Austin-Pune Sister City ( APSCI) invites you to a jointly held meeting with Indian American Coalition of Texas (IACT).
Agenda:
2:00 pm – 2:20 pm
Meet & Greet
2:20 pm - 2:30 pm
Welcome, Agenda Review Introductions
2:30 pm - 2:50 pm
Your Vote Your Voice – recap, Candidate Forum, March Primary
2:50 pm - 3:20 pm
Climate Governance Speaker Prof. Joshua Busby (Bio Below)
3:20 pm - 3:40 pm
Round table discussion - Sumit DasGupta
Austin City Council member Ms. Leslie Pool
Director Natural Resource & Environmental Quality Travis County Mr. Jon White
Prof Joshua Busby
Mr. Sharad Shirode
3:40 pm – 4:00 pm
Climate and Culture - Readings from Pune/Austin By Ms. Manjiri Dhamankar (Visitor from Pune)
4:00 pm - 4:25 pm
Q&A
4:25 pm - 4:30 pm
Wrap up and Adjourn
Professor Joshua Busby is an associate Professor at LBJ school of Public Affairs. He is a distinguished scholar at Strauss Center and has been studying Climate and Security since 2004. Professor Busby is a lead researcher on a three year, $1.9 M Department of Defense funded project called “Complex Emergencies and political stability in Asia” that explores the causes and dynamics of complex emergencies in Asia and options for building governmental capacity to prevent and respond to such situations. The project follows a similar 5 year project funded by DoD in Africa called “Climate Change and African Political Stability” on which Prof. Busby was a lead researcher.
Solar Energy – Major Thrust in Renewables
For those who have kept up with the news realize that so far China has been the leader in solar energy. The big news is the International Solar Alliance (ISA) initiated by France and India with involvement of 121 Solar rich countries. Some 61 countries have signed up and 33 countries have ratified the agreement. Plan is to invest 1 Trillion dollars by 2030. Of course the question will always be about the availability of resources.
Indian state of Maharashtra is the largest producer of electricity in Indian Union. Its total installed capacity is 38GW of which 73% comes from coal, currently solar power at somewhere around 430MW ( additional 300MW in works) constitutes a tiny percentage currently, however, plans are to produce 12 GW solar power by 2022, Pune the second most important city of that state after Mumbai would be sure to benefit. Pune has shown great interest in pursuing dialog with Austin on energy
This emphasis on renewable has both the pragmatic and cultural basis – A message from Pune
If you plan to attend please RSVP to Ashwin_ghatalia@yahoo.com