India has always taken a hard position on coal, arguing that it is crucial for its energy security and developmental needs.

But energy experts and environment campaigners are increasingly saying it should at least try to decarbonise or curtail emissions from coal-fired power plants, if it can't be phased out altogether.

"You can't wish away coal," Ashok Lavasa, a former secretary of union ministries of finance, and environment, forest and climate change, said at an event on 1 July.

"The question is, if coal is king, then can it be a benevolent king?"

This signals to the fact that, realistically speaking, coal - albeit cleaner coal - may remain the primary power source of energy in India, despite years of international climate talks asking for the highly polluting fossil fuel to be phased out entirely.

But why has India - the world's third largest carbon emitter - decided to stick to coal in the first place? After all, the country has international obligations to significantly cut its carbon emissions, along with its own target to bring down the levels to net zero by 2070.

A part of the answer lies in the rising power demands of the country.

India's electricity demand has grown by more than 9% between 2021 and 2025, surpassing a previous prediction of 6.6% - and it is now forecasted to double by 2030.

Coal-fired power plants have generated more than 70% of the total electricity supply every year since the early 2000s - a figure that remains unchanged.

But the environmental cost of this reliance on coal is huge.

Estimates suggest that India's electricity generation alone accounts for more than 40% of the........

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