Donald Trump is back and so are Climate Fears | ft. Anisha Dutta

[Podcast intro]

Welcome to the season four of the India Energy Hour podcast. This podcast explores the most pressing hurdles and promising opportunities of India’energy transition through an in depth discussion on policies, financial markets, social movements and science. Your host for this episode is Shreya Jai, Delhi based energy and climate journalist. The show is produced by 101Reporters, a pan India network of grassroots reporters that produces original stories from rural India.

With Donald Trump scheduled to take over as the 47th President of the United States of America, there is widespread anxiety on the impact on global climate action. A climate change denier, Trump is a vocal supporter of fossil fuels and in his last tenure made US exit from the Paris Agreement on climate action. It is feared climate financing will take a serious hit.

We talked with Anisha Dutta, a New York based investigative journalist focusing on politico-economy to understand the why and how of America electing Trump, the impact it will have on energy transition policies of the US, and the domino effect on climate action and green funding across the globe.

Dutta has been a journalist for over a decade, earlier in New Delhi and now in New York. She has worked with some of the leading newspapers in India – The Hindustan Times as an political and infra reporter and for The Indian Express as an investigative journalist. Recently she has also reported from war and conflict zones in Northern Iraq. Her recent works have been published in The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Columbia Journalism Review, The Hindu Frontline, among others.

[end]

[Podcast interview]

Shreya Jai: Hello and welcome to the India Energy. Anisha, I’m very excited to have you here. I’ve known you for several years now, mostly close to a decade now, and have followed your work obviously very closely, in India now, later in U.S. loving the work that you’re doing across continents. And we have been wanting to bring you here for our podcast to understand more about, the policies, in the United States. And we thought what would be a better time than Mr. Donald Trump coming back to power in these states. Thank you again for joining us here and welcome.

Anisha Dutta: Thank you so muchriya. It’s such a kind introduction and I’m very excited to be part of this podcast. I’ve been hearing your podcast for a very long time and it’s it’s been a very educational and informative, experience for me. So I’m very excited to be here. Thank you so much.

Shreya Jai: Thank you. it’s good to always have friends on this podcast because then we have a mutual admiration club. thanks again for the kind words. as is usually our protocol, If I may say so before we d delve into this topic and we have this very interesting topic to discuss with you. we want our listeners to know a little bit about you. You have had a cross countrying journey as a journalist, first in India, then in United States. And you know, you did various, projects in different continents across conflict zones. tell us about your professional career. How did you land in journalism? What was your experience in India and now, how is it going for you.

Anisha Dutta: In the U.S. right, thanks. so, yeah, I mean I’ve been, I’ve been a reporter for over a decade now and I actually started my career, I went for my post graduation in journalism from the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. I was confused about whether I want to pursue mass communication. You know, I was more inclined towards advertisement and you know, that sort of creative field. And then you know, I mean some friends recommended, filling forms for ACJ for I inc. These are the top, media schools, as you know. And I was very interested to also sort of explore what, colleges in Mumbai were like, you know, St. Xavier’and stuff. So I g. I, you know, I mean like any other regular, regular kid, my age. I gave a lot of entrance exams for all these colleges. And I had no hopes personally if I even get through then. you know, I mean, of course I got very lucky. I I got through, my first round of interviews with acj. Then they called me over for interviews and you know, that’s when I went there physically. That was my second visit to Chennai. I went first time as a kid. and it was great. You know, I fell in love with the city. I fell in love with the college, the vibe. I was very nervous because, you know, I mean I felt like I wasn’t asm, intellectually inclined as you know, the other students for sure. but yeah, I mean, you know, that’s something that you pick up along the way. So my interest, my passion, everything honestly came from my education in that college. I got to learn so many things, so many things fascinated me. such cool lecturers were there. So you know, I mean we had, we had like very strong faculty of like experienced, people, you know, who had been in the field for many decades. So yeah, that’s how I got into journalism. And then, you know, I, I began reporting for Business Standard. That was my first job in Mumbai. And from there on, you know, I, I was. I realized that my interest was more in reporting. so yeah, I mean I wanted to focus on that. U I had a short gig at Economic Times. U you know, Energy Portal. and then I moved on from there to Hindustan Times which was a very memorable experience for me. You know I learned a lot. I so I was U you know, the editor, Mr. Sukumar. He was extremely kind. You know, he. He took a chance and hired like you know, someone so young for the National Political Bureau. so I was very again I learned a lot from my seniors. You know, that was a bureau of extremely experienced reporters. Some had been covering defense for you know, almost two more than two decades when I joined I had reporting experience of barely to three years. And then you know, I mean that was a great experience. Because I got accustomed to beat reporting for the first time. So I started covering, you know, I I mean I was Doing Railway Ministry Aviation Ministry, Ministry of Urban Housing and Development. And luckily you know, a lot of work started happening in that you know with the Central Vista project and stuff like that. And then Ministry of Road Transfer. I got very accustomed to sort of, you know, your cointessential ministry reporting. And that was a lot of fun. And of course very educational. But it was too much of a micro focusus in one topic. So increasingly, you know, I mean I started branching out. I started You know, I I developed sources and other ministries, external affairs and sort of foreign policy. Something that always interested me a lot and the editors encouraged it. You know, I mean any story coming from anywhere, you know, it’s always welcome. So I I started focusing and then Covid happened. So a lot of things were happening at once. U all of a sudden, you know, as you know the game completely changed. You know, every. Every reporter doesn’t. I mean it didn’t matter what be you were doing or you know, what your expertise was. Everyone became overnight a health reporter because that was the story of the decade. You know. So a lot of, Cross ministry reporting stories came out. So that was very interesting to do. suddenly you know, my beats which weren’t that You know that much of a hot topic for a political bureau became really important because you know, everyone was interested to see when will trains run? You know, when will. When will U Domestic flights resume and will international flights resume. Stuff like that. U so yeah, I mean that was a very important period to be u covering these ministries. And then of course in 2019 I I covered my first general election. So that was you know I was, that was complete political reporting. I was on the field. I I traveled from west up to East U. That was a great experience. completely different ballgame. You know, you don’t have your traditional go to sources in the ministry to talk to, to get news. You know, your ground reporting is something that I fell in love with completely. If you’re just, you’re just going to a new place talking to so many people. You know, you, you try to become an expert in that area, as they call parachute journaliving and U. But yeah, I mean you know that was a great learning experience for me. And honestly one thing that, that I really enjoyed at that time was that I learned more from talking to regular people. U you know, from all walks of life in in small towns and in big towns, and just understanding. You know I got like a great educational experience on what the voter wants. You know we can sit in our newsrooms and and and read like political analysis after political analysis. But you know, what is the common man of India actually want? What do they think of when they’re voting? These are issues that were very new to me. So I learned a lot. I traveled across a lot of const Important constituencies. Saharan per Bhna or Karana, Muafan U Lucknow. Vanasi. Vanasi was such a hot topic at that time and of course it was the constituency where Prime Minister Narendra Modi also contested from. So again Varanai was a fantastic experience. So all in all, you know, 2019 general elections, my first general elections, it was a great experience. and then then I moved on to Indian Express which was again very different newsroom. A lot of learning, very very very different from Hindustan Times in you know I mean every newsroom has its own style. So I completely absolutely fell in love with the Indian Express style of reporting and their emphasis on important exclusives, important stories and how they highlighted stories of reporters. That was that was very important and that’s very important also in, in newsrooms. You know. I mean Indian newsrooms tend to focus on more on you know, in general you know the most important story of the day or you know, what’s Topical, what’s. What’s the spot story and stuff like that. And Indian Express was different because they. They really, you know, they focused on what New Indian Express is bringing to the reader. So their focus was always highlighting, you know, exclusive stories of reporters. That was, very refreshing, very, very interesting. And I did a lot of, Again, you know, I mean, I went a lot out of my beat to do stories, where. Which were very important, which had a lot of foreign policy implications. And you know, it didn’t really necessarily matter whether it was related to my beat or not. You know, they were very important. So, yeah, I mean, that’s what I did for a good eight years. and you know, my focus was always politics and policy in India. Then I took a bit of a study leave. and then I came to Columbia Journalism School where I, Where I did like, my masters’in political journalism. So that was very interesting. Also. It was, you know, going back into academics almost after a decade. I was very nervous. And, the good thing about that, experience was it was a cohort. it was designed for MIDC career journalists such as myself. So my cohort had like, people from roughly the same age group, you know, slightly older and some younger. And we were 15 people from, all over the world. Everyone had somewhat similar experiences in their country, you know, covering politics,  stuff like that. Everyone wanted a bit of a breather to, you know, take a step back because we were in the game for so long, you know, so such a micro focus on what we were doing. You, you know, you want to take a step back and see, okay, what do you want to do next? How do you want to level up and stuff like that. So every one of us, you know, actually we were at the same point in our careers and we wanted to take a study break or we wanted to see what new, fresh perspective academia can bring us. And it did. A lot. It was a great experience. You know, I got out of my comfort zone of, missing, you know, I mean, like as a reporter, Shreya, you know how obsessed we are with, being in the news, you know, being in B, being, delivering stories every day. And anything happens in your beatun, I mean, you’ll never. You’re never off the game. Anything happens. Even on your off day, you’re like, you know, let’s fil it, I hope it doesn’t get missed. And I should be the reporter on the beat and stuff like that. So as they say, you know, fear of missing out fomo. I was getting a lot of fomo. I was like okay, one year of you know not being able to report u How will that feel? But the good thing is u a I continue to report on, on stories u not, not your daily the daily grind that we were doing. U actually that was a great break in hindsight but but yeah, I did get a report and and the good thing is also like the the academia focus on media in general, the state of media globally, not just India. I learned a lot from my colleagues in Russia, in, in Brazil, in El Salvador. You know that was such a great eye opening experience and you know we were, we were seeing a lot of eyes, noticed a lot of similarities in their career trajectories and also the state of media and these countries versus at the same time, you know what, what Indian media was going through since the last decade. So that was a very educational experience. And yeah and then I began freelanc in New York. and I recently I just came back from London. I just did a fellowship with the evening office for South Asian journalists which you had done a year before me. So you obviously know what kind of experience that was. So yeah, I mean London was again a fantastic experience. Different culture, the newsrooms there were again really really unique. that was a great experience you know, see seeing sort of the similarities and differences and American newsrooms and in newsrooms in England and India. So yeah that’s that’s what’s been up since the past few years.

Shreya Jai: Great you know very fascinating journey and for all the uninitiated people who are are non journalist listeners here and also young journalists who I hope are listening to this, taking a you know, thread from what you said about your experience here in India. This is the first time that you covered the US election as well. how was the experience, how did it help from your experience in India? What were the lessons that helped you you know cover the US election? Just share us your experience. Just share your experience as a first timer covering the US elections.

Anisha Dutta: Right? well first things, I have a newfound respect for the Indian electoral system after covering the elections in United States. I mean you know we have I would say four times probably the amount of u you know registered voters than this country and the way we implement it at a large scale, you know our election commission even our whole voting process, how quick and easy, and you know seamless. Our counting processes and how how we are and even you know the election commission website, stuff like that, you know which is, which is such a great streamlined process in India. Here it’s very complicated. you know they have a ballot system that takes a lot of time to sort of collate count. This time, you know, I mean the elections was the results were pretty clear early on. But as we remember last, last time when it was Donald Trump and Hillary Clint and it took actually many days for the actual numbers to come out. so that’s, that’s one observation I had. other than that, you know, I mean listen, politics everywhere is similar. You know the voters have their own mindset. You know you have a can, you have candidates who have their own poll promises, stuff like that. So yeah it was very interesting. it was interesting to sort of COVID a two party system. that makes things a lot easier. and the two candidates couldn’t have been more completely politically different from each other. And One again really fascinating and unique thing about what like politics here are. Electoral issues are so completely different from what they are in India. So you know, I mean things like umm, abortion rights, you know and, and and and u energy, clean energy, push for fracking, so stuff like that. You know that was very unique. Again I’ve never seen electoral issues like that in India happening U so that was again a very unique experience. But at the same time, you know when, when I was on ground talking to voters it was a very similar experience. You know people had Certain communities had certain aspirations, certain communities wanted certain things. women, men, children, you know young voters especially this time were very different. they had very different electoral issues. even young. One thing that I noticed that you know traditionally young registered Democrats for example who were always traditionally voting, you know it may be their second or first general election. In previous elections they always voted u Democrats but this time I noticed a lot of anger within the Democratic community against the current administration. So that was very interesting to note as they call it in India, you know ant teamumbency There was a lot of antiumbency here. so these are sort of some similarities and noticed you know at the end of the day. Again, humans want humans have precon consumived notions about what they want. They have, they have an idea about u things they want in their candidate and what they want, what they think of before voting someone. Those weren’t that different. but yes of course poll promises here are very different from those in India. And yeah, voters also think according to those poll promises, right.

Shreya Jai: you must have evaluated you know, the climate and energy policies that both the sides were kind of projecting. we do know Mr. Trump to be someone who is anti climate action in his last term. Hees called climate changer who acts as well. Whereas Ms. Harris comes from this thought process where you know, Mr. Joe Biden has talked about this Inflation Reduction Act. There were so many methods, so many policies done to push green energy. do you think these policies and these extremely plarized views had a role to play in the decision that the electorate was making there when it comes to just energy policy, policy and climate action?

Anisha Dutta: so one of the key decisions are the Biden administration did like you rightly mentioned, the Inflation Reduction act, that resulted in like billions of dollars of investment in green tech. You know there were a lot of subsidies given to corporations for adopting green technologies. So that was one very big policy implementation that Joe Biden did. And Kamala Harris sort of wanted to take that further. She wanted sort of continuation of the Biden administration’s policies. at the same time, you know one very important thing that we noticed in this election was unlike her previous u stance on things like fracking, you know, fracking as you know, helped u United States become one of the largest over the past few years, one of the largest production of producers of oil and gas. and that is something that you know, largely benefited US Economy. And Donald Trump of course is extremely bullish on tracking, bullish on investing in fossil fuels. So Kamala Harris actually you know, seeing the mood of the lectorate changed her stance on tracking and and said that she will allow it. she earlier supported a ban on tracking because of climate activists. So that was one change we noticed in this campaign because she she was criticized for changing her stance and then you know she clarified that she wants fracking to continue. so in terms of you know, I mean electorate, being influenced by energy policy, I think that was one because you know, of Course people want more jobs and and Donald Trump supporters always knew that he’s gonna give a lot of tax debates to corporations investing in fossil fuels. So yeah, I mean there was there was some impact to that extent but Yeah I think of course there were other u bigger electoral issues like you know Donald Trump’s stance on immigration and Kamala Harris’stance on immigration. That was one second was of course foreign policym. you know Joe Biden’s administration’s handling of the Gaza Israel war was something that was large, that largely dominated the voters this time. So yeah, I mean I think, I think other issues were, were more emphasized on and of course energy had a certain role to play in that.

Shreya Jai: Got it. Definitely. Obviously Gaza, Israel, even Russia, Ukraine for that matter. And all the other issues that you mentioned with regards to foreign policies had a big role to play. But now that Trump is in the White House, there is a widespread panic on the global platform starting with COP 29 in Baku and G20 in Brazil which are now expected to be a washout because one most of the developing countries are not sure which is standan us will take when it comes to financing of beat climate, multilateral development funding etc. What is stand will the Trump administration take on that? And second, obviously whatever decision us takes will have a ripple effect on the whole supply chain be it climate, green energy, fossil fuel, etc. Are his earlier decision giving an inkling on what the way forward of his energy policy making would be? We have seen some very uncanny people being selected into his administration. with along with that, what are some of the hints that you’re getting?

Anisha Dutta: So during his presidency, President Trump withdrew us from the Paris Agreement, you know as we all know, you know he argued that it was unnecessary and put United States at a competitive disadvantage to China. Joe Biden of course was very swift and rejoining the climate occurred and you know Trump has been very vocal. He, he’s made it clear that he will withdraw again. So I mean that will of course have a big impact globally. And Trump is famously a climate a change denier. His, his allies are very vocal on that Republican Party in general. U has u has a certain stance on climate change. I don’t think that’s going to change. but at the same time, you know a lot of his allies have very substantive investments in clean tech. Elon Musk for example, you know, I mean his entire, bulk of his entire empire is in electric vehicles. So I think there’s some, there will be some pushback and some sort of resistance from the corporate sector and states like California where there are huge investments in green energy, clean tech, which I don’t think, you know, the Trump administration could be so easy to push on. So there is going to be some resistance there.

Shreya Jai: Yes. you mentioned Elon Musk. Yes, definitely. He’s one of the persons selected by his administration and very rightly, I think that’s a very interesting point that most of his allies have investment in cleantech, Musk being one of them. so do you think that this Trump administration will maintain a balance between fossil fuel and clean tech? Because the world is going there. You know, everyone is investing into clean tech. There are companies back home here in India who are planning to export clean energy technology, clean energy, equipment to, to United States. So disrupting that supply chain would be a very, very tough task. so do you think that this, this Trump administration, this Trump avatar would be slightly balanced?

Anisha Dutta: it’s tough to say because you know, we. Trump has made sure that he’s you know, his administration will begin enacting an agenda that includes rolling back pollution regulations at the Biden administration implemented. He he wants to unleash a big fossil fuel development back in the United States. He m. Wants to withdraw from you know, international climate efforts like the Paris Agreement. so that’s of course going to have a big impact, on, on on climate, change in general, of course. And again, you know, like I mentioned, he’s extremely bullish and tracking. So he’s going to double down, he’s going to double down in in, in in cutting regulations for corporations who are u, going to indulge in drilling and that’s, that’s one thing that’s gonna happen for sure. But yes, like I mentioned, you know, I mean I wouldn’t say Donald Trump would be u would be expected to be balanced on, on energy but given how there’s such large investment jobs, his allies have a lot of stake in it, I don’t think he will be able to roll back on a lot of those initiatives that have already been taken place under the ira for example. So he’s even if you notice his track record in, in his previous presidency he was completely vocally against Medicare you know Obamacare, But Donald Trump never rolled it back. u Norald Trumpum never had a substitute for u the health health system in general. So he, he continued to, he continued to implement Obamacare. You know there weren’t many changes that happened to it. Yes, of course he was vocal vocally critical about it. Even in the debate u with Kamala Harris he mentioned that he did not wr back Obamacare and and you know, Medicare in general. So yeah, you know you you can expect a lot of rhetoric, a lot of a lot of speeches like his poll promises on going bullish on fossil fuels on on rolling back these sort of climate regulations but I don’t think he can you know, I mean so easily sort of roll back on the investments that have already been made. So that’s something that he will find quite.

Shreya Jai: So the initial signs show that IRA might not go. It might stay You know there as as I can understand there is a clear divide between the Trump rhetoric and the policies under the Trump administration.

Anisha Dutta: Yes and no because you know you one you never expect you can’t you can always expect the unexpected from Donald Trump. and You know he I don’t know if he can safely say that there won’t be any changes to the ira. there will definitely be because he wants to roll roll back a lot of regulations that the Biden administration imposed for on corporations for for you know for climate related goals that of course Donald Trump has made clear. He’he’s he’s going to roll back immediately. But yes in terms of investment I think it would be counterproductive for Donald Trump for the Trump administration and for his allies to immediately roll back on because you know I mean the estimated cost of IRA invested, the estimated investment is above $6 trillion which is a huge amount. So I don’t think Donald Trump would sort of roll that back immediately.

Shreya Jai: Yeah, so US Functions very differently compared to say Democratic economies such as India. It states have a very larger, bigger and a stronger role to play. So do the private and government institutions. Do you think that these institutions and states which themselves are facing you know issues because of climate change issues emerging out of climate change that they will want to keep climate action as a focus area?

Anisha Dutta: Yes, so you know, I mean one thing that Donald Trump has been saying for very many months is that he wants to cut federal interference in states. He wants to cut. Main objective of the Trump administration is to cut federal spending because, and reduce US Deficit. so you know, I mean as we know, you know he’s brought a new ministry of sorts called do Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Vivek Kramaswami and Elon Musk. their main task is to cut what they call what the Republicans call what what the Trump admin. Incoming Trump administration calls. you know, unnecessary wasteful government expenses so that they’re very, they’re very vocal about u. he’s also said that he wants to cut down federal parents in the education system. He wants to completely scrap the education department, the federal Education Department and, and take that back to states. now, now you know, I mean the sense we get is you know Donald Trump doesn’t want any sort of federal money to be spent on states. at the same time you know that could also mean that you know the states will have slightly more autonomy on deciding what they want to do. For example, you know one key election issue has been abortion rights. And he has said in debates contrary to what he said before, first he said he’s going to support a federal abortion ban. Then he said you know he’s going to leave that up to states. So the increasing rhetoric with Donald Trump that I get a sense of is that he wants he wants minimal federal interference when it comes to state level policies. now it’s too early to say what that would mean whether, whether he just means in terms of spending which is probably most likely. But you know it could also be read as states getting more autonomy in deciding what they want to do for themselves in terms of large scale policies. So of course again I think it would be largely driven by investments. there are so many there under the ira. The amount of investments that have been made, that amount of investments that have been made in domestic manufacturing, you know that, that Biden push for, to compete with China. that’s going to be that’s going to be one driving force that states would focus on. Donald Trump has also said that he wants to implement a huge tax on, on imports. so you know of course that’s going to impact a lot of products, supply chain manufacturing coming in from countries like China which will have according to many publications like Reuters Popbes, who is going to have a huge impact on, on. On the US Economy is going to cost actually billions of dollars, to the US Government. So these are sort of counterproductive policy measures that Donald Trump has spoken about. But yes, in the sense we get this for now, I think states would be able to decide in terms of investments, in clean tech where they want to go forward. So for example, California is one state which has probably one of the largest and I think they’re going to continue continue focusing on that. and we cannot say right now what that means in terms of how Donald Trump will push fossil fuel production, have how that will impact the clean tech investment. But I think for now states would have slightly more of a leeway in deciding for themselves.

Shreya Jai: So my question is, in middle of this, I am left wondering, what kind of impact India will face. Modi and Trump’s friendship, we have seen over in images and their respective statements and But in terms of overall policies, what. How do you think Modi 3.0 and Trump 2.0 would be this time? I’m sure you’re tired of this question everyone would have asked you, but I just wanted to get an understanding from you.

Anisha Dutta: Yes, you know, I mean they have they have a very unique relationship there. u two leaders who are extremely friendly with each other who have even to an extent campaign for each other. Like you know, we saw Prime Minister Modi go to Texas and be part of Howi Modi. in that you know, say things like pair Trumps or car, you know, which was. These are. These were very unprecedented scenes that we were seeing. So you know, their friendship is out there and we, we will be. We can see a lot of a lot more cooperation between the two countries. Donald Trump has you know, in. During his campaigning said that he’s going to streamline while while the, the Republicans and the Trump administration have been very, very clear about u mass deportation for one. But that sort of focuses on what they say. They’re very clear that you know, I mean, I mean they’ve been insisting that it’s u it’s going to focus on undocumented immigrants, in terms of legal immigrants. You know, of course the Indian diaspora is very important here. a lot of Indian Americans have a USGE role to play in this administration. We have Ramaswami, we have Tuli Gabard who’s, who’s. Who’s going to be leading a very important portfolios. He’s again mentioned that he’s you know, I mean he finds Indian immigrants, Indian legal immigrants, very resourceful to the US Economy and has also even spoken about increasing sort of streamlining the process for legal immigrants to get their own cards quickly. He has mentioned, he mentioned in one of the podcast interviews that you know, people who come in legally who go to Ivy League universities and even like you know, other higher universities, those students do deserve you know, green cards immediately. So these are some things that I think the Modi u government will push Donald Trump on and of course will have huge geopolitical impact. Bangladesh is one thing that we can see a lot of focus on we can expect a lot of focus on and and then I think Trump would be very favorable to the Modi governmentmin’s position on Bangladesh and u especially you know, I mean we have Tulsi Gabbard again has spoken on has continued the same rhetoric that the BGP has which is like increasing attacks on Hindu minorities which they alle is happening in Bangladesh. so that will be I think a key focus in terms of India’s immediate neighbors. so I think we can see, we can see a lot of mutual cooperation when it comes to geopolitical goals between the two countries for sure.

Shreya Jai: And do you think this friendship extending to say business and trade? he Trump has very openly said that he will ban Chinese products, he will put up tariffs on Chinese imports that are coming in. Some of the experts here in India say that India might stand to benefit but we obviously we don’t have that much of a scale so not sure on that, but do see much more easing of trade rules, tariff regulations between us and India going forward.

Anisha Dutta: I think I think it would depend on the industry in terms of you know like manufacturing of equipment, Donald Trump is very clear he wants to push US Domestic u manufacturing. Again it’s not clear because he’s mentioned that he’s going to increase imports from foreign countries. So how will that pan out with India? But at the same time I think of course there will be a lot of trade agreements that we can expect between the two countries he’s gonna

 want to please India if he’s you know also planning to curb Chinese imports into United States. So India will of course stand to benefit from that. So yeah we can see a lot of deals and cooperation that’s going to happen in the future in terms of military deals. you know, recently as recent as October, the Ministry of defense. Okay. Do 3.5 billion deal with the U.S. government for purchase of 31 drones. we will see. You know, I mean the US State Department of Defense is also beenocal since even the Biden administration that India and US have rapidly expanded their military cooperation and we can only expect it to increase from here given how relationship with the Trump administration and the Modi government will be.

Shreya Jai: Can I quickly digress Anisha and you know ask you something that you have been working on for quite some time which is the India’s democracy rankings. US itself has been critical about it. The State Department Freedom House had You lowered India’s rankings on that as well. I would like you to elaborate on that first before going into it. do we expect some actions on those front now that Trump is here or do you think that he will deal it with a sly hand? What do we think that Trump administration would have to say on India’s you know falling human index, falling democracy index, etc. Please elaborate on it.

Anisha Dutta: Right. I think you know the Biden administration was very critical of human rights violations that took place under the Modi government. And that was very clear with and the statements and the reports that the US State Department have released even recently as like a few months ago they were, they were, they were critical of Modi government’s policies and they and Freedom House which is based in the United States has mentioned again the same issues for the reason of India’s declining democracy index rankings. And you know I mean I’ve over the years reported on this and, and you know we know that The Indian Minister Mr. Jai Shankar is extremely critical of these democracy rankings. You know we India has mentioned you know these are ah. India doesn’t need sermons from the West. India doesn’t need the west telling India how to run its own democracy. It’s called out on us hypocrisy during it’s It’s sort of heavy handedness in dealing with student protesters and universities during the Israel Gaza, protests on campuses. Mr. Jai Shankar has been very critical of you in calling out the hypocrisy of the US Government. So at the same time, you know, the Indian government, as we know through the stories that we have that I have done and reported on that India is also extremely conscious of these rankings. India feels that Indian government fields that these rankings impact our sovereign ratings. that’s what the government is very worried about. So you know, I mean whatever’s written in, in Western press, whatever’s reported in these US State Department reports, whatever comes out in these democracy indices, whether it’s freedom out, whether it’s vem, whether it’sist Intelligence Unit. Indian government is very very much conscious of what. What. What is said. based on that. You know, they have tried to again you know, do some, some measures which are really important. Like they have had the Cabinet Secretariat u take a review of the parameters under which the Indian government has fallen behind in these rankings. They want to improve it. But at the same time they’ve also tried to as we know now, they’ve tried to sort of have these backom talks with the Economist Intelligence Unit. They have tried to tell the EIU and other other indices to use Indian government data. you know, so. So again because the worry is that these are the ratings that are factored in within the World Governance Index in Moody’s, in any sort of sovereign ratings of India. I think under the Trump administration we can expect, you know, given the mutual friendship between the two heads of state, to have some easing of wordings and some relaxation and calling out any sort of criticism of human rights in India. we can certainly expect that because that’s exactly what happened in the previous administration. Trump has been very friendly with Indian government with within Narendra Modi and Yeah, I think, I think we can expect things to sort of go India’s way when it comes to you know, us being vocally critical of these issues.

Shreya Jai: My last question. Should countries such as India, you know, which are battling so many climate disasters, so many environmental hazards. There is 500 plus AQI in Delhi right now as we speak. should countries, developing nations, keep their expectations lower in terms of any type of climate support that was supposed to come from the United States with Trump coming in and obviously the disruptions that will follow in this space?

Anisha Dutta: Certainly shred’s A very worrying time especially for developing countries like India. you know there’s a, there’s a climate emergency happening in, in that part of the world in Global south in general. you know the India is s facing a big clean air crisis. the AQN New Delhi is at a hazardous level. so of course it”’s, it’s a, it’s a terrible time because a Trump presidency will mean you know that the United States will will roll back a lot of climate related regulations or Trump presidency will ensure that you know the, the goals of someits’s like cop 29 are sort of up in the air because the main onus is of course has always been on developed countries such as the United States which is one of the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world rather than developing countries like India. and Trump has shown alade in disregard for, for climate change. Trump has shown that the United States under his administration will not be a part of these climate agreements. It is definitely a time to worry. so I think we can expect, we can expect tougher times in the future for sure.

Shreya Jai: Yeah. Thank you for answering that Again. Thank you so much for talking with us. and we got a good overview about how Trump and India, Trump and business, Trump and fossil fuel, Trump and climate pan out in the coming four years. it would be a good and interesting run for the coming four years and we would look forward to what you write from there. and thanks again for joining the India Energy.

Anisha Dutta: Thank you so much Shreya. It was excellent talking to you as usual and so glad to be part of your podcast. Thank you so much.

Shreya Jai: Thanks. Thank you everyone. You were listening to the Indian Energy.

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