Modi has instituted more toilets and bank accounts for the poor.  But his program that directly engages the poor in their progress is the installation of solar panels. Modi wants every home to have one light bulb by 2019.

300 million Indians have no electricity at all.  Millions more have only sporadic power.  For them, solar is a way to leap frog over conventional fossil-fuel energy into clean energy.  If people can put solar panels over their homes or in empty spaces they can participate in their own uplift.

The potential for solar power is huge. Of the world’s twenty top economies it has the most sunlight.  Timing is ripe.  Solar power is nearing the cost of coal.  China, Africa and other parts of the world are rushing to solar, but India has the potential to be champion of solar.