04.02.2024 // a huge pile of TBR at home and yet, I'm out here buying more books. I won't get around to reading them in the next two weeks anyway, so the TBR pile continues to grow. I'll arrive at it eventually, however long it takes.
"Passed in February [2024], a massive subsidy program to help Indian households install rooftop solar panels in their homes and apartments aims to provide 30 gigawatt hours of solar power to the nation’s inventory.
The scheme, called PM-Surya Ghar, will provide free electricity to 10 million homes according to estimates, and the designing of a national portal—a sort of Healthcare.gov for solar panels—will streamline the process of installation and payment.
The program was cooked up because India had fallen woefully behind on its planned installations for rooftop solar. In many parts of the subcontinent, the sun is absolutely brutal and relentless, but by 2022, Indian rooftop solar power generation topped out at 11 gigawatts, which was 29 gigawatts under a national target set a decade ago.
Part of the challenge, Euronews reports, is that approval from various agencies and departments—as many as 21 different signatures in some cases—was needed to place a solar array on your house. Aside from this bureaucratic nightmare, the cost of installation was often higher than $5,000; more than half the average yearly income for a working Indian urbanite.
Under PM-Surya Ghar, subsidies for a 2-kilowatt solar array will cover as much as 60% of the installation costs, falling to 40% for arrays 3 kilowatts or higher. Loans set at around 7% interest rates will help families in need get started. 750 billion Indian rupees, or $9 billion has been set aside for the project.
Even in New Delhi, which can be covered in clouds and smog for days, solar users report saving hundreds during summer time on their electricity costs, with one apartment shaving $700 every month off energy bills.
PM-Surya Ghar is also seen as having the potential to cause a boom in the Indian solar market. Companies no longer have to go running around for planning and permitting requirements, and the government subsidies ensure their customer base can grow beyond the limits of household income."
Independence day? The very foundation of Independence is safety. What is the point of hoisting the tricolor when the white is stained with red.
There was a time when people believed of this profession as next to God's, people would fall into the feet of healthcare workers, join their hands to thank them. I think you guessed it already, medicine. And now?
"A female doctor resting in R.G. Kar hospital's seminal hall gets raped, brutalized, murdered."
"a doctor was tied to a tree, robbed and his wife and daughter gang-raped in Gaya district of Bihar"
"two resident doctors of Banaras Hindu University were beaten up by patient's attendants and goons"
"Two resident doctors of JJ Hospital, Mumbai were beaten up by patient's relatives"
"Two medical residents working at the Sassoon Medical College were brutally thrashed; a junior resident doctor suffered a skull fracture; a doctor suffered fractured ribs and broken bones"
"a junior lady doctor on night duty was stabbed to death by a patient"
And this has recently come to light. We have never even talked about our nursing staff and the amount of harassment they face. If doctors commit suicide from exploitation and extreme mental and physical breakdown, nurses commit suicide as result of extreme harassment and abuse, be it physical, sexual, mental. I hope everyone remembers Aruna Ramchandra Shanbaug.
The non-medic communities are not even willing to take a stand for us.
Everyone wants world-class but affordable treatment, even free treatment, free medicines and empathetic and responsible doctors, but no one has the bloody balls to take a stand and raise their voices for us.
This is not what our families sent us for. This not what we opted for. This is not what we're working are assess off for.