ABSTRACT
This chapter considers carefully the confrontation between ecological disruption, economic performance, and civil unrest in India. India is in need of a new way to pursue the future, Thakkar and his allies argue. Thakkar's goal for starting the dams and rivers group is as straightforward as it is worthy. Thakkar's research, and his wide network of like-minded authorities, made a powerful case that India's devotion to big dams, big power station and big water transport projects as a means for achieving well-being and prosperity was not operating very well. India proposed to build 10 Ultra Mega Power Plants, each four gigawatts, which would be among the largest coal-fired stations in the world. The power of nature to unleash its fury and subdue India's surprisingly unstable transactional systems—reservoirs and dams, power plants, roads, transmission lines, food production and distribution networks—becomes clearer with every passing year.
