Latest news with #MinistryofElectronics&InformationTechnology
Time of India
14-05-2025
- Automotive
- Time of India
Electronic components mfg: Hybrid incentive structure to support various sectors in scaling up, says S Krishnan
With an eye on strategic autonomy and technological leadership, the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology ( MeitY ) is spearheading India's transformation into a global hub for electronics manufacturing and artificial intelligence. At the heart of this effort lies a series of bold policy interventions—from deepening the domestic electronics value chain through targeted incentive schemes, to nurturing homegrown AI capabilities that reflect India's linguistic and socio-economic diversity. These initiatives are not only designed to boost industrial capacity but also to secure the country's digital infrastructure in an increasingly volatile global landscape. In this exclusive interview, S. Krishnan , Secretary, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India, speaks to Anoop Verma , Editor-News, ETGovernment, about the launch of the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme , the strategic rationale behind building an indigenous AI foundational model , the heightened vigilance against cyber threats, and the government's broader roadmap for strengthening India's digital economy and technological resilience. From launching a targeted Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme to supporting India's first homegrown AI foundational model, and reinforcing national cybersecurity amid evolving threats, the government is crafting a comprehensive blueprint for resilient and future-ready technological growth. Edited Excerpts: With the launch of the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme, how does MeitY envision India's growing role in the global electronics supply chain? This scheme is a strategic intervention aimed at addressing two major objectives. First, we want to firmly embed India into the global value chain for electronics manufacturing. Second, we are determined to enhance the level of value addition happening within India itself. Today, India's average value addition in electronics is about 18–20%. Our goal is to at least double this figure to 35–40%. To understand why this matters, we must consider how global value chains operate—especially for complex goods like smartphones, automobiles, and electronic devices. A mobile phone, for instance, may cross up to 70 national borders in the course of its production. Components are sourced globally, assembled in multiple stages, and only then does the product reach the consumer. Even in China, which dominates global electronics manufacturing, the value addition per product is about 40–45%. So, while 100% value addition is neither practical nor necessary, India must significantly deepen its manufacturing footprint. That's precisely what this scheme seeks to accomplish. Why is it important for India to move up the electronics value chain now? Moving up the value chain is essential for four reasons. First, we can't rely solely on assembly work. While it's labor-intensive and has rightly been our entry point, real economic and technological gains come from producing modules and components. As we grow economically, wages will rise, and the cost advantage for basic assembly will diminish. Without deeper manufacturing capabilities, industries may shift to cheaper destinations—just as they once moved from China to Vietnam or Bangladesh. We want to avoid a premature exit of this industry from India. Second, deepening the value chain enables higher quality job creation. Manufacturing components and capital goods requires skilled labour, fosters technical know-how, and nurtures ancillary industries. This creates a more sustainable and robust industrial base. Third, electronics is the world's largest manufacturing sector and a significant part of India's import bill. We are one of the largest consumers of electronics. Depending entirely on imports makes us vulnerable to supply chain shocks—especially in strategic areas such as defence, medical devices, or telecom. Building domestic capacity will make India more resilient. Finally, as we become a hub for electronics exports, we must also ensure that our domestic ecosystem—design, components, tooling, capital goods—is mature enough to support scale, quality, and innovation. How has the scheme been designed to focus on these strategic goals? We've deliberately focused on components that have high cost share in the final product—say, camera modules or printed circuit boards (PCBs)—as they offer the greatest scope for value capture. If a component accounts for 4–5% of the bill of materials in a smartphone, manufacturing it domestically significantly enhances value addition. We're also targeting components where Indian firms already have a foothold and can scale quickly. That's a more efficient use of capital and helps existing players grow faster. A third pillar of our strategy is the development of capital goods—machinery and tooling used in electronics manufacturing. This is a long-neglected sector in India. Historically, we have imported most of this machinery from Japan, China, Europe, or the U.S. Now, with electronics becoming India's largest manufacturing sector, we see a strong case for building domestic capacity in capital goods tailored to this domain. This creates a multiplier effect by strengthening upstream industries as well. The scheme has a sizable outlay—around ₹22,944 crore. How will this fund be strategically deployed to maximize outcomes? Typically, we prefer production-linked incentives (PLIs) because they reward actual output. You only get the incentive if you produce and sell. This ensures that taxpayer money translates into real economic activity. However, PLIs work best when the investment-to-turnover ratio is high—as in mobile phone assembly, where investment is modest, but turnover is large. In such cases, even a small PLI payout is impactful. But components and capital goods have a different profile. They often require large upfront capital investments, and annual turnover can be relatively low—perhaps even less than the capital invested. So a pure PLI model is inadequate. To solve this, we've introduced a hybrid incentive structure—a mix of capital subsidies and production-based incentives. This allows us to support sectors where either model alone would fall short. For example, a capital-intensive project may get upfront support for machinery, and additional benefits as it scales production. This is the first time we're taking such a hybrid approach, and we believe it aligns incentives effectively across sectors. Is employment creation a condition for availing benefits under the scheme? Employment is a central objective. Participating companies must create and report high-quality jobs in order to unlock the full value of their incentives. This ensures that the scheme contributes not only to industrial growth but also to inclusive development and workforce upskilling. India has selected Sarvam AI to develop its first indigenous AI foundational model. What prompted this decision? Within our IndiaAI Mission , we've made consistent progress across seven verticals—including compute infrastructure, datasets, applications, skilling, and trusted AI. However, the decision to build a foundational model sparked considerable debate. Some experts argued that we should leverage existing global open-source models and focus instead on applications. While this is a valid point, most global models are trained on English-dominant internet data. That makes them inherently limited—and sometimes biased—when applied to Indian languages and contexts. Given our country's linguistic and cultural diversity, we felt that a truly effective AI system must be trained on Indian datasets, covering not only text but also audio, image, and video formats. This is crucial to eliminate bias and ensure inclusivity. Also, the cost of developing models is dropping rapidly, making it economically viable to build domestic alternatives. Moreover, our real need is not just for large general-purpose models, but for smaller, domain-specific models—say, in agriculture, healthcare, or education. These models are more manageable, targeted, and impactful. That's why we decided to move ahead with domestic development. Sarvam AI was selected in the first round, but more selections are expected soon from the over 450 proposals received so far. India is also investing in public datasets and AI skilling. How do you see these efforts shaping the future of AI in India? We've launched over 350 public datasets under the AI Cores initiative and partnered with IITs to offer AI courses. These steps are foundational. You can't build high-quality AI models without relevant training data. And in India's case, that means datasets that reflect our languages, dialects, user behavior, and social contexts. We're encouraging the private sector, state governments, and academia to contribute anonymized data, with proper privacy safeguards. We're also expanding the definition of training data beyond just text. Audio clips, medical images, videos from fieldwork—all of this data is immensely valuable for real-world AI applications. These resources will democratize AI development and enable startups and researchers to build models tailored to India's needs. In light of the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, have cyber threats also escalated? How is MeitY responding? The cyber threat environment has intensified significantly since April 22. We've seen a surge in attempted attacks across multiple sectors. But we've been extremely vigilant. Agencies like CERT-In, NCIIPC, NIC, CDAC, and sectoral regulators like RBI and IRDAI have been working in close coordination. Thanks to this concerted effort, we've been able to neutralize several attempts aimed at disrupting India's cyber infrastructure. We remain on high alert, and cyber defence is now an integral pillar of our national security. Electronics exports have surged recently, and India is now the second-largest mobile manufacturing hub. What is MeitY's next big policy focus? We've certainly made significant progress in electronics exports, especially in mobile phones. But this is only the beginning. Going forward, our two big policy interventions are: the Electronics Component Manufacturing Scheme—which, as I explained, will deepen domestic capabilities—and the revised PLI scheme for IT hardware, which will gain momentum this year. These efforts, combined with deregulation and ease-of-doing-business reforms, will ensure that more electronics units are set up not only in metro cities but also in Tier 2 and Tier 3 towns. The global rebalancing of supply chains—especially amid U.S.-China tensions—gives India a rare opportunity. We're working to ensure that we seize it.
Time of India
08-05-2025
- General
- Time of India
TN 12th HSC Result 2025: How to download Tamil Nadu Class 12th marksheets from DigiLocker?
What is DigiLocker? TN 12th HSC Marksheets from DigiLocker: Steps to access Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 The Tamil Nadu Directorate of Government Examinations (DGE) officially declared the Tamil Nadu HSE +2 results for 2025 today, with a total pass percentage of 95.03%. The results were made available at 9 AM on the board's official websites, and year, a total of 8,47,000 students appeared for the examination, which was held from March 3 to March 25. Notably, 2,638 schools recorded a 100% pass rate, and 26,887 students secured full marks in at least one subject. In terms of subject performance, 9,536 students achieved centum in Computer Science, while 135 students scored perfect marks in Tamil. Ariyalur district topped the state with a remarkable pass percentage of 98.8%, further cementing its reputation for educational can now access their provisional marksheets online, which will be accepted for college admissions until the official certificate is issued through DigiLocker and official is a flagship initiative under the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. It provides a cloud-based platform for citizens to store, share, and verify important documents. Educational institutions and examination boards, including the Tamil Nadu DGE, partner with DigiLocker to ensure that students can access their results and certificates digitally with can follow the steps mentioned here to download the TN 12th HSC marksheets from DigiLocker:: Visit the official DigiLocker website: Go to or open the DigiLocker mobile app (available on Android and iOS).: Sign in or register: If you are a new user, click on 'Sign Up' and enter your mobile number, set a username and password, and verify your Aadhaar you already have an account, simply log in using your registered mobile number and 6-digit security PIN or Aadhaar credentials.: Navigate to the education section: After logging in, go to the 'Issued Documents' on the 'Browse Issuer' option and select 'Directorate of Government Examinations, Tamil Nadu'.: Select document type: Choose 'HSC Marksheet' or 'Class XII Marksheet 2025' from the list of available documents issued by the Tamil Nadu board.: Enter required details: You will be prompted to enter your Class 12 register number, date of birth, and year of examination (2025).: Download and save: Once your details are verified, your digital marksheet will be can download the PDF, save it to your device, or share it directly through email or other platforms.
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Business Standard
26-04-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
India, US in continuous dialogue on bilateral trade deal: MoS Jitin Prasada
India and the US have a continuous dialogue and communication on the bilateral trade deal and the first tranche is set to roll out by fall this year, Minister of State for the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology Jitin Prasada said. Prasada made these remarks while addressing members of the Indian-American community at an interactive session organised by the Consulate General of India in New York on Friday. India and the US share a great relationship, and there is continuous dialogue and communication between both countries. The last dialogue that Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and President (Donald) Trump had, the formalities and modalities of the bilateral trade agreement have been worked out, and by September, this fall, you will see the first tranche of our programme and policies, Prasada said. At the beginning of the event, a moment of silence was observed to pay respects to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 civilians were killed and many more injured. Prasada commenced his address to the diaspora by expressing his condolences to the bereaved families and victims of the tragic and most dastardly act of terrorism in Kashmir. In his remarks at the event, attended by prominent members of the Indian-American community, senior banking, finance and corporate executives as well as students, Prasada urged the diaspora community to give suggestions about what issues should be taken up in the bilateral trade agreement so that those can be taken into account". "In the same vein, he said the community should also put in its suggestions to the US government, so that when both governments talk, your suggestions are prioritised. We are open to those ideas and suggestions. I can assure you that things are looking very positive. You will hear very positive outcomes, he said. He said that the engagement between the United States and India over the trade deal is happening at various levels, beginning right from the leadership of President Trump and Prime Minister Modi. Currently, the Additional Secretary of Commerce is in Washington and discussing the bilateral trade agreement and its modalities, he said. Deliberations between Indian and US officials on the proposed bilateral trade agreement began in Washington on Wednesday with an aim to iron out issues and give an impetus to the negotiations. India's chief negotiator, Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce Rajesh Agrawal, is leading the team for the first in-person talks between the two countries. The US has stated that the pact with India will help open new markets for American goods and create new opportunities for workers, farmers and entrepreneurs in both countries. On April 15, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal had stated that India will try to close the negotiations as quickly as possible with the US. In a joint statement issued after their bilateral meeting in Washington in February this year, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi had announced plans to negotiate the first tranche of a mutually beneficial, multi-sector Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) by the fall of 2025. The leaders had committed to designating senior representatives to advance these negotiations and to ensure that the trade relationship fully reflects the aspirations of the COMPACT (Catalysing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology). India and the US have been engaged in negotiating the bilateral trade agreement since March. Both sides have targeted to conclude the first phase of the pact by the fall (September-October) of this year, with an aim to more than double the bilateral trade to $500 billion by 2030, from about $191 billion currently. Earlier this week, US Vice President JD Vance and Prime Minister Modi had welcomed significant progress in the negotiations for the US-India Bilateral Trade Agreement and formally announced the finalisation of the Terms of Reference for the negotiations, laying down a roadmap for further discussions about shared economic priorities. A statement from Vance's office had said that guided by their respective visions of Amrit Kaal for India' and Golden Age for America,' the trade agreement is expected to create new opportunities for growth for workers, farmers and entrepreneurs in both countries. Prasada further said that the Indian diaspora is the living bridge" between the United States and India, and you bring that energy and that connection which bonds two nations. Highlighting the great synergy between the two nations, he said America has the tech, India has the talent and that's where the winning formula lies. This continuous engagement between our two countries, you are the contributors who make that bond stronger. We want the best, and we want to collaborate with the world, and that's where America and India have great synergy, he said.
Khaleej Times
01-04-2025
- Business
- Khaleej Times
Will returning US green card holders face immigration troubles?
Question: My brother has a US green card. My parents have also obtained the same but they spend part of their time in India especially during the winter months. They are planning to return to the US this month. Will they face any problem at the US Immigration? I have advised them to remain in India as they have better household facilities here. ANSWER: As your parents are green card holders, they are legally entitled to return to the United States. Under the Immigration & Nationality Act, a lawful permanent resident, namely, a green card holder who is absent from the US for over 180 days is entitled to return. The relinquishment of a green card status arises when the individual has been outside the US for more than 365 days. A green card can be relinquished only if the person voluntarily surrenders his legal permanent resident status by signing Form I-407. Further, only an Immigration Judge has the power to revoke a green card. There have been cases where individuals have been detained at the border until the Judge takes a decision. The rules need to be strictly complied with, especially if a person has been out of the US for more than a year without a re-entry permit. I agree with you that senior citizens who are retired and have a limited fixed annual income would be more comfortably placed in India in view of availability of domestic services and affordable medical care. If a person decides to return to India after having lived abroad, he would be entitled to retain his past savings and other funds permanently in the country where he earned his income, and live on such an amount of income which is remitted every year. From the current financial year, taxable income of a senior citizen upto Rs1.3 million, including interest from an Indian bank deposit, is exempt from tax. Question: Emphasis is being put in India on artificial intelligence applications being adopted by the private sector. However, public sector enterprises which contribute substantially to economic development may be lagging behind. Are initiatives being taken to make the public sector enterprises future ready? ANSWER: The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology recently launched the AIKosha and AI compute portal as a part of the competency framework for public sector officials. Further, the government has recommended establishing a dedicated AI Governance Board to review and authorise AI applications made by public sector enterprises. The Board will ensure that all such applications are aligned with recognised guidelines set out in domestic and international legal instruments. The board will also play a crucial role in providing oversight and guidance throughout the AI life cycle. It will provide nuanced recommendations, guiding public projects to meet technical benchmarks and effectively address social issues. This has been done to enhance AI literacy and foster AI adoption in government services. The need for a robust framework stems from the critical role that India's public sector plays for achieving developmental and economic goals. Question: Online frauds are increasing all over the world including India. Are systems being put in place to ensure that banking frauds are minimised and recovery processes are initiated in the shortest possible time after the fraud is reported? ANSWER: The government has set up the Integrated Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C). This has been done to ensure that expeditious action can be taken when frauds are reported. Almost all Indian banks and some large payment firms are directly integrating their systems with I4C. In the past it was difficult to block accounts where the fraudsters had deposited their funds because it had to be done manually. With the integration of banks' systems with I4C, prompt action is now being taken to block the mule accounts which are used by fraudsters. As a result of this change, direct API (Application Programme Interface) integration alerts are generated instantly and the mule accounts are frozen automatically. This integration was completed by January 31 this year, which was the deadline set by the government. The I4C programme set up by the Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology has automated the response of banks and financial intermediaries through APIs on Citizen Financial Cyber Fraud Reporting & Management System. In order to identify the money trail, the government is also linking the core banking system with the National Crime Records Portal. With the above initiatives being taken, the number of frauds detected and recovery of funds have improved dramatically in the past few months. The Indian Government has also started a nationwide media campaign to advise citizens to take adequate steps and precautions and not respond to spam messages, e-mails and calls from unknown telephone/mobile numbers. HP Ranina is a practising lawyer, specialising in corporate and fiscal laws of India.
