Carbon border tax from 1/1/26; Strategic thinking for pensions; Paying for electricity; Emerging markets conference 14-17 Dec; episodes

We’re a few days away from one of the biggest milestones in the field of climate change: the European `Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism’ (CBAM). In my column in the Business Standard of 8 December, I show the Indian perspective on this, bringing together the issues of climate change, international tax policy, the performance of Indian carbon-intensive exporting firms, Chinese strength in renewables, and malfunctioning Indian electricity sector policy, within the context of the disruption of American participation in globalisation.

Pension systems can easily suffer from feeping creatures, chasing a variety of notions of doing nice things for the elderly while empire building for pension providers. Renuka Sane helps take us back to fundamentals in Anchor pension policy to its core design principles, The Leap Blog, 12 November. Pension systems must stay focused on the narrow purpose of preventing old-age destitution through a disciplined, low-cost structure. This requires being true to four objectives: mandatory participation, illiquidity, low cost, and a stable cashflow after retirement.

Many believe it’s politically very hard to ask households to pay for electricity. Susan Thomas and I come at this question using household survey data in Electricity cost recovery and the political imagination: A comparison between private and public distribution in India’s biggest cities, The Leap Blog, 2 November 2025.

We find that households under government controlled distribution companies (in Bangalore and Madras) pay much less for electricity when compared with similar households living under private electricity distribution (in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta). Some politicians in India are clearly able to flourish without requiring large de facto electricity subsidies. The essence of the problem is graduating to private distribution.

We’re about to go into the 16th Emerging Markets Conference, 14-17 December in Bombay, by Vanderbilt Law School and XKDR Forum.

In Everything is everything, by Amit Varma and me:

127 10 big conceptual frameworks.

128 The final episode.

On the XKDR Forum youtube channel:

Big Ideas Ep60, Indian taxes are too damn high.