Firstpost | Franco-Indian collaboration in Indian Ocean Region: How India-France partnership has taken centre stage in the IOR

During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to France, France and India spelt out their commitments to the Indo-Pacific region. In a first, the two democracies published a roadmap for their bilateral and regional cooperation. The roadmap outlines the alignment between the two countries’ vision for the region, with cooperation extending across the domains of defence, security, economics, connectivity, infrastructure, sustainability, and human-centric development. Read the full article here.

Takshashila Blog | China Challenge: Transatlantic Divergence

It is a truism that the rise of China poses a serious challenge to the US and Europe. However, there are differences in terms of their understanding of the nature of the challenge. For instance, there has long been a debate among them – the US and Europe, that is – whether China poses a strategic challenge, or is an indispensable partner in dealing with global challenges, or whether it is an economic threat or opportunity. Read the full blog here.

The Hindu | The risk of small States’ heavy reliance on the Union government

The fiscal situation of India’s States has garnered significant attention in recent times. Despite ample data on State finances, most of the analysis is centred around larger States. There needs to be more discussion on the fiscal position of small States (i.e. States with a population of less than 1 crore). Most of these small States have distinctive characteristics that limit revenue mobilisation. Recognising these disabilities, the Constitution has provided mechanisms to address them. But these States continue to rely heavily on the Union government for revenue. This dependence creates vulnerabilities for the States as well as the Union. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Why is Indian Army keeping the martial race theory alive? The British left 76 years ago

Even after 75 years of Independence, India still subscribes to the martial race theory in the manning of some of its combat and combat support segments of the Army. Nepal’s repeated blocking of recruitment of Gorkhas under the Agnipath scheme could have been used by India to dissociate itself from this British belief of separating races based on their physical and behavioural characteristics as well as climatic conditions. But India continues to see substance in the theory birthed by the First War of Independence in 1857. Read the full article here.

The Wire | Compensation for Accident Victims Isn’t a ‘Favour’ – and the State Must Be More Accountable

The death of our fellow citizens by accident is a matter of routine. Turning the daily newspaper to the city pages inevitably brings news of deaths from accidents of various kinds – a stray bike rider here, a lone bicyclist there, two people sleeping on the pavement, and so on. Every so often, reports of accidents that have a higher count of casualties make it to the front pages, sometimes as the lead story. These describe a bus falling into a gorge or catching fire, a train smashing into another, and on occasion, a boat overturning. Other forms of accidents – bridge or building collapses, stampedes, fires and such – are rarer, but still feature multiple times a year. In India, there is no end to the news of accidental death. Read the full article here.

Hindustan Times | NRF is a game changer. But it needs more clarity

The National Research Foundation (NRF) is India’s largest government programme to fund research till date. India’s gross expenditure on research and development (GERD) is currently 0.6-0.8% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), quite low when compared with that of the United States (US) (3.36%), China (2.14%), and Israel (4.9%). A significant infusion of funding, steered by a clear implementation strategy, is required for India to become a science leader. The NRF bill is an excellent start to driving India’s research agenda but it needs to clarify its objectives and create capacity for their achievement. Read the full article here.

Mint | We can expect more turbulence ahead in Indian diaspora politics

Diaspora politics is going to get a lot more complicated and recent turbulence is an indicator of the policy challenges ahead. Pro-Khalistan protests in the US, UK, Canada and Australia have descended into vandalism, arson, rioting, incitement to assassination and inter-group violence. Last year, there was Hindu-Muslim communal violence in Leicester. Hindu and Sikh communities got into fights in Australia. A parade in New Jersey featured a bulldozer celebrating Yogi Adityanath’s politics, attracting condemnation for its provocativeness and causing the Indian business association to issue an apology. Google and Big Tech companies in the US attracted criticism on being seen as insensitive to caste discrimination. This year, the Seattle City Council outlawed caste discrimination in response to advocacy by diaspora civil society groups. In May, a 19-year-old Indian-American crashed a truck near the White House, waved a Nazi flag, and declared that he wanted to kill the president, seize power and put an end to democracy in the US. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | At defence PSUs, bring new appraisal system. Job security doesn’t help national security

Some of the recently corporatised Defence Public Sector Undertakings such as the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited will be put to test by deals, including the production of the GE F414 jet engine. HAL’s record of productivity and quality assurance is far from encouraging and is perhaps illustrated in an interaction, a friend once told me, between the head of a foreign aircraft manufacturing company and the Chairman of the HAL. The foreigner was first given an impressive presentation of HAL at its Headquarters in Bengaluru and thereafter taken on a tour of the PSU’s extensive infrastructure facilities situated all over India. On returning to Bengaluru, he was asked by the chairman – ‘What are your impressions’? The foreign head replied – ‘Your infrastructure is extremely impressive; in comparison to yours, ours looks like poorly organised workshops. But why don’t you make aircraft?’ Read the full article here.

The Hindu | Will signing Artemis Accords benefit India?

The story so far:

On June 21, India became the 27th signatory to the Artemis Accords, a set of non-binding guidelines that underpin the Artemis programme, a U.S.-led project to return humans to the moon permanently.

Read the full article here.

Mint | Swish expressways must go with public education on using them

On 19 June, Navroze Contractor was riding back home as usual with his motorcycle group on a service road of Hosur Road (National Highway 44). The 80-year old fellow Bangalorean was a highly regarded filmmaker, photographer, music maven and motorcycle enthusiast. A champion of road safety, he was killed when three drunken motorcyclists riding at high speed on the wrong side of the road crashed into him. The staggering irony compounds the tragedy of lives lost as a result of wrongdoings that are, paradoxically, both avoidable and normalized. Erosion of norms is the fastest way to anarchy. Road safety in India will get worse unless they are addressed now. Read the full article here.

Times of India | How, finally, India is reaching for the Moon

On a remote patch of celestial wilderness near the moon’s south pole lies the wreck of the Chandrayaan-2 lander, a testament to the soaring ambitions of India’s lunar programme and the difficulties of achieving them. Its predecessor, the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter, made history in 2008 by confirming the presence of water ice on the moon. The more audacious Chandrayaan-2 in 2019 was to deploy a lander called Vikram. However, Vikram crash landed in a spray of lunar dust, leaving it, and the small rover inside, inoperable. Read the full article here.

Telangana Today | Technology is the new glue

The Indo-US Joint Statement of 22 June 2023 makes it abundantly clear that technology is the new glue that will bind India-US relations for some time to come. It spans five of the six broad themes – defence, clean energy, economy, health, and technology itself. The last theme is a purely geopolitical one ie, strategic convergence. Whether this translates into opportunities for Indian investors and startups will remain a function of the confidence the Indian authorities can generate in the market in both countries. However, this is not the sole responsibility of the authorities – investors and startups too need to take the plunge if they want a share of the pie. Let us look at the opportunities emerging from this Joint Statement. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | Modi has signed the defence deals with US. Now DRDO, private sectors must deliver

Two major defence deals were signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit, building on previous agreements since the nuclear framework agreement signed between PM Manmohan Singh and President George Bush in 2005. These deals are rooted in India’s geographic location and its growing economic and diplomatic clout in the context of the ongoing global geopolitical struggle. They also align with the US’s efforts to protect its global hegemony, which is couched in a security framework, and involve India in defending common interests against a rising and aggressive China. Read the full article here.

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.