India Last Week #22
Shreyas Shende
Researcher and policy analyst focusing on South Asian security & India's energy and public policy landscape.
A round-up of research & reportage on India across climate, energy, foreign policy, politics & more over the last week
Climate, Energy & Environment -?
“Where is India’s solar sector headed? One possible view of the future came in September last year. That month, REMCL (Railway Energy Management Company), a joint venture between Indian Railways and RITES, floated a tender seeking 750 MW of round the clock renewable power… Intermittency has been the bugbear of the renewable sector. It has fomented grid instability, compelled discoms to simultaneously pay for standby power from thermal power projects and been a major argument against renewable energy adoption… Other developments also suggest the sector is about to see rapid expansion. Three years ago, it was in trouble. Between weak market design and muddled policy variably pushing indigenisation and faster solar deployment, solar capacity addition was slowing… Prices of Chinese solar modules have kept falling, now reaching previously unimaginable levels. “Just 13 years ago, in 2011, panels were selling for about $1.48 a watt and the stretch goal was to reach 50 US cents a watt,” says industry tracker Wood Mackenzie. “Now prices in China are closing in on just a fifth of that level.” In response, though, India has erected trade barriers, replacing erstwhile import duties with more stringent policies — like the Approved List of Module Makers (ALMM) revived this April, and Domestic Content Requirements — to ensure local procurement. A PLI scheme has been rolled out as well — to manufacture not only modules, but also cells, ingots, wafers and polysilicon locally — in the hope of decoupling India’s solar sector from that of China.” Read more: rajshekhar m , CarbonCopy
“Climate change is one of the major drivers of biodiversity loss. Among vertebrates, amphibians are one of the more sensitive groups to climate change due to their unique ecology, habitat requirements, narrow thermal tolerance and relatively limited dispersal abilities. We projected the influence of climate change on an endemic toad, Malabar Tree Toad (Pedostibes tuberculosus; hereafter MTT) from the Western Ghats biodiversity hotspot, India, for two different shared socio-economic pathways (SSP) using multiple modeling approaches for current and future (2061–2080) scenarios. The data used predominantly comes from a citizen science program, ‘Mapping Malabar Tree Toad’ which is a part of the Frog Watch citizen science program, India Biodiversity Portal… Our results show that annual precipitation was the most important bioclimatic variable influencing the distribution of MTT… Restricted and discontinuous distribution along with climate change can limit the dispersal and persistence of MTT populations, thus enhanced surveys of MTT habitats within and outside the PAs of the Western Ghats are an important step in safeguarding the persistence of MTT populations. Overall, our results demonstrate the use of citizen science data and its potential in modeling and understanding the geographic distribution and the calling phenology of an elusive, arboreal, and endemic amphibian species.” Read more: C. K. Aravind, Hebbar Priti, S. Harikrishnan, Chellam Ravi, The Mapping Malabar Tree Toad Programme & Kotambylu Vasudeva Gururaja, Nature?
“India's Adani Green Energy cancelled its plan to raise funds via U.S. dollar-denominated bonds after investors placed bids at higher yields than the company was willing to pay, two bankers directly involved in the deal said late on Tuesday. The initial guidance set out to offer a yield of 7% for the 20-year maturity, according to one of the bankers. "Some investors were demanding a higher yield, with which the company was not comfortable and hence they decided to call off the deal," the banker said… The Adani Group returned to the dollar bond market earlier in 2024, about a year after it was accused by short-seller Hindenburg Research in January 2023 of improper use of offshore tax havens and stock manipulation that sparked a $150 billion rout in shares of the group's companies. In March, Adani Green Energy raised $409 million via 18-year bonds after receiving bids of nearly $3 billion. The latest bond issue was led by Adani Green units - Adani Hybrid Energy Jaisalmer One, Adani Hybrid Energy Jaisalmer Two, Adani Hybrid Energy Jaisalmer Four and Adani Solar Energy Jaisalmer One - through a structured bond deal.” Read more: Dharamraj Dhutia and Bhakti Tambe , Reuters
“GIC Pte is considering options for its 50% stake in India’s Greenko Energy Holdings, including a possible sale that could be worth around $5 billion, people familiar with the matter said. The Singaporean sovereign wealth fund is in initial discussions with financial advisers to help evaluate a full or partial sale of its holding in Greenko, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. A deal could value the renewable energy firm at about $10 billion, they said.” Read more: Manuel Baigorri , Elffie Elffie Chew , and Baiju Kalesh , Bloomberg?
Economy —?
“After roaring growth in recent years, the economy seems to be losing momentum. According to the latest official figures, the annual gdp growth rate eased to 6.7% between April and June, down from 7.8% in the previous quarter. That is the slowest expansion in more than a year. Data released in the past fortnight suggest that the slowdown has continued. An index tracking output in eight core industries, such as coal, oil and electricity, fell in August for the first time in more than three years… Things could get worse if the conflict in the Middle East escalates and oil prices keep rising. More than 85% of India’s oil consumption is sourced from abroad, making it vulnerable to oil-price shocks. Estimates suggest that a $10 increase in the price of an oil barrel could shave up to 0.4% off India’s gdp.” Read more: The Economist??
“Former Finance Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg in an interview with The Secretariat said that the NDA government’s flagship Production Linked Incentive (PLI) programme needs an overhaul to tighten the existing loose ends and make it more efficient… "PLI is not for creating employment. Job creation is incidental. It's meant to attract futuristic production here," he said. The former bureaucrat said that companies pursuing a China-Plus strategy that are wishing to relocate to India, will do so to strengthen their own manufacturing network and not to boost employment in India… The PLI scheme is applicable in 14 critical sectors that have selected target segments. Till now, more than 755 applications have been approved with an investment of about Rs 1.20 lakh crore. The government aims to boost investments and jobs while making India the global manufacturing hub.” Read more: Jayanta Roy Chowdhury and Mahua Venkatesh , The Secretariat?
“Last month, Narendra Modi celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Make in India programme by mobilising data which are contradicted by all statistical sources – Indian as well as non-Indian. By creating such a misleading impression, the prime minister of India makes course correction even more complicated, while the industry of the country has become more dependent of China than ever… The growth rate for industry is far from double figures: since 2014 it has averaged around 4%, with manufacturing even below this level. So much so that the share of manufacturing in GDP, far from having increased, has continued to erode, falling from 18.3% to 14.72% of India’s Gross Added Value between 2010-11 and 2019-20, before the COVID-19 crisis… To supplement the Make in India programme, the Modi government, since 2020, promotes production-linked incentives (PLI). The aim is to help investors operating in key sectors and to promote cutting-edge technologies to improve the international competitiveness of Indian firms. The cost of these PLIs to the state raises the question of both the sustainability of such an effort and its relevance, since such expenditure naturally comes at the expense of other items in the state budget. The issue is particularly sensitive when the government comes to the aid of large firms. The microprocessor factory that the American manufacturer Micron set up in Gujarat – which made the headlines in the media – represented an investment of $ 2.75 billion, of which Micron only covered a small part ($ 825 million), the ‘rest’ financed by the governments of New Delhi and Gandhinagar. More importantly, so far industrial investments remain rather low.” Read more: Christophe Jaffrelot , The Wire?
“Which country leads the world in innovation? Most people would say America. A few might say China. But according to the Global Innovation Index, published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (wipo), America only ranks third; China 11th… A country’s score on the index is correlated with its gdp per person: rich countries tend to rank higher. But some countries do better than you would expect given their level of development. The biggest outperformer by this measure is India… Over the past five years, the fastest climbers in the rankings have been Indonesia, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Brazil and Pakistan. For the world as a whole, progress has not been steady. In 2020-22, the world enjoyed an innovation boom. But that now appears to have come to an end. The number of scientific publications fell by 5% in 2023. International patent filings declined for the first time since 2009. r&d investment by the world’s biggest spending corporations grew by 6% in 2023 compared with growth of 10-13% in 2019-2021.” Read more: The Economist
Foreign Policy & Security —?
“After calling India a “tariff king” and a “trade abuser” in the run-up to the US presidential elections, Republican nominee and former president Donald Trump has now vowed to introduce a reciprocal tax against India if elected to office next month. Speaking in Detroit, Trump said the US is liberal when it comes to tariffs, but countries like China, Brazil and India impose high tariffs. He said India imposes the highest tariffs and American businesses have cited high tariffs as a challenge in the Indian market… There are three issues here. One, it is a fact that average tariffs in India have been heading northwards — rising to 18.1 per cent in 2022 from an average 13 per cent in 2014. Two, the US is India’s largest trade partner, with total bilateral trade nearing $120 billion in FY24, and while India runs a goods trade deficit with nine of its ten top trading partners, the US is the only major economy to which India exports more than it imports. Three, for Trump, his rhetoric of the pitfalls of open trade ties in with his consistent narrative of the US being over-exploited by other countries.” Read more: Ravi Dutta Mishra , Indian Express?
“With India recently commissioning its second nuclear-powered submarine INS Arighaat as part of the plan to expand both the strategic as well as conventional underwater combat fleets, the Navy is now setting up a new advanced facility to seamlessly communicate with its stealthy predators out on long-range patrols. The project for the very low frequency (VLF) transmitting station at Vikarabad in Telangana is slated for inauguration by defence minister Rajnath Singh on October 15… The Navy has been running a VLF station at Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu since 1990. The new state-of-the-art VLF facility at Vikarabad is necessary for “maintaining 24x7x365 communication” for the planned induction of both diesel-electric as well as nuclear submarines, with an eye firmly on China’s increasing naval forays into the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).” Read more: Rajat Pandit , The Times of India
“The killing of a Sikh separatist in Canada last year was part of a broader campaign of violence against Indian dissidents directed by a senior official in the Indian government and an operative in the country’s spy agency, according to Canadian officials who cited intercepted Indian communications and other newly acquired information. Canadian authorities have also identified at least six Indian diplomats serving in Canada who were directly involved in gathering detailed intelligence on Sikh separatists who were then killed, attacked or threatened by India’s criminal proxies, Canadian officials said… India has vehemently denied the accusations. A statement issued by the country’s Ministry of External Affairs on Monday said that Modi’s government “strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda” of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau… Conversations and texts among Indian diplomats include references to “a senior official in India and a senior official in RAW” who have authorized the intelligence-gathering missions and attacks on Sikh separatists, the Canadian official said. Canadian officials identified the senior official in India as Amit Shah, a member of Modi’s inner circle who serves as home affairs minister. Spokespeople in India’s Ministry for External Affairs and its Home Ministry, which oversees national security matters, did not respond to requests for comment about Shah’s alleged role.” Read more: Greg Miller and Gerry Shih , Washington Post
“India has conveyed to the US that it has arrested the person identified as “CC1” in a US Department of Justice (DOJ) indictment, which had implicated this person of directing an assassination plot of an American citizen on American soil, a US official has told HT… Members of this Indian enquiry committee are travelling to Washington DC and will meet American officials to share their findings and gain insights into the US investigation into the case on Tuesday, the official confirmed to HT. The news of the committee’s travel was first put out in a State Department press release on Monday evening (IST), a release that was deleted and had not been republished at the time of going to press… The US official quoted above told HT that the US is “encouraged” by the steps that India has taken. “We are encouraged that this person is no longer a government employee. We have also been informed that he has been arrested on local charges. The Indian enquiry committee is travelling to Washington DC and will also be meeting officials here.” All of this, the US official said, showed the “sustained engagement at the highest levels” to address the allegations.” Read more: Prashant Jha, Hindustan Times
“Jaishankar’s clarification last week that he was not going to Islamabad to discuss India-Pakistan relations is a familiar case of history repeating itself on one side or the other. When Jaishankar said “I am a courteous and civil person, I will behave myself accordingly” in Islamabad, what he meant was that there will be a handshake between him and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar… Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jaishankar are right in not wanting to resume bilateral dialogue with Pakistan at this stage. It will be a wasteful exercise. Even though there will be no talks with Dar or anyone else of similar standing across the border—as of now—there will be a spring in Jaishankar’s steps in Islamabad. The largely peaceful conduct of assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and the impressive voter turnout have significantly added to the credit column of Pakistan diplomacy in South Block, the seat of the ministry of External Affairs. Because the BJP did not win outright in the Union territory, there will be greater credibility for the poll process, unlike the notorious, rigged assembly elections in 1987, for instance. All the same, not engaging Pakistan cannot be a permanent policy. The government’s position that talks and terrorism cannot go hand in hand is appealing to the Indian masses, but it will not cut ice with the international community forever.” Read more: K. P. Nayar, New Indian Express
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“The seven new companies carved out of the erstwhile Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) have shown a significant turnaround, with numbers showing healthy profits after tax, three years after a radical corporatisation process. The companies, which were earlier incurring heavy losses, have now been directed to focus on research and development to meet future demand of the armed forces as well as export orders by defence minister Rajnath Singh. Official data seen by ET shows that the seven new companies are now showing profits to the tune of ?1,549 crore, with the number expected to grow by more than 15% in the current financial year. This is a big swing from the ?35 crore profit after tax that was recorded in the 2021-22 financial year. The corporatisation process was carried out in 2021 with Singh being closely involved in the restructuring, which was seen as a mammoth task, given legacy issues and strong unions present at the factories. However, the process has gone through smoothly and the new factories have been running uninterrupted for the past three years, with order books swelling due to the growing global demand for defence equipment. Prior to the corporatisation, the seven entities were recording an average six-monthly loss of ?1,775 crore, as per official records.” Read more: Manu Pubby , Economic Times
“Like many Gen Z youth, some of whom Article 14 had met near the Indo-Myanmar border in Manipur shortly after the military coup in 2021, Jee Yar took part in the civil disobedience movement in her hometown in the Dawei district, in southern Myanmar. She, like many other citizens of Myanmar, including ethnic Indians, felt a duty to be a part of the people’s resistance against the military who seized power after alleging fraud in the National League of Democracy’s (NLD) landslide victory in the 2020 election. Most of her community went underground after the military cracked down on the protests that followed… For the handful of ethnic Indian soldiers fighting at the frontline, the union has helped cement their place in the Burmese resistance. On 22 August 2024, the MHU appealed to the Indian government to intervene on behalf of Hindu communities in Myanmar. The statement was made alongside India For Myanmar, a collective of pro-democracy activists based in India and Thailand, who have been advocating for Burmese refugees detained in Manipur and Assam.” Read more: Makepeace Sitlhou , Article14
People & Politics -?
“The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation is mulling banning the sale of over-the-counter oral emergency contraceptive pills (ECP), and to convert these drugs to prescription-only because of ‘irrational use’. How rational is this move in India? The reality is that the country’s over-stretched health system cannot be relied upon to provide prescriptions for emergency contraception on an every day basis, even more so during a public health crisis such as the recent pandemic… In India, according to statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, a research and policy organisation focusing on sexual and reproductive health and rights, between 2015 and 2019, 48.5 million pregnancies occurred annually, of which a staggering 44 per cent were unintended.. ECPs have been found to lower abortion rates, especially in young women (19 years and younger). ECPs have been found to be safe for adolescents and does not make them more promiscuous or engage in risk-taking behaviour. If ECPs are not available over the counter, the sale of the drug is likely to go underground, and those accessing these drugs become more vulnerable to exploitation.” Read more: Shaibya Saldanha and Sylvia Karpagam , Frontline
“Two men accused of killing activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh were given a grand welcome by pro-Hindu groups after they were granted bail by a special court on October 9. Parashuram Waghmore and Manohar Yadave, who had spent six years behind bars, were granted bail by a Bengaluru sessions court on October 9 and were formally freed from Parappana Agrahara prison on October 11. Upon their return to their hometown in Vijayapura, they were welcomed by local pro-Hindu supporters with garlands, orange shawls, and chants of celebration. The two were taken to a statue of Chhatrapati Shivaji, which they garlanded as a symbolic gesture. Following this, they visited the Kalika temple to offer prayers.” Read more: Anagha, India Today
“Given the salience of the reservation policy, formally supported by the entire political spectrum, one would have expected successive governments to have tracked outcomes, introduced self-liquidating features where needed, and added new features when required. In other words, make the policy malleable for maximum benefit, keeping in mind the larger goal of moving towards equality-in-fact, or substantive equality. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, this has not happened. However, researchers have tried to gauge the impact of reservations on various outcomes. The big picture verdict is that it has benefited Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as a whole… Unfortunately, authoritative official jati-level data on select indicators are available for the Scheduled Castes only in the decennial censuses, the last of which was conducted in 2011. Data from this census is now too old, but the census that was due in 2021 has been put off… One, for the most part, the heterogeneity within Scheduled Castes is not substantial (despite some tentative evidence of heterogeneity in 2019), whereas the gap between all Scheduled Castes and non-SC-ST-OBCs (the so-called General Category, a proxy for groups high in the socio-economic hierarchy) continues to be significant across all states. Two, despite reservations being in effect for at least 75 years, the proportions amongst eligible populations reporting having a caste certificate continues to be noticeably low (well below 50%). The two southern states in our analysis are exceptions to this pattern, with Tamil Nadu reporting more than 70% and Andhra Pradesh more than 60%.” Read more: Ashwini Deshpande and Rajesh Ramachandran, India Forum?
“Launched in April 2015, the OSC scheme was designed to provide emergency shelter, policy and medico-legal assistance to women in distress, especially those facing harassment and violence. It was one of several initiatives rolled out after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder which shook the nation… Prabhsahay Kaur, counsel for the petitioner Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a Delhi-based child rights NGO, told the court that their inspection of 11 OSCs found “serious issue of underutilisation” of OSCs, salary delays for staff and importantly, “no Police Facilitation Officer” on-site. Kaur highlighted that Delhi police, with a dismal record of prosecuting perpetrators, were generally “non-cooperative” and treated these centres as “transit shelters,” a fact noted down in the court order. Delhi government’s counsel Udit Malik accepted the allegations, acknowledging the centres’ dysfunction. Malik had inspected the OSCs along with Kaur… The OSC scheme for women suffers even as the Union and states continue to pass responsibility to each other. Internal records of the Ministry of Women and Child Development show chronic delays in the Union government’s funding to states for running OSCs, even after the government told Parliament that it had ironed out these issues.” Read more: Tapasya, The Reporters’ Collective?
“In a troubling trend, students across Telangana are increasingly rejecting mid-day meals provided under the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN) scheme, citing concerns over taste and lack of menu variety. Of the 20.3 lakh students in 26,000 schools covered by the scheme, many are opting to bring food from home or go hungry rather than consume the meals provided… "Our local kitchens, which used to serve us meals, have shut down due to govt funding issues. Now, food comes from centralised kitchens. Our previous cooks made food we actually enjoyed.” The premixed meals sent to over 15% of students from these centralised kitchens is being frowned upon for its taste. At a govt high school in Shankarpalle, Rangareddy district, teacher Mangamma claimed that even eggs are not being supplied on time. “There is no seriousness from the govt. The earlier kitchens run by school management committees were better, but today even snacks are not being provided to children.” The central govt’s report from the ‘minutes of the meeting of the programme approval board (PAB) for PM POSHAN in Telangana 2024-25’ revealed that over 40% of students in several districts are not accessing mid-day meals.” Read more: Ashresh Marupaka , Times of India?
“The Maharashtra Cabinet on Monday cleared a proposal allowing allotment of 124 acres of Deonar dumping ground, one of the oldest and largest dumping grounds in the city, to the Adani Group for creating housing units for the Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP). This is the third allotment of land in the last one month for DRP. In the last cabinet meeting, on October 10, the state cleared the proposal to allot around 140 acres of land in Madh to resettle Dharavi residents. In an earlier cabinet meeting on September 30, the government had approved leasing of 255 acres of ecologically fragile salt-pan land to build houses of Dharavi residents. In June 2023, the state had approved handing over of around 21 acres of Kurla dairy land for the said project… Advocate Raju Korde, founder member of Dharavi Bachao Andolan told The Indian Express that the DRP is an in-situ redevelopment plan “where residents are supposed to be rehabilitated in Dharavi only. We have opposed the move of relocating Dharavi residents to Deonar from the very beginning knowing it is extremely dangerous.”… Meanwhile, the Opposition also slammed the state government over the land allotment. “While we rejoice at the last minute decision on the toll waiver of ?50, the Adani group today has got more land for the so-called Dharavi redevelopment, for free. The land is worth around ?5,000 crore,” said Sena (UBT) leader and MLA Aaditya Thackeray. Mumbai Congress chief and LS MP Varsha Gaikwad termed it as a ‘mega loot’ of Mumbai.” Read more: Pratip Acharya and Alok Deshpande, Indian Express
Tech -?
“The Indian government is considering whether or not it should set up an artificial intelligence safety institute (AISI) that could help set standards, frameworks and guidelines for AI development without acting as a regulatory body or stifling innovation, top government officials told stakeholders in a consultation meeting on October 7, at least seven people aware of the matter told HT on the condition of anonymity. The consultation, helmed by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity) additional secretary Abhishek Singh, who oversees India AI, was a preliminary meeting that sought to seek inputs on how the Indian AISI should be structured, what should be its mandate, and how it could work with other AISIs across the world… Ahead of the October 7 meeting, MeitY shared two categories of questions with stakeholders that included companies such as Meta, Google, Microsoft, IBM and OpenAI; industry bodies such as Nasscom, Broadband India Forum, BSA-The Software Alliance; multiple IITs; consulting firms such as The Quantum Hub and Dialogue; and civil society organisations like Digital Empowerment Foundation and Access Now.” Read more: Aditi Agrawal , Hindustan Times
“Rest of World has documented in depth how such attacks have targeted Christians in Bastar — where a vigilante mob approached Jaldhar’s house. The mob had been coordinated on WhatsApp and had one goal: to prevent the Kashyap family from burying their matriarch, Radhibai, unless they converted to Hinduism… Once relegated to the margins of power, the VHP is closely linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and has a formidable presence across the country. Baghel uses WhatsApp to recruit for and manage a VHP informant network in about 50 villages. In an interview in June, he told Rest of World he’d recently used WhatsApp to coordinate the destruction of a building site for a new church — an incident confirmed by a VHP leader, interviews with a local priest and pastor, and a photo of the wreckage. Rallying supporters against Christians, Baghel said, “I feel like I am working in the national interest.” He also used WhatsApp to organize the mob against Jaldhar Kashyap. When Baghel learned that the funeral was set for later that day, he alerted VHP leaders in the district center of Jagdalpur, 20 kilometers away, over WhatsApp. Meanwhile, he used the app to mobilize volunteers to head to Jaldhar’s house… WhatsApp has also been essential to the BJP and Modi’s political dominance. The party relies on the platform to mobilize voters and disseminate propaganda and disinformation. Reporting from India, meanwhile, has laid out how Hindu nationalist groups, including the VHP, use WhatsApp to incite, coordinate, and publicize attacks against religious minorities: destroying Muslim and Christian holy sites; beating and lynching Muslims under the pretext of saving cows, which are considered sacred by dominant-caste Hindus; opposing marriages between Hindu women and Muslim men.” Read more: Parth MN , Rest of World
“One of India’s prominent cryptocurrency exchanges, WazirX, recently faced a security breach resulting in a loss of US$230 million. This is the biggest breach faced by any cryptocurrency exchange in India. In response, WazirX filed a police complaint and reported the incident to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) under the Ministry of Finance and the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (Cert-In) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Additionally, the firm had preliminarily proposed a recovery plan to reduce user disruptions. According to the plan, all users (including the ones not affected by the theft) would take a 45% haircut on their holdings (meaning that 45% of each user’s holding would be ‘locked’ so that they would not be able to withdraw or trade them). For the remaining 55%, the users were offered two options: one, where they could trade and hold their crypto assets but could not withdraw them – this would earn them priority in the recovery process; or two, where users could trade and withdraw their assets, but they would be on a low priority in the recovery process… This move attracted a lot of criticism from industry leaders for putting business interests ahead of consumer welfare… It is pertinent to note that the regulation of assets in India is at a nascent stage. While there is no specific legislation in the country to this effect, the scope of other legislations has been expanded to include digital assets.” Read more: Nipuna Varman , Ideas for India
“The Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved phase III of its Space Based Surveillance (SBS) mission for better land and maritime domain awareness for civilian and military applications. The project is being handled by the National Security Council Secretariat along with the Defence Space Agency under the integrated headquarters in the Defence Ministry. While the Modi government is silent on the approval, it is understood that the proposal cleared by CCS involves the launch of at least 52 satellites in low earth orbit and geostationary orbit for surveillance. Costing ?26,968 crore, the proposal involves the construction and launch of 21 satellites by ISRO and the remaining 31 by private companies. SBS 1 was initiated by the Vajpayee government in 2001, and involved the launch of four satellites for surveillance, Cartosat 2A, Cartosat 2B, Eros B and Risat 2. SBS 2 came in 2013 with the launch of six satellites, Cartosat 2C, Cartosat 2D, Cartosat 3A, Cartosat 3B, Microsat 1 and Risat 2A. The newly cleared SBS 3 shows that India will be launching 52 satellites within the next decade. HT learns that the three services will have dedicated satellites for their land, sea or air-based missions.” Read more: Shishir Gupta, Hindustan Times
Bonus – ??
“Industry sources, working across various branches in the Hindi film industry, including Dharma Productions, shared that more than one reason was at play to motivate the Karan Johar-led production house to stop pre-release screenings and instead do media shows on Friday itself. The only other production house which follows this policy is Yash Raj Films… Indianexpress.com has extensively reported on the “credibility crisis”in the Hindi film industry, where producers pay “trade influencers” on social media to hype their films and also engage in “paid reviews”– where a certain sum is locked in exchange for good ratings to a film… A top-level image management executive, who also has the experience of cracking “deals” for paid reviews, said over the years this has become an “extortion” and a move like this by Dharma can help put an end to it. A move producers resorted to ‘buy’ good reviews for their films has come back to haunt them…. Several critics spoke to Indianexpress.com anonymously and shared that there is a consensus within the community how this move will lead to “worse writing and less thoughtful, considered opinion” on films. Nuanced reviews will be replaced by more “reactionary” takes, which can impact a film.” Read more: Justin Joseph Rao, Indian Express
Watch/Listen —?
Emmy award winning Independent Journalist | Fulbright Fellow, Investigative Reporting, Human Rights
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