Research reports, field studies and published writing from fifteen years of work on clean energy, rural markets, climate finance and development.
Research reports
Climate Risk Mainstreaming Approaches for Indian Financial Institutions — Intellecap · Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (2022). Indian banks and financial institutions are beginning to ask what climate change means for their loan books. This landscape study documents where they actually are — using the TCFD framework and primary research with banks, NBFCs, insurance companies and regulators — and what they say is holding them back. Download PDF →
Smart Villages in Azerbaijan: A Framework for Analysis and Roadmap — World Bank (2021). What does rural development look like in a country moving quickly but unevenly? This World Bank study built a framework for analysing smart village readiness across Azerbaijan — combining geospatial data, qualitative field research and a review of global programmes — to inform a roadmap for closing the urban-rural divide. Read report →
Establishing Air Pollution Control Financing Facility in India: Alternatives, Drivers and Challenges — Intellecap · Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation · Bloomberg Philanthropies (2021). India’s air quality crisis has a technology gap, but more fundamentally it has a capital gap. This study examined what it would take to build a dedicated financing facility for air pollution control — who would fund it, what instruments would work, and what stands in the way. Download PDF →
Decentralised Solar Refrigeration: Opportunities in the Livelihood Appliances Market in India — Intellecap · GOGLA (2021). Cold storage is one of those infrastructure gaps that quietly determines whether smallholder farmers, dairy producers and rural health clinics can function. This study mapped the market potential of off-grid solar refrigeration across five segments in India — healthcare, households, micro-enterprises, farm-gate and dairy — and the ecosystem that would need to develop around it. Download PDF →
Power to the People: Investing in Clean Energy for the Base of the Pyramid in India — CDF-IFMR · World Resources Institute (2010). In 2010, clean energy for poor rural households was still considered too risky and too small for serious capital. This report challenged that assumption — sizing the market, profiling the business models that were working, and asking what it would take to bring investment in. Download PDF →
Economic Environment Index: Measuring the Enabling Environment for Households and Firms at District Level — CDF-IFMR · British High Commission (2009). If you want to understand why some districts attract investment and enterprise while others with similar resources do not, this index attempts an answer. It builds a composite measure of district-level economic conditions across Tamil Nadu — governance, infrastructure, cost of doing business — that goes beyond income data to capture what actually shapes opportunity at the local level. Download PDF →
Field studies
The Kaleidoscope of Cooking: Understanding Cooking Behaviour and Stove Preferences in Rural India — GIZ · Indo-German Energy Programme (2014). Improved cookstoves had been distributed for decades with disappointing adoption. This study asked why — not from a technology or policy perspective, but from the perspective of the women who cook. Based on user testing and household surveys across rural Bihar, UP and West Bengal, the findings are more nuanced than the field expected. Download PDF →
Empowering Villages: A Comparative Analysis of DESI Power and Husk Power Systems — CDF-IFMR · ICICI Foundation (2010). Two companies, same technology, same problem — bringing electricity to off-grid villages in rural India using biomass — very different approaches. This brief gets into the details of why that matters: how you estimate demand, price electricity and manage feedstock supply chains determines whether a mini-grid survives or not. Download PDF →
Op-eds
Climate Adaptation Technologies: How India Can Protect Its Communities Against Climate Change — Economic Times Energy (2023). Rural women face compounding climate vulnerabilities — employment in agriculture, lower asset ownership, caregiving responsibilities that prevent migration. This piece mapped what adaptation technologies could change and what they cannot. Read at Economic Times →
How India Can Benefit from Voluntary Carbon Market — Economic Times (2022). India’s smallholder farmers and communities sit on significant carbon assets. This piece examined what it would take for voluntary carbon markets to actually work for them — not just for the buyers. Read at Economic Times →
Climate Finance for MSMEs — IDR Online (2020). Climate finance flows to large projects and listed companies. The case for urgently rethinking how it reaches micro and small enterprises — and why the window for doing so is narrower than it looks. Read at IDR Online →
Building an Ecosystem to Save an Ecosystem: How Facilitating Climate Finance for MSMEs Can Fight Global Climate Change — NextBillion (2019). MSMEs are both contributors to the climate problem and among its most vulnerable victims. This piece examined what reimagining the climate finance ecosystem would actually require for small enterprises to participate meaningfully. Read at NextBillion →
Guest columns
From Food Security to Global Leadership — Business India (2025). India’s AgTech sector has solved problems at home that most of the world has not yet encountered. This piece asked whether that positions India for something larger than domestic transformation. Read at Business India →
Smart Villages: Driving Development Through Entrepreneurship — Forbes India (2018). Rural unemployment, migration to cities, environmental pressure — the usual responses involve more schemes. This piece asked whether entrepreneur-led smart villages might be a different kind of answer. Read at Forbes India →