Let there be light

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched a plan to electrify 40 million households – roughly a quarter of the population - by 2018. The scheme will cost approximately $2.5 billion. “The government will connect each house, whether it is in [a] village, a city or in remote locations,” Modi said in his speech. “No poor person will have to pay for the connection… We have decided that no poor person will bear this burden.”