Villages to temple towns and cities: India is going solar

Boommi Gowda used to fear the night.

Her vision fogged by glaucoma, she could not see by just the dim glow of a kerosene lamp. So, she avoided going outside where king cobras slithered freely and tigers carried off neighborhood dogs.

But things have changed at Gowda's home in the remote southern village of Nada, a village near the southwest Indian port of Mangalore.

A solar-powered lamp pours white light across the front of the mud-walled hut she shares with her three grown children, a puppy and a newborn calf.

Now, she can now cook, tend to her livestock and get water from a nearby well at night.

"I can see!" Gowda said, giggling through a 100-watt smile. In her 70 years, this is the first time she has had any kind of electricity.

Text: Katy Daigle, AP

Image: Pushpa Gowda right, makes Bidi, made of low-grade tobacco as she sits with her mother Boommi Gowda, left and brother Ubay Gowda after they installed solar light in their house

AP Images