Getting India to the Green Frontier

Wednesday, September 29, 2021
9:00 – 10:30 a.m. EDT / 6:30 – 8:00 p.m. IST

This was the eleventh webinar in the “Envisioning India” series, a platform for dialogue and debate co-sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies and the Institute for International Economic Policy.

The “Envisioning India” series is organized under the stewardship of IIEP Co-Director James Foster, Oliver T. Carr, Jr. Professor of International Affairs and Professor of Economics, and IIEP Distinguished Visiting Scholar Ajay Chhibber.

The talk focused on the Getting to the Green Frontier Development Model for India that has been proposed by Mr. Sinha and laid out a Net-Zero Pathway for India in the 21st century. He also discussed climate finance options and India’s expectations from the COP 26 conference in Glasgow in November this year.

About the Speaker:

Jayant Sinha, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Finance, Parliament of India and BJP Lok Sabha Member of Parliament from Hazaribagh, Jharkhand. Mr. Sinha is a second term Member of Parliament from Jharkhand, India. Mr. Sinha won his Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019 with record margins. As Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Finance, Mr. Sinha leads the 31 member Parliamentary panel that has oversight of the Ministries of Finance, Corporate Affairs, Statistics & Program Implementation, and the Niti Aayog (the government planning agency). In addition, the panel has Parliamentary responsibility for the Reserve Bank of India, the Securities & Exchange Board of India, the Insolvency & Bankruptcy Board, and the Insurance and Pension regulatory authorities. Mr. Sinha is very active in Parliament having opened the debate on India’s Annual Budget on multiple occasions as well as by introducing important Private Member Bills. In the 2021 Budget session, he introduced the Climate Change (Net Zero Carbon) Private Member Bill 2021.

Previously, Mr. Sinha served on India’s Council of Ministers from 2014 to 2019; first, as the Minister of State for Finance and then as the Minister of State for Civil Aviation. During his time as a Minister, Mr. Sinha gained wide recognition as an innovative and results-oriented policymaker with singular successes ranging from piloting the legislation that brought in India’s game-changing bankruptcy code to establishing India’s sovereign wealth fund (the National Infrastructure Investment Fund) to privatizing multiple airports under an entirely new regulatory framework. As Aviation Minister, Mr. Sinha was instrumental in upgrading safety and security across India’s fast-growing aviation system. He launched the UDAN Regional Connectivity Scheme which expanded the number of operational airports in India by 50% in just three years. Mr. Sinha also implemented several major digital initiatives such as the DigitalSky Drone policy and the DigiYatra digital traveler program.

Prior to his career in public service, Mr. Sinha was Partner at Omidyar Network (ON) and the Managing Director of Omidyar Network India Advisors, where he led overall investment strategy and operations in India from 2009 to 2013. At Omidyar, Mr. Sinha made venture capital investments in a variety of companies including two unicorns: Quikr and DailyHunt. Before joining Omidyar Network, Mr. Sinha was Managing Director at Courage Capital Management, where he led Global Technology and India-related investing for a billion dollar global special situations hedge fund. Mr. Sinha joined Courage Capital in 2006 after twelve years with McKinsey & Company, where he was a Partner in the Boston and Delhi offices, and co-led the Global Software & Services Practice.

As a global thought leader, Mr. Sinha has been published in the Financial Times, Times of India, Economic Times, Indian Express, Business Standard, Harvard Business Review, and the McKinsey Quarterly. He has pioneered new thinking on platform-based businesses, innovation-driven entrepreneurship, Climate Change, and sustainable development. Mr. Sinha’s Getting to the Green Frontier development model is gaining broad acceptance as the Net Zero pathway for India in the 21st century.

Mr. Sinha has an MBA with Distinction from the Harvard Business School, an MS in Energy Management & Policy from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BTech with Distinction from the IIT Delhi. He was awarded the Distinguished Alumni award from IIT Delhi in 2015.

About the Discussants:

Mohua Mukherjee served for over 25 years in many roles at the World Bank in Washington DC, primarily on investment projects. Her experience with World Bank lending spans 9 different sectors in 44 countries. Her most recent responsibility at the World Bank was heading the innovative US$1 billion Solar Program for Govt of India, which covered rooftop solar, large-scale solar parks and dedicated transmission lines to transport solar energy from one part of the country to the rest. She is also an Advisor with the India Smart Grid Forum. Previously, she worked pro bono for two years to support the establishment of the International Solar Alliance and served as their Program Ambassador. Mohua retired early from the World Bank in 2017 due to family reasons, and today she works as a Consultant for various international organizations, including the World Bank.

She also worked as an investment banker during a four year sabbatical in Nairobi, Kenya, where she successively headed the Corporate Finance Departments of Citibank and ABN AMRO Bank. Mohua has a Bachelors and Masters degree in Economics and an MBA, all from Boston University on an academic scholarship, and she has a Certificate in Public Private Partnerships from Harvard University.

Nitin Desai has had a long and distinguished career in the Government of India and the United Nations. He has also worked for some time in private industry and taught at two UK Universities.

In the Government of India Mr. Desai worked at senior levels in the Planning Commission from 1973 to 1987. From 1988 to 1990 Mr. Desai was the Chief Economic Adviser and Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs in the Ministry of Finance.

Mr. Desai joined the United Nations in 1990 as Deputy Secretary General of the Rio Earth Summit and was Under Secretary General from 1993 to 2003 dealing with economic and social affairs. Mr. Desai’s international involvement has been most prominent in the development and promotion of sustainable development as the goal of policy, first as Senior Adviser and key draftsman for “Our Common Future”, the Report of the Brundtland Commission on Environment and Development and then as Deputy Secretary-General for the Rio Earth Summit, the manager of the Commission on Sustainable Development for its first decade and as the Secretary General for the Johannesburg Summit. He was also responsible for the organisation of the Copenhagen Summit on Social Development, the Monterrey Summit on Finance for Development and many other global events.

After his retirement from the UN Mr. Desai continued to remain a Special Adviser to the UN Secretary General for Internet governance and chaired the Advisory Group that organizes the annual UN Internet Governance Forum till December 2010.

He chaired a Committee on Venture Capital and Technology Innovation set up by the Planning Commission in 2005-06 and the Advisory Panel on Transparency Standards set up by the Reserve Bank of India in 2007-08. He is also the Indian co-chair with Lord Chris Patten of the Indo-UK Roundtable set up by the two governments. He is a member of the Council on Climate Change chaired by the Prime Minister and was a member of the National Security Advisory Board 2008-10. He is also a member of the News Broadcasting Standards Authority.

He is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. In India he is a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and Honorary Professor at the Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER). He is connected with the governing bodies of several NGOs and research institutions including the Institute of Economic Growth whose Governing Body he chairs. He is a trustee of Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) International. He writes a monthly column for the Business Standard, an Indian daily.

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