies, and to attract investment for domestic hydrocarbon production and infrastructure development. Petroleum and other liquids. […]

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India’s reliance on domestic coal has left many of its power stations starved for fuel, forcing electricity cuts throughout the country, even as the price of coal imports slumps. Despite having the world’s third-largest coal reserves, according to the International Energy Agency, a quarter of India’s 100 coal-fired power stations are short of supply with stocks of less than four days, and some hanging onto even lower stockpiles, official and trade data showed. A prolonged summer and below-normal monsoon rains have exacerbated the situation by raising electricity demand. At the same time, global coal prices have fallen to their lowest levels in years, with ANZ predicting in a report last week that prices will drop 10% more over the next two to three years as China slows spending. […]

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Armed bandits are threatening villagers with death unless they deliver 35 buckets of water each day in northern India, where water is scarce thanks to an ongoing drought and a poor supply. So far, 28 villages have been obeying the order, taking turns to deliver what the bandits are calling a daily "water tax," police said. "Water itself is very scarce in this region. Villagers can hardly meet their demand," officer Suresh Kumar Singh said by telephone from Banda, a city on the southern border of central Uttar Pradesh state and caught within what is known in India as bandit country. Though the number of bandits has declined drastically in recent decades, India’s bandit tradition, which began more than 800 years ago when emperors still ruled, has continued in the hard-to-reach forests and mountains of the Bundelkhand region. The area is cut off from supply […]

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India’s biggest power company said coal shortages at six of its power stations are threatening to disrupt electricity generation in 22 of the country’s states and territories. In a letter to India’s Power Ministry on Monday, Arup Roy Choudhury , chairman of NTPC Ltd. said the generating stations had coal supplies sufficient for two days or less of power production. Mr. Choudury’s letter, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, didn’t say why coal was running low. Coal shortages–mainly because of failures by the state-run coal monopoly to deliver adequate supplies–are a major cause of power outages in India, where more than half of electricity-generation capacity depends on coal. Power supplies are especially strained now, with hot summer temperatures pushing up demand and below-normal monsoon rainfall denting generation by hydroelectric plants. According to government data, as many as 46 of India’s 100 coal-fired power stations have coal stocks of […]

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