The Hindu | Explained | The problem with India’s new guidelines on genetically modified insects

India’s bioeconomy contributes 2.6% to the GDP. In April 2023, the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) released its ‘Bioeconomy Report 2022’  report, envisioning this contribution to be closer to 5% by 2030. This ambitious leap – of $220 billion in eight years – will require aggressive investment and policy support. But neither funding for the DBT, India’s primary promoter of biotechnology, nor its recent policies reflect any serious intention to uplift this sector. Along with more money, policies that enable risk-taking appetite within Indian scientists will be required to create an ecosystem of innovation and industrial action. Read the full article here.

Moneycontrol | India mustn’t miss this chance to supercharge its electronic goods industry

India is caught up in a quarrel over tariffs on information and communication technology (ICT) goods. The EU filed a WTO dispute that India has applied tariffs up to 20 percent on certain ICT goods, such as mobile phones and accessories, which is against the Information Technology Agreement-1 (ITA-1), to which India is a signatory. Signatories to ITA-1 are obliged to levy a maximum tariff of zero percent on a set of pre-agreed ICT goods. India claims that the goods on which it levies a tariff are not covered under ITA-1. Besides the EU, Japan and Taiwan also filed similar cases against India. The WTO has ruled against India in all three disputes. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | Explained | India has signed the Artemis Accords. What is at stake?

On June 21, 2023, India’s Ambassador to the U.S., Taranjit Sandhu, leaned over a table at Washington, D.C.’s historic Willard Hotel to sign the document confirming India’s acceptance of the Artemis Accords. It was a relatively modest event amid a pageantry-filled state visit that has seen a slew of deals on technological cooperation. Like those other deals, India’s signing of the Artemis Accords was undoubtedly the result of careful preparatory work and hard-nosed quid pro quos. Read the full article here.

Times of India | Swades sans sacrifice: How to rethink IIT brain drain puzzle

A new NBER working paper by Prithwiraj Choudhury et. al finds that among the top 1,000 scorers on the IIT-JEE 2010, 36% have migrated abroad. Moreover, of the top 100, as many as 62 have migrated abroad. The better a person’s IIT-JEE rank, the higher the chances they have already bid adieu to India. This paper sparked another conversation on the decades-old problem called ‘brain drain’. So, how do we think about highly skilled emigration from India circa 2023? Read the full article here.

Rajasthan Patrika | India-U.S Biotechnology Cooperation

Read the full article here.

Mint | Our PLI schemes are in need of a coherent trade policy

The recent spat between former Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram Rajan and electronics and information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw over the former’s criticism of the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for semiconductors and other manufacturing sectors is part of an ongoing debate on India’s manufacturing policies. Rajan argues that PLI schemes alone do not add value to electronics and semiconductors, even though value addition is a key objective of the ministry’s 2022 vision document. It aims to increase India’s electronics exports to $300 billion by 2025-26 from $25.3 billion in 2022-23, and deepen integration with global value chains (GVCs). Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Defence PSUs are headless. Struggle for power hurting national security

In October 2021, the government announced a major reform in the production segment of the Defence Industrial Base ecosystem by corporatising the operations of the 41 factories hitherto under the Ordnance Factory Board. Seven Defence Public Sector Undertakings, based on the commonality of functions, were created — Munitions India Limited, Armoured Vehicles Nigam Limited, Advanced Weapons and Equipment India Limited, Troop Comforts Limited, India Optel Limited, Gliders India Limited, and Yantra India Limited. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | China’s ‘developmental’ security approach

The story so far: Late in May this year, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced that the U.S. chip giant Micron, which had been under investigation by the Cybersecurity Review Office, failed to obtain a security clearance, and that its products posed a threat to national security. Consequently, business operators tied to critical information infrastructure were advised not to procure Micron products. This is the latest incident in a series of crackdowns by the Chinese government against American consultancies and domestic firms dealing with overseas clients. Read the full article here.

Mint | Free public transport for women could well transform Karnataka

The Siddaramaiah-Shivakumar government’s move to provide free basic public bus services to women could be a game changer for Karnataka’s development, if it follows up to make the investments necessary to make the policy a success over the medium-term. The economic case for subsidized transport is that it has positive externalities—for growth, environment and social development—that are massive in the Indian context, and thus private players alone will not sufficiently provide. Sure, conditional cash transfers might have been a more efficient way to deliver this subsidy, but a policy that is politically feasible and empirically effective is far better than one that is merely elegant. Read the full article here.

WION | Remembering Galwan and the China Challenge: Capabilities of the PLA Western Theatre Command

Three years on, the spectre of Galwan is looming large over India’s China policy. Amidst China’s unwillingness to back down and Indian forces’ intensifying willingness to hold their ground, we are likely to see more skirmishes similar to the one witnessed in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang sector in December last year, taking place. And in this light, an assessment of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) capacity-building close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the past three years indicates that China is not planning to concede its strategic entrenchment beyond India’s claim lines. Rather, it is attempting to create a new status quo with increased firepower available for ready use in anticipation of such potential skirmishes. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | General Electric jet deal will be a test of India-US trust. Critical tech at stake

Last week, media reports raised expectations that an important announcement on defence sector cooperation may occur during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the United States on 22 June. This announcement could be about manufacturing the General Electric F414 fighter engines in India, and the transfer of technology. White House has not commented on these news reports yet, but if they turn out to be true, India’s indigenous capacity to produce fighter aircraft would be boosted, and a major hurdle in its defence preparedness would be mitigated. It would also signify the growing level of trust rooted in global geopolitical considerations that could potentially strengthen strategic cooperation between India and the US, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region. Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | A road map to propel US-India chips push

Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi will travel to Washington DC on June 21 for his first official State visit. A prominent item on the agenda is technology cooperation. In May last year, the two governments elevated their strategic partnership by announcing an initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). During this visit, the two sides will aim to announce concrete steps under this initiative. This article proposes a way forward on one of the main pillars of iCET: Resilient semiconductor supply chains. iCET’s readout explicitly mentioned enhanced cooperation in three areas: Supporting the development of a semiconductor design, manufacturing, and fabrication ecosystem in India; promoting the development of a skilled semiconductor workforce; and encouraging the development of fabs for mature technology nodes and packaging in India. Using iCET’s vision, we propose cooperation options in the three archetypal stages of the semiconductor supply chain: Design, manufacturing, and Outsourced Assembly and Test (OSAT).

MoneyControl | Government overreach in digital economy could end up with no commensurate benefit and serious distortions

History, it seems, tends to move in full circles. “Be Indian, Buy Indian”, a popular slogan from the bygone era has changed to “Vocal for Local”. Deliberate incursions by the government into the market, especially into the digital economy, are reminiscent of old Nehruvian socialist objectives despite all the blame Nehru gets for India’s economic problems. The government’s intervention into payment via the Unified Payments Interface (or UPI) was justified on the grounds that it is a public good (it isn’t) and that lowering transaction costs can benefit everybody (it can). But the justifications grow thinner when we consider other government run or backed enterprises in the digital economy, such as the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) (facilitate government procurement), mSeva app store (indigenous mobile app store), and the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) among others. Read the full article here.

Deccan Herald | Free bus travel is not a silver bullet

As temperatures cool down and the monsoon sets in, on the governance front it is raining schemes. The Karnataka government, as part of its five promises programme has announced free bus travel to all women in the state. Expectedly, this announcement has received reactions ranging from criticism that it encourages ‘freebie culture’ to being hailed as ‘revolutionary’. The truth lies somewhere in between. Free bus travel is a welcome step, and will move the needle on women’s mobility. But for this to have a meaningful impact in the long term, the government needs to bring back the focus on economic growth with employment opportunities for women. Read the full article here.

Mint | NCERT’s curriculum for science needs to be ‘rationalized’ again

India, unlike Western and Middle Eastern societies, does not have a doctrinal problem with science. There is no holy book, word of god or scripture whose literality must be defended against new discoveries. I can understand why religious conservatives in the United States challenge modern biology and the evolutionary science it is based on, for it directly contradicts their article of faith. Darwin does not pose such a fundamental threat to religious conservatives of Indic faiths—the story of the origin of the earth and of humans is not a major concern. In fact, there are many different versions of the origin story, none of which are central to the practice of one’s faith, none of which matter to the conduct of daily life, and none of which get in the way of one’s pursuit of knowledge. Read the full article here.

News18 | China-Taiwan Saga: Recent Developments and the Use of Force

The China-Taiwan relationship continues to develop in a dynamic fashion, with the action-reaction cycle caused by recent events highlighting the threat to global stability. Active militarisation of the Taiwan Strait has contributed to the deteriorating security situation in the region. Over the past few months, the US has approved large-scale arms sales to Taiwan, with its most recent consignment from March 2023 comprising various anti-aircraft missiles worth $619 million. Before this, in September 2022, Taiwan purchased from the US radar systems for anti-air missiles in a consignment worth US$1.1 billion. Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | First signs of thaw in US-China ties, but road to normalcy is uphill

The freeze in Sino-United States (US) engagement, following the balloon incident, appears to be finally thawing. The signs were evident in early May in a conversation between Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang and US ambassador Nicholas Burns in Beijing. This was followed by a meeting between China’s top diplomat Wang Yi and US national security adviser Jake Sullivan in Vienna. A few weeks after that, in his remarks to the press in Hiroshima, US President Joe Biden, indicated that dialogue was expected to resume. Read the full article here.

The Hindu | China’s military diplomacy in Southeast Asia

The story so far: Due to its intensifying geopolitical competition with the U.S. and its own security interests in the region, China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA)’s global activities and influence campaigns are part of its broader reform process initiated by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015, and form a fundamental element of China’s overall foreign policy. In this light, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has become a priority target for the People’s Liberation Army’s military diplomacy. Read the full story here.

ThePrint | Rajnath Singh wants Indian military to boost R&D. But defence finance is complex territory

Last week, on two separate platforms, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh pointed out the dire need for India to metamorphose from being an ‘imitator’ in Research & Development to a ‘leader’ in developing futuristic technologies that could deal with pressing global security concerns. One of the platforms was the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO)’s Academia Conclave in Delhi, where Singh highlighted the need for deepened collaboration between DRDO and academia. If realised, the cross-movement of scientists between DRDO and other institutes could produce results greater than the sum of its parts. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | India’s defence sector is not Aatmanirbhar. Govt is exaggerating progress

India has made varied attempts since Independence to achieve self-reliance in defence-related requirements but its achievements have been limited.

The quest for self-reliance has to keep abreast of scientific discoveries and harness them for military purposes. Contemporarily, self-reliance has been rechristened as Atmanirbharta, and cast within a larger national agenda that engages R&D Institutes, academia, industries, start-ups, individual innovators and users. In political and strategic terms, this ecosystem approach aims to protect and preserve India’s ability to take independent policy decisions in an increasingly volatile and anarchic global environment.

Read the full article here.