India’s exports rise to $38.19bn in April
India is facing one of its worst electricity crises in recent years, but unless the underlying issues and structural problems are addressed, this won’t be the last. The arithmetic solution is to make sure coal power plants stockpile enough fuel — measured in days of stockpile — but they’re woefully short of norms, writes Rahul Tongia, a senior fellow at Centre for Social and Economic Progress. We need to change our planning from one of primarily managing scarcity to one of flexible resiliency, he writes. We can’t resolve this issue until we address fundamental issues of planning, feedback (or lack thereof), and risk, he writes. Long term solutions will take time, and we need to change how we manage scarcity. Even with a high renewable energy contribution, half of our power will still come from coal in 2030, he writes. Renewables are vital, but cannot distract us from giving coal the attention and effort it requires.
India’s goods exports rose by as much as 24% to a record $38.19 billion in April compared with a year ago, the commerce ministry said on Tuesday, helping the country to tamp down its trade deficit despite a 27% rise in imports to $58.26 billion due to surging crude oil prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine. It was a “spectacular start” to the 2022-23 financial year, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said in a tweet. “New financial year begins with record goods exports in April,” he tweeted. “We are building on historic high of 2021-22 & confidently achieving new milestones on the back of trade deals inked recently.” India’s export performance is excellent in the view of current global supply chain disruptions and sharply rising energy prices, as India imports over 85% of its crude oil requirements, experts said.
India has dropped eight places in the World Press Freedom Index, ranking at 150 among 180 countries. In April last year, Reporters Without Borders said that India ranked 142. It had added that the nation was classified as “bad” for journalism. In March this year, minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that the government does not “subscribe to the conclusions” for various reasons, including very low sample size and little or no weightage given to “fundamentals of democracy”. He also raised questions regarding the methodology used by the non-profit press freedom organisation Reporters Without Borders. In South Asia, Nepal was placed 76, Sri Lanka 146, Myanmar 176, Pakistan 157 and Bangladesh at the 162nd spot. China was ranked 175, and the US 42. The index is released every May 3, the World Press Freedom Day.