I have spent most of my professional life working with systems—water, energy, infrastructure, electric mobility and public policy.
I began my career in the Central Water Commission, where my work exposed me to water resources planning, hydropower and large infrastructure projects. Working within government also gave me an early understanding of how policies, institutions and technical decisions interact in practice.
Later, I moved to the private sector and worked on development of power projects, before joining Fortum. My responsibilities there took me across hydropower, solar energy, sustainability and eventually electric mobility.
Electric mobility became a particularly interesting chapter.
When we started looking at public EV charging in India, electric cars were still uncommon, charging standards were evolving and there was no established business model for public charging. The basic questions themselves were unsettled: Where should chargers be located? Who would use them? How should charging be priced? Should charging be treated as sale of electricity or as a service? And would anyone invest in charging infrastructure before enough electric vehicles were on the road?
Those questions led to the establishment and development of Fortum Charge & Drive India, which later became GLIDA. Building that business from its early stages gave me an opportunity to work closely with EV users, automobile companies, electricity utilities, regulators, governments and many other stakeholders.
It also reinforced something I had observed much earlier in my career: a technically sound system does not necessarily produce the intended outcome unless we understand the people who will operate and use it.
Today, my work with the International Solar Alliance has taken this interest into a much wider international context. Working across countries brings another dimension to the same question. A solution that works well in one country may not necessarily work in another. Technology matters, but so do institutions, affordability, local capacity, behaviour, regulation and the realities of implementation.
Perhaps this is why my interests do not remain confined to energy.
I find myself equally curious about cities, public systems, safety, education, housing, institutions and human behaviour. Sometimes a professional assignment raises a question. At other times it may be something I observe while travelling, reading a report, watching how people use a public system or simply experiencing something in everyday life.
I tend to approach these questions in much the same way: understand the problem, look at the available evidence, question some of the assumptions and then try to form a view.
I do not expect those views always to remain unchanged. New facts, experience or a better understanding of an issue can change one’s perspective. Some of the older articles on this website are therefore also being revisited—not to rewrite what I thought then, but to see what has changed since.
This website brings these different interests together.
There will naturally be writing on energy, electric mobility, solar, infrastructure and public policy because these are areas in which I have worked for many years. But there will also be writing about institutions, human behaviour, cities, travel and experiences from life.
The subjects may be different. The questions behind them are often similar:
Why do we behave like this? How can we do better?
This is a personal publication. The views expressed here are my own.
Professional profile: LinkedIn
