New policies to classify green investments would help spur an energy transition in India that’s likely to need spending of $200 billion a year, according to REC Ltd., a key lender to the nation’s power sector. The company, controlled by state-run peer Power Finance Corp., is aiming to increase its own exposure to renewable energy and sees a role for legislators and regulators in helping attract other investors, REC Chairman Vivek Kumar Dewangan told Bloomberg Television in an interview. “The main challenge is how to bring down the cost of financing,” Dewangan said Tuesday. “India is in the process of finalizing a green taxonomy, which will be very crucial. The regulatory framework and policy framework needs to be in place to attract investments.” India has established an expert committee to examine issues including a green taxonomy, the nation’s reserve bank said in a May report. Since last month, the Reserve Bank of India has allowed lenders to raise so-called green deposits in an effort to encourage more financing of projects tied to clean energy or climate action. To be on track for net zero emissions by mid-century, the nation would need investments averaging $221 billion a year to 2030, including for renewables, electric vehicles, hydrogen and carbon capture, according to BloombergNEF. About $17 billion was spent on those technologies last year, BNEF data shows. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is seeking to hit net zero by 2070 and to almost triple the share of non-fossil fuel power generation capacity by the end of this decade. Source: bloomberg.com

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina sought World Bank assistance for the smooth transition of Bangladesh on the way to becoming a developing country, the subsequent graduation as an upper-middle income country and implementation of Delta Plan-2100.  The Prime Minister made this call while addressing the plenary session titled 'Reflections on 50 years of World Bank-Bangladesh Partnership' held at the Preston Auditorium of the World Bank headquarters on Monday, May 1.  Meanwhile, the Prime Minister placed five specific suggestions to World Bank that lenders should take into consideration. In the event, an agreement worth two and a half billion dollars was signed between Bangladesh and the World Bank for the implementation of five projects.  At this time, the Prime Minister presented a picture of the Padma multi-purpose bridge to World Bank President.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today (Sunday) said her government is set to formulate a Smooth Transition Strategy (STS) to continue the ongoing development spree for transforming Bangladesh into a developed and prosperous nation by 2041. "We have taken a measure to formulate a Smooth Transition Strategy aimed at continuing the country's ongoing development spree," she said. The Prime Minister said this while addressing a function, arranged to celebrate the formal recognition of Bangladesh’s graduation to a developing nation by the United Nations (UN), at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in the capital. Joining virtually from her official Ganabhaban residence, she also said, the strategy would have effective guidelines to cash on the prospects and face the challenges which might be arisen in continuing the development journey of the nation. The Prime Minister called upon the authorities concerned to prepare an effective strategy based on research and data. Sheikh Hasina said: “We have to materialise the dream of Father of the Nation to build a developed and prosperous country.” The Prime Minister vowed to go ahead with the ideals of Bangabandhu to materialise his dream no matter how much dark the path would be. "I know many bullets, bombs, and grenades are waiting for me. I never care about those. I am working to change the fate of the people, and I will definitely do it," she said. She continued: “No matter whatever hurdle comes before me as I know the paths of the people, who love their country, and they would have to go through many impediments." Nobody would live forever, the Prime Minister said, adding so, the new generation would have to shoulder the responsibilities to carry forward the country’s development spree towards prosperity. "I want to call upon the new generation to love the country and to work for its people," she said hoping that the development spree will be continued at the hands of the future generation. Presidents of the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, JICA and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and Administrator of the USAID through video messages greeted Bangladesh for its graduation to a developing country. On behalf of the UN Secretary-General, a video message was also screened at the ceremony. Bangladesh U-19 Women Football Team which clinched the SAFF U-19 Women Champion also greeted the Prime Minister for the graduation. Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury, Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal, Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni spoke on the occasion while secretary of the Economic Relations Division Fatima Yasmin gave the welcome address. Representatives from the young generation also expressed their feelings on Bangladesh's graduation. At the onset of the programme, the national anthem was played. Several video documentaries on the development journey of Bangladesh, achieved under the leadership of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, were also screened. Describing the UN recognition as a great achievement for Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina said that the accomplishment of Bangladesh’s graduation from the LDC to a developing country did not come ordinarily, rather it has been possible due to her government’s planned initiatives that included short, medium and long-term plans alongside unwavering support of the countrymen, development partners and friendly countries.   She said the development miracle has come as the Awami League led-government has remained in power for the last 13 years since 2009.   The Prime Minister promised that she would never stop the journey to take the nation forward and make it a developed and prosperous one confronting all the odds, such as thorny, daunting, dark, and bloody paths, to materialize the dream of the Father of the Nation.   She said that the UN recognition would make Bangladesh one step ahead to materialise the dream of Father of the Nation to give the countrymen a beautiful and developed life.   Reciting some verses from a poem "Stopping Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost, she said: "The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But, I have promises to keep, And Miles to go before I sleep, And Miles to go before I sleep." The Prime Minister said that her government has already implemented the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals and it is implementing the Sustainable Development Goals and also working to transform Bangladesh into a developed country by 2041.   Highlighting various development programmes taken by the government to ensure the country’s overall progress, she said that they have formulated the Delta Plan-2100 which is now being implemented to continue the development spree.   The Prime Minister said that Bangabandhu’s government had achieved 9 percent GDP growth during his only three and a half years tenure alongside rebuilding a war-ravaged country, referring to various development measures taken by him.   Sheikh Hasina, the elder daughter of Father of the Nation, said no other government had been able to achieve the growth.   When Bangabandhu had taken a programme to make Bangladesh a developed country decentralizing the power to the grassroots, he along with most of his family members were brutally killed on August 15, 1975.   After Bangabandhu's assassination, the governments of military dictators did nothing for the countrymen.   Assuming office after 21 years, the Awami League government has started working to change the fate of the Bangladeshi people.   After Bangabandhu’s government, her government had been able to achieve 8 percent growth in GDP, she said.   But the Coronavirus pandemic has stalled everything not only in Bangladesh but across the globe, she added.   The Prime Minister said that her government has already given 13 crore doses of the Covid-19 vaccines as part of her government’s move to bring the people under vaccination free of cost while inoculation of booster doses has already started. Source: BSS AH

Donald Trump for the first time Thursday promised a smooth transition to Joe Biden and acknowledged his presidency was ending as calls grew for his removal from office for encouraging a mob attack on the US Capitol. An unusually tame Trump, in a video he released on Twitter after a temporary suspension, condemned rioters who rampaged in his name through a congressional session that certified Biden’s victory, although he did not go so far as to congratulate or even say the name of his successor. “This moment calls for healing and reconciliation,” said Trump, in a jarring shift of tone a day after a grievance-fueled outdoor rally in which he encouraged thousands of supporters to march on the Capitol. “We have just been through an intense election and emotions are high, but now tempers must be cooled and calm restored,” said Trump, standing before a lectern with the presidential seal. “A new administration will be inaugurated on January 20. My focus now turns to ensuring a smooth, orderly and seamless transition of power,” he said. “Serving as your president has been the honor of my lifetime,” Trump said, without explicitly conceding and insisting he was “fighting to defend American democracy.” Trump’s turnaround came as aides including one cabinet member resigned and the two top Democrats in Congress urged his immediate removal, fearing the damage he can still inflict in his less than two weeks left in the world’s most powerful job. Biden, who won seven million votes more than Trump in the November 3 election as well as a decisive edge in the vital state-by-state Electoral College, declined to address demands for Trump’s removal but accused him of an “all-out assault on the institutions of our democracy.” “Yesterday, in my view, was one of the darkest days in the history of our nation,” Biden said at an event to introduce his nominee for attorney general, respected judge Merrick Garland, who if confirmed will quickly need to decide whether to prosecute Trump. “They weren’t protesters,” Biden said. “They were a riotous mob, insurrectionists, domestic terrorists.” “I wish we could say we couldn’t see it coming but that isn’t true,” Biden said. “We could see it coming.” “The past four years, we’ve had a president who’s made his contempt for our democracy, our Constitution, the rule of law clear in everything he has done,” he said. – Calls to remove Trump – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, which allows a majority of the cabinet to remove a president deemed unable to discharge his duties. They threatened otherwise to impeach Trump for an unprecedented second time in hopes that the Senate, where Democrats are projected to have won control after runoff elections Tuesday in Georgia, will now oust him. “This is an emergency of the highest magnitude,” Pelosi said, describing Trump as a “very dangerous person.” “By inciting sedition, as he did yesterday, he must be removed from office,” she said. “While it’s only 13 days left, any day can be a horror show for America. Few Republicans came forward to back such remedies although Representative Adam Kinzinger, a frequent Trump critic within his party, said it was time to “end this nightmare” and also called for invoking the 25th Amendment, which has been used previously when presidents undergo a surgical procedure. “The president is unfit,” Kinzinger said. “And the president is unwell.” Invoking the amendment would make Pence the acting president for the remaining two weeks the administration has in office. Speaking to CNN, retired Marine Corps general John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 18 months, said the cabinet should consider the 25th Amendment but believed the president had been chastened. “He can give all the orders he wants but no one is going to break the law,” Kelly said. Pence, loyally by Trump’s side until the final days, rejected Trump’s vocal pressure to somehow intervene in Tuesday’s session, which has taken place every four years for more than two centuries without drama. In the middle of the night, after hours of delay due to the riots and Trump loyalists’ contesting of the results, it was Pence who formally announced the victory of Biden as the 46th president and Kamala Harris as the next vice president. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who is married to Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell and is one of Trump’s longest-serving cabinet members, announced she would resign over the “entirely avoidable” violence at the Capitol. Thursday evening Education Secretary Betsy DeVos became the second cabinet member to quit, telling Trump in a letter that such “behavior was unconscionable for our country.” Others who resigned included Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump chief of staff who is now US special envoy to Northern Ireland, and the deputy national advisor, Matt Pottinger, an architect of Trump’s hawkish line on China. – Scrutiny on security – During the mayhem in Congress, security forces fired tear gas to drive out the flag-waving crowds and police said a woman, reportedly a Trump supporter from California, was shot by police and killed. Three other deaths were reported on the Capitol grounds but the circumstances remained unclear. Bipartisan anger was brewing over the failure of law enforcement to prevent the mobs from entering Congress. Steven Sund, the chief of the 2,300-strong Capitol Police, handed in his resignation and lawmakers vowed a thorough investigation on security lapses. Many questioned how police would have responded had the crowd been not overwhelmingly white Trump supporters but Black anti-racism protesters, who were met with force in nationwide demonstrations last year. “True progress will be possible only once we acknowledge that this disconnect exists and take steps to repair it,” said former first lady Michelle Obama. “And that also means coming to grips with the reality that millions voted for a man so obviously willing to burn our democracy to the ground for his own ego.” Source: AFP/BSS AH