In the failing monsoons of 2023-24, the State had a record peak demand (over 17,000 Megawatts) and faced a power crunch for over a month.
| Photo Credit: File Photo

Between the financial year (FY) 2022-23, overall energy sales in Karnataka went up by 22.7%, the highest growth over a decade. Based on previous sales, consumption and other drivers the peak demand in the State is expected to cross 33,000 Megwatts (MW) by 2034-35, according to a report titled ‘Resource Adequacy of Karnataka’ submitted by the Power Corporation of Karnataka Limited (PCKL) to the State government recently.  

With monsoons failing 2023-24, the State had a record peak demand (over 17,000 Megawatts) and faced a power crunch for over a month. The officials from the Energy Department attribute this to be one of the reasons for a growth in energy sales in 2023-24.

“There were two reasons why our sales went up in 2023-24 – one was economic recovery after the COVID-19 pandemic and the other was due to the low rainfall which led to increased consumption. The electricity demand for irrigation pump sets and other devices went up. When compared to the previous year, this year (2024-25) we might not see as much growth in sales as there has been good rainfall,” Gaurav Gupta, Additional Chief Secretary, Energy Department, told The Hindu. 

With such unpredictable patterns, the Energy Department decided to conduct a resource assessment. The report was prepared by Power Research and Development Consultants Pvt. Ltd., a consulting firm and was accepted by the State government on October 16. 

The report considered the impact of open access, distributed energy resources, demand response, Electric Vehicles (EV), tariff signals, specific energy consumption, energy efficiency measures and impact of econometric parameters to create demand projections. The report also subtracts solar rooftop generated power, whose capacity is projected to touch 1,468 MW by 2034-35, from the total energy sales. The long-term forecasting study for the State has been performed for three agricultural scenarios – average rainfall, high rainfall and low rainfall. 

Based on the average rainfall scenario, the peak demand for the ongoing year (2024-25) has been projected at 16,271 MW. The numbers are expected to gradually increase by 2034-35 to 33,310 MW. The penetration of EVs is expected to be one of the major drivers of demand in the State. The projections show that the energy consumption of EVs will jump from 638 Million Units (MU) in 2024-25 to 22,705 MU in 2034-35. 

“In terms of power availability, one should always keep a margin of 20%-30%. After last year, we have realised that for a poor monsoon year, we need to have a higher power reserve. This report will help us take up resource adequacy measures in the coming years with regard to how we equip our generation and transmission systems. We are anyway geared up for it now,” Mr. Gupta said about the intent behind the report.  

Recommendations 

Among the many recommendations given by the report addition of capacity is one of the major ones. It recommends that along with a firm capacity or thermal equivalent of 8,496 MW proposed by PCKL, 1,970 MW proposed by KPCL and an additional 3,000 MW should be contracted over the next 11 years. The report also stresses the addition of Renewable Energy Capacity and energy storage.

The report will now be submitted to the Central Electricity Authority for validation and then to the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) for approval.  

The railway passengers associations have requested to extend the Madurai-Punalur night express train service to Nagapattinam or Karaikal to provide better access to the ferry service from Nagapattinam to Sri Lanka.

Passengers from the southern districts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu are showing growing interest in traveing on this ferry from Nagapattinam. At present, there is no direct train between Nagapattinam and southern districts. To address this issue, the passengers associations have urged the railways to extend the Madurai-Punalur train to Nagapattinam or Karaikal.

Office-bearers of the Southern Districts Passengers Association pointed out that only two stations — Tiruchi and Villupuram — had maintenance facilities in the Tiruchi division. Extending train service may pose challenges in maintenance. Therefore, they suggested that the train be extended to Nagapattinam or Karaikkal for three days a week, with the remaining four days of service extended to Tiruchi where maintenance could be carried out.

The High Court of Karnataka has summoned the service records and details of all the criminal cases filed by Seema H., an Assistant Conservator of Forests (ACF), after taking note of the allegation that she had changed the name and religion of her father and claimed that she belonged to Hindu-Adi Karnataka community, a Scheduled Caste (SC).

She has also filed several cases against many, including some by invoking the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The court passed the order on a petition filed by Pradeepkumar, a city-based advocate, who had questioned the registration of a First Information Report (FIR) against him by Vidhana Soudha police on the complaint by Ms. Seema.

“Whether the complainant [Ms. Seema] has secured employment contending that she is the one belonging to Scheduled Caste or not, is a matter which requires to be noticed and considered by the State,” Justice M. Nagaprasanna observed in the order while asking the authorities to submit her service records.

The complaint

She had lodged a complaint of forgery against the petitioner-advocate, her father, and another person on October 10, 2024, in connection with a letter written in her name to the head of the Forest Department by allegedly forging her signature, in which complaint of harassment was made against her immediate superior officer.

She had also alleged in the complaint that her father, who is a retired employee of the Forest Department, had deserted his wife and children, and he is now trying to bring bad name to her. The petitioner-advocate and others are attempting to keep a track on her by securing records related to her under RTI Act, she had claimed.

However, it has been alleged in the petition that Ms. Seema, 38 has targeted the petitioner as he is representing one Vinod V. in a matrimonial case filed by her before a civil court in October, 2017, alleging that her husband [Vinod] has failed to fulfil her conjugal rights. The petitioner-advocate had also filed applications under RTI Act to secure her credentials like names of her parents, religion, caste, school data, service records, etc., on behalf of Mr. Vinod, who has denied having married her.

Senior Advocate D.R. Ravishankar, appearing for the petitioner, pointed out that petitioner-advocate had secured Ms. Seema’s records, including SSLC marks card under RTI Act, which discloses her father’s name as H.K.M. Harshad and mother’s name as Pyarijan and they belong to Muslim religion. Ms. Seema filed a civil suit in 2014 in which she got an ex-parte decree with a declaration that the name of her father is not ‘H.K.M. Harshad’ but it is ‘H.K. Mariswamy’ and he belong to Scheduled Caste.

In this suit, there were four defendants, all are officers of the State government, and they remain ex-parte.

Matrimonial case

Ms. Seema and Mr. Vinod, who was her senior during post-graduation, were friends, and she had claimed that she married him at a park, known as Jinkevana in Chikkamagaluru, as per Hindu rituals in August, 2017, when she was serving in Chikkamagaluru.

However, Mr. Vinod’s father lodged a complaint on August 11, 2017, that his son, who went to meet Ms. Seema, had not returned home. On his return, Mr. Vinod himself lodged a complaint on August 14, 2017, against her alleging that she took him to Chikkamagaluru on the pretext of asking him to drive her new car from showroom to the city’s outskirts but later allegedly kidnapped him.

Tirunelveli District Collector K.P. Karthikeyan on Saturday announced that hotels, old age homes, destitute homes, homes for people with disabilities and rehabilitation centres for drug de-addiction operating without registration would be sealed.

In Tirunelveli district, those running children’s home can register at District Children Welfare Office or through the website https://dsdcpimms.tn.gov.in. Operators of old age homes can register with the District Social Welfare Office or www.seniorcitizenhomes.tnsocialwelfare.tn.gov.in. Those operating hostels for women and children should register with the District Social Welfare Office or https://tnswp.com.

Homes for individuals with mental disabilities and special needs should register with the District Differently Abled Welfare Board office. Rehabilitation centers for individuals addicted to drugs and mental health facilities for people with psychiatric issues should register with the State Mental Health Authority in Chennai or on the website https://tnhealth.tn.gov.in/tngovin/dme/dme.php.

Those running homes and hostels without registration must apply for it within one month. Failure of registration will result in the sealing of the facility.

M.V.S.S. Sastry with his rich haul of certificates in Srikakulam.
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A 51-year-old social activist has done over 2,500 online certificate courses within a span of two years, proving age is no bar for academic pursuits, even in fields as diverse as IT, psychology and business management.

Gandhi Mandir Committee members felicitating M.V.S.S. Sastry in Srikakulam on Saturday.
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

A member of Gandhi Mandir Committee here, M.V.S.S. Sastry completed courses and secured certificates from Google, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Meta, UK Academy, University of Leads, British Council, European University, World Health Organisation, and UNICEF among others.

He did courses in skill development, business management, psychology, journalism, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and many other areas. 

It all started two years ago, when he began searching for information on cyber security to help his daughter, Gayatri, who is currently pursuing engineering first year in IIT Madras.

Mr. Sastry soon realised that many organisations were providing courses free of cost or with a small fee to enable students to improve their knowledge. He then started doing the courses one by one with the support of his academic friends who helped him to understand difficult subjects.

“In the era of competition, every student should acquire more knowledge, which is possible through certificate courses. In order to highlight this, I did these many courses,” Mr. Sastry tells The Hindu.

Gandhi Mandir Committee members Jami Bhimasankar, Konkyana Venugopal, Natukula Mohan and others have felicitated Mr. Sastry for completing the highest number of online courses, a feat recently recognised by International Book of Records, India Book of Records, India Achiever Record, and Telugu Book of Records. Mr. Sastry has applied for the Guinness World Records.

Salman Rushdie
| Photo Credit: JOE MAHER

India’s customs notification No. 405/12/88-CUS-III shook the world 36 years ago. For it banned the import of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. That was months before Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa (for blaspheming Prophet Muhammad) sent the author into hiding. 

Now the world is shaking again, this time with laughter. For no one can find that notification. It has disappeared down a bureaucratic rabbit hole, forcing the Delhi High Court to allow the import of the book. 

Loss of guilt

There’s a whole new novel awaiting Rushdie’s ironic pen (or sardonic word processor) here. If the original ban implied a loss of innocence in a country proud of its freedoms, the new twist may be a loss of guilt. Perhaps the notification was as fictitious as the characters in the novel; perhaps there are other notifications that do not exist but continue to rule our lives. 

It might not be a bad idea to check out if important ones pertaining to taxes or public behaviour actually exist. Perhaps the gentleman who set the ball rolling in the court in the Satanic Verses case can now ask why some other books are unavailable in India. These were presumed to be banned, but we can’t be sure now. Books like Stanley Wolpert’s Nine Hours to Rama, Aubrey Menen’s The Ramayana, Arthur Koestler’s The Lotus and the Robot. 

The Satanic Verses notification was issued by the Finance Ministry, and Rushdie was only one of millions who wondered why that agency should decide what the country may or may not read. When an Indian citizen went to court five years ago, asking why he could not purchase the book in India, he was directed to the customs order. And given the usual run around. 

Five years later, presumably after having searched every inch of the customs department and nearby restaurants where the officials might have eaten, it emerges that there is no such order. Either that, or someone, like a spy in a cheap novel, swallowed it to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. Anything you say about Indian bureaucracy is usually true! 

Victory of incompetence

Yet, by this act of forgetfulness or misplacement or poor housekeeping, the bureaucracy has righted a wrong perpetrated 36 years ago. This is not so much a triumph of the freedom of expression as a victory for incompetence. That detail , however, might be lost to history decades from now. 

This wasn’t a ban on literary grounds (even if Verses isn’t one of Rushdie’s best works), but on political ones. The conditions that led to the ban can be rekindled any time by politicians: one lot who want to project themselves as leaders of the community, and another who might see in protests a diversion from the real issues. 

In his book on censorship published three decades ago, the novelist J M Coetzee made the point that “the very notion of entrusting the name of the Almighty to the protection of the law courts has taken on an increasingly anachronistic air.” If only that were true. 

The district Suchitwa Mission has come up with a detailed action plan to upgrade all offices at the Kollam civil station, including the court, to ‘clean complex’ standards. The aim is to declare all government offices as green offices on January 26, 2025, as part of the Malinya Muktham Navakeralam campaign. The action plan was presented at a meeting convened at the Kollam collectorate on Saturday. Principal District and Sessions judge G. Gopakumar inaugurated the meeting and District Collector N. Devidas presided over the function.

Since more than 1,200 government employees, 1,500 court employees and 5,000 members of the public visit the civil station complex daily, suggestions for carrying out waste disposal in a scientific manner were presented at the meeting. The proposals are to set up waste bins to collect organic and inorganic waste generated at each office, assign sanitation workers to collect and scientifically dispose of collected waste, transfer organic waste to Thumboormuzhi aerobic compost units and inorganic waste to Material Collection Facility (MCF), and collect ₹50 a month from all employees/lawyers to pay the monthly wages of the workers. A final decision will be taken after more discussions.

Other guidelines issued in the meeting, including keeping the office dust-free, avoiding use of disposable items, minimising the amount of waste, beautifying the office with eco-friendly decorative items and switching to green gifts. LSGD Joint Director Binun Wahid gave a presentation on ‘Malinya Muktham Navakeralam Campaign — Green Office’.

ADM G. Nirmal Kumar, Sub-collector Nishant Sinhara, and Corporation secretary D. Saju were present.

Six people were injured after two cars collided head-on near Kazhakuttam on Saturday.

The incident occurred outside the KINFRA Film and Video Park along the Kazhakuttam-Venjaramoodu route at Chanthavila around 6.30 a.m. when a group of five people were headed to Adoor from Thiruvananthapuram International Airport met with the accident involving another car, driven by a woman, that came from the opposite direction.

The woman is suspected to have dozed off, leading to the collision. Both cars were completely damaged and had to be removed from the road to restore traffic along the route.

While four people, identified as Anchal native Akhil and Jaanamma, Sini, Stephy of Adoor, were admitted to a private hospital in Venjaramoodu, the two others were taken to a private hospital in Kazhakuttam with minor injuries. The condition of one person remained critical, the police said.

Citizens of Yadgir city have submitted applications highlighting problems before Lalita Anapur, CMC chairperson, during her maiden Janaspandana programme held at Yadgir on Friday.

The majority of the problems were related to internal linking roads, drinking water, sanitation, improper dumping of waste, and defunct borewells. Few citizens have raised issues related to property documents and complained about applications seeking change of names in the mutations being kept pending.

Some explained the menace of stray cattle, which obstruct moving vehicles on main roads, especially at night, and also complained about mismanagement of streetlights.

After hearing citizens patiently, Ms. Anapur promised that all applications containing problems would be solved soon. Construction of CC roads and a vegetable market will require sufficient time. However, these projects will also be taken into consideration as priority.

The CMC will always be for the citizens, who should extend coordination for better civic facilities. Every citizen should approach the CMC without any hesitation to get the work done. As many as 35 applications were received, and of them, 20 applications were disposed of on the spot, officials said.

Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy addresses a press conference with Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukvinder Singh Sukhu, at Tilak Bhavan in Mumbai on Saturday (November 09).
| Photo Credit: ANI

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy campaigning in support of the Congress candidates in Mumbai on Saturday (November 9, 2024).

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy defended the investments by Adani Group in Telangana stating that Telangana was ensuring money is coming into the State as investments while Prime Minister Narendra Modi was giving away the nation’s assets to Adani.

“Modi is giving money to Adani and Telangana was taking the same money from Adani,” he said in response to a question at a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday. The press conference was attended by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhdev Singh Sukku, Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar apart from Maharasthra leaders.

The Chief Minister said Prime Minister Modi had made allegations against the non-implementation of poll promises. “However, when I explained the implementation of the schemes through a detailed post Mr. Modi deleted his tweets related to Telangana,” he said.

Telangana is the only State where the agricultural loans of 22,22,067 farmers were waived spending ₹17,869 in just 25 days, he said. Mr. Reddy said Prime Minister Modi had a problem with the Telangana government paying ₹3,500 crore to the Telangana Road Transport Corporation (TGRTC) for free travel for women while he doesn’t have any problem while waiving dues worth ₹15 lakh crore of the corporates.

Explaining the series of Congress guarantees that were being implemented in Telangana, he said women made more than 1 crore trips in the buses free of cost, 49 lakh families were getting LPG cylinder for ₹500 while 50 lakh households were getting 200 units of free power. Farmers are getting an additional ₹500 bonus for paddy over the MSP, which no other State was providing.

Referring to the Maharashtra sentiment, Mr. Reddy said people had read about the self-respect of the State under great figures like Shivaji, Ambedkar, Balasaheb Thackeray and Sharad Pawar but now the BJP has reduced that self-respect with a few leaders toeing the line of the BJP.

The biggest achievement of the Shinde-led government was Maharashtra figuring at the top in farmers’ suicides. Telangana was second on this list during the BRS government, he argued. Later, he participated in a roadshow in Mumbai in support of the Congress candidates.