The downside of wind energy on Gujarat's coast is that the continuous motion of the blades creates a constant interplay of light and shadow, and occasional oil leaks can cause unpleasant odors.
Manisha Patel still vividly remembers seeing students fall asleep in her classroom in 2011. When Patel woke them up, they would be irritable. A few were simply unable to focus on their studies.
“Initially, I could not understand what was happening,” said Patel, a middle-aged, bespectacled woman who travels from a nearby village to teach science at a government primary girls school in Jangi, a windy village in Gujarat’s Kachchh district. Jangi is 10 km inland from the Gulf of Kutch, on the westernmost coast of India, separated from the sea by flat, white salt pans and marshy creeks.
When Patel asked her students why they were falling asleep, what they said startled her: noise from the newly-installed pavan chakki – windmill – was keeping them awake all night.
Two years earl...