-Down to Earth While power consumption in agriculture is overestimated, a number of factors influence groundwater extraction. A new study done by Pune-based non-profit Prayas shows that India’s agriculture sector cannot be held responsible for financial stress on electricity distribution companies (Discoms) and for declining groundwater. The study titled, Understanding the Electricity, Water & Agriculture Linkages, argues that not only is the subsidy given to agriculture in India overestimated, the relation between subsidy...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: After Dwarka, a cooperative housing society in east Delhi has now gone solar. Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurated a 140 kWp solar PV plant at Milan Vihar cooperative society in IP Extension on Sunday. According to officials, the plant will generate 1.7 lakh units in a year and the society will earn Rs 3.4 lakh per year as generation-based incentive. Sources said many other housing societies...

-The Hindu Business Line The spread of rural electrification has been overestimated, and the adoption of subsidised LPG has not picked up It is little more than a year since the Sustainable Development Goals were agreed to at the UN General Assembly. SDGs are a set of 17 goals that are intended to dramatically improve lives across the world by 2030. A major goal is SDG7 which aims to ensure universal access...

-Livemint.com Solar-powered water pumps will insure farmers when rains fail and also replace polluting diesel ones New Delhi: India has set an ambitious target of achieving 100,000 megawatts of solar power capacity by 2022 as well as doubling farm incomes by the 75th year of Independence. Both these targets can be a game changer for rural India if implemented in unison, suggests new research. According to a recent study by New Delhi-based International...

-The Indian Express Farmers can install solar panels on their fields that can generate income in addition to regular crop agriculture. Of its several new initiatives, the Narendra Modi government has set out at least two very ambitious targets, which are also quantifiable. One is achieving 100 giga-watts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by the year 2022. The other is doubling farmers’ income — presumably in real terms — also by 2022,...