Welcome to the Proposals Library of AltKuznets Advisors Pvt Ltd., Your Sustainability Nirvana !

Globalize Power Generation to Abate Global Warming Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Just yesterday, at www.livemint.com, I opined against India's voluntary involvement in any carbon reduction proposal. Clearly, as a country, India cannot afford to hold back the millions of its citizens in abject poverty to assuage the feelings of the developed world who conveniently forgot for decades that CO2 emissions turn the earth warmer. But, climate change will not stop for India, or for that matter, any other country. It has been gathering steam all these years and decades and now, alarmingly, it seems to be accelerating. We must reduce CO2 concentrations, and that too within a short period of time. 15 years post Kyoto, we have achieved little. Some, me included, would contend that the wave of privatization and competition in various economies and especially the power sector, has set us back and moved the world closer to an environmental catastrophe. Perhaps Kyoto has serv

Dear Editor (The Economist) I found myself disagreeing with 'The Economist' on reading 'Better late than never'. Increasingly, the developed world is calling upon the developing countries to 'share' in reducing carbon emissions. But where was this camaraderie in 1970 when the western world was chugging away merrily on the back of the earth's capacity to assimilate all waste in to its pristine environment? As a citizen of a developing nation, I am tempted to ask for the same pristine air quality on which the developed nations enriched their economies. Instead, the developing nations, who, incidentally, held back rapid industrialization fearing resource exhaustion, have been bequeathed a world teetering at environmental collapse. Those who conserved resources in the decades of western industrialization are now being asked to go slow just precisely at the take-off point of their economies. The lesson to draw perhaps is 'if you need to rape the environment,

Capture the Regulator! (Caution! Reading this drivel may bring the mafia to your door) Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Having myself been a victim of a long-drawn conspiracy involving regulations on the industry, I have over the years developed what has been described as an acerbic tongue, not to mention, an acerbic style of writing. After all, after years of mail and email fraud, not to mention gassing at office, and murderous mobikes whizzing past at 2.9 mach, and perhaps having been declared 'dead' a thousand times over, I have learnt not to rub the shoulders of the powers that be. NNNOOOTTT! So,for a change, here are some absolutely frivolous regulatory wisecracks to chew on. Mind you, they are rather unbecoming of my credentials. No, not all regulators are treated like spies. Just this past weekend I played golf with the ....well, never mind! That puncturing of new car tyres, that was not us. And that camera you lost on your way back. That too. ...No, n

Public Utilities, Private Angst Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar When I was young, India was very much a poor country. Though many industries dotted the country, the Government was by far the primary provider of many essentials of living – electricity, water, kerosene, buses, even milk. Things have changed and changed a lot. Yet, the past continues to hold on to the present, and I am afraid, the future too. While the private sector has grown by leaps and bounds, the Government, especially the local administration and public utilities, continue in their moribund traditions of inefficiency and gargantuan waste. Consider drinking water. Practically every city and town has a public water supply network maintained by the Corporation or the Municipality. Crores were invested in building it; crores are spent renovating and maintaining it, yet, when it comes to using it, many residents back away and rely instead on packaged or bottled water. Those who don't, often use a

Have a Smoke? Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar No, thank you. I don't smoke. God knows I have cursed smokers, especially those who choose to exercise their right in parks around infants and children or on cool, windy mornings on vacation in the mountains. In fact, I hate smoke, and not just from cigarettes, beedis or cigars. And there is no dearth of smoke and odors around, thanks to kitchen fires, garbage fire, 'dry leaves in the garden' fire, 'bhogi' fire, 'tar for cable repair' fire, and last but not least, 'keep me warm' fires on cold mornings that are fast disappearing from many parts of the country (any guesses why?). There was a time when I wondered incredulously at the stupidity of smokers who did themselves in by inhaling proven carcinogenic tars. I also had less than complementary words to say about governments that permitted import of foreign cigarettes or the operation of cigarette factories at home. As I grew up though

Highway to He...ll! Ganga Prasad G. Rao http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar Tar vs Concrete roads. The ultimate slugfest! $100 for ringside tickets! Won't last an hour! Buy it now! ......Well, may be not quite, but an interesting matter nonetheless, particularly so, if you happen to be a car owner or following the economy. It's not something weighs heavily on the mind of either the refiner or the cement firm CEO. After all, the moolah comes not directly from roads, but from auto fuels in the case of refiner and from building construction activity in the case of cement companies. But, at the rate tar roads turn in to martian surface – what with global warming increasing rainfall intensity and traffic density following an upward trend inexorably – the competition may heat up for tar roads in the not too distant future. It's not that one is inherently superior to the other. Properly laid, a tar road could last years. But, in the Indian context, where contractors and employees, mor