I live off grid in Portugal. My power comes from solar, wind and hydro, and I retrofitted our ancient hilux to be fully electric, charged here off our renewable

I live off grid in Portugal. My power comes from solar, wind and hydro, and I retrofitted our ancient hilux to be fully electric, charged here off our renewables. We grow 95% of our own food, the rest comes from less than 10km away, heat in the winter from the hydro, and make do and mend whenever possible, while reforesting degraded agricultural land with mixed native species. I haven’t been more than 20km from here in nearly two years. None of this is a sacrifice - it’s a pleasure beyond measure to be here doing this. I recognise that this is currently a privileged position - the upfront costs aren’t insignificant - it has cost us about €100k to achieve this degree of low-impact living - but it doesn’t have to be that way. It’s perfectly possible to direct investment in a direction other than massive centralised and industrialised growth, which incurs the problems you describe, and simultaneously provide a better quality of life for the majority. You could subsidise rooftop solar, or local hydroelectric projects, or passive cooling systems, or subsidise people to nurture nature, and both provide energy and cut energy consumption in one fell swoop. India has the opportunity to make good decisions, rather than becoming burdened by what seem like good decisions now, but are bad decisions in the long term. It’s a shame to see that opportunity squandered.