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With demand incentives withdrawn after FY 2024, maximum penetration of electric two-wheelers in India could be 71.54 per cent in Technology Driven Scenario by FY 2031, while with no technological improvement and reduction in battery cost, penetration level of 21.86% only can be achieved even if incentives are continued. However, combination of technological improvement and incentives can achieve 100% penetration, says a study titled “Forecasting Penetration of Electric Two-wheelers in India: A Bottom-up Analysis” prepared by TIFAC and NITI Aayog.

Senior Trinamool Congress (TMC) leaders in West Bengal are deeply embarrassed by the unacceptably poor performance of their party in the recent Tripura Assembly by-elections. They have been remarkably reticent on the issue, not least because the humiliation they face is directly attributable to party second-in-command Abhishek Banerjee MP.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Overkill does not pay in politics. That is the bitter lesson the Congress and the party-led Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) is learning at a heavy cost.

At last the Delhi Police has gone and done the unpardonable. The capital’s constabulary, which answers to the Union Home Ministry, summoned AltNews co-founder Muhammad Zubair from Bengaluru to Delhi and Monday, June 27, took him into custody in what looked like a sleight of the ham-handed. If it was a non-BJP government at the Centre, the Delhi Police wouldn’t have carried out such an outrage, but these are not the best of days for the secular ecosystem, and in the eight years of Modi rule, whosoever stepped on rightwing, especially BJP, toes ran the risk of getting hauled over the coals.

Senior advocate Fali S. Nariman, described civil rights activist and journalist Teesta Setalvad as a “foot soldier of the Indian Constitution”. Today, the foot soldier has been arrested for zealously pursuing justice for one of independent India’s most egregious wrongs, namely the Gujarat pogrom, which was unleashed following the Godhra train burning of February 27, 2002.

Is the ongoing Maharashtra political crisis an ideological battle within the Shiv Sena or the inability of Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray to convince his Sainiks about his soft Hindutva? Or is it the BJP's ambition to eliminate all non-BJP governments, or is it for the realignment of political forces? It is perhaps a combination of all.

Modi’s New India by 2022 is finally emerging. In April, the first month of the current financial year 2022-23, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had boasted to feed the world on amidst the impending global food crisis, but a month later in mid-May wheat export was banned. One month ago he tried to give impression that India has surplus food stock while a month later wheat export ban was announced for ensuring food security in the country. The statements present a contrast that hides the truth manifested across the country in the form of hungry malnourished lean and thin men and animals including cows in large number.

The academic definition of ‘disinvestment’ is quite different from the meaning that the government of India emphasizes on. To avoid any confusion, one must forget one’s own understanding and remember the disinvestment in India is nothing but a government policy under which the government, fully or partially, liquidates its assets in the Public Sector Enterprises. Providing greater role to private sector is the usual propaganda that veils the chief objective of reducing the fiscal burden and bridge the revenue shortfall of the government.

It is a matter of concern that India, sitting over the world’s fifth largest proven coal reserves of well over 111 billion tonnes, produces only around 800 million tonnes of coal per annum and continues to be a major global coal importer year after year. China, ranked 4th in coal reserves with around 134 billion tonnes, produced over four billion tonnes of coal, a world record. The nationalisation of coal mining by the Indian government over 50 years ago seems to have failed to achieve its purpose. The sector remains one of the most corrupt government-controlled areas. Such practices as illegal mining and transportation, unreliable pit-head stock claims, import manipulation and cost distortion have remained common. The country’s near-monopoly public sector producer Coal India’s (CIL) poor performance over the years is mainly responsible for coal shortage and imports, perpetuating massive corruption. In the past, coal scandal cases had reached the Supreme Court and even a prime minister’s name was dragged in.

The continuing crisis in Maharashtra shows a clear dichotomy between the political class and the people. The rank and file of the Shiv Sena pivots on personality cult rather than on an ideological appeal. Here is a lively demonstration that rising numbers could not stand in front of a single picture.