#NirmalGanga #Sahbhagita Initiative Launched

Union Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation Sushri Uma Bharti has called for close coordination with Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to achieve the goal of clean Ganga. Launching the Nirmal Ganga Sahbhagita, a sustainable initiative with ULBs situated on the banks of the river Ganga here today she said that economic and cultural significance of Ganga is no less than its religious significance. The Minister said millions of our countrymen have a tremendous devotion towards this sacred river and we have to convert this devotion into a big public movement. Sushri Bharti said ULBs have a major role to play in this regard as they are directly communicating with the people at the grass root level. She said if necessary, a separate act will be considered for clean Ganga mission. The Minister said clean Ganga mission should be an example for the whole world and we should be able to invite foreigners to see our clean Ganga. She said this task is very arduous and complex but not impossible to achieve.

National Mission for Clean Ganga (#NMCG), an autonomous society under Ministry of #WaterResources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation has launched ‘Nirmal Ganga Sahbhagita’ for initiating a sustainable partnership with 118 Urban Local Bodies located along the River for a Clean Ganga. Main objectives of the‘Nirmal Ganga Sahbhagita’ is to provide required assistance by the Centre to Urban Local Bodies for following activities:

• Formation of Ganga Project Implementation Units (PIU) in various towns to enable implementation of the ‘Clean Ganga’ Programme at the town level

• Systematic Solid Waste Management near Ghats and confluence of Nalas into the River

• Maintaining the 500 mt. area along River Ganga and connecting drains as a ‘litter-free zone’

• Providing livelihood opportunities for unemployed youth to monitor the litter free zone and the health of the river

• Public Outreach Activities

For this purpose, NMCG will enter into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with each ULB and work with them to achieve the cherished objective of a Clean Ganga.

Chairperson/Municipal Commissioner/Executive Officer of 78 ULBs from the States of Uttrakhand, UP, Bihar and Jharkhand attended the day long dialogue. It may be recalled that only last month NMCG had directed these ULBs through a public notice to furnish the action plans for construction / rehabilitation and / or upgradation of the sewage treatment plants (STPs), installation of requisite equipment / augmentation of the STPs by such municipalities / urban local bodies and Effluent Treatment Plants / Common Effluent Treatment Plant (ETPs / CETPs ), zero liquid discharge / real time monitoring for the discharge of trade effluents for abatement of pollution by the industries, as the case may be within 15 days.

Untreated municipal sewage account for the bulk (over 75 percent) of pollution in Ganga, mostly generated by the larger cities. Currently, the responsibility for provision of adequate sanitation and waste management services overlap considerably across the State Governments and the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs). Ownership and commitment of local agencies, supported by an incentive to recover Operations and Maintenance (O&M) costs, is required to progressively build technical and management capacity for effective implementation of Clean-up Programme of River Ganga.

#IndianNavy Ships #Mumbai And #Tarkash Return to Hero’s Welcome

INS Tarkash which participated in the #OperationRahat returned to Mumbai harbour this morning while INS Mumbai had entered on 16 April 15. The ships’ crew was greeted by senior officers of the command and the Chief of Naval Staff will be interacting with the crew on Monday, 20April 15.

Earlier this year, a raging civil war in Yemen has left thousands of people homeless and stranded. Military intervention by Saudi Arabia and other nations have further complicated the situation with aerial bombardments continuing relentlessly across the country. The airports and seaports of the country, with the exception of Al Hodeidah, have been thrown out of gear leaving very little room for movement of people from the strife-torn country.

Prior to commencement of operations, Indian diaspora in Yemen was estimated to be approximately 4000 people working in all walks of life. Some of them had been working and earning a living in Yemen for decades. Most of them were located in and around the capital city of Sanaa,which had seen much violence and had been under relentless attack. With the situation in the country deteriorating rapidly, the Indian Government had ordered evacuation of Indian nationals from Yemen on 30 Mar 15.

The Indian Navy was first off the starting block, with INS Sumitra, one of the newest Offshore Patrol Vessels of the Indian Navy, being diverted immediately from her operational tasking in the Gulf of Aden. She immediately entered the Port of Aden and evacuated the first wave of 349 Indians on 31 Mar 15 and transported them to Djibouti.During the evacuation operations at Aden, the ship reported bombing and gunfire and a general disorder, pandemonium and unrest. At Djibouti, the evacuated Indians were met by Gen (Retd) VK Singh, the Minister of State for External Affairs, before they were airlifted to India by the Indian Air Force.

After the first group of evacuees was disembarked at Djibouti without losing any time, INS Sumitra after a quick operational turn around dispatched for the Port of Hodeidah on 02 Apr 15, from where the ship evacuated another 317 people (mostly Indian nationals) amidst similar unsecure conditions with bombing in the distance. This second wave was transported to Djibouti on 03 Apr 15.

In the meanwhile, two major warships i.e. guided-missile destroyer INS Mumbai and the guided-missile frigate INS Tarkash were sailed from Mumbai to Yemen on evening of 30 Mar 15. Two Indian passenger ships, MV Kavaratti and MV Coral, which normally ply between Kochi and the Lakshadweep Islands, were also sailed out from Kochi towards Yemen. IN Ships Mumbai and Tarkash were tasked to escort these passenger ships till Djibouti as the waters of the Gulf of Aden have been piracy-infested since 2008.

As the days progressed, the Port ofAden was engulfed in shelling and firing and permission for entry of ships was not accorded by the local authorities as fighting raged in the port city. As more than 300 Indians were known to be awaiting evacuation from Aden, INSMumbai was relieved of escort duties and was dispatched to reach off Aden,where she arrived in the wee hours of 04 Apr 15, while INS Tarkash continued to escort the passenger ships, which reached Djibouti on 05 Apr 15afternoon. In a well coordinated operation, 441 people, including foreign nationals, women, elderly persons and children were evacuated using boats from the Port of Aden to INS Mumbai, which was just outside the port and were evacuated to safety in Djibouti by the morning of 05 Apr 15.

After all ships were in area the evacuation cycle continued with close cooperation between various government agencies participating in the area and the three ships. As very few countries were participating in evacuation, requests poured in from the international community to evacuate their citizens from the war zone also. Keeping safety of life as paramount requirement, these ships, provided assistance to many foreign nationals in escaping to safety. In all these ship undertook a total of nine missions to various ports to evacuate over 3,000persons form war torn Yemen.With most Indian already evacuated,Indian Naval Ships Mumbai and Tarkash left Djibouti for Indian coast on PM 12April 2015, while INS Sumitra continued to remain in the area for the final evacuation mission conducted on 15 Apr 15 and for expeditious response to any contingency. INS Sumitra will also resume her Anti Piracy patrol duties and will thus be available in the area for quick response to any untoward development. INS Mumbai reached Mumbai Harbour on 16Apr 15 and INS Tarkash escorted the two MVs Kavaratti and Coral out of piracy ridden Gulf of Aden and returned Mumbai harbour on 18 Apr 15. The two MVs with evacuees on them entered Cochin on PM 18 April 15.

The operation was executed under the operational control of the Western Naval Command, headquartered at Mumbai under the directives and monitoring at Integrated Headquarters (Ministry of Defence) Navy. In an unprecedented show of synergy, the MEA and MoD (Inidan Navy and Indian Air Force) worked in absolute synchronisation and real-time information was exchanged with the ships on thescene through satellite communications

Effective economic ‪#‎diplomacy‬

The new National Democratic Alliance (‪#‎NDA‬) government has stepped up the intensity of India's summit-level interactions with major powers, neighbouring countries and the non-resident Indian (NRI) diaspora since May 2014. Refreshingly, in addition to political and strategic ties, these external engagements have focused more overtly than in the past on raising trade and investment levels. Economic diplomacy has become a tired expression and any reference to it usually elicits a yawn. It has become de rigueur for governments to repeat too often to their diplomats that trade and investment along with technology transfer are crucial elements and even drivers of foreign policy. This article explores how India could use its relationships with the rest of the world to push employment-generating growth and acquire appropriate technology.

In today's world with instant low-cost written, pictorial and voice communications, publicly available information is adequate to quickly put together an accurate picture of political and strategic developments. In such an environment, traditional diplomatic despatches from embassies are often redundant. There could be exceptions during armed conflicts or if relationships are tense, but such situations are not the norm.

Diplomats are expected to further the economic interests of their home countries with the time freed up by not having to, for example, analyse host country political developments in excessive detail. Technological content constitutes an ever higher proportion of the value added in the total volume of traded goods or services. Hence, protection of intellectual property rights and availability of skilled human resources take higher priority than in the past. It follows that diplomats need to follow innovations in technology more closely.

Indian embassies in the larger countries have economic-commercial wings. These wings spend most of their time in engaging with our industry associations, such as Confederation of Indian Industry and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and with the visits of delegations from the ministry of commerce and industry or of finance. Annual work-programme targets are drawn up by our missions in consultation with the commerce ministry. These targets are more in the nature of the number of meetings, seminars, and trade and investment promotion exhibitions to be held annually. All this can be useful, but specifically targeted interaction with individual Indian and foreign companies is needed. For example, auto components is an important Indian export item and our commercial wing representatives need to be aware of what is happening in this sub-sector. This would not be possible without practical experience, which would happen only if government allows deputation between the government and the private sector more freely. There is no a priori reason to assume that if officers were to go on deputation, say, to Bharat Forge or Mahindra & Mahindra, they would on return to government push what benefits those companies to the detriment of public interest.

In India, the commerce ministry is responsible for trade and foreign direct investment. The ministry of external affairs is staffed by foreign-service officers and the commerce ministry by administrative-service officers. At the working level, there are often instances of lack of communication or inter-service rivalries to protect turf. This could be overcome in specific cases by better coordination at the ministerial level, but may not percolate downwards systemically. The Indian government uses Cabinet committees for resolving inter-ministerial differences. All things considered, for faster decision-making and better follow-up action, the external affairs and the commerce ministries need to be merged. Brazil and Australia, two G20 countries, have one minister who is responsible for both foreign affairs and trade. Their stated intention is to take advantage of the synergies between the functioning of their foreign offices and trade ministries. It is about time that India follows this Brazilian and Australian example.

Indian missions abroad are our official eyes and ears, and personnel who have opted to specialise in economic-commercial work should also report on significant technological trends. For instance, there is considerable speculation about what 3D printing has in store for the manufacturing sector. Currently, a 3D printer that costs about $1,500 can print out screw-drivers and hammers. It would be useful if our missions in developed countries were to interact with government agencies, engineering colleges and private sector firms on innovations in manufacturing.

Going back to the first half of the 1990s, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the United States and China were quick to offer highly trained Soviet scientists and engineers well-paid employment in their countries. Clearly, the compensation levels were much higher than what was available in the chaotic post-break-up Soviet Union. It was opportune for India with its long-standing relationships with Soviet-era defence and research establishments to have offered somewhat lower salaries than the United States and China yet attractive opportunities to ex-Soviet specialists. It seems we did think on these lines, but could not resolve what grade these experts would be equivalent to within our scientific establishments. It may be that a sense of insecurity among some of our senior scientist-engineers was the deal-breaker.

The Indian diaspora in developed countries includes highly trained scientists, engineers and management specialists. However, we tend to offer executive and advisory positions only to those who have distinguished themselves in the social sciences. We need to use our missions abroad to also identify those who have excelled in the physical sciences and technical disciplines, and are prepared to teach in India. Many of them have completed their child-rearing responsibilities once they are past 50 years of age and are receptive to spending a few months each year in India.

In select large missions, there are representatives from the Defence Research and Development Organisation and the department of atomic energy (the Indian Space Research Organisation tends to work more on its own) who are in touch with their counterparts. However, cutting-edge technology and applications are areas with which at least some of our foreign-service or administrative-service officers should be familiar. Going forward, for work involving transfer of technology or cyber security officers from technical streams in their university days could be identified early on in their careers. This should be easier than in the past since the proportion of those with a science or a technical background among those who join the civil services has increased sharply in recent years.

To sum up, promotion of foreign trade and investment, and facilitation of scientific-technological tie-ups cannot be left to the individual initiative of officers posted in our missions abroad. We need a systematic approach to the selection of officers and their training for corresponding responsibilities. This would make our diplomacy effective, and not just economic.

The corporation is a great innovation

All innovations must be rooted in cultural soil. Indians respond to exemplary behaviour by elders and leaders, who set the tone at the top. Recall yatha raja thatha praja or how Shastriji first gave up wheat before asking the same of his countrymen.

Oversight of companies
All Indian companies have been overseen by the Companies Act and the listed ones, in addition, by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). After 1956, a new Companies Act was enacted in 2013 with far-reaching changes, for example, the new Act explicitly acknowledges that the shareholder's interests are not supreme compared to other stakeholders. Over 40 years ago, well before this new Act, a clairvoyant J R D Tata in a groundbreaking move, amended the Articles of Association of Tata companies that "the company shall be mindful of social and moral responsibilities to consumers, employees, shareholders, society and local community." The Act also has innovations such as board appraisal, director evaluation and women directors.

India is strong on law-making but weak on law enforcement. The new rules apply to thousands of listed and unlisted companies but who has the resources to ensure implementation? Forget corporate governance, watch the glaring infarction of traffic signals every day in Mumbai by cabs and cars!

Evolution of the innovation
The new Act on companies was preceded by three innovations over a long time.

• Accounting: In 1458, double-entry accounting was innovated by Benedikt Kotruljevic in Dubrovnik, Croatia. His paper, displayed in the National Library of Malta, was the first recording of a great intellectual breakthrough. Several years later, Franciscan monk Luca Pacioli developed the idea further. These ideas allowed massive amounts of information to be organised into journals and then to produce summary financial statements.
   
• Limited-liability company: Stock was sold to high-net worth investors, who provided capital and had limited risk. The East India Company was established on December 31, 1600 to establish trading privileges in India. Some years later, the Virginia Company was created to establish settlements in the New World.
   
• Management: The corporation grew rapidly in the late 1800s and 1900s, leading to managementas a profession. To provide formal pedagogy management colleges were established. By the 1960s, management had become among the most prized professional qualifications, attracting thousands of bright students. The world has produced 35 million 'management graduates' over the last century.

In 1972, management arguably peaked when Peter Drucker's book displaced The New York Timesbest-seller, The Illustrated Joys of Sex, authored by a person coincidentally called Alex Comfort. In the half century since then, greed has repeatedly reared its ugly head. By the early 2000s, business leaders' excesses caused unprecedented social grief and financial disasters. Nowadays, management is perceived as lacking ethics, morals and discipline. Management and governance are sorely in need of innovation.

Governance innovation
So, how do you embed innovations in company governance? For culturally sensitive innovations, India might respond better to principles rather than rules. Increasingly anyway, companies need to prepare their accounts on principles-based standards in which a simple set of key objectives is set out with common examples as a guidance.

Indian corporate policy-makers rightly looked outwards for innovations, particularly the Anglo-American practices; for example, women on boards. Here again, Tata Sons had a woman director from 1918 right up until 1966. Contrarily and interestingly, Professor Sucheta Nadkarni, Cambridge Judge Business School, has just published her research that factors other than quotas are more important for women to join and stay on boards (The New York Times, April 8, 2015). The most effective policies, she states, are the economic power of women and the governance policies of a given corporation and not legislation requiring quotas.

Conjure the dramatic effect if the Union/state Cabinets adopted an assessment process as prescribed for corporate boards. Imagine the huge impact if the Cabinet secretary were to evaluate secretaries as director evaluation has been mandated. How elevated the moral high ground would be if Sebi and public institutions recruited a woman director on their boards. Exemplary behaviour by corporate and publicly visible leaders, more than rules and laws, is a strong cultural impetus for embedding innovation.

During my college years, Bob Dylan's song "Blowin' in the Wind" posed questions about peace, war and freedom. The song's refrain was as intangible as the wind. In the same spirit, I wonder:

How many laws must we have before lawmakers can agree?
That business managers are valuable and do deliver great social good?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind.

#Susanta Lahiri, a co-creator of element 117, awarded #Hevesy Medal

ward for his contributions to heavy ion induced radioisotope production, tracer packet technique, converter targets, and green chemistry.

Professor Susanta Lahiri, Chemical Sciences Division, Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata, received the Hevesy Medal Award 2015, on April 12 at the Tenth International Conference on Methods and Applications of Radio-analytical Chemistry for his outstanding contributions to heavy ion induced radioisotope production, tracer packet technique, converter targets, and green chemistry.

The other person to also win the award this year is Professor Kattesh V. Katti of the Cedntre for Radiological Research, University of Missouri, Columia.

This premier international award named after George de HEVESY, the 1943- Chemistry Nobel Laureate, for his work on the use of isotopes as tracers in the study of chemical processes, is given to “an individual in recognition of excellence through outstanding, sustained career achievements in the fields of pure as well as applied nuclear and radiochemistry, in particular applications to nuclear analytical chemistry."

Prof. Lahiri, also a professor at Homi Bhabha National Institute, published nearly 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Physical Review. He is a co-creator of super heavy element 117 (The Hindu, May 7, 2014)

In its tribute to Prof. Lahiri, the April 2015 issue of the CERN COURIER, an international journal of high-energy physics wrote: “Lahiri is recognised for a rich career during which he has developed and maintained active international collaborations with leading physics and chemistry institutes, including CERN, notably for the development of high-power targets in the EURISOL Design Study and the LIEBE test project at ISOLDE, and in research on radiopharmaceuticals and superheavy elements.”

According to Dr. K.L. Ramakumar, Director, Radiochemistry and Isotope Group, BARC, Prof. Lahiri’s association with research activities in radio-analytical chemistry has profound significance in terms of realising no-carrier added separation of high specific activity radiotracers for clinical applications.

“The single-minded dedication and unwavering self-belief borne out of sustained years of continuous research in the frontier areas of nuclear and radiochemistry contributed to his prowess and standing in the subject,” Ramakumar added.

But how and why did Lahiri take radio-analytical chemistry as his chosen field?

“I had a passion for nuclear science when I was studying for my MSc. and when I was selected in SINP for pursuing PhD degree. I met a wonderful supervisor, Prof. N.R. Das [and] that took me here,” he responded to this writer’s e-mail query.

Lahiri and his team made nano particles of gold by a low-cost technique that requires the least amount of chemicals. It is truly a green chemistry project.

In the process, they used minuscule amount of radioactivity which triggers radiolysis, which like a chain reaction, expands the radiolysis, and ultimately nano particles are formed.

Alchemists dreamt to convert lead cheaply into gold. Modern-day alchemists like Lahiri used multi-million- dollar-particle accelerators to produce trace amounts of mercury, thallium, lead, bismuth and polonium as carrier-free radio-nuclides by irradiating gold targets with certain lithium and carbon ions.

Lahiri and his co workers produced a “tracer packet” containing carrier-free radiotracers of manganese, copper, zinc gadolinium, germanium, arsenic and selenium for further studies of essential micro nutrient elements by irradiating thick cobalt foils in accelerators with specific isotopes oxygen, lithium and carbon ions.

Prof. Lahiri pointed out that except one study (which was carried out in CERN under our leadership) all others were done in India using the accelerator facilities at BARC-TIFR Pelletron and Variable Energy Cyclotron Centre.

#Emissions from biomass burning cross the #Himalayas

The organic acids present in the aerosols serve as a unique fingerprint in identifying the source of pollution.

Contrary to the general assumption that the southern slopes of the Himalayas act as a barrier and effectively block the transportation of pollutants from India and other parts of South Asia, a study published a couple of days ago in the Nature Group journal Scientific Reports finds sound evidence to prove otherwise.

Aerosols have been found to rise and cross the entire range of the Himalayas. So much so that studies conducted in the northern slope of the Himalayas at an elevation of 4,276 metres above MSL could find markers distinctive of pollution arising from India and other regions of South Asia.

Local meteorological conditions and regional atmospheric flow process have been the two major factors enabling the pollutants to cross over, notes Zhiyuan Cong, the first author of the paper from the Institute of Tibetan Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

The culprit

The organic acids present in the aerosols serve as a unique fingerprint in identifying the source of pollution. In this case, the dicarboxylic acids served as a fingerprint.

Though dicarboxylic acids can be produced by biomass burning, vehicular exhausts and cooking (primary source), as well as atmospheric photooxidation (secondary source), the researchers were able to pinpoint the source as biomass burning.

Levoglucosan is a specific marker of biomass burning — it is “produced through the pyrolysis of cellulose during the combustion process,” Dr. Cong notes. Another unique marker of biomass burning is the water-soluble potassium. Both the markers showed strong positive correlation with dicarboxylic acids thereby confirming biomass burning as the source of pollution.

Though the pollutants were found to reach the northern slopes of the Himalayas during all the seasons — pre-monsoon, monsoon, post-monsoon and winter seasons — the amount of aerosol found peaked during pre-monsoon. This, according to them, is one more indicator of biomass burning as the source.

Agricultural burning and forest fires along the southern Himalayan foothills and the Indo-Gangetic Plain reach a high during the pre-monsoon period. That probably is the reason why the amount of biomass burning marker found peaked during the pre-monsoon time.

Dr. Cong attributes the local topographic relief of the Himalayas as playing an important role in allowing the pollutants to cross the mountains and reach the northern slopes.

The up-valley wind during daytime, being maximum in the afternoon, helps in pushing the pollutants to higher altitude. On the northern slopes, a down-valley wind is prevalent during the same time. The combination of the up-valley wind in the southern slopes and down-valley wind in the northern slopes allows the accumulation of aerosol on the glacier surfaces.

“Acting as efficient channels of south-to-north air flow, the mountain valleys could allow the air pollutants to easily penetrate throughout the Himalayas,” the authors write.

“Regardless of where the pollutants come from, the study has provided compelling evidence that they are due to biomass burning. We must step up the global effort to drastically cut down biomass burning as much as we can,” Veerabhadran Ramanathan, an atmospheric scientist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, who is unconnected with the study, told Nature.

The key is technology, not money

If self-reliance in defence is the stated goal, FDI is no solution. India must apply the same tools it did so successfully in space and nuclear science to acquire and develop military technology.

India’s notorious dependence on imported military hardware and the near moribund state of large parts of its public sector defence industry represent a full-blown crisis crying for a solution. India is the world’s largest arms importer and, with at least two decades of not replacing or upgrading obsolescent equipment through either purchases or indigenous manufacture, is on course now to spend around $30 billion in the next few years, and $200 billion in the medium term. For some years now, from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led National Democratic Alliance government in 2001 onwards, the government has been veering towards increased foreign direct investment (FDI) in defence manufacturing as a solution to the defence crisis.

The present Bharatiya Janata Party government, despite its rallying ‘Make in India’ cry, has furtherincreased the FDI limit in defence, with 49 per cent now permitted under the automatic route, 75 per cent where technology transfer is involved, and up to 100 per cent in cases involving significant new technology. While some Indian companies are wary of the entry of foreign players, most favour opening up the sector with an eye to the potentially lucrative business opportunities they see opening up.

For and against FDI

The arguments in favour of FDI in defence are familiar. First, public sector companies in defence, Research and Development and allied industries have consistently failed to meet the requirements of the armed forces, especially given the global revolution in military technology. Second, the superior management culture of the private sector will ensure better adherence to budgets and timelines. Third, the country is compelled into repeated imports without any technology transfer (despite contractual obligations) because the military is always urgently in need of the technology. Therefore, the argument goes, encouraging foreign companies to invest in Indian defence and set up industries here will mean that money will be spent within the country, generating jobs and bringing in new know-how, with the possibility of exports.

“ All the liberalised provisions since 2001 have led to a meagre inflow of only $4.8 billion, in an overall FDI inflow of around $334 billion.”

In my opinion, none of these arguments address the specific and unique needs of the defence sector in India. Whatever else these measures might achieve, they will not help accomplish what must surely be the main goal, namely to build self-reliance in advanced military technology and reduce India’s debilitating dependence on foreign suppliers in the area of national security.

The FDI inflow itself tells a tale. All the liberalised provisions since 2001 have led to a meagre inflow of only $4.8 billion, in an overall FDI inflow of around $334 billion. It may be argued that it is too early to judge, but there are actually good reasons why defence companies do not and will not find FDI in another country attractive, and why there are few such examples across the world.

FDI means a long-term presence in India, and good returns on investment are possible only if repeat orders or contracts for newer models are assured. But, unlike cars or white goods, that will not always happen in military equipment. There may be gaps of many years or even decades between orders. For instance, India bought the Mirage 2000 in the 1980s and has clinched the Rafale deal this year, both from Dassault of France. In France itself, however, Dassault is reasonably assured of continuous business from regular domestic and European orders, as well as from staggered exports. Foreign subsidiaries or substantial FDI will, thus, always put pressure on India for repeat orders. Would dependence on a Lockheed Martin (India) or a Bharat Boeing be really very different from dependence on the U.S. principals?

Yes, more of India’s money will be spent in India rather than in other countries. But the Defence Procurement Policy anyway mandates 30 per cent offsets (50 per cent in high-value contracts). In other words, the supplier must spend 30 per cent of the contracted value within India through local manufacture and services. On the other hand, even if manufacture were by an Indian subsidiary, some specialised technology or components will always need to be imported. As is the case in car manufacture by Korean or Japanese subsidiaries in India, where numerous models that sell in smaller volumes are only assembled in India with imported components. FDI may, therefore, not be so different from offsets in terms of local manufacture, jobs, or money spent.

Where is the technology?

It is often simplistically assumed, unfortunately by policymakers too, that FDI will bring in technology. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All foreign defence majors have protested continually against offsets, and have pressured India into diluting offset requirements one way or another. While they might cite logistical or other issues, the real anxiety is about sharing and losing control over technology, especially if the offset partner in India is a public company whose bargaining power would be greater than that of a private sector junior partner. The delay over finalising the Rafale deal was reportedly over disputes about the role of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.

“ It is often simplistically assumed, unfortunately by policymakers too, that FDI will bring in technology.”

India’s confidence in FDI draws a facile equation between foreign investment, local manufacturing and technology inflow. The key, however, is not money but technology. Technology transfer is elusive. It requires not just a clause in a contract, but in the recipient taking determined measures to ensure acquisition and absorption of technology. India has been singularly poor at that, some conspiracy theorists say, deliberately so. Further, domestic manufacturing has not in itself enabled it either. India has a long history of licensed manufacture of defence hardware, from the heydays of the self-reliance credo, the import substitution drives, and the famous “be Indian, buy Indian” slogan. In aircraft, for example, the famous Gnat fighter, the MiG series, the Jaguar, and various French helicopters were made here. In each case, the degree of indigenisation kept rising, sometimes reaching 90 per cent by value, but critical components or materials continued to be imported. India never achieved the stated goal of acquiring the capability to make the next upgrade or new model on its own. True indigenisation cannot happen just through local manufacture, India has to make it happen, but has not yet done so.

The present offsets policy is similarly not being used purposefully to acquire technology. Offsets are viewed in financial terms — money spent locally and jobs created. Instead, offset projects should be studied strategically — Indian scientists and companies acquiring the capability to independently develop and manufacture sophisticated military hardware. To rephrase, the goal should be ‘Made by India’, not merely ‘Make in India’. This is true for all technology, but crucial in defence. India has done it in space and nuclear technology. Why not in defence?

FDI in defence is an incorrect answer to wrong questions, a false solution to problems not posed properly. If self-reliance can be achieved in the strategic fields of space and nuclear technology, through dogged pursuit and by creating institutions of excellence with political support, there is no reason why it cannot be done in the equally strategic area of military hardware. India even has a Minister of State for Defence Production but nobody seems to know what the office is meant to do.

No self-respecting nation of India’s size and technological capability can or should accept dependence on foreign manufacturers for defence requirements, whether directly through imports or indirectly through FDI. This is not just about national prestige but a matter of vital national interest.