PM: "The world is seeing that India is changing. There is hope from India and the reason is the skills of 1.3 billion Indians"
By Ajai Shukla
Business Standard, 16th Aug 22
Speaking from the Red Fort in Delhi on Independence Day 2022, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi called upon the private sector to embrace innovation, in order to play a key role in the Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) initiative.
Voicing his oft-stated conviction that “India can make for the world,” Modi commended the military for taking forward Atmanirbhar Bharat into the realm of technological innovation.
As always, the government’s new initiative came with a catchy new slogan. Citing former PM Lal Bahudar Shashtri’s iconic slogan, "Jai Jawan Jai Kisan,” and affixing PM Atal Vihari Vajpayee’s "Jai Vigyan" to it, PM Modi took it a step further by adding: “Jai Anusandhan” (hail to innovation).
Placing the onus for innovation on the citizenry, Mr Modi said: “[In] self-reliant India, [innovation] becomes the responsibility of every citizen, of every government, every unit of society. Self-reliant India is not a government agenda or a government program. This is a mass movement of the society, which we have to take forward.”
“The world is seeing that India is changing. There is hope from India and the reason is the skills of 130 crore Indians,” said the PM.
The government has been drawing attention to its innovation programmes through statements and answers to questions in Parliament. On July 29, the Minister of State for Defence, Ajay Bhatt, tabled a written answer to a question in the Lok Sabha, listing out measures the government had taken to promote innovation.
The answer stated that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) had launched a scheme called “Innovations for Defence Excellence” (iDEX) which was a medium for funding micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and start-ups that had submitted blueprints for innovative projects.
PM Modi had launched iDEX in April 2018, billing it as the MoD’s flagship for technological innovation. iDEX was to provide start-ups with a platform for co-creation and co-development in defence and aerospace technology.
Under iDEX, defence start-ups and MSMEs are encouraged to present technological solutions to functional problems that the military periodically raises as “challenges”. Innovators are encouraged to engage directly with the military through the iDEX Open Challenge and to showcase what they have to offer. Selected applicants get a chance to pitch to the iDEX grand jury and qualify for grants and investments.
Last month, iDEX signed its 100th contract in New Delhi with with a firm called Pacify Medical Technologies Pvt Ltd.
“With these actions of the Government, the expenditure on defence procurement from foreign sources which used to be 46 per cent of the overall expenditure has reduced to 36 per cent in the last four years i.e. 2018-19 to 2021-22,” the MoD stated in Parliament last month.
iDEX is funded and managed by the “Defence Innovation Organization” (DIO), which is registered as a “not for profit” company as per Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013. Its founder members are the two biggest defence public sector undertakings (DPSUs): Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and Bharat Electronics Ltd.
The MoD has reserved certain projects and products for innovators. In March, it announced the reservation of 18 major defence platforms for industry-led design and development.
Last year, the MoD had notified three “Positive Indigenisation Lists”, reserving a total of 310 defence products and another 2,958 items for DPSUs. These lists embargoed the import of products beyond specified timelines.
# at the same time as lalbahadur shastrijee's speech writers had thought up the catchy slogan of jai jawan, jai kisan, north america's united states accepted that people other than europeans were also included in the welcome " "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
ReplyDeleteI lift my lamp beside the golden door!" not dozens, or scores, but hundreds of IIT graduates, AIIMS Delhi, AFMC, CMC Vellore, Madras Medical College graduates, the elites from those privileged institutions that jawaharlal nehru had established, [commandeering already scarce monies, budget that in any other country would have gone to universal primary and secondary school education,] these elites were queueing up in the sun [and rain, and cold] outside yankeestan's embassy, consulates for a visa so that they could turn their backs on the motherland. while the overwhelming majority of visa seekers from the peoples republic of china would return to their homeland, in the instance of india, the overwhelming majority chose to never return. disparaged as the brain drain by those who could not manage a visa. ironically, almost 65 years later the new clever slogan of jai vigyan is being trotted out when hundreds of thousands of young women, men from gujarat, punjab, andhra-telangana are flocking to anglo-sphere, obtaining student visas in dodgy courses such as community services, commercial cooking, aged care, courses for which all that is required is sufficient marks in an english language test, to drive taxis, delivery vans, deliver cookshop meals, as cleaners-safai karamcharis, kitchen hands, old age home menials and work towards a permanent residence visa, green card. a few physicians, nurses, engineers, digital-tech artisans, but the overwhelming end up in 3D work - demeaning, dirty, desultory jobs. white collar working class families sell what little they have, take on impossible debt so that their progeny can be included in the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of our teeming shore. send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to gora-man desh. circa 2014 the numbers have sadly gone up, even exponentially. ironically in australia, the numbers dramatically increased after much publicised attacks on indian youth during 2009-10. it was almost as if much of small town gujarat, punjab exclaimed - so there are indians there, then what am i doing here. canada rejects 7 out of 10 student visa applications from gujarat, punjab, haryana. leading a significant number to choose to cross in yankeestan via mexico, europe from north africa, west asia.
“The world is seeing that India is changing. There is hope from India and the reason is the skills of 130 crore Indians,” said the PM.