12th May’18 – The Hindu Editorial Complete Analysis

Table of Contents

Karnataka votes

Loss of innocents

 The wave of lynchings(हत्या) in Tamil Nadu demands a firm response from the police
 Three cases
 1)- North of Chennai, beat up a 45- year-old homeless man- child kidnapper
 2)-55-year-old woman – village in Tiruvannamalai search of a temple, was beaten to death shared chocolates with children playing nearby.
 3)-30-year-old north Indian man died in a town in Vellore district after he was beaten up
mistook him for a burglar.
Such instances of mob madness require a firm response from the police
Police say the trigger for the lynchings could be a rash of xenophobic.
Circulating on WhatsApp warning that “north Indians” are looking to kidnap children in TN
The social media, by its very nature, enables the unchallenged dissemination(प्रसार)
of unverified information.

In a state of energy poverty

 100% village electrification in India, an important milestone in the development trajectory.
 At the time of Independence, while major global economies were completing electrification,
India inherited what K. Santhanam, a member of the Constituent Assembly, called a
„virgin field for electrification‟.
 In response to the regional imbalances in electrical development, led largely by the private
sector, the Constituent Assembly set the ground for public sector-led electrification.
 But despite dedicated public agencies, a planned approach, continued public spending by the
Centre and States, India has been considerably slow in reaching the milestone.
 Another turnaround came last year when India claimed to be a net surplus and exporter of
electricity (a scenario projected to continue for at least a decade).
 But do these developments mark an end to India‟s energy poverty?
 India continues to harbour energy poverty; 31 million rural households and about five million
urban households are still to be connected to the grid — the highest in any single country
 Yet to get adequate quantity and quality of supply.

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 Regional imbalances in electricity access have persisted.
 Seven States (UP, Bihar, MP Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam & Rajasthan ) account for
90% of un-electrified households.
 Who pays for the cost of supply will also be a critical driver-Electricity distribution companies
(discoms) in these seven States are already highly indebted
 It is uncertain whether the goal of electrifying all „willing households‟ by March 2019 would
translate into universal access to electricity
 Major challenge is from distribution network capacity- distribution infrastructure
is overburdened, as the demand has grown, causing a high level of technical losses
and frequent breakdowns
 Until then, the volume of dark homes in a fully wired country may remain as big
as it was in the virgin field for electrification.