PM Narendra Mo di , at election rallies, repeatedly boasts of India’s nuclear weapons

At Indian General Election Rallies, Modi Beats the Nuclear Drums
The Indian prime minister touts New Delhi’s nuclear capabilities. The Diplomat

By Ankit Panda, April 23, 2019 Less than two months after India’s worst crisis with Pakistan since 2002, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made repeated references to nuclear dynamics between the two countries at election rally addresses. India’s general elections began earlier this month and will run into mid-May, with Modi’s nationally dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) hoping seize on its stewardship of India’s national security to maintain a dominant position in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s bicameral parliament).

On April 17, at a campaign rally, Modi touted that India had called Pakistan’s nuclear bluff. It’s unclear if the prime minister was referring to a specific weapon. “Earlier, terrorists from Pakistan would come here and go back after conducting an attack. Pakistan would threaten us, saying it has the nuclear bomb and will press the button,” Modi said, underscoring what had long been a dilemma for India, whose conventionally superiority was undermined by Pakistan’s development of low-yield nuclear weapons in particular. “We have nuclear of nuclear bombs,” Modi said, intending to highlight India’s capabilities. “I decided to tell them, do whatever you want to do,” Modi added, promising that India would retaliate.

On April 20, at a separate rally, Modi returned to the theme: “Every other day, they used to say ‘we have nuclear button, we have nuclear button.’ What do we have then? Have we kept it for Diwali? (A Hindu holiday traditionally involving lights and firecrackers.)” Modi also discussed the events of February 26 and 27, when India and Pakistan nearly went to war. ……

The context of Modi’s remarks on nuclear weapons — election rallies — matter, of course. With a poor economic track record since 2014, the BJP has rightly decided to focus on what much of the Indian public perceives as a strength: its management of national security and defense. Within India, the decision by Modi to retaliate using conventional air power into Pakistani territory after the February 14 Pulwama attack was widely popular. But utterances on nuclear weapons do not take place in a vacuum and Modi’s remarks will be heard across the world.

Pakistan has already seized on the opportunity to chide India for Modi’s comments. A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman released a statement on Monday noting that “Pakistan considers these remarks as highly unfortunate and irresponsible.” “Such rhetoric for short-term political and electoral gains, with complete disregard to its effects on strategic stability in South Asia is regrettable and against norms of responsible nuclear behaviour,” the statement added. https://thediplomat.com/2019/04/at-indian-general-election-rallies-modi-beats-the-nuclear-drums/

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Energy efficiency – theme for July 2019

Energy efficiency represents the single largest potential contributor to global emissions reduction, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA 2017). It should be a key part of the global energy strategy, for several reasons:

It could reduce global electric demand by more than 20 per cent, based on current rates in the U.S. power sector, while maintaining high levels of services such as heating and lighting.
It avoids the need for increased energy, capacity and grid services, making it the least expensive way to decarbonise at scale.
It can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by billions of tonnes.

A dramatic example of the power of energy efficiency is lighting. In 2017 the United States passed the milestone of 1 billion LED and CFL lights installed, avoiding 142 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions, at a cost of about $7 per ton of avoided carbon dioxide. In contrast, the cumulative installed capacity of rooftop solar reached 8,000 MW in 2017, saving 8 million tonnes a year of carbon dioxide, at a cost of $360 per ton. Lighting efficiency thus yielded almost 18 times the avoided carbon dioxide, at about 2 per cent the cost per ton of rooftop solar.

Google provides another example of the power of energy efficiency. Its data centers now use 50 per cent less energy than the average data center, according to the company. Google also developed an improved chip, the TPU, which performs 83 times better than standard CPUs. The new chip allowed Google to reduce power consumption at its data centers by a factor of 30—far exceeding the effect on Google’s carbon footprint of all of the company’s renewable energy purchases. ” – John Woolard, Eco Business, 10 June 2019

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