The US Must Provide Concrete Benefits to IPEF Signatories

At the recently concluded Quad summit in Tokyo, India joined the United States (US)-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), created to provide an alternative trading arrangement and counter Chinese dominance in the region. While the scope is broad enough to provide an inclusive platform, the ambiguity, vagueness, and the lack of specific agreements can render it toothless.

Only dialogue, not Army, can stop targeting of Kashmiri Pandits. But make J&K a state first

The targeting of Kashmiri Pandits in the last few weeks would not seem to be part of the campaign against ‘outsiders’. But in reality, it is connected to it. The aim is not only to stall the ongoing measures for the resettlement of Kashmiri Pandits and land restoration but also to portray the inability of the Indian government to protect them. Such portrayal operates to debunk the notion of ‘normality’ and serves to increase the numbers of ‘outsiders’ in terms of the Armed Police Forces that may be expected to fuel alienation by their sheer presence if not by their actions undertaken to curb violence.

For World to View India’s Potential as Semiconductor Powerhouse, We Need Targeted Trade Policies

India faces a tough task ahead: to show its commitment to building the semiconductor industry. Industrial policies with capital may attract investments and potential bids, but favourable trade policies and a conducive business environment can ensure the completion of the projects and yield results. In the long run, this approach can attract more international semiconductor firms. India can be closer to its goals by adopting the following policy recommendations. To begin with, India must change its approach to foreign trade policy and make it more accommodating to the technology sector. The government can then focus on developing a comprehensive trade policy suited or catered to the semiconductor industry itself.

100 Days of Russia-Ukraine conflict: How China's Choices have Damaged its External Environment

Earlier this week, a lengthy front page commentary in the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, bemoaned the deterioration of China’s external environment. The author warned that following the war in Ukraine, “instability, uncertainty and insecurity” were on the rise, and that the West, led by the US, was doubling down on policies aimed at “containing and suppressing” China. Although the author called for focus on running internal affairs well and dismissed external factors as not being “decisive” in China’s pursuit of its goal of national rejuvenation, the assessment does reveal how deeply the war in Ukraine has adversely affected China’s strategic interests.

Why Xi Jinping’s Iron Grip on Power is Intact

The past two months have seen intense speculation about the political churn within China. There have been reports of unhappiness and factional contestation around Xi Jinping’s policies on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Covid-19 containment, and the direction of economic policy. This has fuelled rumours of a deeper pushback against Xi, heading into the 20th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). While there is evidence of policy contestation and frustration, there is little to suggest that Xi’s political authority is diminished. 

Fantasy Sports Industry Has Got an IPL Boost but It Needs a Coherent Policy Going Forward

Last week, reports emerged that the Union government has set up an inter-ministerial panel to regulate online gaming. This is a good thing. Online gaming is a popular emerging sector with great economic potential that has thus far been hamstrung by regulatory uncertainty. One of the reasons behind this uncertainty lies in the nomenclature. As a catch-all term, online gaming sometimes includes everything from online casinos to fantasy sports platforms such as Dream11. This is unfortunate given that Indian courts have repeatedly distinguished games of skill (such as Dream11) from games of chance (such as online casinos). Primary among the panel’s responsibilities would thus be to build on this distinction by formulating a mechanism to determine whether a game format is skill-dependent. In addition to regulatory clarity, this will also help the nascent industry distance itself from gambling.

West’s Russia Model Won’t Work with China: Why Tech Sanctions Alone Cannot Deter Dragon

The tech sanctions on Russia would have a devastating impact on its economy and affect the domestic market’s accessibility to basic technology goods. But if there is Chinese aggression against Taiwan in the near future, can these sanctions work? Will tech sanctions serve as a credible tool to deter or even punish the Chinese state from conducting their own military operations across the Taiwan straits? For a technologically advanced state such as China, will these targeted sanctions have any impact on its tech economy? China is much more integrated into the global economy and supply chain. And, that makes it much more difficult to have broad-based sanctions against China unlike those against Russia; it also makes sanctions far more costly for China because it has much more to lose.

Ministry of Defence has struck back on PM Modi’s Chief of Defence Services reform. But he must stay his course

Media reports of the Narendra Modi government reviewing issues connected to India’s major and boldest structural defence reforms in the post of the Chief of Defence Staff surfaced last week. It appears to be the canary in the coal mine. Some forces, probably the Ministry of Defence, have probably convinced the leadership of the need for a review. It is worth recalling here that the reforms were not initiated by it. The call was probably a Prime Minister’s Office initiative for which PM Modi himself deserves the credit, for it was not an easy decision to take in the face of entrenched interests and beliefs. The structural change was intended to significantly improve the military effectiveness and optimise the utilisation of scarce resources. The CDS was also politically mandated to execute the reforms.

What the Quad must do to build a resilient semiconductor chain

Japan is hosting the Quad Leaders’ Summit meeting today. One agenda item will be to announce a concrete action plan under the Semiconductor Supply Chain Initiative, launched by the leaders of the four countries in their last meeting in September 2021. The goal of the initiative is to strengthen the global semiconductor supply chain’s productive capacity and resilience.

Through this initiative, the Quad officially recognises that the semiconductor supply chain has geo-security consequences. The Semiconductor Industry Association – an industry body in the US – estimates that a typical semiconductor production process spans 4+ countries, 3+ trips around the globe, 25,000 miles and 12 days of travel. Given the hyper-global nature of this supply chain, no one country can become fully self-sufficient. For building a reliable, secure semiconductor supply chain, plurilateral partnerships are a necessity and not a choice.

Rebalance the Rajya Sabha in tandem with Lok Sabha delimitation

India's federal structure is a major design element responsible for independent India’s unity, development and dynamism. Indian federalism differs from American or European federalism in that pre-existing States did not come together and constitute a federation. Even so, Indian federalism is still federalism.

Rejecting charges of centralism, Ambedkar explained that “The States, under our Constitution, are in no way dependent upon the Centre for their legislative or executive authority. The Centre and the States are co-equal in this matter.”

A Road Map for Quad’s Emerging Technology Working Group

The second in-person summit of Quad is all set to be held in Japan on May 24. The leaders of the four countries are expected to announce future partnerships and projects across various sectors. As many as 12 working groups have been created thus far as part of the Quad grouping. Among them is the critical and emerging technology working group that was established in March 2021 to foster technological collaboration. Here are the three main areas of focus that Quad should focus on to create an immediate impact in the technology domain:

If India Wants Political Stability in Colombo, It Must Act in Interest of Sri Lankan People

On May 9, the largely peaceful anti-Rajapaksa protests in Sri Lanka took a violent turn. In the resulting violence, nine people died, including two policemen, with the agitating crowd burning down the home of Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa. Subsequently, while the Prime Minister resigned, his younger brother Gotabaya Rajapaksa remained the President. Facing nationwide civil unrest, the government imposed a curfew on May 9 and issued shoot at sight orders on those engaging in violence. Though the appointment of Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister has provided a semblance of political stability in the country, the protesters have refused to budge from their demand for the resignation of President Gotabaya.

NFHS-5 Data Shows India Forgot Its Obesity Burden while Fighting Undernutrition

A few decades ago, obesity was not considered a public health issue. Even as late as the 1990s, obesity was only seen as a western concern, whereas undernutrition was more of a problem for developing nations like India. However, obesity is now afflicting more than 44 per cent of the world’s population. According to the data from the fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS), India is not far behind. Most government regimes have focused their efforts in recent years on combating malnutrition, with many schemes launched across the country. While the focus was important for that time, new data on obesity suggests that we may have forgotten the obesity burden.

Vaccine Nationalism of Rich Countries: A Self-Defeating Approach With No Winners

Just a week ago, Danish officials confirmed that they will be doing away with more than 1.1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines as their efforts to give them to other countries have failed. While on one hand, several rich countries like Denmark have vaccines in surplus, on the other hand, The Duke Global Health Innovation Centre has estimated that the majority in low-income countries will have to wait until 2023 to be vaccinated.

Forcing languages on people has a bad track record in the region

If only our high school text books did not stop History somewhere around 1950, generations of Indians might become aware of the mistakes made by our neighbours and stop insisting on repeating them in India. The subcontinent’s history of strife stirred by linguistic chauvinism should strike a cautionary note. Pluralism is the magic formula that others missed. We would do well to heed the warning that the history of our neighbourhood offers us: Don’t mess with language.

Health Star Rating for Packaged Food is a Welcome Move. But is It Enough?

In India, consumers have always had a difficult time separating unhealthy food items from their healthy counterparts. The country’s plan to implement a Health Star Rating (HSR) system for packaged food items is a long-pending move. The decision to approve HSR was made with an eye on rise in obesity, diabetes and hypertension in India. This rating will help in bringing about a behavioural change in the population. The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has been tasked with overseeing its implementation. The decision was made after a report was released by IIM Ahmedabad on ‘Consumer preferences for different nutrition front-of-pack labels in India’. The rating’s aim is to make customers aware and capable of making informed food choices.

Protracted war has damaged global military supply systems. Time for India to step up

Nine weeks into the Ukraine War, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited the war-ravaged suburbs of Kyiv and stated that war is an absurdity in the 21st century. Reality can be expected to remain deaf to such expressions of anguish as the war enters its tenth week.  Worse, the course of this war is bringing NATO closer to direct involvement with Russia through stepped up supplies of military hardware to Ukraine—which includes artillery and armoured vehicles besides anti-armour, anti-air, air-defence and cyber capabilities.

How India and China can Work Together on a Geoengineering Governance Framework

India and China have the possibility of driving forward the conversation on continuing credible research in the field of geoengineering. Both countries have been torchbearers for the rest of the developing world at climate conferences and both can work together to formulate a well-rounded governance framework regulating the research and technology in the field. While ethical considerations should be taken into account, the two countries can develop a holistic model (that also looks at potential negative consequences of geoengineering techniques) to have solar radiation management as a probable climate policy option. National agencies can be set up for funding solar geo-tech research and also keep tabs on the experiments being conducted.

How Should India Respond to the US' Unilateral ASAT Test Ban?

The United States (US) has pledged to stop conducting destructive direct-ascent anti-satellite (DA-ASAT) testing in space. During the announcement made on 18 April, US vice-president Kamala Harris called on other nations to follow suit in hopes to induce the norm of responsible behaviour in space and mitigating the problem of space debris. To date, China, India, Russia, and the US have been the only countries that have demonstrated debris-creating ASAT capabilities. While the ban is to mitigate the risk of space debris, it neither guarantees the redressal of an arms race in space, nor does it signal the onset of international norms against ASAT testing. Here is how India should respond.

China’s threat won’t wait for India to get better technology. Army must use more brainpower

The images of destroyed tanks in the Ukraine war have rekindled the global debate on the survivability of the tank in the battlefield. In March 2020, Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane, the Chief of Army Staff, said that in the context of the changing character of warfare, the icons of the 20th century such as main battle tanks and fighter aircraft are on their way out and the battle-winning factor in future may not be numerical equivalence but technological superiority.