Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:35

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia, your host at Neon Show and Managing Partner of Neon Fund. Today we have a very important conversation. It’s about Accelerating a Green Future.

I have with me Jayant Sinha Sir. Welcome to the Neon Show, Sir.

Jayant Sinha 1:50

Thank you very much, Siddhartha, for having me.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:53

Sir, you have dedicated your part of the life to, you know, accelerating a green future. I’ll come to that. But you have played so many roles in your life, right?

You are an IITian, a Harvard Business alum. Then you spent time in consultancy as a partner at McKinsey, where you played a role, you know, heading the global technology practice in software. And then you are India headed Omidyar, leading the VC firm.

And it was one of the first VC firms to set up shop in India. And from 2014 to 2024, you were a member of parliament from Hazaribagh in Jharkhand. Then, you know, while you were an MP, you also were Minister of State for Finance and Minister of State for Civil Aviation.

And you did so many reforms in both these.

Jayant Sinha 2:45

Well, thank you again, Siddhartha, for having me on your show. And I’m very pleased to be able to speak about our green future to all of your listeners and your audience, which is a terrific audience. So once again, it’s a real privilege, Siddhartha, to be on your show.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 3:01

You grew up in an IAS household. You describe your life in Hazaribagh. How was the household like?

Was it strict and disciplinarian or…?

Jayant Sinha 3:10

It was not strict or disciplined at all, Siddhartha, because my father, of course, was very, very busy because he was either the subdivision magistrate or the district collector and was always in these roles that required him to be very, very busy. So the people who were at home, my mother, my grandmother, were very loving, very kind. And so we grew up in a very nurturing environment, in fact, full of books and music and lots of friends at home.

So it was a wonderful, wonderful environment.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 3:46

And how many siblings were you?

Jayant Sinha 3:47

I have an elder sister who’s a year and a half older than me and a younger brother who’s two years younger than me.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 3:54

And how has your father’s career, you know, shaped your decisions?

Jayant Sinha 3:59

It has not really shaped my decisions in important ways. He has been a role model for me, of course. But, you know, he, of course, was in the IAS.

He also wanted me to take the UPSC, but I chose to be in the private sector. He, of course, stayed in India. I went off to the US after IIT and I was there for 25 years before I came back.

So in that sense, I followed a very different career from his. But there is a very important way in which, you know, his life and the lives of other people in the family have had a very important influence on me. And that is in service to the nation.

So my grandfather, my nanaji, Shri NC Shrivastavaji was an ICS officer. In fact, he’s the one who built the Bhilai steel plant. Other members of my family have been in the IAS, the IPS, income tax, etc.

So many, many members of my family have actually devoted themselves, dedicated themselves to the country, as has my father. So watching all of these people, watching that generation really help build up India, as I said, my grandfather built the Bhilai steel plant with help from the Russians. You are very inspired to serve the country as well.

So in that sense, you know, my father’s life and his his political career has had a very significant influence on me because it’s been an inspiration that there is a point in your life when you should give back and when you should dedicate yourself to the nation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 5:34

So planning, coming back was always part of the plan.

Jayant Sinha 5:38

Serving the nation was always part of the plan. That I always wanted to do. And I’ve been very fortunate to have worked at Omidyar Network and been a venture capitalist in India, to have worked with McKinsey and helped do a lot of very important policy initiatives at McKinsey.

I’ll tell you two. In fact, one is the NASSCOM reports that we did. In fact, I was one of the co-authors of the first NASSCOM report in 99, which laid out the roadmap for the industry

So that was a very important contribution, I think, to the growth of IT services in India. The first NASSCOM McKinsey report. Then we did some very, very important work to help in public health to prevent the rise and growth of HIV AIDS in India.

That is work that we did for the Gates Foundation and that resulted in a major grant from the Gates Foundation. We created an organization that actually then helped stop the growth of HIV AIDS in India. So that also was an incredibly important and impactful contribution that McKinsey did.

And of course, when I was at McKinsey, I helped do some of that work. So service to the nation has always been one of my very, very important goals.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 6:48

And in 2014, you had mentioned previously that your father never wanted you to join politics.

Jayant Sinha 6:56

He never wanted me to join politics. My father didn’t want me to join. My mother didn’t want me to join.

My wife was adamantly opposed to it. My children were opposed to it. So despite all of that opposition, when I got the opportunity, I decided to take it.

And a lot of people say, well, why did you go into politics? And there’s only one reason for doing it. And that reason was simply to serve the country.

I felt that I was very fortunate and I was very blessed with many things that this country has given to me. And therefore, it is part of what I need to do in terms of my own duty is to serve the country and to give back to the country. So that’s been the only objective, the only reason that I have done it.

And obviously, as you can imagine, for somebody like me at that time, I was 50 years old. The prime of my professional career. Not only was there a huge financial cost to doing it, but obviously a great opportunity and family cost to doing it.

But like I said, you know, the only reason for doing it was to serve the country.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 8:04

And you won your first election by 160,000 votes, right? I believe you would have faced a lot of doubts and people would have said that, you know, you’re an outsider, right? You don’t come from the same fabric. You have studied outside. You are a Harvard graduate. So how did you take it?

Jayant Sinha 8:26

So Siddhartha, there were a lot of articles that came out at that time. And there was an article that I remember very well. Someone wrote in it, from Harvard to Hazaribagh.

But then I explained to everyone that you have done it completely wrong. This is not from Harvard to Hazaribagh. This is from Hazaribagh to Harvard. Because this is how the journey of my life went. So it was a full circle. I reached back to where I started, where my journey began.

So that’s really been my life journey. As I said, you know, I was born and brought up in Jharkhand. And yes, I had spent many, many years out of Jharkhand.

But that’s where I felt that I should give back. That’s where I felt I should contribute. Because it was my birthplace and it should also be my place of action.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 9:18

And it’s very interesting to know that, right? You had zero experience of politics, right? Before that.

Jayant Sinha 9:26

Well, I wouldn’t say I had zero experience. I had some experience. So let me explain.

On the policy side, because, you know, my father was the finance minister. We had got pulled into a few issues and, you know, tried to help and provided our thoughts and contributions. So that was one way in which I had seen what policymaking and politics at the highest level could be.

And it was very, very interesting to see, you know, how decisions can make a very big difference and really improve the lives of people. And I’ll give you one example, which is that and this is in my father’s book, Confessions of a Swadeshi Reformer. Raghuram Rajan and I, and we are, of course, very good friends from our IIT days.

Raghuram Rajan and I advised my father that we should have a mortgage interest tax deduction because that would make mortgages much more affordable. It will reduce the cost of housing. EMI will reduce.

So that was a suggestion we gave to my father. He implemented it in his budget. And then EMIs reduced, housing became affordable, and a huge housing boom started in India.

Real estate boom started because we brought down the cost of housing. So there one could see, you know, good policies can make a huge difference. And the design of the policy, the innovation behind the policy can really have a tremendous impact on the lives of everybody.

So that was one exposure I had on policymaking. The other exposure I had was, of course, Hazaribagh. A Lok Sabha election is held on a huge scale.

It’s a huge enterprise. You have 2200 booths, 10-20,000 workers, you have to meet lakhs of people. So it’s a very major undertaking.

So as that major undertaking happens, my father, of course, has fought many elections. You as a family get pulled into it because you also have to help. So, you know, virtually the last three or four of my father’s elections, I was present during the campaign, helped out during the campaign.

And in fact, in 2009, I worked very closely with his campaign, managed a lot of it. I also worked with the BJP control room and helped manage some of that as well. That’s where I got to know Arun Jaitleyji actually quite well and Ananth Kumarji well, because Advani ji was leading the campaign in 2009.

So that’s how I got introduced into both the policymaking side of public life, as well as the campaigning and electoral part of public life.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 11:52

And in 2014, was it Arun Jaitleyji that asked you to join BJP?

Jayant Sinha 11:57

No, what happened in that was that my father had decided at that time that he didn’t want to fight the 2014 election. And once he expressed that view to Shri Rajnath Singh ji, who was the president of the BJP at that time, because they had seen me, they knew me, they said, okay, then let Jayant fight the election then. So that’s essentially how I ended up getting the ticket and then fighting the election in 2014.

And I must tell you one interesting thing about that. When I won in 2014, I was actually the first IITian who had taken JEE and all of that to actually win a Lok Sabha election. I myself didn’t realize that.

I thought there were other IITians, undergraduates, there were some MTechs who had won before that. But I was the first BTech from an IIT who had taken JEE, fought a Lok Sabha election and done this grassroots campaigning and got elected.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 12:48

But I can definitely say for the longest period of time, you will be the only Harvard graduate.

Jayant Sinha 12:53

No, that is also not true, Siddhartha. That’s not true? No, no, because we have had multiple Harvard graduates who have fought and won elections.

In fact, from Harvard Business School, Chidambaramji has won many elections in Tamil Nadu and he’s also Harvard Business School MBA. We’ve also had Sugatha Bose who won from Tamil Nadu, who is a professor at Harvard, actually. So, yes, there has been a strong Harvard connection.

Kapil Sibalji also has been to Harvard Law School and so on. So, yes, there’s a strong, strong Harvard connection as well.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 13:23

And it must have been a huge execution effort, right? Because you had seen it, worked in it closely, but, you know, fighting in an election for the first time. And in your mind, I believe you hadn’t prepared for it because you were on the ripe of your corporate career.

Jayant Sinha 13:39

I was working at Omidyar Network when this whole situation started to develop. And, of course, I left and, you know, got into the whole campaigning process and everything else. And then, of course, the elections were in May, April-May of 2014.

So, yes, it was a very interesting and novel set of experiences for me, but not a complete sort of new thing in the sense that, of course, as I said, in my father’s previous elections, I had been deeply involved. And 2008 and 2009, I had really, really worked very, very hard for his campaign. So, everything that a person does in an election, organization, arranging all the arrangements, sitting with the workers, even public speeches, all this I had done before.

But yes, when you become a groom, when you become a groom, the picture is completely different.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 14:36

And how did, you know, the Ministry of Civil Aviation happened?

Jayant Sinha 14:41

Actually, I was Minister of State for Finance first, working with Arunji. And because I knew Arunji and I had worked with him in the past and all of that, and he knew me, he was, you know, the person who suggested that I should come to the finance ministry. And then I was the Minister of State for Finance for two years before I went to Civil Aviation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 15:00

And then, like, after finance, how did, like, you know, all the stars transpired for you to be in Civil Aviation?

Jayant Sinha 15:07

Now, that is the decision of the Prime Minister. So, he must have felt and he told me that there is a lot to be done in Civil Aviation. And there was, it was a wonderful opportunity.

So, that’s why I had a wonderful time in Civil Aviation. We did a lot there. We did a lot in finance.

And the opportunity to work with Arunji was an amazing experience in itself.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 15:33

Can you share a couple of stories from working with Mr. Arun Jaitley?

Jayant Sinha 15:37

No, he was a fantastic person to work with, because he was a consummate professional. He had been and was one of India’s top lawyers. So, he understood the legislative process, he understood law-making, he understood policymaking extremely well.

But because he had been such a good lawyer and handled so many important corporate matters, he understood business also extremely well. And then, of course, he was a brilliant politician also. So, working with him, I must tell you that it has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

And because he was such a good professional, he knew how to empower the people who work with him. So, I still remember that once, a few months later, when I was in finance, I went to him and told him that there are 4-5 points in which I want to work. Please give me your permission, and tell me if this can be done or not. And so on.

So, he looked at that list and said, what was the need to ask Jayant? I have complete faith in you. Do what you think is right.

And if there is anything else, bring that also. So, I was so thrilled by that. I felt so empowered that Arunji has so much faith and confidence. And he gave me a lot of opportunities. And we did some remarkable things together. I think one of the most important things we did together was GST. And it was because of his great leadership and the Honorable Prime Minister’s support and inspiration that we got something like GST, which is a ground-breaking, path-changing reform for India done. And Arunji did a great job in that. Then, of course, together we created the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, NIF, which is India’s sovereign wealth fund, and now India’s largest investment fund, domestic investment fund, which is NIF. And I remember when I wrote the memo and I wrote all the notes for it, that we will do it like this.

I went to him in fear that, Sir, there should be private ownership in this, otherwise it will not run independently. He said, no, absolutely, there should be private ownership. I said, Sir, 50-50, public-private.

He said, no, not 50-50, 51% should be private, 49% should be public. That is a historic decision, historic decision, because that has really enabled us to create a sovereign wealth fund that is driven by commercial interests, that makes the right investment decisions and really enables us to attract more capital, more investors, and really contribute to India’s growth. So I think NIF is, again, a very ground-breaking reform, fantastic thing that we did together.

I’ll give you another example. Higher Education Financing Agency. So Smriti Iraniji came to me and said, we need to be able to provide more support to our universities.

They need to build hostels, they need to build office buildings, but we are not able to do that with a budget, because with a budget, how can we give 200-500 crores to an IIT? What should we do? So I talked to Arun ji, he said, let’s do something new, let’s be innovative.

So then we created the Higher Education Financing Agency, we gave it a capital contribution of only 10,000 crores as equity, and then we could lever that up to actually then create a financing agency that can have a loan book of 1 lakh crores. So today, the Higher Education Financing Agency, I think last I looked on this website, had loaned out between 40-50,000 crores to all our top educational institutions so that they can build hostels and they can build offices and so on, and then they service that from their revenue. So I jokingly say that I am the biggest donor of IIT Delhi, because the Higher Education Financing Agency has given 1500-2000 crores to IIT Delhi, which has made hostels, office buildings, etc.

So if we hadn’t created the Higher Education Financing Agency, this wouldn’t have happened. Alternative investment funds. You know, it’s very interesting that Shri Shaktikanta Das ji and I sat down and worked out the whole structure of alternative investment funds.

You were telling me that you have an AIF. Yes. And one of the very important things that we had to figure out is what is the tax treatment of AIFs.

So what Shaktikanta Dasji and I put in place was the ability for AIFs to be taxed only once in the hands of the eventual owner of the AIF. The AIF is not taxed separately from the owners of the AIF. It’s only once it’s taxed through pass-through taxation.

So that also, the creation of AIFs, GST, NIF, you know, Higher Education Financing Agency. Now the Honourable Finance Minister said that we are putting 10,000 crores more in fund-of-funds. So the fund-of-funds that we created in 2016, under the name of India Aspiration Fund, we gave 10,000 crores.

And through that only, and we created an external investment committee, which, you know, had not been done in government before. But we put in place that structure that enabled us to have really professional, high-quality people who could decide whether funds must be allocated to this Venture Capital Fund or that Venture Capital Fund. And that check and balance on government by creating an external investment committee has enabled the fund-of-funds to really scale up, support some 140 and 150 Venture Capital Funds.

Have you got money from SIDBI? No. But you should definitely take it.

Because it’s meant to support our domestic Venture Capitalists.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 21:04

I believe at one point of time, Mr. Sanjeev Bikhchandani was sitting on that.

Jayant Sinha 21:08

Correct. He was on the external investment committee. Saurabh Srivastavaji was on the external investment committee.

Now also, we have very eminent people on the external investment committee. So this has been an institution that we have created, Siddhartha. And that is very important.

This idea that we have to create institutions so that it doesn’t only benefit us today, but we keep getting benefits for decades. That institution building, be it the GST Council that we have created, the NIF that we have created, the Higher Education Financing Agency that we have created, the fund-of-funds that we have created, all these institutions that have been created, it is only because of these institutions that the development of the country can be good.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 21:48

And I believe once you joined as a member of State for Civil Aviation, that was one of the most remarkable times that we had. Because the number of airports almost doubled in a very short period of time. The privatization of Air India is a case study globally, right?

And the creation of Digi Yatra, even the US doesn’t have an equal of Digi Yatra.

Jayant Sinha 22:12

I was Minister of State for Civil Aviation for three years and we got some remarkable things done, like you said. One is the doubling of airports, there is a story behind that too. So Honorable PM Sahib had told us and inspired us that we have to make the people who wear air slippers sit in the airplane.

So there should be flying for all. For everyone. So we said flying.

And what is flying? Flying should be accessible to the common man of the country. Flying should be accessible to the common man of the country. Flying for all.

So this is what we had to do. So we devised a scheme and then we had to get all the airlines to agree to that also. So we devised a scheme by which that if you were flying certain routes, you would make a contribution to the Udaan kitty.

So you would in a way cross-subsidize the high traffic routes with the low traffic routes. So we created this kitty, this fund for Udaan, again another institutional innovation. That fund has now enabled us to provide subsidies for routes for three years that are not getting any flights and so on.

And because we started to get flights, we could also get airports. Because if you make an airport and there are no flights, what’s the use? So these routes for Udaan, they have enabled airports like Darbhanga, Bikaner, we ran such airports because we got a subsidy for Udaan, we got a subsidy for Udaan, so then flights came, flights came, so then the airports started.

So that way, because we were able to get Udaan flights, Udaan routes, and there are some 300 plus Udaan routes now that are operating, that we created out of nothing. These airports got started. Now if you go to Darbhanga, Siddhartha, ask people, at this time, you can go to Delhi, you can go to Bangalore, you can go to Mumbai, how many places can you go to?

Darbhanga is amazing. Jharsuguda is amazing. Bikaner is amazing.

Coimbatore is amazing. This is because of Udaan routes. And again, institutional innovation.

That the traffic routes, we take a cross-subsidy and put it in low traffic routes and we run it. To do that also, we had to do a lot of research, a lot of work. We studied two or three other such programs that exist, these cross-subsidy programs.

One runs in the US, one runs in Australia. We saw all those things and decided. So this, by thinking, by institutional innovation, we did it.

Now I will tell you the story of Digi Yatra. So we started thinking about Digi Yatra when we realized that air traffic in India is growing rapidly. Now obviously because of COVID, there was a bit of a halt for a while but it has now again started to grow in volume terms by 7 or 8% a year.

So steadily, every year, volume is growing. And today, there are more people flying on planes than they are taking upper class travel and railways. There are more people than that.

There are so many people. I mean, 30-40 crore people, trips, are on planes. Now when this happens, airports will also get crowded.

Now when airports get crowded, people won’t get the facilities. People are not going to get through airports quickly. Plus, if airports get crowded, then you have to build more airports.

That too will cost. And that cost has to be borne by the passengers. So if we can increase throughput, the faster you leave the airport, Siddhartha, and you are coming from Bangalore, you must have used Digi Yatra.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 25:43

It didn’t even take a minute.

Jayant Sinha 25:45

Not a minute. So think of it. Your cycle time, your throughput time has decreased.

Because your throughput time has decreased, what has happened to capacity? You’ve increased capacity. That’s simple operations research.

Remember, I have a degree from operations research from the University of Pennsylvania. So this is simple operations research. You increase capacity by decreasing throughput time.

So we said, how do we decrease throughput time? So we said, if we can make it all digital, your face becomes your boarding pass. So as you said, you left in a minute.

Where it used to take 5 minutes, you are leaving in a minute. So how do we do that, right? So we had to create a system where if you went into an airport and your PNR was active, the airport would allow you access and you could just go through the access gate, you would go through security, you would go through your boarding gate.

You have to cross all three lines very quickly. So we had to build a system where you could show your face 3-4 times to get to the airport quickly. How could we do that?

Required an institutional innovation again, Siddhartha. We had to think through this from a policy point of view. See, your PNR belongs to the airline.

When you buy a ticket, it’s a private contract between you and the airline. So the PNR belongs to the airline. Now how do we get the PNR access to the airport?

Today, in the whole world, this has not been institutionally solved. American Airlines, United, Lufthansa, they got your PNR. But you are in Dubai, you are in JFK, you are in Narita, in Tokyo, so how will they get it from Lufthansa?

They can’t get it. Indigo has it, so how will GMR get it? That’s where we needed the institutional innovation.

And the institutional innovation was we passed a rule. I literally passed that rule as DGCA rule. And the rule was that during the active PNR time, which is four hours for an international departure, three hours for a domestic departure, when your PNR is active, that PNR has to be given to the airport.

And we decided that we would create a pooling vehicle, and that’s the Digi Yatra Foundation company. We created a Section 8 company that’s owned by Airports Authority of India, and it’s owned by all the other airports. So it’s like Switzerland, it’s neutral.

We created it neutral. And all the airlines, when your PNR is active, all the airlines have to give that PNR to Digi Yatra. In Digi Yatra, that active PNR came.

That PNR is connected to your Aadhaar, it’s connected to your face. You go to the airport, PNR is active, it’s your face, you present yourself, facial recognition happens, and you get access. You see.

Now, to make it GDPR compliant, and that’s where I have to thank Nandan ji, and Sharad ji, and others at iSPIRT who helped us figure this out, that we made its architecture in such a way that the moment you go through the airport and your PNR has been used, we purge it. So there is no permanent record of your travel to enable privacy. So this Digi Yatra, we made it, we are now rolling it out slowly, slowly, slowly.

And this is National Digital Traveller Programme, Siddhartha, because all the airports and all the airlines are on the same platform. And this was made by the government. And by the way, Honorable PM’s vision of Digital Public Infrastructure, DPI, Digital Public Infrastructure, which has Aadhaar, UPI, ONDC, and many other game-changing platforms, one of which is Digi Yatra.

This also is part of the Digital Public Infrastructure of this country, and it has been put together because we had the India Stand. You see. So this is how things build on themselves.

And that’s how, you know, we can innovate and do all these institutionally amazing things that then become a platform. Digi Yatra will run for hundreds of years. And, the beauty of Digi Yatra is just access.

You can use it in railways, you can use it on campus, you can use it anywhere. Wherever you need access, you have the active time, you can go and clear it. That’s the architecture behind Digi Yatra.

You see what I’m saying.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 30:03

And most people don’t realise it that the data is stored locally on your phone for that duration. If a passenger puts their phone in airplane mode at that time, then Digi Yatra won’t work. Because the government doesn’t store the data centrally.

Jayant Sinha 30:18

Exactly right.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 30:20

But this is a huge amount of work. I’m so excited sir that what you are going to do in the climate.

Jayant Sinha 30:26

We didn’t even talk about Air India.

Now, the privatisation of Air India was also the order of the Honorable PM that it has to be done. It was the inspiration of Mr. Arun that it has to be done. We had to do a lot of innovation there as well.

First, we created a separate SPV where we took all of the non-core assets of Air India. The land, the buildings, various things like that. We put all the non-core, non-operating assets of Air India into this special SPV.

Then we worked out so that the workers, the unions of Air India were going to get security, they were going to get their necessary guarantees. So we took care of that. And then number three, the bidding that we did for Air India, we did the bidding in such a way that you could actually bid on the amount of debt that you were assuming as opposed to the equity that you were going to pay.

That also required a tremendous amount of innovation and a long policy process to get us there. And that’s how we got Air India privatised. And now you see how well Air India is doing the wonderful work that the Tata’s are doing with Air India.

And we will create an incredible airline in India, which will provide us a variety of domestic services for sure through Air India Express, but we will potentially create one of the great long haul airlines of the world, the great long haul airlines of the world.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 31:45

Right now we are only dependent on Emirates, Singapore Airlines.

Jayant Sinha 31:48

Absolutely, Air India’s new A350s are coming, it’s a totally world class experience, so well organized by Tata, we will have an airline that will compete against Qantas and Singapore Airlines and Emirates. How proud is it going to be for us as Indians when we fly Air India.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 32:06

And it’s the only direct flight which connects the Silicon Valley of India to Silicon Valley of the world.

Jayant Sinha 32:11

You’re flying directly to San Francisco and you’re flying on a new A350. What a fantastic experience. Isn’t that phenomenal.

Now think of the impact it has on India’s growth. When we have these kinds of services you fly direct from Bangalore to San Francisco, you fly direct from Delhi to New York, you fly direct from Mumbai to Tokyo, for instance, these services are going to be phenomenally important for India’s growth and development. And what we found was that, you know, any investment in aviation has a 6x multiplier on economic sort of growth.

So, aviation is one of the highest multiplier industries in the world. And that’s what we’ve unlocked with Honorable PM’s vision of flying for all.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 33:01

But it requires so much institutional building and so much thought process behind it. I’m amazed that now seeing from an ordinary man’s eyes that what’s behind it.

Jayant Sinha 33:12

No, no, that’s true, Siddhartha. And as you know, my goal, as I said, right at the beginning was to serve the country. So, when you get an opportunity, when it’s your privilege to be in these roles, you really, really want to come up with the best ideas, speak to the best experts, so you can do the best for India and its people.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 33:32

I think these stories need to get out because, you know, the public perception is that things move slowly, but so much has happened in such a short period of time.

Jayant Sinha 33:42

We have done a remarkable amount of work over the last 10 or 11 years. However, I’m not in the least bit satisfied with how much we’ve done. We’ve got to do a lot more.

And I’ll give you an example. So, I’ve been travelling around. I was at the Paris Olympics.

It was great that we were at the main stadium when Neeraj Chopra won a silver medal in javelin. We were very happy. We took a picture with the national flag. We took a picture with Neeraj Chopra. We were very happy. We were very very happy. The next day, we went to the diving stadium.

There were five gold medals to be won at the diving stadium. Five out of the five gold medals went to China. That entire stadium, Siddhartha, was coloured red with Chinese flags.

I felt that we have come a long way, but our competition is with China, America, Germany, Japan, and China has also come a long way. We have grown dramatically and done a lot of things in absolute terms and it’s fantastic what we’ve done in absolute terms and relative to our past. That’s brilliant.

But I’m a very competitive person. I’m an extremely competitive person and I’ve competed at the world stage for my entire life. I want India to be number one.

And to be number one, we have to outcompete the US, we have to outcompete China, we have to outcompete Japan, we have to outcompete Germany. That’s what we have to do. That’s the best service we can do for our country is to outcompete.

And when we outcompete, we are going to create the jobs, we are going to create the prosperity, and we’re going to create that shared green future that I spoke about for our people. And that’s my mission.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 35:44

And in 2024, you know, you said you want to dedicate the rest of your life towards accelerating a green future. So what do you mean by that?

Jayant Sinha 35:51

So accelerating our green future is really the mission that I have adopted for the next chapter in my life. And when I talk about accelerating our green future, there are three parts to it and we should try and understand all three parts. So green future, our and accelerating.

What do I mean by our green future? All of us who live in India, recognize that the path that we are on right now has to become much greener and more sustainable. You know, our cities are dealing with traffic, with air pollution, with waste, with garbage, it’s getting warmer because of global warming.

Delhi, for example, is going to go to a max temperature in the mid 50s, we are going to have heat waves, where the temperature is going to be more than 50 degrees for perhaps a month at a time. So we understand that the trajectory that we are on right now is not very sustainable, that to make it sustainable, we need to have a green future. All of our vehicles have to become electric, all of our energy generation has to become from renewables.

We have to be able to reduce carbon emissions in everything that we do. And even as we are moving towards the green future, we also have to think about what’s called as adaptation, because the world is going to be a lot warmer than it is right now. And when the world is a lot warmer, not only are we going to have to deal with heat waves, we’re going to have to deal with drought, we’re going to have to deal with sea level rise.

So there are a whole host of very damaging consequences that are going to happen, and that we have to protect against. So we have no choice but to move to a green future, where we can prevent and avoid all of these very major climactic changes that are coming. So that’s the green future.

We need a green future, the current path that we’re on is not sustainable. Then our, this is a very important aspect to our, Siddhartha, because our means joint. It’s not good enough if you live in a bubble, if you’re a rich person living in a bubble, and you say, okay, fine, I’ll put on air conditioning, and I’m going to be okay.

No, it’s not going to be okay. Because if we are not inclusive in this, if we don’t ensure that everyone is able to deal with these very big changes that are coming, it’s going to be very difficult for us to have a well-functioning inclusive society. And we know with air pollution, no matter how much we put our air filters on, we are still dealing with 400-500 AQI.

So our, it’s a shared future, it’s a joint future, and it has to be inclusive. That, Siddhartha, is also very important. Then let’s come to accelerating.

We’re doing a lot already. India is a leader, as far as the green future is concerned. We’re doing perhaps more than virtually any other country in the global south.

But we still have to accelerate. We still have to accelerate. The speed at which we are going right now is not enough.

And I’ll say the final point in all of this, Siddhartha, which is acceleration is very important. I don’t know if you have children, Siddhartha, but…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 38:52

I have a five year old.

Jayant Sinha 38:54

Five year old.

Now, when it comes to our children, look at how much, you know, we think about everything in their life.

Which school should they go to? What career should they have? You know, whom should they get married to?

How can we give them a better life? So we are spending so much time thinking about our children. But we also have to think about their futures.

And as I said, we have to accelerate their green future, because if we don’t do that, the world that we will be leaving behind for them will not be a world we would want to live in. So accelerating our green future is a very, very important thing for all of us. And it is definitely my mission as well.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 39:31

So want to take back a step and think about the cause and effect. All the harm, I believe, has been caused in the last 30 to 50 years kind of a time frame.

Jayant Sinha 39:44

So let me explain why we are seeing these incredible climatic changes. And of course, there’s air pollution and then health effects associated with that. Largely, Siddhartha, it’s because of fossil fuels.

Before industrialization happened, and most people kind of look at industrialization from 1850 onwards, before industrialization happened, we weren’t burning so many fossil fuels. We were not using petrol or diesel or coal that much. Once industrialization started, we started burning fossil fuels.

Now, I’m a chemical engineer from IIT, right? So I can tell you that when you burn fossil fuels, you are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, you’re putting carbon particles into the atmosphere. And when these carbon particles go into the atmosphere, Siddhartha, they create like a blanket around the earth.

So they go into the earth’s atmosphere. And it’s as if you are taking a blanket or a quilt, and you’re wrapping the planet with a quilt. When you wrap the earth with the blanket, then the heat will be there.

So this carbon that we are putting into the atmosphere is like we’ve wrapped the earth in a blanket.

And as a result, the temperature of the earth is increasing day by day. Now, there’s been a lot of research on this, of course. So pre industrialization, carbon parts per million in the atmosphere were about 200.

From 1850 onwards to today, where we are at 2024, carbon parts per million have gone up from about 200 to about 440. So they’ve increased by 220 parts per million in just the last 170 years or so, right? So 2024 from 1850 to now about 170 years, this is how much they’ve gone up.

Now, most people are thinking even if we get to net zero by 2070 or 2080, which is when people expect the planet to get to net zero, we are going to go from 440 parts per million to something like 600, 650 parts per million. So think of the blanket getting thicker and thicker over time, right? So the blanket was a 200, it became 440.

Now it’s going to 600, 650. So you’ve got a thick blanket. You’ve got a thick blanket around the planet.

And this is baked in. There’s nothing you can do about it. Even if we get to net zero by 2070, which is India’s target or 2080 globally, this carbon is going to go into the atmosphere.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 42:04

And there is no way to get this carbon out of, no technology to get this carbon out of the atmosphere.

Jayant Sinha 42:09

Unless the answer is no. Maybe post 2100, we’ll find that we have scaled up nuclear fusion sufficiently that we can have the free energy to suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Till then, it’s just very difficult to see how we can set up a scaled energy system that can actually pull carbon out of the atmosphere.

To pull carbon out of the atmosphere, like everything else, we need energy. But that energy cannot be carbon, you know, using energy or fossil fuel energy. It has to be something like nuclear fusion, which again, we can discuss in detail if you want.

But until we get to that type of massive zero carbon energy source, we can’t pull that carbon out of the atmosphere. So that 650 kind of is baked in. And when the 650 is baked in, that means that warming, and this is the UN projection, the warming that we’re going to get is going to go to 3 degrees centigrade global average mean temperature.

So since industrialization from 1850 onwards till 2024, which is where we are right now, global average mean temperatures have increased by 1.2, 1.3 degrees centigrade. Now, in the next 75 years, between 2025 and 2100, in the next 75 years, instead of 1.2, 1.3 degrees centigrade, we’re going to increase by 1.8 degrees centigrade. So the rate of global warming is going to massively increase.

It’s probably going to triple, people are thinking. So this extreme weather that we see, the fires in California, or the flooding in Valencia in Spain, or the droughts that we’re seeing, these extreme weather events are triggered by this warming trend that we’re seeing. But the warming trend, as I’ve told you before, is accelerating.

That’s why we also have to accelerate, you see. So the carbon mitigation, which is taking, you know, decarbonizing, also has to accelerate because the carbon that’s going into the atmosphere, and the global warming that we’re going to see is also accelerating. So we have to accelerate, we have no choice.

But as I said, this is all already a given. Physics is physics. You can’t change physics.

And so the physics of this is actually crystal clear. It’s going up, 3 degrees centigrade global average mean temperature is pretty much baked in. It’s going to be very difficult to try and avoid that.

Now, very important to understand what 3 degrees centigrade global average mean temperatures mean. First, these are global average temperatures, global average. The global average includes the oceans, which is two thirds of the planet.

The oceans are a big heat sink. So if the oceans also are going to be, you know, so much warmer, then you can imagine land temperatures being higher than global averages. So land temperature may be higher than 3 degrees may even be 3.2, 3.3 degrees. 4 or 5 degrees, I don’t know, but 3.2, 3.3 global average land temperatures, not planetary temperatures. And then the as I said, these are mean temperatures, they don’t talk about maximums. So therefore, people are asking and trying to understand, let’s take Delhi.

Delhi gets very warm in the summer, we’ve already had temperatures close to 50 degrees in Delhi. What is Delhi’s maximum temperature going to go to by 2060, 2070 in the next 20, 30 years? You will certainly be around for that, Siddhartha.

don’t know if I’ll be around, but you’ll certainly be around. People are saying that maximum temperatures in Delhi are going to 50 plus degrees centigrade, maybe 55 degrees centigrade. And we could easily have heat waves in Delhi that run for 50 degrees centigrade for a month.

When it’s that hot, even at night, it’s very, very hot. So you pretty much need air conditioning throughout the day. Now, if you need air conditioning throughout the day, where is that electricity going to come from?

Are you going to run more coal-fired power plants? If you’re going to run more coal-fired power plants, then you will have more carbon emissions, it will be hotter, so it becomes a vicious cycle, Siddhartha. So we have to be very thoughtful about the physics of what you’re dealing with and how to kind of manage it so that we can accelerate our green future.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 46:12

In India, 23 million new babies are born every year, highest globally. I think in China, the number is somewhere around 9 million. And we are talking about India being a developed country by 2047.

But you are moving on a war footing. What we don’t realize is the number of new babies that are getting born, they’re getting born into a future if we don’t work on it. Where the air is unbreathable.

Right now, it’s only Delhi for the four to five month period where Delhi becomes almost impossible to live in. The water, because of, you know…

Jayant Sinha 46:51

Well, in Bangalore, Siddhartha, you’ve dealt with the water issues.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 46:55

And so, we don’t want a country which is developed economically. But, you know, the air and the water is not…

Jayant Sinha 47:02

In this, Siddhartha, we have to think about something else also. See, economists have a concept called a climate damage function. To think that we will continue to grow at the rates that we would like to become a developed India, and that climate is not going to damage that economic growth rate, economists will tell you that that is something that may not happen, that there may be a climate damage function that our economic growth cannot be taken for granted.

Because, remember, it’s very hot. Construction is a very big employer in India. A lot of our GDP is driven by construction and real estate. If it’s very hot, 50 degrees centigrade outside, who will work?

We already know that there are heat action plans and so on. When it gets to a certain temperature post 45, you stop all work. So, there will be an economic impact of this climate damage function.

Then there will be flooding, droughts, agricultural yields will decrease. In 2023, I will tell you, because we had a very warm winter, March and April were very very warm, wheat yields went down. So, agricultural yields were affected.

Then there will be no agricultural growth if it gets so hot. So, that is another factor to consider. Flooding happened, again, you cannot have agriculture, that also creates issues. So, there are many channels by which climate damage can actually impair our economic growth and we have to be thoughtful about it and understanding about it. Now, the good news is, we have time, we understand, Honorable Prime Minister and his entire leadership team is fully knowledgeable and conversant on this full set of issues.

And so, we are taking necessary policy action. But it is very important that we have to also inform everyone. Everybody needs to understand that it is our shared future that we are working towards.

All of us have to play a role. Merely having a policy will not work. Everyone will have to make a revolution.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 48:57

And now I want to talk about initiatives that you have started or you are a part of right now. You mentioned in the offline conversation that there is a trillion dollar needed. Where do we get it?

How do we get it?

Jayant Sinha 49:23

We will have to take trillion dollars.

See, there’s been a lot of economic analysis of what it will take for India to get to net zero by 2070. There’s a lot of work that I and many others have done. Very detailed economic modeling. I am now a professor in practice actually at the London School of Economics, where we are doing further research on this as to how much money we will require and where will that money come from and I can discuss that in detail with you. But all the economic modelling is showing us that for us to get on a net zero trajectory so that as the Honorable Prime Minister has said, we get to net zero by 2070, it is going to require in the next 10 or 15 years, an additional trillion dollars.

Trillion dollars of investments in the private sector alone. Leave aside the public sector, leave aside the budget. Just in private sector investment, we will need a trillion dollars more.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 50:05

And how are we planning to get that?

Jayant Sinha 50:08

So, there is good news for venture capitalists like you in that, Siddhartha. We will need to mobilize this through 4-5 different sources for the private sector.

Number one, venture capital has a very important role to play and I have just written a book called India’s Green Startups, which of course are VC backed. And if we can scale up these green companies like BluSmart, Battery Smart, KisanKonnect, a Chaps, fantastic companies, fantastic businesses, if they scale up, they will grow, they will decarbonize. Decarbonization, in fact, is Siddhartha, their business model.

So, if we back them with venture capital and we enable them to scale, they will automatically start decarbonizing and accelerating our green future. So, that’s a wonderful way of doing it through venture capital. Second source is private equity.

And again, in private equity, when you take somebody like BluSmart that’s growing, they almost have 9000 electric vehicles right now. When they start to scale up, we need private equity to come in and support them. Venture capital is in the startup phase.

But when you get to the growth phase, that’s when we need lots and lots of private equity as well. Third source has to be infrastructure investments. We need very significant infrastructure investments.

We’ve got to build out renewables. 500 gigawatt of renewables is what the Honorable Prime Minister has asked for. We need a lot of infrastructure investing to build out 500 gigawatts of renewables.

We’ve got to convert our entire electric sort of charging networks and massively scale that up, because we are going to take our 250 million vehicles and make them electric. So, massive investments are required in charging networks. Look at trucks, look at buses.

People have estimated if we were to just take our diesel buses and convert them to electric, we will need $400 billion. That’s infrastructure investing. There’s a great company called GreenCell right now.

That is India’s largest e-bus company and that’s scaling up rapidly. And for that, we need significant infrastructure investing. So, that’s the third source.

Then the fourth source is concessional capital. When I talked about venture capital, private equity, and infrastructure investing, this is commercial investing. So, you have to generate commercially high returns to be able to generate capital and return capital.

Otherwise, nobody is going to put in money. Why are you going to put in money? But because we understand that from a societal point of view, this is so important, there is a need not just for commercial capital, so that there’s a need for what is called concessional capital also.

And concessional capital can come from multiple sources. It can come from the government, it can come from philanthropies, and it can come from multilateral development banks. So, a little bit of commercial capital, 10% of commercial capital boosts returns for commercial capital.

So, 10% concessional capital, 90% commercial capital, that’s blended finance. That’s what we need to be able to drive this trillion dollar mobilization of capital. So, we have commercial capital of various sorts that’s required, but we also need concessional capital of various sorts to make this happen.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:16

And this blended finance is what you’re working on right now.

Jayant Sinha 53:18

That’s right. So, part of my work at the London School of Economics and the multilateral development banks is to understand what are the different blended finance instruments that through policy, through philanthropy, through multilateral development banks, what are these blended finance instruments that we can create and then scale up? And how do we scale them up?

Who scales them up? Those are the kinds of issues that we’re looking at at the London School of Economics.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 53:46

And for the capital needed, right? This is one part of it. How much of are we self-sufficient for and how much do we need to, let’s say, raise from the global north?

Jayant Sinha 53:55

I think the vast majority of the trillion dollars, Siddhartha, is going to have to come from the global north. And of course, they will want commercial returns, which is why we need the concessional capital to make it happen. Just the multilateral development banks are not going to be enough.

We need commercial capital. There’s plenty of commercial capital, trillions and trillions of dollars of commercial capital. But we will need concessional capital also.

Now, why am I saying that domestic capital is not going to be enough? We need domestic capital in any case for all the other things that we’re doing, right? We are building out bridges, roads, airports, all of that we are building out.

We are growing our companies right now. So we are investing about 60-70 billion dollars a year in corporate investment. And much of that is coming from domestic sources, but a lot of it is already coming from foreign sources.

Now, if we needed another 50-100 billion dollars, if we had to double the CapEx that we’re doing right now, we are already pretty much tapped out on domestic sources. So much of it is going to have to come from foreign sources, plus we are going to have to mobilize even more domestic capital.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 54:60

Which means that companies like BluSmart, BatterySmart, Euler Motors, and all these companies, they need to increase their market cap from what projected market cap can be. For example, BluSmart is going to grow to be, let’s say, the next Uber or Ola of India in scale, which can be 4 or 5 billion dollars, which is not very attractive to the largest global VCs. It needs to be a 40-50 billion dollar outcome.

In each of these cases?

Jayant Sinha 55:31

It will happen, Siddhartha. It will happen because we have the scale in India, and we have very attractive business models that are being developed. But you go one step at a time, right?

So a startup will first have to be worth 4 or 5 million dollars, then 40 or 50 million, then 400-500 and become a Sunicorn, then 4 or 5 billion and become a Unicorn, and then, you know, a mega Unicorn. So these things have to happen in stages, you know, everybody starts off slowly and then accelerates. So that is what we have to unlock, you know, just this whole process of becoming a bigger, more scalable, more valuable company.

And as you know, well, as a venture capitalist, and of course, in my own professional life, that’s really what I have been a tech investor, a venture capitalist. It’s all about the business model that you create. And of course, about the entrepreneurial team that you build, the organization that you build, because organizations have to scale, business models have to be profitable.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 56:26

But one very stark reality is the 70% of carbon emission is coming from Global North. And when you talked about, you know, accelerating our green future, it’s just not like we can fix this problem in India, it’s not possible. Globally, the countries together have to fix it.

Jayant Sinha 56:43

Of course, but Global North by and large, Siddhartha, has committed itself to getting to net zero by 2050. So whether it’s the US, whether it’s the European Union, whether it is Japan, Korea, all of these countries, OECD countries, Global North countries, pretty much have already committed to reaching net zero by 2050. In many countries like in the UK, and in the European Union, in Australia, in New Zealand, in Japan, they have legislatively committed to net zero by 2050.

And they are on that trajectory. So really, we have to ask ourselves what’s going to be the case in 2050. Today, just so that you have the numbers, total global carbon equivalent emissions is 60 billion tons, roughly 60 billion tons.

Out of that 60 billion tons, India is three and a half billion tons. Okay, so we are about six and a half, 7% of global carbon equivalent emissions. That’s where we are right now.

By 2050, the projections are that most of the Global North will have gone to zero. In fact, by 2060, the biggest emitter in the world, which is 30% of global emissions is China. So the projections are, the UN projections, China also has committed itself to this goal is by 2060, China will also be at net zero.

Okay, and you know, 50 onwards will be declining very fast. So, by 2050, 2060, the rest of the world will have come down, but global emissions will have only declined from 60 to 50. Why?

Because even as the Global North and China are declining, the Global South is increasing most rapidly. And the country in the Global South that’s increasing most rapidly in emissions terms is India. So right now the projection is we will have about 50 billion tons in 2050 of global carbon equivalent emissions.

Out of that 50 billion tons, 10 to 14 billion tons could actually come from India. So at that time, we could be a quarter 25% of global emissions. Now, that’s obviously not sustainable, either for us in terms of our own climate, our air pollution, or something that others will be willing to accept.

They’ll say you’re blowing up our forests, you’re destroying our lifestyle by emitting so much carbon. Now, China recognized this a long time ago, right? They’re 30 right now.

But they are the world leaders when it comes to solar, they’re the world leaders when it comes to batteries, they’re the world leaders when it comes to EVs. So it’s very hard to say to them, you’re 30%, you know, this is wrong, we’ll penalize you, etc. They say, but look at the speed at which we are reducing.

So China is reducing their emissions, people believe they have peaked, and their emissions are now going to decline going forward. But in India, emissions instead of peaking and declining, in fact, are increasing year after year. So we are likely to go from three and a half billion tons to 10 to 12 billion tons, which will be 25% of world emissions in 2050.

That’s what the projections are right now. That’s why we have to accelerate our green future. We have to bend the curve.

And this is the decade, Siddhartha, when we have to do it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 59:52

And do you see many folks around you, both in government and private, making it the number one priority like you have done?

Jayant Sinha 59:59

I think the Honorable Prime Minister is very committed to it. And he has on multiple occasions spoken about it and how important it is. And obviously, that leadership, that vision on his part, has permeated through government.

And I think everybody in government is very focused on this goal. And it’s very important now for the people of India and businesses in India and investors in India, also to be very focused on this goal. We are doing it to accelerate our shared green future.

Please recognize that this is not an ESG thing. This is not that someone is doing something far away. No, this is a question of your life.

Are you worried about your life or not? Are you worried about your children or not? It’s as basic as that.

When you get into a car, do you put on your seatbelt?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:00:44

Absolutely.

Jayant Sinha 1:00:44

This is like putting on your seatbelt. So everybody has to do it. There’s nothing to it. It’s just what you need to do to have a safe world.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:00:51

I think to just put numbers right, I’m asthmatic, you know, my kid has chronic cold. And today, when we are having 23 million new babies, 50% of them, which is like 11 and a half million every year, are either prone to chronic cold, bronchitis or asthma.

Jayant Sinha 1:01:12

And you know why that is the case Siddhartha? The medicine, the health aspect of it is that children have lungs that are immature, obviously, those lungs are forming, when these 2.5 nanometer particles get lodged into these lungs that are developing, it impairs the lungs, it damages the lungs. Your lungs get destroyed. So when children grow up, they face so many problems in their lungs that they get asthma. So as a parent, aren’t you concerned?

And by the way, there is a lot of medical research that has shown that when children grow up, and these nanometer particles, 2.5 nanometer particles, go into their brains, then cognitive development also gets damaged. So you understand how harmful its effects are going to be. It’s very damaging for us.

So we have to be alert to these things. That’s why we have to accelerate our shared given future.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:02:28

And one case study is Beijing, right? Globally. 2013, when we see images of Beijing, it was filled with smog.

Exactly, or worse, even than Delhi of today. And now they have fixed it, right? Even in the worst months, the AQI is 40 or 50.

And why haven’t we also learned how to fix Delhi?

Jayant Sinha 1:02:30

It’s a very complicated problem. And it requires action at all levels, all levels of government, whether it’s the central government, the state government, local government, it requires action at all levels. But it also requires people to care about it.

Delhi was elected, so air pollution was a big issue. No, it wasn’t a big issue. So as long as it’s not a big issue among the public, people won’t pay much attention to it in politics.

So first and foremost, everybody has to recognize how important this set of issues is. I mean, it’s like a slow motion COVID. If you didn’t get oxygen during COVID, people were suffering so much.

Now you think that you are not getting oxygen in slow motion. What will happen then?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:03:19

It’s really alarming when I think about it. And I think there are more AQI metrics. At least they should be on our dashboards.

Jayant Sinha 1:03:31

No, they are there. Look at your weather app. If you look at your weather app on your phone every day, you can see the AQI.

And please understand, WHO says that if your AQI is more than 50, you are already in a dangerous zone. We have to be below 50 every day. We are routinely tolerating 200, 300, 400, 500.

So how will this work? And until people recognize that this is a matter of life and death for them, and they don’t mobilize behind it, we will not see the action that’s necessary, whether it’s businesses, whether it’s governments, whether it’s the public sector. So everybody has to get involved.

This is a national emergency. As you correctly point out, in Beijing, it was viewed as a national emergency, and everybody did what was necessary. Today you go to Beijing, all their buses are electric.

All their two-wheelers are electric. 54% of the cars that they are buying are electric. All the thermal power plants, the coal-fired power plants have been taken far away from Beijing.

And all the polluting industries have been taken out of Beijing. So the air in Beijing is now clean. 40-50 is going on there.

So just look at the furnaces in Delhi. There are so many furnaces going on outside Delhi. Now construction is happening in Delhi. So you need bricks. So you are running furnaces. If you are running a furnaces, then there is smoke.

If there is smoke, then there is pollution. So all these things, we have to understand how these things are interconnected. And it starts with physics and science.

This is not something that’s magic. This is simple science.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:05:04

And you are right, right? If people compare it, this is like a COVID-like situation, but a COVID spread across 10 years.

Jayant Sinha 1:05:13

Slow motion COVID. You are having a slow motion death. Let me tell you, recently someone gave us statistics that lung cancer rates are increasing very fast.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:05:25

Even in non-smokers?

Jayant Sinha 1:05:27

Passive non-smokers. So why is it increasing among non-smokers?

It’s increasing because these 2.5 nanometer particles are going into our lungs and are causing lung cancer. And let’s understand that it’s not about smog. It’s not something that you can actually see with your eyes.

Because 2.5 nanometer particles are so small, you can’t see them in your eyes. So it may look like a very clear day. It may look like a very clear day.

But those 2.5 nanometer particles are there. They’re from construction dust. They’re from the cars.

40% of it is from cars. Then there are these diesel generators that are running. They are spewing.

Then there’s all these factories and coal-fired power plants that are spewing. And then, of course, in October, November, we have the stubble burning. So all this becomes such a toxic, poisonous gas that there’s nothing to say.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:06:17

And you are right. Just the government intervention is not enough. Because if people themselves are not alarmingly worried about it, then how can government…

Jayant Sinha 1:06:27

Government obviously responds to what the people want. And yes, it’s also necessary for government to be proactive. Government has been proactive.

But it has to really be something that’s uppermost in people’s minds also.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:06:42

In 2021, you were responsible for passing the Net Zero Bill. Please tell us…

Jayant Sinha 1:06:47

Just to correct you there, Siddhartha, I didn’t pass the Net Zero Bill. It was a private member bill that I put in the process. And it has been tabled as a private member bill.

But for a bill to pass in Parliament, it has to be debated, discussed. It has to go to committee. And then it has to be passed by the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha.

That’s a very long multi-year process. All I have done is begun the conversation around Net Zero and how a Net Zero Bill could be created for India. And that is the private member bill that I have tabled in Parliament.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:07:20

And what does this bill entail? What’s written?

Jayant Sinha 1:07:20

So what I did was… And I was helped by two of my legislative assistants, Ritika and Amisha, who did a wonderful job on this. We studied legislation around the world, which are designed to get us to Net Zero. In particular, the European Union, the Australian and New Zealand bills, and the UK bills.

And we took the best features of those bills. We thought about how it could be best implemented for India. And then we crafted a Net Zero Bill.

So that’s out there. It’s on the Lok Sabha website. I have introduced it.

And so it can serve as a model for a Net Zero Bill, if and when the government decides to introduce it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:08:08

And we would love to know, when did you yourself start preparing yourself for this battle?

Jayant Sinha 1:08:15

I think growing up and being born in Jharkhand, meant, of course, that I would be drawn towards these environmental issues. And I have been drawn to them from my childhood. Because Jharkhand is a very beautiful state, full of jungles and wildlife.

And that is the environment I have grown up in. And so when you see your environment getting damaged, getting hurt, you really, really start worrying about it. And of course, Hazaribagh is a very big coal mining district.

And we have lots of coal fired power plants as well. So you start to think about what the impact they’re having. We’ve had, you know, elephant corridors that have been disrupted.

When I was a child, we still had tigers in Hazaribagh National Forest. All of that is gone. So seeing all of this, it is very saddening.

And the way coal mining has destroyed Hazaribagh, it is extremely saddening. Very, very saddening.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:09:14

Can you recall your earliest fond memories of Hazaribagh? Like what was it like?

Jayant Sinha 1:09:18

In Hazaribagh, you understand, there used to be pure waterfalls. Pure waterfalls. Clean, beautiful, pristine waterfalls.

There were jungles everywhere. Elephants, deers, foxes, geese were everywhere. Snakes, all of this.

There were peacocks. I mean, it was a paradise. When I was a child.

There was no traffic.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:09:37

And you were living in IAS quarters.

Jayant Sinha 1:09:39

I mean, okay, my father was in the IAS. Our bungalows used to be good. So naturally, you saw all that.

So there were lakes. I mean, it was so beautiful, what do I tell you. That was my childhood.

Dumka, Hazaribagh, Giridih. These are all my childhood memories. So we have seen this in life.

And now, slowly, slowly, slowly, it is getting over. So that is a very sad thing. In fact, when I was in IIT, one of the projects I worked on was a more fuel-efficient wood stove, back in the 1980s.

Because I could see the deforestation happening in Jharkhand, even then. And I said, if we want to stop this deforestation, how do we make our wood stoves more fuel-efficient? As a chemical engineer, I tried to make wood stoves more fuel-efficient.

And I worked on that all these many 40 years ago. So I have been very committed to the environment and how we are using energy and how to protect our environment ever since I can remember.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:10:41

And something we don’t realize as a population that some of these things are irreversible. Like you said, once the streams are destroyed, the jungles are destroyed, it is almost impossible to plant them back.

Jayant Sinha 1:10:55

It is not irreversible, but yes, it will take time. It will take 30, 40, 50 years to restore those streams.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:11:02

You will not see them in your generation.

Jayant Sinha 1:11:04

No, we will not be able to see them in my generation. Slowly, slowly, slowly, if we start the tree planting, it will take a lot of time. Forget about the streams.

So many rivers have been destroyed, polluted. I mean, it’s very sad.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:11:19

And what is Hazaribagh like now, today?

Jayant Sinha 1:11:21

Hazaribagh is still a beautiful city. It’s still a nice city. The name itself is Hazaribagh.

And the English settled Hazaribagh in the mid-1800s because it was such a beautiful spot. So they were coming up the plains, the Indo-Gangetic plain. You get to Hazaribagh, it’s an elevation of 2500 feet or so on the Chota Nagpur plateau.

And so when the rains come, you know, all of the rivers flow down the plateau. And that’s when you have the waterfalls and the rivers going down. The Damodar Nadi, the Subarnarekha Nadi, all of these come down from the Chota Nagpur plateau.

And as I said, forests and wildlife. And this has been believed for thousands of years. You may remember that when Lord Buddha was alive, when he went to Varna, he went to Bodh Gaya.

Bodh Gaya is right at the start of the Chota Nagpur plateau. In Bodh Gaya. When the plateau rises from there, then you come up to Hazaribagh and so on.

So this has for thousands of years been an area where you’ve had forests, you’ve had wildlife, it’s been beautiful. And anybody who wanted the solitude of the forests like Bhagwan Buddha came there. We had monasteries, Buddhist monasteries.

We found an incredible Buddhist monastery in Hazaribagh, very close, literally 15 kilometers from my house. That is from 7800 AD and must have been there for hundreds of years. So Buddhist monasteries came into this very pristine wilderness so that they could be in this beautiful solitude.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:12:47

One, you know, very important point I want to touch upon is, with, you know, the US President Donald Trump getting into power, is this the green mission going to get accelerated, de-accelerated?

Jayant Sinha 1:13:20

It’s going to have an impact and it is something that we have to deal with for sure, Siddhartha. But the way I phrase it is to say, Profits Triumph Politics. Profits Triumph politics.

The very good news on green technologies is that they have become very cost effective now. Today, the cost of round-the-clock solar is actually lower than the cost of coal in many cases, particularly in India. Today, the cost of electric vehicles is lower than the cost of petrol and diesel vehicles.

So we are in a situation where we have to adopt green technologies, not just because it’s good for the environment or we’re worried about carbon emissions. That, of course, should get priced in if we were looking at societal costs. But leave aside societal costs, just purely on private costs.

For you if you have to buy an electric two-wheeler versus buying a petrol two-wheeler, just for you, independent of carbon, air pollution, all of that. You will still find it is better and cheaper on a life cycle basis, total cost of ownership basis. It’s actually cheaper for you to have an electric two-wheeler.

So do buy it. Same way for a DISCOM, it’s actually cheaper to have solar power than it is to have coal power. So buy solar power.

So profits and cost effectiveness will take you very far. And for the next 10-15 years, as far as India is concerned, we have enough opportunity to invest in green. The problem is what happens after that.

Because if we don’t do R&D, research, technology development, then 10 or 15 years later, it will be less possible to invest in these very profitable and cost-effective green technologies. That’s what I worry about. So, for example, nuclear fusion.

Again, as a chemical engineer, I have been following nuclear fusion. I’ve been very interested in nuclear fusion for a long time. Nuclear fusion is finally getting within the zone of commercial viability.

In the next 10 or 15 years, it will become commercially viable. But we need that R&D investment to continue, to make it happen.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:15:50

And what about the R&D spend of India? Like it’s still like 0.75% of India.

Jayant Sinha 1:15:59

Even lesser than that. 0.64%. Siddhartha, this won’t work. If we want to be number one in the world, how much is China spending? 3%.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:15:20

Which is like 18x of overall India’s.

Jayant Sinha 1:15:23

Think about it. Somebody sent me this number where they showed that total industrial R&D, the amount of R&D that Indian companies are doing, is $7 billion. The total industrial R&D, company R&D that China is doing, $350 billion.

America, almost $800 billion. Where is 7 billion? Let me tell you the story of IIT.

MIT, total budget $3 billion. Tsinghua University, which is in China, the MIT of China, total budget $1 billion. What is the budget of IIT Delhi or IIT Bombay?

$100-200 million. How are we going to compete? This is after we have created Higher Education Financing Agency.

So if we want to compete, as I said, it’s not good enough to win the bronze medal. I’m not interested in the bronze medal. I’m interested in the gold medal because if I get gold medal and I win lots of gold medals, then our people will prosper and flourish and they’ll get good jobs. That’s so important.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:16:22

Then what’s the solution of then increasing our R&D spend to take it up to 3%?

Jayant Sinha 1:16:26

This is what we need to think about. And part of the reason why I have taken a step back and I’ve started work with the London School of Economics and other researchers is that we need to know what is the growth model, the economic development model that India should follow. We take it for granted that we’re going to grow at 6% or 7%.

But what is the impact of climate being going to be? We don’t know. What is the impact of technologies like AI going to be in terms of job creation? We don’t know.

So how do we find a pathway that will enable us to grow not just 6-7% but 8-9%? Because we have a demographic window.

You said that we have 23 million children being born every year. This is going to continue for some period of time and we already have, we have lots of young people. But if we don’t take these young people and equip them well to compete and win in the 21st century green future that we’re going to have, that digital green future that we’re going to have.

If they’re not skilled and capable cognitively and physically to be competitive in that environment. The world olympics are going on. The world olympics are going on.

China is taking gold medal after gold medal and we’re not able to do anything. Because we’re not equipping our people properly. So how do we equip our people properly so we win gold medal after gold medal in the 21st century?

That is what we need to figure out. That is the development model that we need to understand. And while we’re doing that as we were discussing earlier our cities have to be beautiful. They have to be vibrant. They have to be green. People have to be here. They’ll want to live here.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:18:10

Thank you so much sir. This conversation is monumental I would say. I’m so honored to have this conversation today with you.

Blessed that leaders like you are acting at war like urgency on the matters of critical importance. We don’t want Delhi to be unlivable in the next 5 or 10 years.

Jayant Sinha 1:18:25

Neither do I. I don’t want Delhi to be unlivable, Siddhartha. I don’t want Jharkhand, my own home state to be unlivable.

I want the beautiful verdant green forests of Jharkhand to be back. This is what inspires me. This is why I serve the country and I serve all of you.

So thank you very, very much for giving me an opportunity to be on your show and to talk about all of these very, very important and crucial issues with all of your listeners. Thank you so very much.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia 1:18:55

Thank you sir.

Jayant Sinha 1:18:56

My heartfelt greetings to you.