With the pvt sector indifferent to R&D, India risks missing the deep-tech bus, or getting locked out
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com .)
In the 2000s, China recognised that technological dependence was a strategic liability because it relied on US chips, Western operating systems and telecom infra. This triggered a strategy rooted in constructive paranoia, and the launch of mission-driven policies:This aimed to make China an 'innovation-oriented nation'.It targeted dominance in 10 hi-tech sectors.This programme was launched to reverse brain drain, and attract global researchers. It has received massive state support through guidance funds, industrial subsidies and tech-focused SOEs.China also doubled down on patenting, domestic standards and end-to-end industrial ecosystems, from semiconductors to green energy. R&D investment surged past 2.5% of GDP, with a rapidly rising share from the private sector. Today, China leads the world in AI patents, EV production, solar capacity and quantum publications.Meanwhile, India faces similar vulnerabilities China faced 25 years ago: imported chips, weak indigenous IP, low- tech exports and a fragmented research base. And the response has been uneven.GoI has launched Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF), a ₹1 lakh cr R&D fund, expanded PLI schemes, and invested in semiconductors, space tech, clean energy and quantum. For the first time, the government is adopting a full-spectrum approach to funding research and innovation across all technology readiness levels (TRLs).While ANRF will focus on early-stage discovery (TRLs 1-3) and improve ease of doing science with DST, a soon-to-be-finalised ₹1 lakh cr R&D fund should drive private investment in mid-to-late-stage innovation (TRLs 4-9) through long-term, near-zero-interest loans. This fund shifts focus from grants to outcome-linked support for developing commercially viable tech. While the need for greater funding in basic research is acknowledged, GoI is laying the essential groundwork to build a self-sustaining R&D ecosystem.Yet, the private sector remains risk-averse, contributing barely a third of national R&D. India's R&D-to-GDP ratio remains stuck below 0.7%, with little traction in patenting or deep-tech commercialisation. The innovation pipeline is still thin.Ex-Intel CEO Andrew Grove made the line, 'Let's be paranoid' - with its philosophy of the importance of proactive preparedness for unexpected changes and strategic inflection points - famous. And, yet, even Intel wasn't paranoid enough. It missed the AI inflection point, and today Nvidia has overtaken it in valuation, strategic relevance and tech leadership.A similar inversion is unfolding between China and the US, driven by who innovates faster and scales deeper. Unfortunately, while GoI is paranoid, India's private sector isn't.In 2024, Foundation for Advancing Science & Technology (FAST) published a comparative study, 'State of Industry R&D in India', of 59 Indian and 60 global firms across six key sectors: pharma, software, defence, chemicals, automobiles, and energy. The study, conducted between FY16 and FY23, reveals a persistent input-output gap. Global firms, on average, reported 2.9x R&D intensity (spend as % of revenue), 3.7x share of PhD-qualified employees, and 2.9x R&D spending as share of profits than Indian firms.On output indicators, the disparity is starker. Global firms generated 13.1x patents and 1.3x scientific publications per billion dollars of revenue compared to their Indian counterparts.The European Commission recently released the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 2024. It presents data on the top global 2,000 companies investing in R&D. They invested ₹1,257.7 bn in R&D in 2023. Indian firms accounted for ₹5.5 bn, or about 0.4%, of global industrial R&D investment, with only 15 companies featuring among the world's top 2,000 R&D spenders.This places India behind not only advanced economies like the US (₹531.8 bn, 681 firms) and China (₹215.8 bn, 524 firms), but also innovation-intensive small economies such as South Korea (₹42.5 bn, 40 firms), Taiwan (₹24.7 bn, 55 firms), and Ireland (₹10.4 bn, 24 firms).Sustained long-term economic growth is driven by investments in knowledge and innovation. India's failure to internalise this principle within its industrial ecosystem suggests presence of constraints: low absorptive capacity, weak industry-academia linkages, and limited interest from the private sector in high-risk R&D.Persistent underrepresentation of Indian firms in global innovation rankings reflects a missing industrial policy focus on Schumpeterian creative destruction, without which India risks being confined to low-value segments of GVCs.In Liu Cixin's 2008 science fiction novel, The Three-Body Problem, the world gets paralysed by the sudden collapse of scientific progress. Stagnation is the real nightmare. It's not fiction any more. For India, the risk isn't that we fail. It's that we're too comfortable even to try. Innovation can't be outsourced.If there's a gap between what scientists are doing and what businesses need, then companies must invest in R&D, collaborate with academia, and shape research. If the private sector stays disengaged, we'll keep watching others lead. We just aren't paranoid enough.
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Scroll.in
an hour ago
- Scroll.in
India's ‘pushback' policy violates domestic and international law – but won't face global censure
India's 'pushback' policy of forcing across the border individuals claimed to be undocumented migrants violates both domestic and international law, experts say. Since India launched Operation Sindoor against Pakistan on May 7, it has 'pushed' more than 2,000 people into Bangladesh, The Indian Express reported. At least 40 members of the Rohingya community have been deported to Myanmar even though many of them had cards issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The legality of the 'pushback' policy has been debated both in India and internationally. But at home, the Supreme Court has not stopped the deportation of Rohingya refugees despite challenges to such actions pending since 2017. Internationally, there is unlikely to be pressure on India from other nations to stop this strategy since many Western nations also employ similar practices, experts say. 'The problem is that most of Europe and the United States are engaged in this,' said Ravi Nair, executive director of the South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre. 'So, who is going to bell the cat and say this is wrong when everybody is doing it?' Human rights lawyer and writer Nandita Haksar agreed. 'The Western states that are so vociferous in taking up human rights' also push refugees back from their shores, she said. 'Therefore, it would be difficult for the Western states to raise the issue of refugee rights with India.' The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow it to use a wartime law to deport Venezuelan immigrants with little to no due process. — The New York Times (@nytimes) March 28, 2025 Assam's claim The most enthusiastic champion of this policy has been Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who said on Monday that his border state had been responsible for 'pushing back' more than 303 people believed to be Bangladeshi. This has been done under the Immigrants (Expulsion from Assam) Act, 1950, he said. This was the first time Sarma cited a legal justification for 'pushbacks' that the state government has been carrying out since May. As Scroll has reported, at least three of the 14 who were allegedly 'pushed out' of Assam on May 27 were later brought home. They had been deported on the basis of decisions by the state's foreigners tribunals. But the Supreme Court had stayed the decisions of the tribunals in the case of at least two of these individuals as their appeals are pending. The pushback policy violates India's own constitutional guarantees and established legal procedures for deportation, experts said. Forcibly detaining individuals and physically throwing them out of the country violates Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to life and personal liberty, applies to all persons within India's territory, regardless of their citizenship status, said Rita Manchanda, research director at the South Asia Forum for Human Rights. This has been underlined by the Supreme Court in several judgements, she noted. The same article was also violated when the Indian authorities deported Rohingya refugees, forcing them into a country that is gripped by civil war and where they face genocide, experts say. 'Pushing them into an active war zone poses a direct threat to their life,' said Anghuman Choudhury, a doctoral candidate in Comparative Asian Studies jointly at the National University of Singapore and King's College London. Choudhury emphasised that Sarma's statement that deportations will be carried out 'without legal process' violates of Article 14 of the Constitution. This article guarantees equality before the law and equal protection of the law to everyone within Indian territory. 'Everyone has a right to be heard as per law,' he said. 'You cannot just pick up any suspected foreigner – even the suspected foreigner needs to go through the legal process.' Besides, these processes have been instituted to ensure that no Indian citizens are expelled from their country, he added. Is this a new policy? Experts told Scroll that while India had engaged in 'push backs' of foreigners before, it had never adopted this as a strategy for deportations. Contrary to Sarma's claim that 'pushbacks' are a 'new innovation', this method has been used on the India-Bangladesh border since at leastt 1979, said Choudhury, the doctoral candidate – but the purpose has changed. Until recently, 'pushbacks' meant that the Assam border police or the Border Security Force would stop individuals they spotted trying to enter India from Bangladeshi territory and force them to return or would 'push back' those who had managed to cross the border into India. 'But those were ad hoc cases,' Choudhury said. 'What we are seeing today seems to be a more large-scale systematic policy.' What is also unusual is India's decision to 'push back' refugees, said Nandita Haksar. 'The rate and cruelty with which refugees, including those recognised by the [United Nations High Commission for Refugees] are being deported even at the risk of their lives is new and disturbing,' she said. Ravi Nair agreed. 'India had pushed back people before…,' he said. 'But this kind of pure abduction and putting them into no man's land is clearly crossing the Rubicon.' Violation of domestic law and due process The legal process for deportations in India is articulated in a Standard Operating Procedure issued by the Union Ministry of Home Affairs in 2011. All deportations must be initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs sending the identity details of the apprehended foreigner to their country's embassy. The person can be deported only after confirmation of the person's nationality has been received through these diplomatic channels. The current 'pushback' policy bypasses these procedures, Nair said. 'We have to submit the names and the documents of alleged Bangladeshi nationals to the government of Bangladesh,' he said. 'Once those are verified and Bangladesh is willing to take them, then they are sent back. That is clearly not being followed.' Last month, Scroll reported that 40 Rohingya refugees who had been detained in Delhi alleged that they had been forced off a navy vessel in the Andaman Sea with life jackets on May 7 and told to swim towards Myanmar. Choudhury pointed out that the deportations of Rohingya refugees in this manner violated a 2021 order of the Supreme Court. In a case requesting a halt to the expulsions of Rohingya refugees, the court had said that they could be deported. But it explicitly mandated that deportations must adhere to due process, a directive that appears to be 'directly violated' by the current policy, Choudhury said. Breach of international law Experts told Scroll that 'pushing back' refugees violated India's obligations under international law and customary international law. The principle of non-refoulement, which prohibits states from returning individuals to a country where they would face persecution, is considered jus cogens – a peremptory norm of international law binding on all states. 'The principle of non-refoulement is also seen as a customary international law,' making it binding even if a country has not ratified specific conventions, Choudhury said. India is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. 'But as a member of the UN General Assembly, which is the parent body of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, India is strongly expected to adhere by customary international law,' he said. 'Customary law transcends treaty obligations.' He pointed out that India is a signatory to the Bangkok Principles on Status and Treatment of Refugees, issued in 2001, and the United Nations Global Compact on Refugees, which India signed in 2018. Both mandate non-refoulement as a principle to be upheld by their signatories. India is also a signatory to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. These treaties too contain provisions that implicitly or explicitly uphold the principle of non-refoulement, particularly concerning the right to family unity and protection from inhuman treatment, said Aman Kumar, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University who runs the Indian Blog of International Law. 'When you return female refugees back to Myanmar, or you separate children from their parents through deportations, you violate these treaties,' Kumar said. He noted that India had an 'extensive and wide record of accepting refugees as a state practice.' He pointed to asylum granted over the decades to tens of thousands of refugees from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tibet, in stark contrast to the current Indian government's hostility towards Rohingya refugees. Scrutiny of policy unlikely Internationally, India's 'pushback' policy is likely to attract scrutiny from United Nations agencies. On May 15, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of Human Rights in Myanmar began an inquiry into alleged deportation of 40 Rohingya refugees from Delhi. The special rapporteur, Thomas Andrews, described these alleged acts as 'unconscionable' and 'unacceptable'. Many experts told Scroll that India is already receiving bad press on the issue internationally. However, direct action against India would face significant hurdles. If a country violates treaty obligations, action could be launched against it in the United Nations' International Court of Justice. But geopolitical realities often deter international action, Kumar said. 'India is too strategically important as a huge market and a potential alternative to China in the global supply chain,' he said. As a consequence, he does not foresee another country taking India to the International Court of Justice. In theory, Bangladesh – the country most affected by this policy – could start proceedings against India in the International Criminal Court, said Nair. 'Even though India is not a party to the International Criminal Court, Bangladesh is,' he said. 'A state party can bring a complaint against a non-state party before the court.' However, he said, that possibility was remote because Bangladesh is unlikely to want to aggravate India at a time of fraught relations between the two. Manchanda said that India may face some heat at the United Nations Human Rights Council's upcoming session on June 16. 'I expect that there will be statements made by civil society groups expressing outrage at what India is doing,' she said. She pointed out that in June 2024, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination had called for India to refrain from forcibly detaining and deporting Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. But Manchanda said she was 'unsure about how much traction this would get.' Kumar did not believe the policy would be halted. 'Legally there is essentially nothing stopping India from continuing to carry out such deportations,' he said.


Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
R&D? Rarely
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India Today
2 hours ago
- India Today
Iran warns it will target US bases if conflict erupts over nuke talks
If nuclear negotiations fail and conflict arises with the United States, Iran will strike American bases in the region, Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said on Wednesday, days ahead of a planned sixth round of Iran-US nuclear talks."Some officials on the other side threaten conflict if negotiations don't come to fruition. If a conflict is imposed on us ... all US bases are within our reach and we will boldly target them in host countries," Nasirzadeh said during a weekly press President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran with bombing if it does not reach a new nuclear deal. The next round of talks is due this week, with Trump saying negotiations would be held on Thursday while Tehran says they will take place on Sunday in is expected to hand a counter-proposal to a previous US offer for a nuclear deal it rejected, with Trump saying on Tuesday that Iran was becoming "much more aggressive" in nuclear and Washington have clashed on the issue on uranium enrichment on Iranian soil, which Western powers say is a potential pathway to the development of nuclear weapons. Iran holds that its nuclear programme is purely for civilian purposes."As we resume talks on Sunday, it is clear that an agreement that can ensure the continued peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program is within reach — and could be achieved rapidly," Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in a post on X on sticking point in the talks has been Iran's missile programme. Ballistic missiles form an important part of Iran's said that Tehran recently tested a missile with a two-ton warhead and does not accept Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had said in February that Iran should further develop its military, including its missiles.