AAPI: January 2019

DELHI, 20th January 2019

Index of this Newsletter

INDIA

INDIA & THE WORLD

21. Brazil approves WTO action over Indian sugar subsidies
22. EU, India and China ‘new trilateral’ at WTO, says US
23.1. World Economic Forum recognizes Tata Steel's Netherlands plant as 'factory of the future'
23.2. A year of redefinitions and discoveries
24.1. Opinion: Books that challenge the consensus on capitalism
24.2. Palanpur, a fascinating story of income growth, social change
25.1. Why bells from Portuguese-era churches ring in temples across Maharashtra
25.2. The ‘gara’ goes mod

* * *

DELHI, 20th January 2019

NEWSLETTER, 20-I-2019

INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

1.1 Opinion | Let’s protect individual’s ‘inviolate personality’

Livemint, 24 Dec. 2018

Snooping on the private lives of its citizens and intruding into spaces till now considered sacrosanct is not the right of any government, irrespective of its political leanings

First came the ham-handed notification authorizing selected agencies to intercept, monitor and decrypt any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource. Then, following a massive uproar, came the government’s weak defence—there was nothing new in the executive order as it had existed in the books since 2009. Notwithstanding these clarifications issued post-haste by the government, the issue of the private lives of citizens being placed under state surveillance is now squarely in the public domain. It is true that the Congress-led UPA did pass several draconian laws like Section 66A, which dealt with penalties for sending offensive messages, and the offending act, Section 69. The mystery is why the Modi government felt the need to restate this as it was already on the books. Was it a veiled threat to some people about actions to come, adding grist to the mill that the BJP, pushed to the wall by recent poll reverses, would target opposition leaders in the run up to the elections next year? What is equally mysterious is why, if security is the dominant motif of the order, the Central Board of Direct Taxes is included in the list of authorized agencies.

But this is all quibbling over semantics, for the real issue is that governments, irrespective of their political dispensation, have over the last few decades intruded into spaces that were hitherto considered sacrosanct. Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis, the two Boston lawyers who first articulated the idea of a right to privacy, in their original law review article published in December of 1890, described it as one which embodied protections for each individual’s “inviolate personality”. “The common law secures to each individual the right of determining, ordinarily, to what extent his thoughts, sentiments, and emotions shall be communicated to others,” they argued.

In the name of security and safety, governments across the world have upended this original definition with all kinds of caveats, progressively diluting this inviolable space. Yet, never before has the individual been more vulnerable. In the information age, digital networks now have a stranglehold on data that lays bare every human being rendering her life in its minutest detail. We are now part of what dotcom entrepreneur and author John Battelle dubbed in 2003 “the database of intentions”. Battelle explained that as “the aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result... This information represents, in aggregate form, a place holder for the intentions of humankind—a massive database of desires, needs, wants, and likes that can be discovered, subpoenaed, archived, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends.” If that sounds like Orwell’s 1984 in 2018, it is because we have let governments and its agencies take complete control of our digital footsteps. Instead of allowing the debate over the notification to lapse into a BJP versus Congress controversy, it is important to push for a privacy regime configured to protect the civil liberties of citizens against the government.

1.2. Opinion | The bigger tragedy in ‘rat-hole’ mine deaths

Livemint, 8 Jan. 2019

Much like the Meghalaya tragedy, other disasters—some driven by policy and others where policymakers look away—show how little the lives of the poor matter in India

On Monday morning, two miners were reported killed while working inside an illegal so-called “rat-hole” coal mine in East Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya, even as at least 15 workers trapped inside another flooded mine since 13 December are feared to be dead by now due to delayed rescue operations.

The utter indifference of the state government to find a permanent solution to this recurrent tragedy is significant for two reasons. First, it appears that the lives of poor mine workers who are often migrants from Assam or illegal entrants from neighbouring Bangladesh matter little. Second, the state is seemingly complicit in the tragedy by not only allowing a banned enterprise but also collecting taxes from the transport of illegally harvested coal, bringing into scrutiny the elites’ disregard for the rule of law.

Much like the Meghalaya tragedy, other disasters—some driven by policy and others where policymakers look away—show how little the lives of the poor matter in India. For instance, over the past year, at least 17 people are likely to have succumbed to hunger in Jharkhand, which is among the poorest states in India, as they failed to link their biometric identification or Aadhaar number with their ration cards, which guarantee highly subsidised food under the National Food Security Act.

Following the botched demonetization exercise, more than a 100 people are estimated to have died either while standing in queues for long hours or for failing to provide new banknotes while getting treated in hospitals. In addition to public policy disasters, the lack of respect for the rule and law has often led to deaths of workers. An uncounted number of labourers who are paid a pittance continue to die because of silicosis after inhaling stone dust while working in quarries in states such as Rajasthan and Gujarat. These deaths can be prevented by using face masks and goggles and by using wet drilling, but mine owners continue to ignore occupational health regulations. Rich consumers who extensively use stones as construction material in their homes remain unaware of the human costs involved.

The same holds true of the recurrent deaths of sanitation workers.

In the national capital, more than 20 labourers have died in the past year alone from inhaling poisonous gases while cleaning sewers and sewage treatment tanks, despite the federal government’s thrust on sanitation and cleanliness. The scant attention paid to concerns raised by the marginalized was laid bare when 13 people died in police firing in May 2018 when they gathered to protest against environmental pollution caused by a copper smelting factory in Tamil Nadu. At least five farmers were shot during a protest demanding fair crop prices in Madhya Pradesh in June 2017.

These incidents, and the speed with which they disappear from public memory until new ones emerge, show that remedial actions are often patchy and geared toward managing the public perception. It is no surprise then policymakers think a mere ₹4 lakh compensation is enough for a silicosis victim. Most families struggle for years to receive even that pittance.

2.1. India’s jobs crisis & flaws in Gujarat model of development

Livemint, 8 Jan.2019, Christophe Jaffrelot

In 2014, Narendra Modi promised to bring the Gujarat model of development to India. But the state’s focus on megaprojects at the expense of SMEs hurt job creation, says a new book

Close relations between a robust business community and the state politicians, as well as the bureaucracy, crystallized at an early date in Gujarat. In fact, this is one of the states where the exceptionally developed sense of entrepreneurship of the locals resisted most effectively the Nehruvian system, with the help of politicians and bureaucrats.

Years before Narendra Modi took over, the Gujarati economy was pushed forward very much by deliberate state interventions that resemble the interventions of the developmental state of East Asia, which means that Gujarat’s rapid economic growth was propelled by a close working alliance between the region’s political and economic elite.

Modi’s economic policy in the 2000s gave a new dimension to this business-friendliness. What has been publicized by the longest-serving chief minister (2001–14) as the “Gujarat model” benefitted first the large corporate houses. The special relationship that developed between the government (and more precisely the chief minister) and big companies had implications not only for the economy, but also for the society (big firms need fewer workers than small and medium enterprises) and the polity.

Before the BJP took over, the liberal leanings of the earlier chief ministers were systematically balanced by attention to social policies, including reservations-based positive discrimination in the 1980s. In 1990, the new employment policy was aimed at guaranteeing employment in backward talukas and laid down that “80% posts in new industries should go to local people and 50% posts of managerial and supervisory posts should go to local people”.

Things changed in 2003, when the new industrial policy was designed and implemented under the leadership of the chief minister Modi. The new policy called for labour reforms to the extent permissible at the state level. A large number of industries were exempted from obtaining No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Pollution Control Board. They were allowed relatively easy and quick possession of land through the ‘urgency’ clause, as well as a simplification of the administrative processes to release agricultural land for industrial use.

In the last page of his book Gujarat: Governance for Growth and Development, Bibek Debroy summarized the state’s economic policy as follows: “What is the Gujarat model then? It is one of freeing up space for private initiative and enterprise and the creation of an enabling environment by the state”. In fact, it was more about business-friendliness than market-friendliness, as evident from the non-market prices some companies paid for their land. While market-friendly economies minimize interventions by the state, in business-friendly economies, politicians (and “their” bureaucracies) intervene in favour of the companies they seek to favour—their cronies. Gujarat has a long tradition of business-friendliness, but in the past, it allowed a dense network of SMEs to blossom in the state, besides bigger players like the Ambanis.

Megaprojects model

The 2009 industrial policy was explicitly designed for making Gujarat the most attractive investment destination not only in India but also in the world. It targeted not only the “prestigious units” (₹3 billion and more since 1991), but even more the “megaprojects” that implied ₹10 billion and more investment in projects, and direct employment of two thousand persons—hence a ratio of ₹500,000 per job.

The Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) started to give land to industrial units on a 99-year lease and created SEZs. In 1990–2001, it had acquired 4,620 hectares, but this figure rose to 21,308 hectares between 2001 and 2010–11.

The industrialists’ appreciation of the Modi government was most obvious on the occasion of “Vibrant Gujarat” meetings. The chief minister conceived this special event—which was to occur every alternate year—in 2003, in conjunction with chambers of commerce and industry in order to attract Indian investors, including those residing abroad, and to publicize his economic credentials.

Modi had become one of the favourite chief ministers of Indian businessmen. They made a point of attending the Vibrant Gujarat meetings and of showering praise on him. Among them, the Gujaratis were usually the first to appear on the platform; the most prominent ones including Mukesh and Anil Ambani, Shashi Ruia (Essar group), and Gautam Adani, probably the closest of all to the chief minister.

While Modi had not attracted many foreign investors (only 4.5% of FDI went to the state from 2000 to 2012, as against 32.8% in Maharashtra, 19% in Delhi, 5.6% in Karnataka, 5.2% in Tamil Nadu, and 4% Andhra Pradesh), he has been very popular among Indian businessmen.

Reliance, for instance, developed a huge petroleum refinery whose capacity jumped from 27 million metric tonnes per annum to 62 million tonnes per annum in 2008, after the building of a second factory on a 30,000 hectare SEZ. In the same year, also in Jamnagar, Essar inaugurated another refinery of 20 million tonnes per annum capacity.

These investments boosted the growth rate of Gujarat. While in the 1990s, Gujarat was already ahead of all the other states of India, it remained so in the years 2002-03 to 2011-12, and lagged behind Bihar by a single percentage point in the years from 2006-7 to 2012-13, when Gujarat became number three, neck and neck with Maharashtra.

As a result, today it accounts for 20% of India’s industrial output, including 24% of its textile production, 35% of its pharmaceutical products, 51% of its petrochemical production—and 22% of its exports.

How Gujarat has fared under BJP rule

Quest for good jobs

However, by focusing on “megaprojects”, the “Gujarat model” has relied on big companies that have boosted the growth rate but have not created many good jobs, not only because the rules pertaining to job creation have been relaxed, as mentioned above, but also because big companies are very capital intensive. The petrochemical industry and the chemical industry are cases in point. They have been so dynamic that they represent, respectively, 34% and 15% of the industrial output, but they are not labour intensive at all. Manufacturing is more labour-intensive, but automation is also gaining momentum in large factories. For instance, the Nano plant at Sanand never had more than 2,200 employees—for an investment worth ₹2,900 crore, hence a ratio of more than ₹1.3 crore per job created directly (indirect job creation needs to be taken into account but is more difficult to measure).

Between 2009-10 and 2012-13, Gujarat was the state where investment in industry was the highest (above Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu), but that did not translate into job creation as much as in these states, where the enterprises tended to be smaller and more labour-intensive. The comparison between Gujarat and Tamil Nadu is illuminating in that respect: in 2013, Gujarati industry represented 17.7% of the fixed capital of India but only 9.8% of the factory jobs, whereas the industry of Tamil Nadu represented 9.8% of the fixed capital but 16% of the factory jobs.

Gujarat’s annual employment growth plummeted from 2.4% in the years between 1999-2000 and 2004-05 to 0.1% in the years between 2004-05 and 2009-10. Not only has the growth rate of urban employment hardly increased—from 4% to 4.9%—but wages have lagged behind too. The quasi-stagnation in job creation is partly due to the crisis of the SMEs, which are four times more labour- intensive than the average for all firms.

Indeed, the share of the MSMEs’ (micro, small, and medium enterprises) credit as a percentage of the gross bank credit had declined from 12.98% in 1997-98 to 6.34% in 2006-07. It started to rise again afterward to reach 10% in 2009-10, but it remained below the late 1990s figure. Their financial troubles were partly due to the crisis of the district cooperative banks, which are in a bad shape after financial irregularities almost sealed the fate of eight of them in the early 2000s. Four of the eight banks had to be liquidated. The BJP government did not help cooperative banks, not only because, in its eyes, small is not beautiful, but also because the cooperatives are traditionally strongholds of the Congress in Gujarat.

This has precipitated a crisis among many MSMEs. According to the Union ministry of MSMEs, the number of sick units jumped from 4,321 in 2010-11 to 20,615 in 2012-13 and 49,382 in 2014-15—a figure second only to Uttar Pradesh. Between 2004 and 2014, 60,000 MSMEs shut down in Gujarat.

Not only has the growth rate in jobs not increased in proportion to the growth rate of the state GDP, but the quality of the jobs has not improved, evident from the informalization process at work in the job market. In the Nano plant, out of 2,200 employees, 430 are “permanent workers”. They earned ₹12,500 in 2016, whereas the informal workers earned about ₹3,300 a month.

One of the reasons why industrialists have invested in Gujarat is also, precisely, the low level of wages, which is largely due to the inﬂow of migrant workers—men from Odisha, Bihar, and UP, whose presence is very much resented by local labourers. According to the report of the National Sample Survey of 2011, Gujarat has some of the lowest average daily wages for casual labourers in the urban area. These wages are not only much below the national average but on a par with those in Uttar Pradesh.

The very fact that the Gujarat government has given increasing priority to big investors has impacted the state in many different ways. The cooperatives and SMEs, which used to epitomize the Gujarati entrepreneurial ethos, have not continued to benefit from the traditional attention of the state, and this evolution has affected the labour market—where jobs have been few and where wages have not increased. The state has also suffered financially, due to a slew of big-ticket incentives, which partly explains its indebtedness and the low level of social expenditures.

The Gujarat model is bruised but not beaten.

Reasons for radical shift

The BJP’s radical shift in the early 2000s may be explained in a number of ways. First, after the 2002 pogrom, the party wanted to prove wrong the entrepreneurs who had argued that Gujarat would not attract investors anymore, and Narendra Modi wanted to change his image to appear as the “development man” (the “Vikas Purush”). Second, he wanted Gujarat to be singled out because of its growth rate—a magic figure everybody was obsessed with at that time. Third, to attract big companies was the best way to finance his political activities by retaining a small number of donors while emancipating oneself from the BJP leaders (including Prime Minister A. B. Vajpayee) who had expressed their displeasure with the 2002 violence. Fourth, giving priority to megaprojects enabled Modi to boost the career of emerging figures who were prepared to help him, like Gautam Adani—a man who was not part of the establishment either.

What’s the Gujarat Model and who’s seen it?

This strategy had many implications for the economy, the society, and the ecology of Gujarat. First, big firms developed at the expense of the SMEs, which had to pay more for the gas and the power produced by the big players, had to face new competition (in the market and with the banks, which lent them less money). Second, the decline of the SMEs, one of the finest assets of a state known for its entrepreneurs, affected the labour market in terms of the number of jobs available and, possibly, the quality of these jobs—with wages remaining very low. Third, the big companies that have been attracted to Gujarat have been offered so many incentives—the price of land, the interest rates of loans, and tax deductions—that the exchequer has suffered (as evident from the growing indebtedness of Gujarat). These fiscal constraints have further reduced the ability of the state to spend on social expenditures (education, health…)— something Gujarat was good at in the 1980s, but not anymore. Last but not least, the clout that big companies acquired at the highest level in the Gujarat government allowed them to resist pressures from the regulators in charge of environmental norms.

In a democracy, elections and the rule of law are supposed to offer corrective mechanisms when imbalances have become unbearable. In 2015, Patel youth demonstrated in order to have access to government jobs quotas. This massive protest showed that good jobs had become an acute need. Soon after, the BJP lost local polls in the rural parts of Gujarat, and in 2017, it also lost to the Congress in rural constituencies—a clear indication of the crisis the peasants, the artisans, and the cottage industry were facing.

Elections 2019: Modi govt woos upper castes with 10% reservation

One of the factors of this crisis is land: land is now a source of tension between the agriculturalists and industry, in part, because the later has sometimes polluted both the surface and the subsurface water tables. Whether the voters are in a position to change the center of gravity of the political economy remains to be seen.

Excerpts from the chapter: Business-Friendly Gujarat Under Narendra Modi

Christophe Jaffrelot is a senior research scholar at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS

2.2. Centre seeks to boost public health spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2025

Livemint, 13 Dec. 2018, Neetu Chandra Sharma

Government plans to increase health spending to more than $100 bn by 2025

New Delhi: Indicating that all upcoming health policies will remain focussed on women, children and youth, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the government will increase its public health spending to 2.5% of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2025 from 1.15% at present. The Prime Minister was addressing the 2018 Partners’ Forum in New Delhi.

“We are committed to increasing India’s health spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2025, reaching to more than $100 billion,” Modi said. “We will continue to work for the betterment of people. Women, children and youth will continue to remain at the heart of every policy, programme or initiative.”

Currently, India spends 1.15% of the GDP on health. The Partners’ Forum meet this year focuses on improving multi-sectoral action for results, sharing country solutions and capturing the best practices and knowledge within the health sector, and among other related sectors.

Modi said the Partners’ Forum vision is in line with India’s ancient wisdom of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, or “the world is one family”. He said it is also in line with his government’s philosophy of Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, or collective efforts and partnerships for inclusive growth.

He said a major effort is required to achieve health targets. “From bigger budgets to better outcomes, and from mind-set change to monitoring, there is lots to be done.”

When the millennium development goals were agreed upon, India had one of the world’s highest mortality rates for women and children. “With sustained momentum, and a faster rate of decline during the last few years, India is on course to attain the sustainable development goal (SDG) targets for maternal and child health, much ahead of the agreed date of 2030.”

Emphasising the significance of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, the PM said high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by families to avail medical care was a major worry for the country. “We therefore launched the ‘Ayushman Bharat Yojana’, which has a two-fold strategy. The first is the provision of comprehensive primary care at a facility near the community, including guidance on healthy lifestyle and yoga through health and wellness centres.”

The other arm of “Ayushman Bharat” is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which provides cashless, health insurance cover up to ₹5 lakh per family, per year, covering 500 million citizens who are the most poor and vulnerable.

“This number is almost equal to the population of Canada, Mexico and the US taken together. We have already provided free treatment worth ₹700 crore to 5 lakh families under this scheme within 10 weeks of its launch,” Modi added.

The Partners’ Forum is co-hosted by Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Partnership of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH). The two-day event brings together more than 1200 participants from 85 countries in New Delhi, to deliberate on issues of health and well-being of women, children and adolescents.

Partners’ Forum is a global health partnership launched in September 2005 to accelerate efforts to reduce child and maternal mortality, improve adolescent, child, newborn and maternal health. This partnership is an alliance of more than 1,000 plus members, across 10 constituencies in 92 countries: academic, research and teaching institutions; donors and foundations; health care professionals; multilateral agencies; non-governmental organizations; partner countries; global financing mechanisms and the private sector.

The previous chapters were held in Johannesburg, South Africa (2014), New Delhi, India (2010) and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (2007). This is the second time India is hosting the Partners’ Forum.

3.1. 21 new nuclear reactors are expected to be set up by 2031: DAE

PTI, Jan. 04, 2019

New Delhi: The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) informed Parliament on Thursday that 21 new nuclear power reactors with a total installed capacity of 15,700 MW are expected to be set up in the country by 2031.

It also informed Parliament that five sites -- which would have total 28 nuclear reactors -- have been accorded 'in principle' approval by the central government.

Jitendra Singh, minister of state for personnel, public grievances and pensions and prime minister's office (PMO), told Rajya Sabha on Thursday through a written answer that "at present, there are nine nuclear power reactors at various stages of construction" that are targeted for completion by 2024-25.

"In addition, 12 more nuclear power reactors have been accorded administrative approval and financial sanction by the government in June 2017," he added.

Singh handles the DAE, which comes under the PMO.

"Thus, 21 nuclear power reactors, with an installed capacity of 15,700 MW are under implementation, envisaged for progressive completion by the year 2031," he added.

Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana each has two reactors under construction currently. Tamil Nadu has three reactors under construction, according to Singh.

Each of the five states -- Haryana, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu -- have been accorded administrative approval and financial sanction to establish two nuclear reactors, Singh told Rajya Sabha.

Jaitapur in Maharashtra, Kovvada in Andhra Pradesh, Chhaya Mithi Virdi in Gujarat, Haripur in West Bengal and Bhimpur in Madhya Pradesh are the five sites that have been accorded 'in principle' approval to establish nuclear reactors, Singh stated.

In response to another question in Rajya Sabha, Singh stated that during 2014-15 and 2015-16, two nuclear power plants -- Kudankulam units 1 and 2 -- were commissioned and commenced commercial operation.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

3.2. Centre to roll out Rs 16,000-cr ($2,27 bn) power-transmission projects in 2019

Business Standard, Jan. 11, 2019

New Delhi: The Centre will offer nearly 20 power transmission projects, with an estimated cost of ~16,000 crore, for bidding this year. Most of these would provide connection to renewable zones, generating solar and wind energy.

The bidding is starting after a hiatus of two years. These renewable energy projects include those bid for by SECI or NTPC, as well as private developers. They have sought transmission connectivity.

The current tranche of projects covers the power-surplus western region, where huge renewable capacity is also coming up. Gujarat and Rajasthan will have most of these projects, followed by Maharashtra. Tamil Nadu and Punjab will also get some of these.

The projects were approved in the last meeting of the empowered committee on transmission (ECT), headed by the secretary of the Ministry of Power. The Central Electricity Authority, Power Grid Corporation, REC Transmission Projects Company, and PFC Consulting are represented on this committee. PFC Consulting and REC Transmission Projects Company are the tendering agencies.

Of the 30 projects the ECT identified, 24 have been approved to be awarded. Twelve would be offered on tariff-based competitive bidding (TBCB) in which private firms can take part. The rest will be built by state-owned Power Grid Corporation.

Industry executives said sector majors such as Sterlite Grid, Adani Power, Essel Infra, and Tata Power are likely to take part in the bidding. These have won several power transmission projects in the past through the TBCB mode.

Power transmission projects are awarded in two modes — cost-plus basis to Power Grid Corporation and TBCB to private players.

The current projects will provide connectivity to upcoming solar parks in Bhadla, Bikaner, and Fategarh in Rajasthan; mega-sized solar and wind projects in Bhuj, Bhachau, Dwarka, and Lakadia in Gujarat; the solar energy zone (1000 MW) in Maharashtra, and wind zones in Tamil Nadu.

The projects to be constructed by Power Grid are for a system strengthening several areas, including where the company already has a high-voltage direct current system in place. The company is already constructing the inter-state transmission network for connecting renewable energy-rich states, or the Green Corridor-I.

In order to expedite the development of transmission line for the solar parks (Green Corridors-II), the Centre decided to award these to private players through a bidding process. The move was also in line with the plan to open up the power transmission sector for private investment.

Private sector players, however, have been complaining of lack of projects in the transmission sector and several delays in awarding them.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

4.1. Opinion | Energy efficiency and climate change

Livemint, 13 Dec. 2018, Ejaz Ghani

Up to half of current global annual emissions could be reduced through more efficient use of energy in kitchens, residential buildings and transport

The impact of climate change is being felt by everybody and everywhere. Extreme weather conditions, air pollution, crop failure, biodiversity losses, and much more are affecting both human health and natural wealth. More than 70% of India’s population is exposed to outdoor air pollution, which has contributed to one in eight deaths and has reduced the average life expectancy of Indians by nearly two years. The cost of not addressing global warming today would far exceed the expense of addressing it in the future.

Energy production and consumption remains the largest contributor of global carbon emissions and greenhouse gas. Our understanding of how best to manage the climate change agenda is still evolving. Is the global warming agenda best addressed through carbon-pricing reforms or other policy interventions aimed at improving energy efficiency, and promoting social and community green initiatives? Carbon pricing has attracted more attention in recent years, as it goes to the source of the problem and puts a price on carbon pollution as a means of bringing down emissions. It shifts energy investments towards cleaner options by making fossil fuels more expensive relative to low-carbon fuels, and renewable energy. Although global investments in renewable energy has increased rapidly in recent years, its share in the global stock of energy is still very small.

It is estimated that nearly 70% of the global carbon emissions could be reduced by increasing energy efficiency. Most countries are more advanced on renewable energy compared to energy efficiency. Many quick wins on energy efficiency that have been overlooked in the past can be given a bigger seat at the table, including energy efficiency in the kitchen, residential buildings, industries, transport, utilities, and energy labelling. Besides carbon-pricing reforms, a package of additional interventions is needed to internalize externalities that are much more significant in developing countries compared to advanced countries and play an import role in increasing energy efficiency (see Frances Stewart and Ejaz Ghani, 1991, How Significant Are Externalities For Development?, World Development). Increasing energy efficiency is also a prerequisite for most developing countries for preparing them to move towards more expensive energy system needed to deal with carbon capture and storage, and other technology solutions.

Has India improved energy efficiency? Yes. Its energy intensity has declined during the last decade. China’s energy intensity is roughly 1.5 times that of India. While we may instinctively rank energy efficiency across countries, the trends within countries are hard to add up. The aggregate energy efficiency trends comprise spatial and industrial developments in energy usage. Cities and urban settings increase energy efficiency and reduce the cost of electricity use per output level because of denser customer bases and more efficient plant sizes for local energy producers. However, large industrial enterprises in India are moving away from cities and opening plants in rural areas to remain competitive. Empirical analysis of manufacturing enterprises in India shows that average electricity consumption is much higher in rural regions compared to urban regions. Small and medium-sized enterprises have the most difficult time as their modest plant scale does not justify extensive investments in self-provision power generation capacity, and their higher levels of operation make them more vulnerable to uncertainty than larger enterprises.

Rising spatial disparities in energy efficiency within India is a worrying trend (see Ejaz Ghani, A.G. Grover and W.R. Kerr, Spatial Dynamics Of Electricity Usage In India, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 7055). Developed states in India have improved energy efficiency. But electricity usage per unit of output is twice the level in lagging states compared to leading states. Whether India’s structural and spatial transformation will exacerbate or alleviate energy efficiency is important for issues ranging from reducing power blackouts to stemming rising pollution levels. How developing countries manage industrialization, urbanization and infrastructure investments will have vital environmental implications.

Is energy, labour, or capital a bigger constraint to growth in India? A comparison of energy distortion with distortions in labour, capital and land markets shows that land and building access is a bigger constraint for enterprises than energy access. Land and building costs per unit of output are rising for all sectors of Indian manufacturing. This trend is in sharp contrast to the broad-based declines in energy usage per unit of output. Land and building usage per output unit for the organized sector is two to three times larger than electricity usage per output level, and for the informal sector, land and building usage tends to be 5-10 times larger than electricity usage. This is not to say that India cannot make substantial improvements upon its current energy position.

There remains a huge potential for energy efficiency gains in most industries, ranging from 46-88% in textile industry, to 43-94% in paper and pulp industry, to 51-92% in iron and steel industry. Energy efficiency gain policy will need to go beyond industries and enter our kitchen, buildings and transport. Energy policy will also need to focus much more on rural regions that are the future drivers of growth. Energy outages are common in rural areas, where unreliable energy supply forces firms to invest in self-generation capacity.

Thanks to a rapidly rising middle class, developing countries have raised their ambitions for a faster and greener growth. The younger population in the developing world compared to an ageing population in the developed world has increased the demand for less polluted kitchens, electric vehicles and energy-efficient technologies. Up to half of global annual emissions could be reduced through more efficient use of energy in kitchens, residential buildings and transport. Improved energy efficiency is a win-win for everybody. Energy-efficiency planning is prevalent globally, but the quality of targets and specifications could be improved. There is a big market potential for scaling up energy efficiency through green mortgage, green bonds, tax incentives, credit lines with banks for energy efficiency activities, and public private partnerships in energy sector investments.

Ejaz Ghani is lead economist at the World Bank.

4.2. Projects worth Rs 44.6k cr ($6,33 bn) underway for rail connectivity to ports

PTI, Dec. 17, 2018

New Delhi: As many as 52 projects for rail connectivity to ports are underway entailing an investment of Rs 44,605 crore, an official said Sunday.

These projects are being undertaken by the Indian Port Rail Corporation Ltd (IPRCL) and the Ministry of Railways.

IPRCL has taken up 32 projects worth Rs 18,253 crore across nine major ports, of which eight projects worth Rs 175 crore have been completed, a Shipping Ministry official said.

The official said in addition, 23 rail connectivity projects worth Rs 24,877 crore identified under Sagarmala have being taken up by the Ministry of Railways, out of which seven projects entailing Rs 2,491 crore investment have been completed.

Sagarmala is a port-led development programme of the country which seeks to reduce logistics cost for both overseas and domestic trade.

Another 15 rail connectivity projects worth Rs 4,193 crore have been taken up, out of which three projects worth Rs 52 crore have been completed.

"A total of 52 projects with an investment of Rs 44,605 crore are in various stages of implementation by these agencies, while 18 projects have been completed," the official said.

Besides, a pact for implementation of the 362 km Indore-Manmad New Railway Line Project has been signed recently between Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust, Ministry of Railways and the governments of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh.

The new project will reduce the distance from Mumbai/Pune to key central India locations by 171 kilometers, resulting in lower logistics costs, the official said.

This is especially significant as the new railway line will pass through the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor nodes of Igatpuri, Nashik and Sinnar; Pune and Khed; and Dhule and Nardana.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

5.1. Himachal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu top UN's India SDG index

Livemint, Dec. 24, 2018

New Delhi: Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Tamil Nadu have emerged as the front runners in the race to achieve key sustainable development goals (SDG) like removal of poverty and inequality, while Assam, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the laggards in a ranking of states released on Friday by federal policy think tank NITI Aayog and the UN.

According to the SDG India Index, the nation as a whole has a score of 58, showing the country has reached a little beyond the halfway mark in meeting the sustainable development goals adopted by India and 192 other nations in 2015. The index covers 13 of the 17 sustainable development goals, including healthcare, gender equality, clean energy, infrastructure, education, peace and building strong, accountable institutions.

Four goals, including climate action and sustainable use of marine resources, were left out because of lack of data at the state level.

Kerala’s overall top rank (69) is attributed to its strong performance in providing good health, reducing hunger, achieving gender equality and providing quality education. The rank shows the distance each state has to cover to reach 100—the point at which it fully meets the sustainable development goal.

Himachal Pradesh ranks high with a similar overall score in providing clean water and sanitation, reducing inequalities and preserving the mountain ecosystem. Tamil Nadu has a score of 68. Among Union territories, Chandigarh takes the lead with a score of 68 on account of its track record in providing clean water and sanitation. Performance in providing quality education has also helped Chandigarh achieve the high score.

Tamil Nadu topped the states in poverty reduction, while Kerala topped in providing quality education, closely followed by Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh.

Kerala and Tamil Nadu also topped in facilitating good health and well-being. Gender equality, however, is an area all states and the nation as a whole need to improve upon. The toppers in gender equality, Sikkim and Union territories Andaman and Nicobar islands and Chandigarh have crossed the half way mark in reaching the goals.

Jharkhand, Odisha and Nagaland are also among the states that have a lot more ground to cover in the overall rankings.

The scores represent the current status of achievement in meeting the goals. NITI Aayog chief executive officer Amitabh Kant said that the index, which is also available for reference in the form of an online dashboard, will be updated in realtime. “This will lead to a lot of changes at the grass root level. Competition among states is key in achieving the SDG,” said Kant.

NITI Aayog vice chairman Rajiv Kumar urged the fifteenth finance commission (FFC) member Ramesh Chand, who was present on the occasion, to use the index as a tool while finalizing its recommendations on sharing of central government’s divisible pool of tax revenue with states. “Unless development becomes a mass movement, I do not think we can achieve what we want to,” said Kumar. In an interview, Chand said that the SDG India index relies on the most recent data and will be a useful resource for the FFC. India’s progress in achieving these goals are crucial for the world as it is home to about 17% of the world population, said a statement from NITI Aayog.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

5.2. Power banks can be a Rs 18,000 cr industry, create 80K jobs in India by 2025

PTI, Dec. 28, 2018

New Delhi: Power bank segment can grow around nine-fold to become a Rs 18,000 crore industry by 2025 and create 80,000 jobs if right policies are implemented, the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) said Thursday.

The ICEA has proposed to bring power banks under phased manufacturing plan scheme, which if accepted, will lead to imposition on customs duty on imported power banks.

"Given the right policy prescription, by 2025 the Power Banks can be built into Rs 18,000 crore industry, generate 80,000 jobs in India and exports can touch Rs 5,800 crore," ICEA Chairman Pankaj Mohindroo told PTI.

According to the mobile phone and component industry body, India consumes about 33 million power banks a year worth about Rs 2,000 crore.

"Currently, most of the power banks are imported and can be easily substituted by power banks made in India," Mohindroo said.

He appreciated government's recent clarification to bring power banks under 18 per cent Goods and Services Tax category which the authorities were earlier insisting to classify them under 28 per cent slab.

"It has been ICEA's technical interpretation that Lithium-ion power bank merits classification under Lithium-ion accumulator and GST at the rate of 18 per cent is applicable, although it was attempted to misclassify Power banks under 28 per cent GST rate. At least now the path for the future is clear and this will allow the industry to function smoothly," Mohindroo said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

6.1. Rahul’s farm loan promise may trigger competitive populism

Livemint, 19 Dec. 2018, Sayantan Bera & Shaswati Das

Congress president Rahul Gandhi upped the ante over farm distress and said if voted to power, his party would ensure a farm loan waiver in 2019 as well

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday promised a nationwide waiver of farm loans if voted to power in the 2019 general elections which are less than six months away, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of not “waiving a rupee of farmer’s loans in the last four years.”

“We will not let the Prime Minister sleep till he announces a loan waiver,” Gandhi told reporters outside Parliament.

Gandhi’s remarks come at a time when the Congress is on the back foot after the Supreme Court nixed its claims of corruption in the Rafale deal and the Delhi high court awarded a life sentence to Sajjan Kumar for his role in the rioting that led to the killing of 3,000 Sikhs in 1984.

At the same time, Gandhi’s promise to waive farm loans is likely to build pressure on the centre and other political parties, given that they possess fewer options to douse farmer anger ahead of the 2019 elections. More so, recently announced central schemes promising 50% returns to farmers over costs (PM-AASHA) have failed as crop prices have collapsed in the aftermath of bumper harvests.

Gandhi’s statement comes close on the heels of the Congress defeating the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in recently held assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan where a combination of factors like farm distress and anti-incumbency went in its favour. In these three states the Congress promised a waiver of crop loans of up to ₹2 lakh per farmer. On Monday, the newly elected Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh chief ministers signed off on the waiver within hours of taking oath.

The waiver will cost the state exchequer an estimated ₹6,100 crore in Chhattisgarh and between ₹35,000 crore and ₹38,000 crore in Madhya Pradesh, according to officials. Since last year, farmer organizations have persistently urged the government to waive loans and announce more remunerative prices, following a deflation in wholesale crop prices which led to a dip in rural incomes and increased debts.

“The competitive populism to waive farm loans is nothing but a race to bottom,” said Ashok Gulati, agriculture chair professor at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations in Delhi. “The promise of debt relief is an atonement of political parties for ignoring the agriculture sector for long. The first kick in this direction was made by none other than the Prime Minister himself before the Uttar Pradesh elections (in 2017). Learning the electoral benefits, Congress is trying to score the final goal now.”

Gulati added that loan waivers not only create a moral hazard—tending to reward the defaulter—but are also inequitable as they benefit richer farmers linked to formal credit. “A loan waiver at the national level may cost anywhere between ₹4-5 trillion and investments in agriculture will surely take a hit. A direct income transfer scheme funded equally by the state and centre is a better solution to provide immediate relief to farmers,” Gulati said.

Farmer organizations said the wave of debt relief promises is a result of the growing agitation by farmers. “The latest round of election results show that BJP cannot take our demands for granted. Also the Congress cannot afford to be complacent and have to roll out its waivers so that it does not exclude deserving farmers,” said V.M. Singh, convener of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, an umbrella body of over 200 farmers unions across India.

Since last year, waivers have been announced by several state governments, including Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Karnataka and Rajasthan. The last nationwide waiver was implemented by the previous Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in 2008, ahead of the general elections a year later. It cost the centre ₹52,000 crore and took almost four years to complete.

“It is crucial to sensibly design waiver schemes. The 2008 waiver benefitted more farmers in Kerala than in Maharashtra since the former had better land records though farmers in the latter were more distressed,” said R. Ramakumar, professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai.

Pledge to waive loans may build pressure on NDA, which has few options to douse farmer anger before polls

6.2. Kerala’s alternative to farm loan waivers has lessons for India

Livemint, 27 Dec. 2018, Nidheesh M.K.

Thanks to the debt relief commission, 11,354 Kerala farmers have benefited from a disbursement of over ₹11 crore, and there are no farmer suicides in the state

Ernakulam/Bengaluru: Back in 2006, Kerala came face to face with an explosive situation. Ironically in a state dominated by Communist politicians, farming was dominated by export-oriented cash crops such as rubber and pepper, prices of which had plunged in the global market. It led to a spate of farmer suicides, who had defaulted on loans. The hue and cry from rural Kerala reached the national capital, where Booker-winning author Arundhati Roy marched with women whose farmer husbands had killed themselves.

Into this maelstrom walked in a new Communist government led by chief minister V. S. Achuthanandan, a pro-worker activist and tactful politician. Achuthanandan drafted Delhi-based Prabhat Patnaik as his planning board vice chairman, a position that made the left-wing economist the state’s de facto chief economic adviser.

Soon after reaching Kerala, Patnaik recounted, “We had to do something.” During a chat, his wife and noted economist Utsa Patnaik pointed to a pre-independence era model that provided a significant relief for farmers in distress, with an almost folksy charm to it: the Sir Chhotu Ram Commission in Punjab, whose members travelled from village to village, taking petitions from debt-ridden farmers, granting them relief.

Patnaik and others studied the initiative from the British period and turned it into a new model, which led to the formation of the Kerala State Farmers’ Debt Relief Commission. The law came into force in January 2007.

In retrospect, the Kerala experiment provides a promising alternative to big-ticket farm loan waivers that have been on the rise (eight states have promised to waive a total of ₹1.9 trillion of crop loans since April last year, burning a hole in state coffers), though fraught with delays and the exclusion of deserving farmers. Under the Kerala initiative, a seven-member team of farmers, legal experts, farm economists, political appointees and others goes from village to village, speaks to farmers, screens their loan portfolios and decides on the quantum of relief.

By the time Patnaik started out, about 1,500 cultivators had committed suicide according to farmer unions, though official numbers were lower. The scale of the tragedy was not as large as in Vidarbha in Maharashtra, but the numbers were still alarming.

Immediately after the Debt Relief Commission was set up, the 25-odd staff at the headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram were besieged with petitions from farmers seeking succour. Within two years, farmer suicides had fallen sharply. Now, 11 years on, the problem has nearly disappeared.

Continuous engagement

Part of the credit goes to the commission, experts say, though other major packages such as the United Progressive Alliance’s mega farm loan waiver in 2008 at a national level, and state-level measures also played an important role.

The relief provided by the commission is not unconditional: the loan should be from the cooperative sector, which provides the bulk of farm loans; the applicant should be a small or marginal farmer, who owns or has taken on lease a crop area of less than five acres; and the applicant’s annual income should not be over ₹2 lakh. The commission sits for several days in a village every month and this year alone, 11,354 farmers have benefited from a disbursement of more than ₹11 crore.

It is a limited arrangement compared to what relatively larger states may need and also lower than expectations in Kerala. The relief is only up to ₹1 lakh for loans higher than ₹50,000 and, so far, just about ₹213 crore out of the ₹355 crore allocated over the years has been spent.

Commission member and farm expert S. Janardhanan said that as the intensity of the farm crisis got subdued in Kerala, the activities of the commission also slowed down. “However, it is still a model worth emulating across the country.”

Earlier this year, a team from Rajasthan visited Kerala and studied the model before announcing a waiver, he said.

“Instead of bulk farm loan waivers, this is a continuous engagement. Round the year someone is talking to farmers, trying to understand what they are going through and how the state can help,” Janardhan said. “The meetings are informal. We go beyond our mandate and often advise farmers, even if the debt is because of a daughter’s education or medical expenses. Many do not know the benefits they can avail, for example, in cases of crop loss because of natural calamity. We make arrangements for them (in those cases).”

Telangana shows an alternative to farm loan waivers

K.R. Chandramohan, who was the chairman of an urban cooperative bank for about 30 years in Kollam district, said the debt relief commission, in practice, also acts like a banker’s debt relief commission. “There are chronic defaulters in every cooperative bank...negotiations between farmers and lenders, with the state as the mediator, help banks solve NPA (non-performing asset) problems.”

Farmer suicides in India: myths versus realities

This is a model that could be emulated across the country, said Patnaik. “The whole point was to look at the farmer. Agriculture is the livelihood of a peasant. If you do not make enough, you cannot take your child to the hospital.”

The debt relief commission is beneficial to most farmers, even though it works at a snail’s pace, said P. V. Rajappan, a rice grower from Kerala’s Palakkad district. Rajappan was hit by a harsh drought in 2008, which led to a default of a ₹50,000 loan from a cooperative bank.

Punjab farmers find no solace in farm loan waiver

“The loan was taken by three of us, all farmers. But with the drought, we could not repay. Eventually, including the dues, we owed the bank ₹80,000.” That was when he heard of the commission. “We submitted a plea before it in a sitting, and got the bank to halt default proceedings... Just two weeks ago, we got a letter saying all our dues have been waived,” he said.

7.1. Swachh Bharat Abhiyan: Why India’s toilet data is too good to be true

Livemint, 9 Jan. 2019, Sneha Alexander

Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has increased access to toilets and reduced open defecation in India but not to the extent that the government claims, shows a study.

Mumbai: The country is close to attaining the long-sought and desperately important goal of universal sanitation coverage, according to India’s official sanitation statistics. The latest data from the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) portal suggests that 27 out of India’s 36 states and Union territories are now open defecation free (ODF) with 98.6% of Indian households having access to toilets.

If these numbers sound too good to be true, they are most likely to be quite off the mark. New study by a team from the Research Institute for Compassionate Economics (RICE) suggests that 44% of the rural population in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan still defecate in the open. However, according to SBM, the three states are either fully or largely ODF, except for Bihar.

According to SBM data, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh have achieved 100% sanitation coverage of rural household (proportion of households with toilets). However, the RICE survey found the proportion of rural households with toilets lagging in all the three states.

The difference is particularly stark in the case of Bihar, the survey of 1,558 households in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan shows.

These four states accounted for nearly half of the households without toilets and defecating in the open, as of 2015-16, according to data from the large-scale National Family Health Survey (NFHS).

While the study questions the extent of Swachh Bharat’s success, it also highlights its impact. The researchers find that access to toilets has risen sharply over the past four years. In 2018, 71% of the rural population in these states owned a latrine compared with 37% in 2014.The increase in toilet ownership seems to have been driven by SBM.

The survey reveals that 57% of rural households without a latrine in 2014 had one by 2018 and 42% of them received government support. There is also significant disparity across states. In Madhya Pradesh, 83% of households who did not have a toilet in 2014 had one in 2018, while in Bihar the corresponding figure was 37%.

While toilets are an important first step for sanitation, they still need to be used. As we have highlighted in this column earlier, reducing open defecation requires behavioural change.

The RICE survey found open defecation in the four states to have decreased from 70% in 2014 to 44% in 2018 with the biggest improvements in Madhya Pradesh (43 percentage points) and Uttar Pradesh (26 percentage points).

However, these improvements may have been driven almost entirely by the construction of latrines rather than any change in behaviour, the RICE study suggests.

Around 23% rural households across the four states owning a latrine were found to defecate in the open. This is the same proportion as in 2014.

In Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, open defecation among toilet owners actually increased between 2014 and 2018.

Taken together, these results imply that SBM did not induce any behavioural change. More than behavioural change, SBM may be forcing change through coercion, the authors suggest.

Across the four states, it was found that coercion was a major means to achieve targets. More than half of the households surveyed (56%) said that they were aware of coercion in their village and 12% said they faced it in their own households. Scheduled caste and scheduled tribe households were more likely to be at the receiving end of coercive tactics, the study suggests.

These latest findings reiterate the importance of adopting a more holistic approach to open defecation rather than the current singular focus on toilet construction. While building more toilets has undeniably helped India’s sanitation challenge, the impact would be far greater if these initiatives were combined with interventions targeting behavioural changes.

Further, for toilets to prevent diseases better, they need to be a part of an integrated sanitation approach that includes water supply, water connections, and waste management.

The RICE survey highlights the challenge on this front. Of the toilets built with government support in the four states, only 42% were twin-pit latrines—the recommended toilets for safe and sustainable waste management.

7.2. Five women-driven deep tech startups

Livemint, 31 Dec. 2018, Nandita Mathur

All of these startups are co-founded by women who are passionate about the cause they pursue

New Delhi: Mint has identified five startups that are using advanced technologies including AI (artificial intelligence) and machine learning to provide a gamut of solutions in diverse areas. All of these startups are co-founded by women who are passionate about the cause they pursue.

Ethx: Making blockchain accessible to the masses

Ethx was launched eight months ago as one of the first Ethereum exchanges in India. It was started by entrepreneur Tarusha Mittal who wanted to create a user-friendly exchange, which was fast, secure and also served as a wallet. It is a complete blockchain suite-creating turnkey solutions for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). “Our vision is knowledge and financial inclusion. We are giving users a chance to contribute their spare computing resources to a central network for tokens, which they can exchange for fiat. Enterprises and publishers host data and applications on this internet, where information/assets are facilitated via micropayments. It is censor free, ad free, decentralized and democratized,” explains Mittal.

The startup is also working on a Crypto Point of Sale System (cPos) and physical card-based system that would enable users to pay with a swipe of card or a tap of a button to purchase goods and services. Mittal hopes Ethx will have more than 5 million users in 2019 from the about 850,000 users they have garnered in the past seven months.

Pratilipi: Bridging the language gap

Pratilipi is India’s largest online platform connecting readers and writers in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Telugu, Gujarati, and Kannada. It is a marketplace that acts like a self-publishing platform for writers on one side, and as a discovery, reading and buying platform for the readers on the other side. It claims to be the largest Indian language self-publishing platform with over 53,000 plus writers and 3.3 million plus readers.

“Pratilipi is a (user-generated content, or UGC) reading and writing platform for the next billion internet users who hail from the small towns and villages of India. It’s a storytelling platform for Indian languages,” according to Shally Modi, co-founder, Pratilipi.

Currently, more than 16 million stories are read in a month on Pratilipi. The company has approximately 65,000 writers who are writing on the platform in eight Indian languages as of now. Stories, adds Modi, could be in the form of written fiction, audio or visual.

Ossus Biorenewables: Clean energy from waste water

This Bengaluru-based startup is developing solutions for clean, carbon-free, energy and recovery of green chemicals from waste water. They are doing so by using bH2 Plus—a technology that employs specially-designed microbial cell factories to generate biohydrogen and metals from renewable feedstocks like industrial effluents, municipal sewage and polluted water bodies. The solution has the potential to be retro-fitted to storage tanks, effluent treatment plants or installed for the restoration of polluted rivers, lakes and other water bodies.

Founded by Suruchi Rao and Shanta Rao in 2017, Ossus Biorenewables is currently in the process of demonstrating the capability of their technology to generate value from the so-called “produced water” (water that oil and gas companies get as a by-product along with oil and gas). Ossus is currently working with upstream oil and gas companies like Shell and ONGC as part of their startup programmes, with the first pilot slated in Bengaluru. By early 2019, Ossus hopes to establish a base in the US too.

Multibhashi: Job-related communication

Language learning startup, Multibhashi uses technology to teach English and other Indian languages via cloud , streaming video, real time chat and gamification. MultiBhashi also undertakes customized services such as content localization and corporate training in vernacular languages for rural outreach and marketing businesses.

According to Anuradha Agarwal, founder, Multibhashi, “We are committed to teaching job-related English communication skills to the next billion users coming online. We fully realize that a task of this scale can only be accomplished through technology.” The android app designed to impart English education not only provides self-paced learning content in the learner’s mother tongue but also lets him/her virtually connect with a tutor who speaks his/her mother tongue and teaches English over a voice/video call. Agarwal also recently introduced a chat bot and voice bot inside the app. Additionally, they have started developing a community feature whereby people will be able to learn from each other by sharing their English-related problems, suggest solutions and even consume entertaining content in English, which will improve their comfort with the language.

Ziroh Labs: Securing your data

Ziroh Labs is a data security and privacy technology startup that focuses on cutting-edge encryption techniques. “We ensure that the data stored in the computers is always encrypted and at the same time operable,” says Surabhi Das, founder and chief legal officer of Ziroh Labs.

The startup also provides a Reference Architecture code called “OStor” (pronounced - Zero Store), which is a cloud-based file storage architecture. It lets you securely store and share personal and office files and integrate then with file storage providers and can even be deployed on-premise (company’s location).

“Privacy is a deep social problem; if we do not ensure the privacy of the data, this society is at risk. Ziroh Labs is formed to solve this problem,” says Das. Ziroh Labs is a member of the Nasscom Deep Tech Club.

8.1. Stress in telecom, aviation and real estate affecting revenue collections: Arun Jaitley

Livemint, 25 Dec. 2018

Jaitley says excessive competition has led to decline in tariffs affecting GST collections from the telecom and airline industries

New Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday that the stress in sectors like telecom, civil aviation and real estate is affecting revenue collections.

The minister said that the challenge in meeting the stiff goods and services tax (GST) collection target was mostly from services sector rather than the manufacturing industry. Excessive competition has led to decline in tariffs affecting GST collections from the telecom and airline industries, the minister said in an interview broadcast on Tuesday night by the All India Radio.

The other areas which are a matter of concern are the sluggish real estate industry and stagnant auto sales, the minister said. The stress in individual industries are problem for policymakers as any large businesses going bankrupt could impact the health of banks. The stress in the telecom sector has a direct impact on government’s ability to raise funds by auctioning spectrum.

Jaitley said income tax collections, on the other hand, is robust. The income tax department collected ₹6.75 trillion in direct taxes this year up to November, accounting for close to half of its FY19 target of ₹11.5 trillion. The April-November gross direct tax receipts show a 15.7% jump in revenue compared to the same time a year ago.

Jaitley declined to say whether the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) will announce a national farm debt waiver, but said if a state government wants to announce one, it could go ahead. The minister also said that states announcing farm loan waivers should make sure that banks are re-paid so that the credit cycle doesn’t break. If it does, lenders will not be in a position to lend in the next season, he said.

Arun Jaitley also said, in response to a question, that the Reserve Bank of India was unquestionably independent. The government has only flagged the issue of liquidity and credit availability to the central bank. The government of the day which is an accountable institution should flag these to the central bank, he said. Earlier this month, the RBI witnessed a change of guard at its top when governor Urjit Patel left abruptly citing personal reasons after a bruising stand-off with the government on issues like regulation of weak banks and RBI’s autonomy.

8.2. CtrlS to invest Rs 2,000 cr ($283 million) to set up world's largest tier-4 datacentre footprint in India

PTI, Dec. 26, 2018

New Delhi: Hyderabad-based technology infrastructure provider CtrlS plans to set up world's largest tier-4 datacentre footprint in India by 2020 with an investment of Rs 2,000 crore, according to a top company official.

The company plans to set up 150 megawatt hyperscale datacentre in Hyderabad that will be spread across two million square feet, a 100 MW similar facility in Mumbai and a 70 MW set-upin Chennai - spread over around a million square feet each, CtrlS Datacenters, founder and CEO , Sridhar Pinnapureddy told PTI.

"The demand for data storage has boomed in the country and data localisation is also creating huge demand for hyperscale datacentre in India. We will start building new tier-4 datacentre in Mumbai from March, Hyderabad facility from around May-June and Chennai in last quarter of 2019. Total investment will be around Rs 2,000 crore," Pinnapureddy said.

He said that all the datacentres will be functional in 2020.

A tier-4 datacentres has assure 99.995 per cent uptime implying maximum of 26 minutes downtime in a year. It requires almost double the investment done in tier-3 data centre, which can have downtime of up to few hours in a year.

The CEO said the firm will fund its expansion mostly from internal accruals and partly with debt funding.

"With addition of around 4 million square feet, CtrlS will emerge as World's largest Tier-4 datacentre entity to cater to need of emerging technologies. World's 90 per cent data has been generated in last 1,000 days. This part Indian data localisation policy will lead to large growth of data in India as most of the overseas companies operating in banking," Pinnapureddy said.

The company already has 1 million square feet datacenters, which includes two tier-4 facility in Mumbai, two tier-4 in Hyderabad, one tier-4 in Noida and a tier-3 datacenter in Chennai.

"The largest Tier-4 player would have a footprint of approximately one million square feet. However, CtrlS will soon enjoy a cumulative footprint of five million Tier-4 datacenter space spread across 10 datacenters in India thereby emerging as the world's largest tier-4 datacenter," CtrlS Datacenters, VP-marketing, B S Rao said.

He said that CtrlS currently serves 20 of the Fortune 100 global multi-national companies.

According to a Cushman and Wakefield report, the global datacenter market is dominated by the Americas with 40 per cent of market share or USD 68 billion in investments followed by Europe and Russia together at 32 per cent or USD 54 billion.

It projects that India will be a USD 4.5 billion datacenter market by 2018 and will reach USD 7 billion by 2020. Its 350 million smartphone users, 258 million social media users, and 224 million digital buyers are also contributing to growth of data.

Besides, the Asia-Pacific market is growing rapidly with a 25 per cent market share at USD 42 billion driven by the demand from emerging economies with huge populations such as China, India, and Indonesia.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

9.1. More than 6,85 Million Houses Sanctioned Under PMAY- (U)--Huge Job Opportunities in Construction & Allied Sectors

Press Information Bureau, Dec. 28, 2018

About 36 lakh houses grounded & more than 12 lakh houses completed --Rs. 33,455 crore released More than Rs.7,046 Crore Interest Subsidy on Housing Loans Credited Directly to 3,19,441 Beneficiaries Under Clss Rs. 60,000 crore national urban housing fund set up for raising extra budgetary resources for rapid implementation 24 New Technologies Identified to Fast Track Construction

The Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs has embarked upon one of the most ambitious programmes undertaken in the world forUrban renaissance for rejuvenating and transforming Indian cities through a number of initiatives including sanctioning of 68.5 lakh houses for construction under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana in urban areas.

PRADHAN MANTRI AWAS YOJANA (URBAN) – PMAY(U) - Housing for All (HFA)

PMAY (U) is a Mission to provide housing for all by 2022 and is being implemented from June, 2015. It provides central assistance to Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) and other implementing agencies through States/UTs for in-situ Rehabilitation of existing slum dwellers using land as a resource with private participation; Credit Linked Subsidy; Affordable Housing in Partnership and Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction/enhancement.

Under the PMAY(U), the total investment involved is Rs 3,56,397 Crores.. Out of the approved total central assistance of Rs 1,00,275 crore, Rs 33,455 crores have already been released to States/UTs as on 10.12.2018. Interest subsidy of Rs 6,943.95 crore on housing loans has been credited directly to 3,14,703 beneficiaries under CLSS(Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme).

So far, more than 68.5 Lakh houses have been approved for funding under the Mission. 35.67 lakh houses have been grounded for construction of which 12.45 lakh houses have been completed. The Ministry is optimistic that the States/UTs would submit project proposals at the earliest . This would enable sanction of validated demand of 1 Crore houses well before 2020 so that construction activities can be completed to provide “Housing for all by 2022”.

To fast track the construction of sanctioned houses, the Ministry has identified 24 new technologies for mass housing construction and further issued schedule of rates for 11 new construction technologies and building materials for adoption among States/UTs. In addition, the Ministry is also organizing Global Housing Technology Challenge (GHTC) to co-opt internationally acclaimed rapid mass housing construction technologies and to help States/UTs to construct sanctioned houses under PMAY(U) to address housing shortage in the urban areas by 2022.

A National Urban Housing Fund for Rs. 60,000 crores has been set up for raising Extra Budgetary Resources (EBR) in phases for the rapid implementation of PMAY (U). A sum of Rs. 8,000 Cr. was mobilised under this fund in FY 2017-18. In FY 2018-19 approval has been secured to raise Rs. 25,000 crore under this mechanism out of which a sum of Rs. 5050 crore has been already raised and disbursed to the States/UTs and CNAs. This process of raising resources through EBR ensures that there will be unhindered availability of resources for PMAY(U).

The Affordable Housing Fund (AHF) was established in National Housing Bank (NHB) as announced by the Hon’ble Union Finance Minister in the General Budget for 2018-19. The objective of the fund is to improve the affordability of the target group to own their homes. The corpus of the Fund will be 10,000 crores and will be contributed by Scheduled Commercial Banks as allocated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The first tranche of 2,500 crores was received by NHB in August, 2018 & it has disbursed the entire amount of 2,500 crores by 30-11-2018. The next tranche of 2,500 crores is expected to be received by NHB by 31.12.2018.

The huge investment of 3.6 Lakh crore in housing sector is providing more job opportunities in construction and allied sectors with the help of induced effect and contributing to overall health of the economy.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

9.2. Pharma clocks 9.4% growth in 2018, dispels GST blues

Business Standard, Jan. 10, 2019

The domestic pharmaceutical industry bounced back to a nearly double-digit year-on-year growth in 2018 (9.4 per cent), after falling to an eight-year low (5.5 per cent) in the previous year. The industry’s size was Rs 1.29 trillion last year.

In 2017, growth of the industry was hampered primarily by the transition to the goods and services tax (GST), rolled out on July 1 of that year. Delayed product approvals and inclusion of more products under price caps were other reasons.

The industry performed better in 2018, in comparison, on a GST-impacted low base. Industry insiders said the rate of product approvals have also improved, and the impact of the ban on 328 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs, too, was limited to about Rs 1,040 crore or so.

According to the data released by market research firm AIOCD-AWACS, the domestic pharmaceutical market showed a year-on-year growth of 9.8 per cent for December, with the dermatology segment growing the fastest among therapy areas at 10.5 per cent.

For the full year, the market grew at 9.4 per cent to touch Rs 1.29 trillion. AIOCD-AWACS noted that anti-diabetes, cardiovascular, respiratory, and dermatology categories have closed the year with double-digit growth.

Overall volume growth stood at 4.8 per cent, while new introductions accounted for 2.4 per cent growth.

In the past four quarters, the growth rate has consistently been above 9 per cent, quarter on quarter. AIOCD-AWACS also noted that among the top companies, Abbott, Lupin, Intas, and Torrent are growing at double-digits on a MAT basis.

HDFC Securities analyst Amey Chalke felt that the domestic market would continue to clock double-digit growth in 2019.

“We expect the domestic pharmaceutical market to see a good recovery with a double-digit growth this year. The domestic market will see new product introductions consistently, which will fuel growth. Glenmark’s focus continues to be on the core therapy areas of dermatology, respiratory, cardio-diabetes, and oncology and we expect to have some interesting product launches during the year,” said Sujesh Vasudevan, president, india formulations, Middle East and Africa, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals.

As of December 2018, the top 10 (by sales value) have a 42.94 per cent share of the domestic pharmaceutical market, and have clocked a 10 per cent growth.

In terms of market share, it is only slightly better than 2017, when the top 10 companies held 42.7 per cent share and had clocked a 5.9 per cent growth rate.

Chronic segments have fared better — for the full year of 2018, cardiac therapy has clocked an 11.7 per cent growth, while the anti-diabetic segment has clocked 12.9 per cent growth. Abbott’s human insulin Mixtard is the largest brand in the domestic market. Four out of the top five brands are in the anti-diabetes category.

“Patient demand remains strong and chronic therapies continue to be growth drivers. Despite suppressed prices and fewer new product launches the industry has posted a decent growth. We can hope for a double-digit growth in 2019,” said A Vaidheesh, president of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

10.1. Milk output likely to cross 180 mn tonnes in FY19: Report

PTI, Dec. 28, 2018

Mumbai: Country's milk production is expected to surpass the 180-million tonne mark in the current financial year mainly on account of various export-linked benefits by the government, according to a report.

"The country is entering its seasonal peak milk production period, which will last for three to four months and cover different regions. We will see an increase in domestic milk supplies, which in turn will lead to additional Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP) manufacturing and stocking," Rabo Bank said in its 'Dairy Quarterly Q4 2018' report.

The government has increased export subsidies to 20 per cent in order to export surplus SMP and in addition, state-sponsored export-linked benefits by Gujarat and Maharashtra, and a minimum support price for raw milk to farmers in Maharashtra are also in play, Rabo Bank report said.

These benefits are likely to be extended through March 2019, it added.

Talking about exports, the report noted that for the first half of 2018-19, India exported 9,600 tonne, compared to 4,750 tonne in the same period last year.

In September alone contributed 6,150 tonne, it added.

SMP exports are expected to surpass 20,000 tonnes by December 2018 (from April).

The industry estimated that India will export 35,000-40,000 tonne of SMP by March 2019.

Meanwhile, it said, SMP and raw milk prices have remained unchanged over the last quarter and are also not expected to move much in the next quarter.

Globally, the third quarter growth sunk to just 0.8 per cent year-on-year and indicative the fourth quarter showed a similarly modest growth rate.

Australian milk flows were affected and stalled European growth due to weather conditions on feed quality, quantity and cost across the second half of 2018.

The US looked set to see the lowest year-on-year growth since 2013, Rabo Bank said, adding that other regions however, posted positive growth, with New Zealand remaining number one setting new milk collection records for peak milk flows in October.

Meanwhile, China is expected to increase its dairy product imports by double digits for 2019, it added.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

10.2. Khadi and Village Industries provided cumulative employment to 14,036 million persons in 2017-18.

Press Information Bureau, Dec. 21, 2018

Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Giriraj Singh, said thatKhadi and Village Industries (KVIC) have provided cumulative employment to an estimated 140.36 lakh persons in 2017-18. Replying to a question in Rajya Sabha yesterday, Shri Singh said the Ministry of MSME is implementing schemes through KVIC for generation of employment in the country. He informed that Tamil Nadu was the highest beneficiary of KVIC schemes generating employment for an estimated 19.23 lakh persons, closely followed by Uttar Pradesh with 19.00 lakh persons. West Bengal with employment given to 10.72 Lakh persons, Rajasthan 10.67 lakh persons, Maharashtra (including Dadra & Nagar Haveli) 10.15 lakh persons and Karnataka 6.47 lakh persons are the other big beneficiary states of KVIC Schemes.

KVIC implements the following schemes :

i) Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme (PMEGP): It is a credit linked subsidy scheme, for setting up of new micro-enterprises and to generate employment opportunities in rural as well as urban areas of the country through KVIC, State Khadi & Village Industries Board and District Industries Centre. Under the PMEGP scheme 48398 projects were assisted with estimated employment generation for 3,87182 persons during 2017-18.

ii) Market Promotion Development Assistance (MPDA):A unified scheme by merging Market Development Assistance, Publicity, Marketing and Market Promotion. The objective of the scheme is to ensure increased earnings for artisans.

iii) Interest Subsidy Eligibility Certificate (ISEC) - The Scheme provides credit at concessional rate of interest through Banks as per the requirement of the Khadi institutions.

iv) Workshed Scheme for Khadi Artisans- The Scheme provides financial assistance for construction of workshed to khadi artisans belonging to BPL category. This empowers khadi spinners and weavers to chart out a sustainable path for growth, income generation and better work environment.

v) Strengthening infrastructure of weak Khadi institutions and assistance for marketing infrastructure: Under this scheme, financial assistance is provided to existing weak Khadi institutions for strengthening of their infrastructure and for renovation of selected khadi sales outlets.

vi) Khadi Reform and Development Programme (KRDP): It aims to revitalize the khadi sector with enhanced sustainability of khadi, increased incomes and employment for spinners and weavers, increased artisans’ welfare and to achieve synergy with village industries.

vii) Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI): The Scheme envisages providing need-based assistance for replacement of production equipment, setting up of common facility centres (CFC), product development, quality improvement, improved marketing, training and capacity building etc.

viii) Honey Mission: KVIC launched Honey (Bee) Mission in July, 2017 for promoting Beekeeping and generating employment in the beekeeping potential States of the country. One of the objectives of the Scheme is to encourage scientific beekeeping practice for enhancing the income of farmers and rural youth.

KVIC also implements other promotional activities for the development of different village industries like pottery, polymer and chemical based, agro based, handmade paper and fiber based, bee-keeping and other forest based activities.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURE

11.1. Flipkart to invest in furniture, groceries; claims to be a market leader in e-commerce

Livemint, Dec. 12, 2018

Bengaluru: Walmart-controlled online retailer Flipkart has transaction growth of more than 80% in some months as e-commerce is booming again in the country, and the company plans to push newer categories such as furniture and groceries over the next three years.

In an interview with Mint on Tuesday, Flipkart CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said that the online retailer is at least “twice the size” of its nearest competitor, implying Amazon. Amazon India chief Amit Agarwal had in a recent interview dismissed those claims, saying that Amazon did not have time to focus on “unsubstantiated claims.”

Krishnamurthy also indicated that Flipkart may either partner with a video content firm or build out its own content offering, as part of Flipkart’s broader loyalty programme, which was launched a few months ago.

“It’s a very unique loyalty programme and the uniqueness of the loyalty programme hasn’t fully played out yet….If the Indian customer wants content as part of that, then we will offer content to the Indian customer as part of the loyalty programme. We are working on it and we will get to a situation where we will offer some sort of a content experience for customers. It could be through partnerships or we could build it on our own,” said Krishnamurthy

Mint had reported on September 17 that Flipkart has held talks to buy a stake in Hotstar, Star India’s video streaming service, as part of a broader strategy to bet big on video content and attract more Internet consumers and shoppers.

Krishnamurthy said that Flipkart plans to invest heavily in growing newer categories such as furniture and groceries. Flipkart may invest in or partner with offline retailers in groceries and furniture to become a leader in these categories.

“Furniture is a small market, so I won’t take pride in saying that we’re number one there. There are only 3-4 players. What is unique about the furniture business is that it’s heavily built on private labels. Everything will expand there. The reach of the furniture supply chain is way lesser than that of eKart in general. So, that has to go up. The cost structure will improve, the experience will improve, so all of that will improve,” said Krishnamurthy.

“Grocery is by far one of the most difficult businesses we have launched. In Bangalore, we’ve seen a huge amount of customer adoption and a lot of learnings. So, right now we’re in four cities. Today the grocery business is primarily about the monthly basket approach. If I look at that market versus the on-demand market, it’s about 80% in favour of the monthly basket purchase in India. Does that mean we will not get into the on-demand business? Once again, that’s another business where globally more people have failed than succeeded. So, we’re very cautious of that and when we do it, we want to do it the right way...In the long-term, we might not have an online-only approach (in groceries) -- we will partner with the ecosystem...any kind of tie-up or partnership is possible,” added Krishnamurthy.

A majority of India’s $18 billion e-commerce market comprises sales of mobile phones, fashion and televisions, in that order. But the overall retail market is structured differently with groceries and fashion the two largest categories. If e-commerce has to continue growing at high rates over the next few years Flipkart and Amazon will have to significantly scale up sales of groceries and fashion.

Last month, Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal had resigned, following an internal investigation into an allegation of “personal misconduct.” The subsequent probe into the incident cleared Bansal of any wrongdoing, but revealed “lapses of judgement” on his part, especially with his handling of the matter.

On Tuesday, Krishnamurthy and Walmart declined to comment further on the probe into Bansal and Walmart’s communication surrounding Bansal’s departure from Flipkart.

Krishnamurthy also declined to comment on whether a new leadership will be appointed at Myntra to replace the current management led by Ananth Narayanan, but said that some Flipkart executives will be “selectively” given roles at Myntra and vice versa.

“We might move people across our group companies, we might do that selectively based on skills and needs of the business,” said Krishnamurthy.

Mint reported on Monday that Myntra’s chief executive officer (CEO) Ananth Narayanan has resigned from his role with his position set to be abolished, and Flipkart executive Amar Nagaram has been tasked with heading Myntra.

Separately on Tuesday, Flipkart’s Singapore-listed entity infused roughly Rs. 2190 crore ($304 million) into its Indian subsidiary, according to a regulatory filing sourced from Paper.VC.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

11.2. Vivo to invest Rs 4,000 cr ($566 million) to expand manufacturing capacity in India

PTI, Dec. 14, 2018

New Delhi: Chinese handset maker Vivo Thursday said it will set up a new manufacturing facility in Uttar Pradesh and invest Rs 4,000 crore over a period of four years.

The company, which competes with the likes of Samsung and Xiaomi in the Indian market, has acquired 169-acre land in the Yamuna Expressway region on the outskirts of the national capital.

The new land has been acquired near Vivo's existing 50-acre manufacturing facility (in Greater Noida, UP), and it will help expand the company's manufacturing capabilities and support its growth in India, a statement said.

"Vivo entered India in 2014 with a commitment to bring product innovation, focus and value to our consumers. India is a key market for us, and today we have reiterated our commitment by entering the next phase of growth in India," Vivo India Director-Brand Strategy Nipun Marya said.

The new plant will offer a major benefit to the surrounding area through high-quality job creation and training opportunities, he added.

All Vivo smartphones sold in the country are manufactured at the Greater Noida facility, which is one of Vivo's four manufacturing facilities globally.

The existing manufacturing set-up, which saw an investment of Rs 300 crore, already functions at a capacity of 2 million units per month with more than 5,000 workforce.

Vivo expects to generate 5,000 additional jobs in the first phase of expansion, the statement said.

During this phase, Vivo also plans to double the current production capacity to 50 million units per annum, it added.

India is one of the world's largest smartphone markets and growing steadily. Smartphone shipments in India touched an all-time high of 42.6 million units in July-September 2018 quarter, registering an year-on-year growth of 9.1 per cent, according to the research firm IDC.

This is the first time when the smartphone market is at par with the feature phone market with each segment contributing 50 per cent to the overall mobile phone market.

Xiaomi led the smartphone tally with shipment of 11.7 million units and 27.3 per cent market share, followed by Samsung 9.6 million units (22.6 per cent share), Vivo 4.5 million units (10.5 per cent share), Micromax 2.9 million units (6.9 per cent share) and Oppo 2.9 million units (6.7 per cent share).

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.1. Uber picks India as 'world lab' for mobility, transport innovations

Business Standard, Dec. 24, 2018

New Delhi: Can Uber India help solve India’s and the world’s transport problems? It thinks so. The car hailing company is considering a plan to incubate start-ups in India that will help in solving mobility and transport problems as part of its strategy to turn India into a hub for global research and development (R&D). The company has 10 centres across the world, with Asia being represented by only India.

Uber is doubling its engineering strength in its R&D centres at Hyderabad and Bengaluru next year. “We want to find the best talent in an innovative way to solve the problems of mobility and transportation. We are definitely considering incubating many start-ups within Uber in the future and have some kind of incubation model. We are looking at doubling our R&D team in 2019 and this could be in the thousands,” said Apurva Dalal, head of engineering, Uber India.

Dalal said Uber was trying to create ‘R&D muscle’ here to solve both India’s problems and those of other countries. “It will be the laboratory of the world, with charters to solve global as well as emerging market problems,” said Dalal.

As part of this strategy, he said the company had been reasonably successful in persuading Indians in the US to come back and work here.

The big innovation of the Bengaluru and Hyderabad centres has been Uber Lite, an app that is 85 per cent lighter than the normal Uber app, which has been developed not only for India but for other emerging markets where there are connectivity issues and poor data rates, and where consumers mostly use low-end Android devices with limited storage. Feedback from the data showed that in India, Brazil, Mexico, and much of Africa, 70 per cent of the sessions on Uber were happening on low-end Android phones. The Uber Lite app, first launched in India in July, is now being rolled out in 14 countries in Latin America, Egypt, West Asia, and Africa.

“Five months since its launch, we have got 2.6 million installs of the Uber Lite in India and Latin America combined and we just celebrated 2 million trips on them recently. It is meant to address our next goal of reaching the next billion riders,” said Shirish Andhare, head of product and growth, Uber India.

But Andhare says that the R&D centre in Bengaluru also fundamentally redesigned the app by making it “mapless”.

The reason is that visual maps consume resources. Riders, especially first time, low-end, smartphone users, found them too complex to handle. The answer was to replace the map visual with landmarks or points of interest which are known to riders near their location such as, for instance, the nearby post office or bank.

Uber is also testing a new service “call to ride”, developed again in India, which is meant for consumers such as elderly people who do not want to use apps at all and want to pay in cash.

In this system, riders merely have to call Uber on the phone and give details of their location and what kind of car they want.

The follow-up providing the driver’s name, phone details, and price will come through SMS.

The R&D centres have also worked on an app called Dost which is a community of Uber driver partners, which has been successfully used to get referrals for recruiting new drivers.

Around 20-25 per cent of first-time drivers who join Uber come from referrals made through the app (of course, drivers get an incentive) and this is now being rolled out in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and other parts of Asia.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

12.2. Ikea to invest Rs 5,000 crore ($711 milion) in UP

PTI, Dec. 21, 2018

New Delhi: Ikea is planning to invest Rs 5,000 crore in Uttar Pradesh, where the Swedish home furnishings major is planning to set up large and small format stores.

The investment would create over 8,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the state, said Ikea in a statement.

Ikea, which is planning to set-up a large format store in Noida, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Uttar Pradesh government for opening of stores in the state.

"We plan to invest more than Rs 5,000 crore in the State over the coming years, which will create employment for over 8,000 jobs.

"In line with our new retail direction, we intend to set up a mix of large and smaller city center format stores complimented by e-commerce in the state over time," Ikea India CEO Peter Betzel said.

The company considers UP as an "important market" and for that Ikea is "in dialogue with the present Government to facilitate our expansion plans in the State," the statement said.

In 2013, Ikea received nod from the government to invest Rs 10,500 crore in single-brand retail.

Ikea has opened its first store in India in August this year in Hyderabad.

Ikea's second store will open in Mumbai next year, followed by Bengaluru and Delhi-NCR.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

13.1. Indian startups raise USD 38.3 bn funding in 2018: Report

PTI, Jan. 04, 2019

New Delhi: Indian startups are estimated to have raised USD 38.3 billion in funding in 2018, behind only the US and China, a report by Yostartups said Thursday.

Flipkart's USD 16 billion deal with American retailer Walmart accounted for the biggest piece of the pie, followed by Swiggy raising about USD 1.3 billion over three deals, and OYO picking up USD 1 billion in 2018, the report said.

Other big funding deals included those by Paytm Mall (USD 895 million), ReNew Power (USD 495 million), Byju's (USD 422 million) and Zomato (USD 410 million).

Around 1,000 deals were signed by Indian startups in 2018 with areas like e-commerce, fintech, sustainability and renewable energy, transportation and logistics, health and wellness, and travel and tourism attracting the highest investments, it added.

"There has been a meteoric rise of startup funding for Indian startups. Asia has emerged as a key contender for startups globally, beating the Americas and Europe. In 2018, startups in Asia raised USD 172 billion, compared to USD 162.9 billion in Americas and USD 46.2 billion in Europe," Yostartups CEO Jappreet Sethi said.

Globally, about 14,300 funding deals were struck by startups in 2018, raising over USD 400 billion, an increase of more than 23 per cent from the previous year, the report said.

It added that over 3,700 seed funding deals (totalling USD 6.9 billion) were struck, while 7,357 venture funding deals ranging from series A to Series I were signed in 2018 to raise USD 217.9 billion.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

13.2. Manufacturing sector posts strong sales growth in Q2: RBI

PTI, Dec. 27, 2018

Mumbai: Manufacturing sector, particularly textile and iron and steel segments, maintained its pace of sales growth in the second quarter of 2018-19 as compared to the year-ago period, the RBI said Wednesday.

Demand condition in the manufacturing sector "maintained its pace in the September quarter 2018-19 as reflected in strong sales growth (year-on-year)", as per the RBI analysis of 2,700 listed private sector non-financial companies.

"The manufacturing sector sales growth was mainly supported by robust demand conditions in chemical and chemical products, iron and steel, and petroleum products industries coupled with significant improvement recorded by textile industry," the RBI said.

The central bank said heavy moderation was seen in the sales growth of motor vehicles and other transport equipment, driven in part by a large adverse base effect, and pharmaceutical and medicine industries.

The information technology (IT) sector also recorded further improvement in sales growth over the year-ago period.

The manufacturing sector continued to record strong growth in net profits, which received support from other income.

The RBI said companies in manufacturing sector posted a net profit of Rs 47,100 crore in the reported quarter, up 29.4 per cent from the same period last year. The data is based on abridged financial results of 1,734 companies in the manufacturing sector.

"Despite continuous contraction in the telecommunication, the services (non-IT) sector posted a turnaround riding on the support from wholesale and retail trade," the RBI said.

The profit of IT sector, based on data of 172 firms, was Rs 17,700 crore in the second quarter, up 5.8 per cent over the July-September period of 2017-18.

As per the RBI, the combined sales of 2,700 companies was Rs 9,81,800 crore in the September quarter, up 18.2 per cent from the year-ago period.

Their net profit was Rs 71,900 crore, an increase of 41.7 per cent year-on-year.

On expenditure front, manufacturing companies continued to face rising input cost (cost of raw materials, staff cost) pressures. In case of IT sector, staff costs accelerated in tandem with the improvement in sales growth, the RBI said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

14.1. India's handset industry may go past the 300-million unit mark in 2019

Business Standard, Jan. 07, 2019

New Delhi: Living up to its reputation of making records, the Indian handset industry may add another feature to its cap in 2019.

The local market, bustling with new entrants and frequent launches, is expected to go past the 300-million-unit mark this year.

The feat, if achieved, would help India run close the annual 400-million plus Chinese market, which is the biggest in the world.

India, which has second position in the global mobile handsets market, is projected to grow to 302 million units this year, according to analyst firm TechArc.

While during the past seven years — between early 2012 and the end of 2018 — the local market grew in double digits, 2019 could be the first year in a while when the overall growth rate could come down to 3.4 per cent because falling sales of basic feature phones may dent the industry growth rate.

However, the newly emerging smart feature phones segment may take the lead. A segment, primarily represented by Reliance’s Jio Phone, which offers easy access to the internet through a modified feature phone platform, may corner more than 18 per cent of the local handsets market.

Projected to grow at 15 per cent in 2019, the smart feature phone market could finally offer a gateway to the web-world for price-sensitive consumers in the country.

The fast-growing smartphones market is expected to gain more steam. While between 2016 and 2018 it grew by some 10 per cent, in 2019 it is projected to grow at 11 per cent to be close to 150 million from 135 million in 2018.

Currently, only three markets — China, the US, and India — sell over 100 million smartphones a year.

Renewed vigour in the smartphone space is expected to be backed by frequent technological innovations.

According to analysts, most of the growth in the smartphone space will come from existing users, who will be lured to upgrade their handsets as new features and technologies turn existing features redundant.

According to Will Yang, brand director, OPPO India, the market has grown extensively this year, with some disruption coming in the form of innovation in the space of voice calling, phone cameras, and fast charging. In its bid to bring in new technologies and designs faster to consumers, Oppo will soon open a design centre in London.

Oppo, which was heavily focused on selfie cameras till recently, is now working to become a technology innovator in the smartphone space, he said.

The firm is planning to invest Rs 7 trillion (RMB 10 billion) globally in research and development in 2019.

"The onset of 5G services will spur the next mobile revolution in India. We see robust growth in the smartphone market. We will continue to maintain optimum balance in offline and online platforms to ensure presence and adequate product availability across the country", said Nipun Marya, director of brand strategy at Vivo India.

According to Upasana Joshi, analyst at IDC India, easy financing, with widely available equated monthly schemes (EMI), is driving smartphone sales in India. Also, convenience in purchasing handsets online is a key factor.

During the first three quarters of calendar year 2018, the share of the online channel has only grown — from 36 per cent in January-March to 39 per cent in July-September.

Offline stores, however, may not be left behind.

IDC said currently two-thirds of the buyers visited offline stores before purchase and more than a third of these purchased from physical stores — many through cash payments.

“In offline, apart from multi-brand outlets (MBOs), Reliance Digital stores are emerging as a strong choice for buying premium end devices owing to better discounts and offers,” it noted.

The average selling price of smartphones will continue to rise in 2019 in line with the recent trends.

While currently the average selling price of smartphones in India stands close to Rs 12,700 ($180), it has the potential to cross Rs 14,000 ($200) this year.

TechArc said while Xiaomi, OnePlus, Google, Nokia, Asus and Realme would gain share in 2019, brands like Apple, LG, Poco, Micromax, Intex and Karbonn may see loss of sales.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

14.2. Foxconn to assemble Apple iPhone X series in India

Livemint, 27 Dec. 2018, Sankalp Phartival & Sudarshan Varadhan, Reuters

Foxconn will invest ₹2,500 crore to expand the Sriperambudur plant, including investment in iPhone production, says Tamil Nadu’s industries minister

Mumbai/Delhi: Apple Inc. will begin assembling its top-end iPhones in India through the local unit of Foxconn Technology Co. Ltd as early as 2019, the first time the Taiwanese contract manufacturer will have made the product in the country, according to three people familiar with the matter. Importantly, Foxconn will be assembling the most expensive models, such as the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR, the person said, potentially taking Apple’s business in India to a new level.

The work will take place at Foxconn’s plant in Sriperumbudur, Tamil Nadu, the person added. Foxconn, which already makes phones for Xiaomi Corp. in India, will invest ₹2,500 crore to expand the plant, including investment in iPhone production, Tamil Nadu’s industries minister M.C. Sampath told Reuters. The investment may create as many as 25,000 jobs, he added.

A second person declined to be named as this person is not authorised to speak to the media. A third person confirmed Foxconn planned to assemble iPhones in India.

The Hindu newspaper first reported on 24 December that the Foxconn plant would begin manufacturing various models of the iPhone. Reuters is first to report the size of the investment and the kind of phones to be assembled.

Lower-end phones

Until now, the Cupertino, California-based Apple has only assembled the lower-cost iPhone SE and 6S models in India through Wistron Corp.’s local unit in Bengaluru.

Its sales in India have also been focused on lower-end phones—more than half of its sales volume is driven by models older than the iPhone 8, launched last year, according to technology research firm Counterpoint.

Apple launched the pricey iPhone X last year but has cut production of that phone, according to industry analysts, since it began selling the newer versions, iPhone XS and XR, globally this year.

Still, it could potentially get Foxconn to make the older iPhone X version in India where it sells cheaper models in a bid to get a bigger share of the world’s fastest growing major mobile phone market.

Full details of Apple’s deal with Foxconn are not yet clear and could change.

It is not known if any of the iPhone assembly is being moved from existing Foxconn factories in China and elsewhere. It is also unclear whether the production will be confined to assembly or include any component production in India.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined to comment for this story.

Foxconn said it does not comment on matters related to current or potential customers, or any of their products. It did not immediately respond to a request seeking confirmation that it was investing $356 million in Tamil Nadu.

Apple faces rising threat from Chinese challengers

Apple shocked investors last month with a lower-than-expected sales forecast for the Christmas quarter that jolted parts suppliers across the world.

Foxconn has previously expressed concern over demand for Apple’s flagship devices.

15.1 SEZs generates exports of Rs 3.33 lakh crore ($47,2 bn) and employment of 1.996 million persons

Business Standard, Dec. 18, 2018

New Delhi: SEZs generates investment of Rs 492312 crore

The Special Economic Zones (SEZs) policy was launched in April, 2000. The Special Economic Zones Act, 2005, was passed by Parliament in May, 2005 which received Presidential assent on the 23rd of June, 2005. The SEZs Rules, 2006 came into effect on 10th February, 2006.

The salient features of the SEZ scheme are:-

A designated duty free enclave to be treated as a territory outside the customs territory of India for the purpose of authorized operations in the SEZ; No licence required for import; Manufacturing or service activities allowed; The Unit shall achieve Positive Net Foreign Exchange to be calculated cumulatively for a period of five years from the commencement of production; Domestic sales subject to full customs duty and import policy in force; Full freedom for sub-contracting; No routine examination by customs authorities of export or import cargo; SEZ developers, co-developers and units enjoy direct tax and indirect tax benefits as prescribed in the SEZs Act.

In addition to seven Central Government Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and 11 State/Private Sector SEZs set-up prior to the enactment of the SEZs Act, approvals have been accorded to 420 proposals for setting up of SEZs in the country of 355 notified SEZs, 230 SEZs are operational.

SEZs being set up under the SEZ Act, 2005 and SEZs Rules, 2006 are primarily private investment driven. No funds are sanctioned by the Central Government for setting up of SEZ. However, fiscal concessions and duty benefits have been allowed to developers and units as per the SEZ Act and Rules thereunder. As on 30 September 2018, exports from SEZs was Rs 333661 crore and employment generation was about 19.96 lakh persons and investment of Rs 492312 crore has been made.

The Government had constituted a Group of eminent persons under the Chairmanship of Baba Kalyani, Chairman M/s. Bharat Forge to study the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Policy of India on 04 June 2018. One of the terms of the reference for the group was to make the SEZ Policy WTO compatible. The Group has submitted its report to the Government and its recommendations are being examined through Inter-Ministerial consultations.

Exports of the SEZs in manufacturing sector (Rs crore); Employment in SEZs* (persons)

2015-2016: 214501 cr; 1591381 p

2016-2017: 237502 cr; 1731641 p

2017-2018: 267801 cr; 1977216 p

2018-2019 (Upto 30.09.2018): 160699 cr; 1996610 p

* calculated on cumulative basis.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

15.2. Housing sales may rise 16 pc in 2018; new supply up 32 pc: Anarock

PTI, Dec. 14, 2018

New Delhi: Housing sales are estimated to rise by 16 per cent this year at 2.45 lakh units in seven major cities on better demand for affordable homes, property consultant Anarock said in a report.

During 2018, housing supply rose by 32 per cent to 1.93 lakh units in the seven cities -- Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Pune.

"The fallout of RERA and GST was still very visible in 2018, but the dust began to settle. With developers and brokers accepting the new market realities and beginning to fall in line, the residential sector began to regain visibility and viability," Anarock founder and chairman Anuj Puri said.

"Transparency and accountability never the defining characteristics of Indian real estate became the 'new normal' this year, and the market reacted positively," he said.

As per the data, the new launch supply across top seven cities is estimated to be 193,600 units by the end of 2018, up 32 per cent from 146,850 units in 2017. Affordable housing accounted for the lion's share of this supply with over 41 per cent of the new supply coming in this category.

"Housing sales in 2018 are estimated to be 245,500 units if we consider Q4 sales to match those of the preceding quarter at 211,140 units in 2017, this is an annual increase of 16 per cent," the report said.

Unsold housing stock stood at 6.87 lakh units at the end of September 2018, down 8 per cent from 7,44,000 units in Q3 2017.

Average property prices remained largely static across the top seven cities in 2018. In fact, average property prices at the pan-India level saw only one per cent increase to Rs 5,545 per sq ft in 2018 from Rs 5,491 per sq ft in 2017.

"The issue of stalled projects showed few signs of resolution in 2018. However, a number of landmark court judgments strongly indicated that the Indian legal system is awake and aware of the problem," Anarock said.

The consultant said that affordable housing, backed by a series of government sops during 2018, kept the residential supply momentum ticking.

"In sharp contrast to earlier years where the 'affordable' tag was considered down-market and avoidable, 2018 saw almost every real estate developer regardless of market footprint and previous category orientations eager to take a bite out of the affordable housing pie," Puri said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

- SERVICES (Education, Healthcare, IT, R&D, Tourism, etc.)

16.1. Nearly 16% growth in Foreign Tourist Arrivals for Medical Tourism in 2017: Shri K. J. Alphons

Press Information Bureau, Dec. 18, 2018

New Delhi: The Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India on medical visa during 2016 and 2017 were estimated at 4, 27, 014 and 4, 95, 056 respectively, registering a positive growth of 15.9%.

Medical Tourism holds immense potential for India. The Indian systems of medicines, viz. Ayurveda, Yoga, Panchakarma, Rejuvenation Therapy, etc., are among the most ancient systems of medical treatment in the world. India can provide medical and health care of international standards at low costs. India excels in the state of the art medical facilities, reputed health care professionals, quality nursing facilities and traditional healthcare therapies.

The Ministry of Tourism has taken various steps to promote Medical Tourism which inter-alia includes:

Launch of campaigns in the international markets including for medical tourism under the Incredible India brand-line; conducting Road Shows, Know India Seminars;
Ministry produces brochures, CDs, films and other publicity material for promotion of Medical & Health Tourism. The film on Medical Tourism film was aired in the Middle East and North African Market. On social media Medical Tourism is being promoted across various platforms.
In order to provide dedicated institutional framework to take forward the cause of promotion of Medical Tourism, a National Medical and Wellness Tourism Board has been constituted.
Department of Commerce and Services Export Promotion Council have launched a Healthcare Portal www.indiahealthcaretourism.com, as a single source platform providing comprehensive information to medical travellers on the top healthcare institutions in the country in various languages.
The e-tourist visa regime has been expanded to include medical visits as well. Medical and Medical attendant visa has been introduced to ease the travel process of Medical Tourists. The maximum duration of stay in India under the e-Medical visa is a longer duration of six months.

This information was given by Shri K. J. Alphons, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

16.2. Capgemini raises fresher salary by 20%, adds 25,000 more people this year

Business Standard, Dec. 20, 2018

New Delhi: In a move that is seen as the growing importance of India as a global delivery and innovation base, French information technology (IT) services and consulting major Capgemini has raised fresher salary by 20 per cent, while increasing its headcount in the country aggressively.

In the 2018 campus hiring season, the company said it is offering between 15-20 per cent more compensation to the campus recruits at around Rs 380,000. The company said it was expecting to add around 25,000 more people to its India team on a gross basis, including freshers as well as lateral hires. After its acquisition of iGate, Capgemini already has a significant presence in India, with close to 106,000 employees - which are more than half of its global workforce.

“We hire across IITs, IIITs, NITs, and premium colleges, apart from selecting students from our strategic colleges. Between 2018 and 2019, we will hire at least 20 per cent more,” said Ashwin Yardi, chief executive officer (CEO) at Capgemini India. “Across the board, we are increasing the compensation of entry-level (employees) by at least 20 per cent,” he added.

After staying stagnant for almost a decade plus, the fresher salary offered by the IT services companies is starting to see some upward revision, albeit selectively. India’s largest IT services company, Tata Consultancy Services, for example, has announced close to double the salary of select recruits who will work on cutting-edge technologies.

However, those numbers will be limited to around top 1,000 candidates to whom the company is selecting through a national qualifying test. Similarly, Larsen & Toubro Technology Services, an Indian services company, has also announced to increase fresher salary by close to 25 per cent. The average fresher salary in the industry, however, stands around Rs 350,000.

According to Capgemini, it has different compensation stacks based on the category of institutes. Salaries for new recruits from base colleges now stand at Rs 380,000 after this upward revision.

“We want to make India at the forefront of driving innovations in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, automation, analytics, among others,” said Yardi, who was previously the chief operating officer for Capgemini India before taking up the new role.

Capgemini, which already has an applied innovation exchange in Mumbai to drive innovation in new technology areas, is also planning to launch another one in Hyderabad.

With the new CEO at the helm, the company now wants to renew its focus on India as a growth market. “Our focus in the Indian market has two-three dimensions. To a large extent, we want to work with our global clients. We also want to focus on our differentiated offerings in sectors such as retail, automotive, financial services for private enterprises.”

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

17.1. India leads the way when it comes to learning on YouTube: Don Anderson

Livemint, 21 Dec. 2018, Nandita Mathur

Don Anderson shared insights about the creator community in India and how YouTube plans to support it.

New Delhi: Don Anderson, head of family and learning partnerships at YouTube APAC, was in Delhi last week for the first EduCon for the Asia-Pacific region. EduCon is a EduTuber Summit where YouTube educational content creators gather for learning, community building and mentorship activities. In an interview, he shared insights about the creator community in India and how YouTube plans to support it. Edited excerpts:

How has learning as a category grown on YouTube in India?

We started seeing learning grow as a category over the last three years and though we are in phase 1, it is still early days yet but the growth is very, very strong. We are seeing more and more people going to YouTube to learn, rather than for entertainment. Out of 35 education and learning channels in APAC that have 1 million plus subscribers, nine channels are from India.

Besides, there are over 150 education and learning channels with 100,000 plus subscribers. In fact, our top education and learning creators in India have upwards of 68 million subscribers, while on an average, we have over a million viewers every day watching learning content on these channels. Learning and education is a key priority for us as announced by our CEO Susan Wojcicki earlier this year. We also announced a funding of $20 million (global fund) in October to support creators who make some of the best learning content on YouTube.

What drives this growth in India?

Indians are getting onto YouTube to learn all kinds of things, we haven’t seen something like this in any other market. Studies show that 71% of online video viewers go first to YouTube to watch videos to learn something. In fact, according to Ipsos research, when millennials want to learn something new, 68% of them choose to go to YouTube and this is not just a metro phenomenon anymore. With improved access and low cost data, users in tier 2 and tier 3 cities are getting online to learn new skills to improve their livelihoods. We have a plethora of content from academic content—like maths, science, engineering to videos that are teaching skills like dairy farming. Also, our learning content is not limited to English language but is available across a variety of Indian languages such as Tamil, Hindi, Telugu and Marathi.

In fact, the flagship channel of National Programme for Technology Enhanced Learning , a joint initiative from IITs and IISc to offer online courses and certification in various topics, has crossed 1 million subscribers.

How are you helping the creator community in India?

We have workshops and training programmes that enable the creator community to interface and interact with each other. They also get a chance to meet our team who train them. For the APAC region, we have also started providing access to actual grants where creators who meet the criteria can submit their proposals and apply for a grant.

How do you plan to make India the hub of all learning content?

India is leading the way when it comes to learning on YouTube in APAC. For instance, the civil services examination 2017 topper Anudeep Durishetty attributes his success to all the learning he did via YouTube videos. This is the biggest learning revolution in the world because it touches everyone.

17.2. Funding in deep-tech start-ups climbs to record $248 million so far this year

Livemint, 11 Dec. 2018, M. Sriram

Deep-tech is terminology for advanced technology used to develop new business models

Mumbai: Investments in deep-tech start-ups, such as those driven by artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and robotics, have touched an all-time high of $247.78 million so far in 2018, more than twice the $96.8 million in 2017, according to data from Tracxn Technologies, a data analytics firm tracking start-ups.

Deep-tech is terminology for advanced technology used to develop new business models.

In terms of ticket size, the largest investment was raised by warehousing automation and robotics start-up Grey Orange. It raised $140 million in a Series C round from Mithril Capital and Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, among others. It was valued at about $500 million. Mithril Capital was co-founded by legendary Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel and Ajay Royan.

In October, Concept Medical, a health start-up that makes a special kind of catheter (sirolimus balloon coated), raised $60 million from angel investor Dr. Kiran Patel, in the second biggest tech deal in 2018.

Experts said rising investor interest in niche technology segments is driven by the growing talent pool in India. “A surge in deep-tech talent in areas such as data science, AI and ML, is driving higher interest in deep-tech start-ups,” said Sanjay Nath, managing partner, Blume Ventures.

Experts also flagged segments such as healthcare as having huge untapped potential for deep technology solutions.

“This augurs well for a country such as India given the relative shortage of good healthcare infrastructure, which is accentuated by poor doctor-patient ratios,” said Anil Joshi, managing partner, Unicorn India Ventures, an early stage investor.

On 12 November, Mint reported that funding in health-tech start-ups this year hit an all time high of $510 million. Health-tech is broadly defined as the use of technologies such as analytics, internet of things, mobile and wearable devices to improve delivery of healthcare services.

However, deal volumes in the deep-tech sector fell for the third straight year from 63 in 2016 and 58 in 2017 to 39 in 2018, indicating larger ticket sizes for individual deals—a trend seen in the broader venture space.

Mint reported on 9 October that an average seed stage round in 2018 was 25% higher than last year. According to Tracxn data, the total number of private equity and venture capital deals have fallen for the fourth year, though values have consistently risen. While the number of deals has fallen from 876 in 2015 to 659 this year, deal value has risen from $18.2 billion to $27.7 billion.

“The challenge in India has been to find AI and deep-tech companies that have scaled up in revenue, but this will be resolved with time,” said Niren Shah, managing director at Norwest Venture Partners India, which has invested in deep-tech start-ups such as RevX- a mobile marketing platform, Appnomic Systems, an IT performance-management system based on machine learning, and Attune Technologies, which provides cloud-based hospital information network, among others.

18.1. Asian firms bet on India to set up R&D units to boost tech innovations

Business Standard, Jan. 09, 2019

Bengaluru: After US and European companies, now Asian firms are also betting big on Indian talent by setting up research and development (R&D) units, also known as global in-house centres (GICs), in the country to drive innovation in new technologies.

In the last one year, at least nine large business conglomerates from countries like Japan and Singapore have set up their captive technology centres in India to step up research and development in areas like Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, data analytics, among others. Experts say that apart from the country’s huge talent pool, its growing start-up ecosystem and cost efficiency are the other factors that have spurred the move.

“Asian firms have realized that many US and European companies have grown by leveraging Indian talent. So skill is the primary reason behind setting up Indian captives,” said Pareekh Jain, an engineering services consultant and founder of Pareekh Consulting. “These Asian firms also see India as a huge market which they want to serve through local presence.”

For years India has been an attractive place for global corporations to set up GICs. According to management consultancy firm Zinnov, out of a total of 1,257 GICs in operation in the country, 976 are devoted to core R&D. However, the landscape has traditionally been dominated by large US and Canadian companies who together account for 65 per cent of the GICs, closely followed by European firms.

"Currently, only around 7 per cent of the captives are by Asian companies. But, of late, we have seen more Asian firms setting up centres in the country — a trend which has gained momentum in the last 3-4 years," said Ravi Kiran, Senior Consultant at Zinnov.

According to Zinnov, Asian firms that have set up GICs in India recently include Singapore-based e-commerce company RedMart, Go Jet airlines and DBS Bank. In December Chinese smartphone marker, Oppo announced its plan to set up a GIC here while OnePlus too commissioned its unit in Hyderabad recently.

“We see tremendous potential in the R&D space in India, especially in software. In fact, we are scaling up our Hyderabad R&D centre and we expect this to become our largest R&D centre globally in the next three years,” Pete Lau, founder and CEO of OnePlus told Business Standard.

Around 30 companies from Japan already have their GIC here as do South Korean firms like Samsung and Mobis. The new entrants include Japan’s Nissan Motor and Rakuten. Nissan, which announced last month that it would set up a global digital hub for driverless cars in Thiruvananthapuram, wants to hire about 550 technology professionals by March 2019.

Similarly, Japanese internet firm Rakuten plans to drive most of its tech research from India and is all set to double its headcount in the country to around 900 over the next 12 to 18 months. "India has a vibrant start-up ecosystem. These Asian firms want to leverage that and also collaborate on future technologies. Some of them are even looking to acquire start-ups if there is a right fit," said Siddharth Pai, a former outsourcing advisor and founder of Siana Capital.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

18.2. IBM receives 9,100 patents in 2018; India second highest contributor

PTI, Jan. 09, 2019

New Delhi: Tech giant IBM Tuesday said it has received 9,100 patents in 2018 across areas like artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and cyber-security, with India being the second highest contributor to the global record tally.

"In 2018, IBM employee inventors received a record number of 9,100 patents, marking the company's 26th consecutive year of the US patent leadership. IBM also led the industry in the number of AI, cloud computing, security and quantum computing-related patent grants, with more than 4,000 patents," it said.

IBM inventors from India received over 800 of patents, the second highest contributor to the global record tally, it added.

It is committed to leading the way on technologies that change the way the world works and solving problems which many people have not even thought of yet, IBM chairman, president and CEO Ginni Rometty said.

"Our clients and their customers are the beneficiaries of these innovations, particularly our leadership in AI, cloud, blockchain and security for business," she added.

Overall, the patents were granted to a diverse group of more than 8,500 IBM inventors in over 40 countries.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

19.1. India shall be leading world in next two decades: Mukesh Ambani

PTI, Dec. 20, 2018

New Delhi: Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani said Wednesday that India will lead the world in digital connectivity, which is bringing over billion minds to work together.

He said that 1.3 billion people of the country can participate in data driven fourth industrial revolution and solve biggest problems that humanity faces.

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution is now upon us. Data is the foundation of this revolution. India is already generating significant quantum of data. I can say with confidence that India has a chance of not just participating in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but also leading it," Reliance Industries Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani said while speaking at Republic Summit.

He said that India at present is a very young nation, with 63 per cent of its 1.3 billion population are aged below 35.

"India's vast tech-savvy young population is its key strength. Just imagine the kind of connected intelligence India can create if the power of a billion-plus minds is combined!...Over the next two decades, I can confidently say that India shall be leading the world and shall contribute the next wave of global economic growth," Ambani said.

Ambani, who also heads Reliance Jio, said all Indians will have access to massive computing on the cloud, and access to all information on the planet.

"Jio is determined to connect everyone and everything, everywhere always at the highest quality and the most affordable price. I am proud to say that, instead of a digital divide, India today is digitally united. All 1.3 billion connected minds are going to accelerate the future," he added said.

He said that every single aspect of human life will undergo massive transformation within next few decades.

"Early adopters will have the opportunity to leap-frog competition, and create unprecedented societal value," he noted.

Ambani, whose firm owns Network18 media group, said that he understands business of media and advent of digital technologies have changed the media dynamics.

"Before the advent of Digital Technologies, the so-called mass media was essentially without the masses. The masses were passive consumers of media. Now the masses have become both producers and owners of media. Look at Social Media. I believe that Digital is the greatest friend of Democracy," Ambani said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

19.2. Jio to become India's No 1 telecom operator by 2021: Bernstein report

PTI, Dec. 11, 2018

New Delhi: Richest Indian Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd could become the country's No 1 telecom operator by revenue in 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022, a Sanford C Bernstein & Co report said.

Reliance Jio started operations two years back with free voice calls and data offering. It started to charge for data - voice calls to be free-for-life - last year and had amassed about 227 million subscribers to rank third largest telecom operator in the country behind Vodafone-Idea combine and Bharti Airtel Ltd.

Bernstein in the report said when it in 2015 initiated coverage of the Indian telecommunications market, it knew Jio was destined to profoundly change the landscape -- the company had national spectrum, had been building out national fibre, and had the backing of the richest man in India.

"We expected 'unlimited' voice and 'big buckets of data' to put pressure on the market forcing consolidation of the many smaller players. We even contemplated Jio could eventually surpass Idea Cellular to become the third largest operator in the country," it said. "We never expected, nor did we think possible, that it could eventually become the leading operator in the market."

No startup operator has managed such a feat anywhere and certainly not in a market where penetration levels among the 'middle classes' were already high.

Bharti Airtel had survived extreme Darwinian competition to emerge a highly competitive market leader (in 2015), while Vodafone has the backing of a global giant. Idea was placed No 3. Vodafone and Idea merged this year to become the biggest operator.

"Having observed the evolution of mobile markets globally for over 20 years, our 'expert' opinion was that reaching number one would be impossible. Our long-term forecasts have similarly mirrored this view," Bernstein analysts Chris Lane and Samuel Chen wrote in the report.

The report said an update of long-term forecasts is now being published, which for the first time, shows Jio reaching the number one position.

"Given the current rate of ongoing customer acquisition, we think Jio could reach the leading position on a revenue basis by 2021 and on a subscriber basis by 2022," Bernstein said. "We are now convinced Jio's relentless subsidy of JioPhones will continue until this goal is realised."

Industry-leading rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd and Vodafone Idea Ltd lack the "stomach" to battle Jio, which is luring away users with free voice services and inexpensive phones. "Instead we believe they have accepted their fate, and are looking forward to a time when Jio, having achieved a leading position, starts to monetise their base through higher pricing," it said.

Jio, the report said, will continue to add significant customer numbers as they continue to subsidise their JioPhones. Jio has consistently been adding 6 to 10 million new active customers per month. "While not specifically disclosed, our understanding is that most of these additions are due to customers taking a highly subsidised JioPhone."

The company sells 4G JioPhone for a refundable deposit of Rs 1,500.

Both Bharti and Vodafone management have indicated they do not believe in handset subsidies for pre-paid users.

"We concur, but if left unchallenged we believe Jio could reach the leading revenue market share position by 2021 and by subscribers by 2022. We now expect Jio to reach 28 per cent revenue market share and 26 per cent subscriber share by the end of this financial year (March 2019) as we expect both Bharti and Vodafone to not respond directly," it said.

Jio's entry into telecom sector triggered a price war and consolidation in one of the world's most crowded mobile markets. Its free introductory nationwide 4G wireless service started in 2016, instantly roiling the world's largest telecommunications sector after China's.

Jio currently has a 16 per cent revenue and subscriber market share. Bharti Airtel has 31 per cent revenue market and 26 per cent subscriber market share. Vodafone-Idea has 42 per cent revenue market share and 37 per cent subscriber market share.

By end of 2020-21, Jio would have clocked 34 per cent revenue market share at the expense of Vodafone-Idea and Bharti Airtel's whose share may decline to 31 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.

By 2021-22, Jio would have 32 per cent of the subscribers as the share of Vodafone-Idea would dip to 31 per cent. Bharti Airtel would have a share of around 27 per cent, it said.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

20.1. Decoding Zee’s plan to play the global stage

Livemint, 10 Dec. 2018, Shuchi Bansal

Realizing that the broadcasting business is changing rapidly, Zee seeks to embrace a global technology partner. Will it work?

New Delhi: Zee founder and Essel Group chairman Subhash Chandra does not believe that life is coming a full circle for the broadcasting company as it is once again looking for a foreign partner. After all, when it started out in 1992, Zee partnered with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp in the broadcasting and distribution businesses. “Those times were different and these are completely different times. We are looking for a technology partner as India is way behind the world as far as tech goes,” says Chandra.

“We will not be able to compete in a changing competitive environment if we do not get the technology. Besides, Punit and Amit (his sons, who carry the Goenka surname) have the ambition to turn Zee into a global company. They have my blessings for this initiative,” he adds.

Does the aim to set up an Indian media giant tie in with the overt nationalism that is on display in Zee’s channels? “That’s in the news business. This deal has nothing to do with news,” says the 68-year-old Chandra. “Besides, we need to evolve. Now, the children are running the show,” he adds.

Ask Punit Goenka, managing director and CEO of Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL), and he insists that Zee’s desire to be recognized as a global brand is nothing new. Zee first started working with global brand consultancy Interbrand in 2015. In Interbrand’s managing director Ashish Mishra’s words, the objective was to “be a top global media brand from an emerging market”. So, this November, Zee “reiterated” its intent to become a global conglomerate by announcing the appointment of Goldman Sachs Securities (India) Ltd as an investment banker and Lion Tree as an advisor to look for a strategic investor in ZEEL. The company expects the outcome of the strategic review to be concluded by March or April 2019.

Goenka says the decision was taken after deliberations with family members during the Diwali weekend. Arguing that the company is doing exceptionally well as far as the broadcast network is concerned, and that its video streaming platform Zee5 is the second largest player in the market, Goenka stresses that the move to find a partner is the only way to help transform ZEEL from a pure content company to a content technology company that can compete in a rapidly evolving digital world.

For Goenka, the end game is simple: “Our aspiration is to demonstrate that there is a media company coming from the emerging market that can leave a real mark on the global platform.”

The announcement took the broadcasting industry by surprise. Media experts suggest that firms like Apple, Google, Alibaba, and Comcast could be among those interested in partnering with Zee. Goenka declined to comment about the specific names in the fray, though he admitted that a number of companies have expressed interest. “We have been in an active dialogue for a couple of months,” he says.

Explaining the step, Goenka says that as long as ZEEL is aiming the South Asian diaspora, it has enough reach, but if it has to truly be a content and tech firm, it needs a strategic partner. “We could have done it alone but it would have taken longer and the risk would have been higher. We are readying the company for another disruption,” he says. He also clarified that the intention is only to sell a 50% stake. “I don’t envisage us exiting the business. We want to be an equal and strategic partner,” he says.

The competition

The triggers behind the move are easy to spot. The contours of the broadcasting business are changing rapidly. In India, ZEEL would soon be pitted against the Star-Disney combine after Disney closed the deal to acquire some of Rupert Murdoch-owned 21st Century Fox’s global assets (including Star in India). The combined strength of the two behemoths could stiffen the competitive landscape in India where Zee has been performing well.

Ronnie Screwvala, a serial entrepreneur who now runs the production company RSVP, sees the Disney-Star combo in India as a key development. He says that the merged entity would boast of streaming platforms Hotstar and Hulu in its portfolio. Besides, it will be able to bring global content from Marvel. The platform already has strong local content and ready audience connect through Star, which also owns major sports broadcast rights. “If they make the right investments, they are and will be a formidable player,” says Screwvala, who sold his company UTV to Disney six years ago.

That is not all. Even Reliance Industries-backed Viacom18 group in India— with brands like Colors, MTV and Nickelodeon—is now much stronger thanks to its synergy with Reliance Jio. Currently, Viacom18 runs 42 channels in seven languages and has interests in television broadcasting, films and digital with its video-on-demand platform Voot. As a controlling partner in Viacom18, RIL can fully exploit the synergy with its telecom brand Jio, media experts say, which will have more content than any other telco. They say that Jio and Viacom18 could script a very successful convergence story as the two businesses complement each other and offer a strategic advantage.

“What AT&T and a Comcast may not be able to do in the short or long term, a Jio will do very well in the India . It will be a consumer content company of tomorrow—owning the customer, the handset and all parts of the content ecosystem including entertainment,” says Screwvala.

To be sure, the pitch in India is being further muddled by the widening penetration of other over-the-top (OTT) video streaming platforms. There are some 30 brands in India today—both international and Indian, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hotstar, and ALTBalaji, among others. In the long-term, these will eat away into television audiences. In fact, by 2020, India is expected to become the second largest video-viewing audience globally. Online video audience in the country is expected to reach 500 million by 2020, from 250 million in 2017, according to the Ficci EY media and entertainment industry report 2018.

The online disruption

Entertainment Goes Online, a report by Boston Consulting Group says that the OTT video streaming market in India will touch $5 billion by 2023. The growth is likely to be driven by rising affluence, the increase in data penetration, and adoption across demographic categories as more women and older people get onboard. The report further estimates that by 2023, there will be 40-50 million users paying for SVoD (subscription-led video-on-demand) services, while 600 million will be engaged on AVoD (advertising-led video-on-demand) platforms.

The report says that like in developed markets, viewers in India, too, will use two to three OTT apps. In light of these predictions, independent media consultant Chintamani Rao says that Zee has some OTT play, but it has to either buy digital capability or sell a stake to someone who has digital capability. “Zee’s future requirement is digital play,” he stresses. To be sure, Zee launched Zee5 in February this year by subsuming its earlier two OTT brands Ozee (advertising-led) and Ditto TV (subscription-led). Zee5 was launched with 1 lakh hours of content, including exclusive originals, Indian and international movies, and TV shows, music, live television, health and lifestyle videos in 12 regional languages. Currently, Star-owned OTT platform Hotstar is the largest brand with 150 million active monthly users.

Another important reason why Subhash Chandra’s move makes sense is because the broadcasting environment itself is undergoing a change in India, thanks to the recent Supreme Court judgment in Star India Pvt. Ltd versus the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai). On 30 October, the SC gave the go-ahead to Trai’s tariff order on interconnect regulations for pricing and packaging of TV channels offered to subscribers, which insists on a list of channel genres and a genre-wise ceiling on channel prices.

In the short term, the broadcasters may not exactly be celebrating the Trai order. They will now have to spell out the price of each channel separately for the consumer. Jehil Thakkar, partner at management consulting firm Deloitte India says: “This will definitely have an adverse impact on broadcasters who were driving the reach of some of their smaller channels through the heft of more popular shows and channels by clubbing them into a bouquet.” This may slow down new channel launches and may impact revenues of some of the less popular channels as the consumer is now being asked to pay for whatever he watches.

Some feel that old media is on shaky grounds. “But it won’t crash though its profitability may go down,” says the former head of an entertainment channel who chose not to be named. The traditional system had content creators, broadcasters, cable operators and consumers. “Now, the content creators are reaching out directly to the consumers—like in the case of Netflix. Subhash Chandra is used to profitability. But right now digital wants investments and there is no revenue,” he says.

The end game

So how will the Zee move impact the media industry? Ajay Gupta, a partner at AT Kearney, calls it an era of hyper-consolidation where big companies merge to create bigger behemoths. “Also it is essentially a move towards globalization. It becomes a large-scale global play. The Disney-Fox deal is a case in point. These are global companies no longer fighting in the local pond,” he says.

India has never been a protected market and all the international majors operate quite freely here. “They come armed with their home market success and a huge war chest. It’s not a level playing field. ...mergers and collaborations make sense for both Indian and global companies as they can complement each other ... The Zee tagline ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ meaning ‘the world is my family’ is truly prophetic for what the future holds,” says Sameer Nair, chief executive at content studio Applause Entertainment.

Goenka agrees, saying there is a very thin line of difference between media and technology firms. While the firms merely tapping local and domestic markets may not sense the need for a larger alliance, “for the ones with global ambitions, integration with world-class technology is certainly a need of the hour,” he says.

Nair believes that more than just collaboration, the age of the much-touted convergence is finally here. “It is no longer about industry market share; it’s now about share of time and wallet,” he says. Increasingly, companies are straddling multiple touch points for consumers and in the process destroying old world labels like media. Amazon, an ecommerce retailer, also sells movies and premium dramas, as do telecom operators like Jio and Vodafone, or television broadcasters like Star and Zee. Soon, social media platforms like Facebook and devices like Apple will do the same. The future of media does not belong to ‘media companies’, but to companies that successfully monopolize the consumer’s time and wallet,” Nair argues. Zee has taken an aggressive call to embrace the future. The picture will only get clearer when the deal is struck.

20.2. 139 Cruise ships carrying over 1.6 lakh passengers visited India in 2017-18: Shri K J Alphons

Press Information Bureau, Jan. 08, 2019

In the year 2017-18, a total of 139 Cruise ships carrying 1,62,660 passengers visited India at six major ports namely Mumbai Port, Mormugao Port, New Mangalore Port, Cochin Port, Chennai Port and Kolkata Port.

The five major ports of the country namely, Mumbai Port, Mormugao Port, New Mangalore Port, Cochin Port and Chennai Port have been developed to attract cruise ships with dedicated terminals and other related infrastructure for berthing of cruise vessels and embarking and disembarking of cruise passengers.

The Ministry of Shipping has brought out a Vision Document with a view to develop India as a Cruise shipping destination. The vision document envisages to develop supporting infrastructure for cruise tourism at ports, to give special focus on developing the domestic cruise industry through policy supports, incentives and port infrastructure development. Separately, Ministry of Shipping & Ministry of Tourism has jointly appointed a consultant for ‘Preparation of Action Plan for Development of Cruise Tourism in India.

The Cruise tourism operations augment local economic activities as business opportunities arise for supply for provisions, transport, hotels, bunkering etc. to cruise ships which generate direct and indirect employment and help in growth of local economy.

This information was given by Shri K. J. Alphons, Union Minister of State (I/C) for Tourism in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

INDIA AND THE WORLD

21. Brazil approves WTO action over Indian sugar subsidies

Livemint, 12 ec. 2018, Marcelo Teixeira, Reuters

Brazil said it has decided to start a formal action at the WTO after failing to receive enough information from India following letters it sent to the Indian govt seeking clarifications on sugar policies

India is expected to surpass Brazil as the world’s largest sugar producer in the current global sugar crop, with output around 33 million tonnes.

Sao Paulo: The Brazilian government approved consultations at the World Trade Organization regarding subsidies it says India gives to cane producers and sugar exporters, Brazil’s trade ministry said.

Brazil said it has decided to start a formal action at the WTO after failing to receive enough information from India following letters it sent to the Indian government seeking clarifications on sugar policies.

“The suspicion is that Indian domestic support (to farmers) and its subsidies to sugar exports caused significant impacts in the sugar market in a context of falling prices and decreasing production in the main centers Brazil, China and Thailand,” the Brazilian trade ministry said in a written statement late Tuesday.

India is expected to surpass Brazil as the world’s largest sugar producer in the current global sugar crop, with output around 33 million tonnes while Brazil’s production is expected to fall almost 10 million tonnes to below 30 million tonnes.

Brazil said India’s government policy to guarantee a minimum price for cane to farmers has caused production to surge. It says this policy, combined with subsidies to sugar transportation, is allowing the country to ship excess sugar production abroad.

Sugar prices in New York reached a 10-year low in September. Prices have recovered a bit since then, but are still barely covering production costs for most companies.

As a result, Brazilian mills sharply reduced their sugar production in the current season, diverting cane to ethanol instead and leaving sugar equipment idle.

22. EU, India and China ‘new trilateral’ at WTO, says US

Livemint, 13 Dec. 2018, D. Ravi Kanth

US unilaterally blocks proposal for filling four vacancies at WTO’s Appellate Body

Geneva: The US on Wednesday called the European Union (EU), India, and China the new “trilateral” at the World Trade Organization (WTO) as it rejected a proposal from the three sponsors for salvaging the highest court for global trade disputes from becoming dysfunctional in the next 12 months, saying Washington’s concerns about the functioning of the court remain unaddressed, according to people familiar with the development.

The US has unilaterally blocked a proposal for filling four vacancies at WTO’s Appellate Body (AB) for the past two years, saying the AB breached its mandate by going beyond the dispute settlement understanding in its rulings. The US said the AB had failed to adhere to the 90-day limit for issuing rulings and passed judgements on issues that were not part of its mandate.

The AB has been reduced to three members from seven due to the US blocking the selection process. From December 2019, the AB will be reduced to a single member when two more members—Ujal Singh Bhatia of India and Thomas Graham of the US—retire at the end of their second term.

To address the US’ concerns, India joined the EU, China, Canada, Norway, New Zealand, Switzerland, Australia, Korea, Iceland, Singapore and Mexico, to issue a joint proposal on 26 November calling for filling “the vacancies on the Appellate Body and to amend certain provisions of the Understanding on Rules and Procedures Governing the Settlement of Disputes (DSU).”

The 12 sponsors proposed a “transitional rule for outgoing Appellate Body members” by amending the provisions of the dispute settlement understanding. “The DSU would provide that an outgoing Appellate Body member shall complete the disposition of a pending appeal in which a hearing has already taken place during that member’s term,” according to the amendment proposed by the sponsors.

A second proposal by the EU and China and India on 26 November called for enhancing “the independence of the Appellate Body and its members, which is needed in view of the experience of recent years.” The EU, India and China called for providing “for one single but longer (6-8 years) term for Appellate Body members.” “The objective is to enhance the independence of the Appellate Body and its members, which is needed in view of the experience of recent years,” the three signatories had argued.

At the crucial year-end General Council meeting on Wednesday, US trade envoy Dennis Shea rejected the proposal from India, China and the EU, arguing it will make the AB “even less accountable.” Shea said the proposal by the “trilateral” aims “to change the rules to authorize and accommodate the very approaches that would make the AB even less accountable.”

The US, he said, made it very clear the Appellate Body member follow the rules that were agreed to in 1995.

India said the “existential crisis” facing the AB is its gravest concern. “We believe that an independent, two-stage dispute settlement system is imperative for the fair enforcement of the rules of international trade,” India maintained.

“The impending paralysis and possible disappearance of the Appellate Body will be a fatal blow to the credibility of the WTO,” Indian envoy J.S. Deepak argued. “ Without a system of enforcement of existing rules, the appetite for making new rules or for reforms would be poor,” India cautioned. Deepak said there should be no linkage for addressing the AB crisis with other reforms being proposed by some members.

23.1. World Economic Forum recognizes Tata Steel's Netherlands plant as 'factory of the future'

PTI, Jan. 11, 2019

London: The World Economic Forum on Thursday announced that Tata Steel's plant at IJmuiden in the Netherlands has been inducted into its prestigious community, a distinction awarded to manufacturing facilities which are seen as leaders in technologies of the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution'.

Assessing more than 1,000 factories in 2018, the WEF recognised Tata Steel's IJmuiden plant and six others as 'Manufacturing Lighthouses' state-of-the-art production facilities which successfully adopt and integrate the cutting-edge technologies of the future and drive financial and operational impact.

This makes Tata Steel part of a network of just 16 key factories to create the world's leading learning platforms for production. To aid the learning and adoption of technologies by other companies, the 'Lighthouse' companies are committed to open their doors and share their knowledge with other manufacturing businesses.

Hans Fischer, CEO of Tata Steel in Europe, said, "It's an honour to be recognised by the World Economic Forum as one of a handful of manufacturing facilities worldwide which set a global benchmark for the factory of the future. This is an acknowledgement of both the thriving culture of innovation at Tata Steel, and our advanced analytics team's vision and commitment to realising more efficient, productive and responsible steelmaking".

Tata Steel's site at IJmuiden has been lauded for its pioneering use of advanced analytics to optimise the way raw materials are used, increase the yield at every step of the steelmaking process and further improve logistics between the different processes and the quality of the product for customers.

Additionally, the recently established Advanced Analytics Academy gives Tata Steel employees an impetus to find solutions for waste reduction, quality improvement and overall reliability of production processes.

T V Narendran, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Steel Limited, said "Over the last couple of years, we have made concerted efforts, both in Europe and India, to leverage technology in a game-changing manner across our value chain to gain competitive advantage and to enhance our customer and stakeholder experience. We are delighted to be recognised for our efforts and look forward to collaborating with the World Economic Forum to share our learnings from this journey".

In 2017 the World Economic Forum set up a network of leading intelligent production companies ('Lighthouses') under its 'Shaping the Future of Production' initiative to allow the exchange of knowledge and promote collaborations in the area of the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution' in production.

This describes the advances in communications and connectivity which are allowing technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics to become more embedded within the economy and society.

'Lighthouse' factories are showcases of how best to develop a strategy for the 'Fourth Industrial Revolution', train employees, cooperate with other parties, implement changes in the workplace and in the value chain and through greater efficiency and contribute to reducing the climate footprint of production companies by 50 per cent.

Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same.

23.2. A year of redefinitions and discoveries

Livemint, 22 Dec. 2018, Nitin Sreedhar

Lounge looks at some key moments in the field of science and technology in 2018

The end of another year presents a great opportunity to look back at some of the scientific discoveries and milestones in technology in the past year. In March, the scientific world lost one of its brightest minds in the form of cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. But this was also the year scientists discovered a new cell (rosehip neuron) in the human brain. Space agencies worldwide took big steps to know more about the origins of Mars, while India laid out a blueprint for its second lunar exploration mission in 2019 and its first manned space mission by 2021.

The use and reach of artificial intelligence in our daily lives was a point of contention yet again. Gene editing—its ethics and practicality—remained in the spotlight, while the battle between what is fact and what is fake news continued. As expected, a lot of these issues and developments will continue to simmer and trickle into the new year. Here’s a quick look at some of the biggest moments in 2018 from the field of science and technology.

The kilogram gets redefined

Since 1889, the kilogram has been defined by a piece of platinum-iridium—the international prototype of the kilogram—at the headquarters of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France. The prototype, despite being in a glass case, attracts dust and needs to be cleaned, and this handling affects its mass. In November, scientists met at the General Conference on Weights and Measures in Versailles, France, and voted to change the definition of a kilogram, tying it to a universal constant in nature, the Planck constant, measured using a machine called the Kibble balance. The change will be effective from 20 May.

Donna Strickland’s Nobel win

In October, Donna Theo Strickland, a Canadian optical physicist, became the third woman ever to win a Nobel prize in Physics, joining an illustrious list that includes Marie Curie (1903) and Maria Goeppert Mayer (1963). Strickland shared the prize with her doctoral advisor Gérard Mourou (and Arthur Ashkin for his unrelated research on optical tweezers). Strickland and Mourou’s work on chirped pulse amplification (CPA)—it creates short and intense laser pulses—has vital applications, including laser eye surgery and laser therapy for cancer. Doctors have already used it to perform millions of corrective laser eye surgeries.

Drones are one step closer to taking off

In August, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) finally announced its policy on the use of drones or remotely piloted aircraft systems in India, specifying five categories based on weight. All civil drone users will have to acquire the unmanned aircraft operator permit. The policy that came into effect on 1 December says drones can only be operated within the “Visual Line of Sight (VLOS), during day time only, and upto maximum 400 ft altitude”; it also lays down guidelines on their use near airports and eco-sensitive zones. The Digital Sky portal was launched soon after, where users can obtain permissions to fly drones.

The Facebook-Cambridge Analytica debacle

Facebook was caught in a massive international data scandal involving the now defunct UK-based political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica when it came out that raw data of up to 87 million Facebook user profiles was harvested by Cambridge Analytica. Things went from bad to worse for Facebook over concerns that this personal data was used to influence the course and outcome of the 2016 US Presidential elections and the Brexit vote. By the end of March—almost two weeks after the privacy data scandal was initially exposed—Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized for it by bringing out full-page advertisements in prominent US and UK dailies. “This was a breach of trust and I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time,” Zuckerberg wrote. Currently, Facebook is in the eye of the storm again after The New York Times reported that the social media giant had shared user data with more than 150 companies, among them Netflix and Spotify, including, possibly, users’ private messages.

Pixel and iPhone face off as competition heats up

Apple and Google spent this year trying to outdo each other. While the latter released the successor to its Pixel 2 smartphone, Apple launched much-awaited, upgraded models. The company’s smartphone line-up for the year included the iPhone XR (starting from ₹76,900), XS and XS Max. Google introduced the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL. Both companies released a host of other products at their flagship events, but it was the smartphones that made headlines. Simultaneously, the OnePlus 6 and 6T, Huawei’s P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro, and Samsung’s Galaxy S9 presented quite a challenge to the Pixels and iPhones of 2018.

Isro achieves more milestones

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) made significant strides this year. Apart from launching the heaviest satellite it has ever built—the GSAT-11—in December, the space agency successfully launched the PSLV-C43 mission with 30 international co-passenger satellites on board in November. On the November mission, PSLV’s 45th flight, the primary satellite was the Hyperspectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS), an earth observation satellite built by Isro. According to the space agency’s website, data from the satellite will be used for a variety of applications, including agriculture, forestry and monitoring soil.

Discovery of potential a new organ

The most fascinating discovery about the human body this year was the identification of the interstitium—a network of “fluid-filled spaces” in “connective tissues all over the body”. The findings of the study, co-led by scientists of the New York University School of Medicine, were published in March in the journal Scientific Reports. The interstitium had remained undetected for years because of the way tissue samples were studied and were believed to be a “wall of collagen”. Researchers used a new imaging technique to study living tissue samples, instead of fixed tissue that has been drained of fluid, which led to this discovery.

24.1. Opinion: Books that challenge the consensus on capitalism

Livemint, 26 Dec. 2018,Pankaj Mishra

This year, many books blamed an unjust economic system for the rise of demagogues

We live in an age of political earthquakes: that much, at least, seemed clear from newspaper headlines nearly every day of 2018. But intellectual tectonic plates were also shifting throughout the year, with ideas once dismissed as the ravings of the loony left breaking into the mainstream.

A Western consensus quickly formed after the collapse of communist regimes in 1989. It was widely believed by newspaper editorialists as well as politicians and businessmen that there was no alternative to free markets, which alone could create prosperity. The government’s traditional attempts to regulate corporations and banks and redistribute wealth through taxes were deemed a problem. As the economist Milton Friedman put it, “The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.”

Neither individuals nor companies needed to worry much about inequality or social justice. In Friedman’s influential view, “There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.”

Political fiascos in the West, following its largest financial crisis, have utterly devastated these post-1989 assumptions about free markets and the role of governments.

Confessions to this effect come routinely from disenchanted believers. Take, for instance, Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, who recently posed the once-blasphemous question: “What comes after capitalism?” Blanchard was commenting on the recent demonstrations in France against President Emmanuel Macron. He rightly described a global impasse: “Given the political constraints on redistribution and the constraints from capital mobility, we may just not be able to alleviate inequality and insecurity enough to prevent populism and revolutions.”

Nor, for that matter, can we work towards a greener economy. In any case, Blanchard’s admission confirms that we inhabit, intellectually and culturally, a radical new reality— one in which “neoliberalism” has entered rap lyrics, and stalwarts of the establishment sound like activists of Occupy Wall Street.

Thus, Martin Wolf, respected columnist for the Financial Times, recently concluded, if “reluctantly,” that “capitalism is substantially broken.” This year, many books with titles such as The Myth Of Capitalism: Monopolies And The Death Of Competition and Winners Take All: The Elite Charade Of Changing The World blamed an unjust economic system and its beneficiaries for the rise of demagogues.

It is becoming clear that the perennial conflict between democracy, which promises equality, and capitalism, which generates inequality, has been aggravated by a systemic neglect of some fundamental issues.

In The Value Of Everything: Making And Taking In The Global Economy, Mariana Mazzucato bracingly focuses our attention on them. Mazzucato has previously written about the innovative role of governments in the modern economy. In her new book, she asks us to distinguish between people who create value and those who merely extract it, often destroying it in the process.

Her targets range from pharmaceutical companies, which uphold a heartless version of market rationality, to internet companies with monopoly power such as Google and Facebook. Her most compelling example, however, is the workings of the financial sector, and its Friedman-style obsession with “shareholder value maximization,” which has infected the corporate sector as a whole.

Reading Mazzucato’s book, it is hard not to wonder just how “neoliberal” ideas and values, which uphold the rationality of the market and exclude notions of the common good, came to shape the conduct of individuals and institutions.

In the conventional account of neoliberalism, Friedman looms large, along with his disciple Ronald Reagan, and Britain’s Margaret Thatcher. Much has been written about how the IMF’s structural adjustment programmes in Asia and Africa, and “shock-therapy” for post-Communist states, entrenched orthodoxies about deregulation and privatization. In these narratives, neoliberalism appears indistinguishable from laissez-faire. In Globalists: The End Of Empire And The Birth Of Neoliberalism, Quinn Slobodian briskly overturns this commonplace view. Neoliberals, he argues, are people who believe that “the market does not and cannot take care of itself,” and indeed neoliberalism is a form of regulation—one that insulates the markets from vagaries of mass democracy and economic nationalism.

Beginning with the breakup of the Hapsburg Empire, Slobodian’s lucidly written intellectual history traces the ideas of a group of Western thinkers who sought to create, against a backdrop of anarchy, globally applicable economic rules.

Their attempt, it turns out, succeeded all too well in our own time. We stand in the ruins of their project, confronting political, economic and environmental crises of unprecedented scale and size.

It is imperative to chart our way out of them, steering clear of the diversions offered by political demagogues. One can only hope that the new year will bring more intellectual heresies of the kind Mazzucato’s and Slobodian’s books embody. We need them urgently to figure out what comes after neoliberalism.

Pankaj Mishra is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist

24.2. Palanpur, a fascinating story of income growth, social change

Livemint, 2 Jan.2019, Niranjanrajadhyaksha

This Uttar Pradesh village offers a microcosm of the broader change in Indian villages since independence

Palanpur is a relatively unknown small village in Moradabad district of Uttar Pradesh. However, it has a special place in development economics because of a research project that has stretched over seven decades. Economists have conducted seven detailed surveys of Palanpur since the 1950s, a rare longitudinal database that shows how the village has changed over three generations.

The Palanpur surveys offer us a microcosm of the broader change in Indian villages since Independence. They also have contemporary resonance when rural distress has become a hot-button political issue. The research conducted by some of the best development economists of our times thus deserves to be read more widely.

I recently bought the new edition of a book edited by Peter Lanjouw and Nicholas Stern on five decades of change in Palanpur, even as the results of the latest survey conducted in 2015 are filtering into the public domain. The broad story of Palanpur has been one of income growth as well as better social indicators over the past seven decades. Poverty has declined but the downside is that inequality has increased because some social groups have adapted to change better than others.

Economic growth in Palanpur was initially driven by agriculture. The abolition of zamindari gave tenant farmers incentives to invest in the land. It is worth recalling that the early development plans looked at agriculture as a bargain sector, where productivity could be increased through institutional policies rather than large allocations of money.

The next boost to farm incomes came from the Green Revolution, as new seeds, irrigation and farm machinery raised productivity. However, the greater capital intensity released farm labour for other types of work. The second phase of income growth was thus driven by activities outside of agriculture, primarily services, construction and other work linked to agricultural production. The Palanpur economy diversified.

The absorption of excess labour during the rural construction boom is a well-known story. Most of the workers who moved out of farming in Palanpur have been absorbed in informal enterprises, though there is not much manufacturing. It may be different in other parts of the country, where rural manufacturing has a much greater role to play in absorbing excess labour. For example, a paper by Ramesh Chand, S.K. Srivastava and Jaspal Singh of the Niti Aayog estimated that more than half of Indian industrial production comes from rural areas.

The rural economy is not just about farming any longer. Non-farm income accounted for 13.23% of total income in Palanpur in 1957-58. That rose to 46.36% in 2008-09. It is quite likely that less than half the total income in Palanpur is now from farming. Equating the farm economy with the overall rural economy is no longer valid, though the links between the two are very strong.

Most households in Palanpur now have multiple sources of income, a hard fact noticed by economists even among the urban poor. There are two ways of looking at this. The positive take on this is that diversified income streams offer protection against sudden shocks to any one activity. The negative take is that the poor do not have the opportunities for specialization and thus higher productivity. The economic change has also led to profound social change in Indian villages such as Palanpur. The farming castes were the natural beneficiaries of the first phase of development led by agricultural progress. Other caste groups have benefitted from the next phase of growth that has come from activities outside farming.

Some marginalized communities have grabbed the opportunities provided to work at higher wages either in non-farm enterprises in Palanpur or in nearby towns that are now more accessible. Some entrepreneurial castes have also benefitted from the more recent growth process. The slide deck of a presentation recently made by Stern and Himanshu at the Institute of Development Studies in the UK provides insights from Palanpur that can offer us important clues about why the farming castes locked to the land are now demanding reservations in various states.

The Palanpur studies paint a complex picture of economic progress, social change and political fissures. Caste inequities persist. Women continue to get a bad deal. However, it is also true that economic change has opened up new opportunities for social mobility. The importance of mobility, connectivity, communication and markets as important instruments of social change comes out strongly.

We live in the age of big data but the research on Palanpur also tells us that thick data from ethnographic or microeconomic studies can also tell policymakers a lot. It is said that the great development economist Ian Little had an epiphany about the inefficiency of Indian planning while studying an industrial project in Bhopal in the 1960s.

A recent conversation with an economist friend ended with an agreement that a novel such as Raag Darbari by Shrilal Shukla should be added to the reading lists for development economics courses in India. The same can be said about the Palanpur studies.

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha is research Director and Senior fellow at IDFC Institute. Read his previous columns at www.Livemint.com /Cafeeconomics

25.1. Why bells from Portuguese-era churches ring in temples across Maharashtra

Hindustan Times, Rachel Lopez

Originally taken as trophies, many still bear emblems like a cross, or a pierced heart. They are part of our shared heritage, says priest and researcher Fr Francis Correa.

In rural Maharashtra, when the bells ring at some Hindu temples, they echo the sounds of the churches they once inhabited.

A research team has found that in 34 temples across nine districts of the state, stand 38 bells that once hung in churches in the Portuguese territory of Bassein (in and round present-day Vasai, just north of Mumbai).

Some are almost 400 years old, like the one at the Tulja Bhavani temple in Osmanabad, and are integral to the temple - mass weddings are conducted below it. Others, like the one in Shikhar Shignapur in Satara, enjoy a place of pride – a shrine has been built around it. And in Jejuri, near Pune, a former church bell installed at a temple would ring out so loud and clear that locals complained of the noise and eventually relegated it to the temple warehouse.

Church bells show up in temples as far apart as Nashik, Kolhapur, Ahmednagar, Ratnagiri and Mahabaleshwar. They honour Shiva, Lakshmi and Khandoba. How they all got there is a mystery that took one Catholic priest and his team three decades to uncover.

Sounds Familiar

The Vasai-based priest Fr Francis Correa, now 78, says he'd been fascinated by the idea of Hindu temples holding on to Vasai's church bells ever since he heard about it in the 1970s. Books on local history mentioned it, and there were local legends.

"There's a village called Ghatghar near Vajreshwari," he says. "Ghat is the Konkani word

for bell and the villagers believed that they had a massive bell that was taken from their church by

the 18th century Maratha general Chimaji Appa." The Naroshankar temple in Nashik is surrounded by a

an 11-ft-high fortification with a huge Portuguese bell at its centre, called the Naroshankar Ghanta.

Correa started making a list of every such story he heard. By 1995, he had enough leads to make an exploratory trip to Aurangabad with a group of enthusiasts. Sure enough, the temple bells there showed evidence of having originally belonged to churches.

On some, there is a cross still etched in metal relief work. On others, a little Mary, or Jesus, or both. Many have been painted over in saffron, or covered in marigolds, but the signs are there if you know what to look for.

Correa has made several trips across the state, with amateur historian and Vasai-fort expert Pascal

Lopes, and Vasai-based researchers Joseph Pereira, Berina D'Silva, Dr Afigin Toscano and husband

Augustine, documenting and photographing as much as they could.

"What we've found is fascinating," says Lopes. "The bells are actually war trophies. They were taken from the churches inside the Vasai fort when Chimaji Appa [Peshwa Bajirao's younger brother and military commander] reclaimed the Konkan territories from the Portuguese between 1737 and 1739." The bells -- huge, beautiful, sturdy, made possibly in Macao or Lisbon, with a clear sound that carries across land – were ideal victory symbols to distribute among the army. And where better to display and deploy them than at the local temple?

In 2016, the team documented their findings in Correa's book, *Old Ambassadors of The New Era*. But given that the Portuguese established as many as 80 churches in Maharashtra, with an average of two bells each, their work is far from done.

So how do you tell if a bell is of Portuguese-Catholic origin? Correa and his team

relied on some simple clues. Church bells are larger, louder and heavier, designed to be

suspended from a tower.

"We also look for at least one symbol of Christianity," says Pereira. "Perhaps a Latin inscription, the cross, the

initials IHS [Latin for Humble Society of Jesus or Jesus, Saviour of Men] or AM for Ave Maria. And of course, the year of casting, if inscribed, had to be before 1739."

In the warehouse at Jejuri, two dusty bells were cleaned up to reveal an icon of swords piercing a heart, the same as those at a Portuguese church in Dahanu. Of the trophies taken from Vasai, only one bell has been

discovered to hang in a church. "At the St Francis Xavier Church in south Mumbai... it was given voluntarily to the British in gratitude for the gunpowder received to help fight the Marathas," Correa says.

The empty bell tower at the abandoned St Joseph's Church in the Vasai fort. "Seeing the bells for the first time, I initially felt like it was my community's property and that I should work on restoring them to the church," says Vasai-based priest Fr Francis Correa. "But over time I've realised that in Hindu temples, they've been given a new life, with new missions to perform. They are our shared heritage."

Correa says discovering the bells has broadened his view of India. “Seeing the bells for the first time, I initially felt like it was my community’s property and that I should work on restoring them to the church,” he says. “But over time I’ve realised that in Hindu temples, they’ve been given a new life, with new missions to perform. They are our shared heritage.”

Dr Toscano adds that on every one of their trips, the temple authorities and local people were friendly and cooperative. "There was a spirit of religiosity and it was peaceful," she says.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/more-lifestyle/why-bells-from-portuguese-era-churches-ring-in-temples-across-maharashtra/story-YYcaRl2vQ7rlULOu1oztzI.html?fbclid=

25.2. The ‘gara’ goes mod

Livemint, 11 Jan. 2019, Sohini Dey

Traditional Parsi embroidery finds contemporary expression with fresh motifs and colours while retaining its multicultural roots in the hands of textile designer Ashdeen Z. Lilaowala

For his most recent collection Vintage Tales, textile designer Ashdeen Z. Lilaowala has taken inspiration from old Parsi photographs. One of the standout saris in the collection borrows its motifs from a gara sari hand-embroidered by Lilaowala’s grandmother and now worn by his mother. “I’ve changed the flow of the roses and birds for the design,” Lilaowala says, with a laugh. “Otherwise, my mother might kill me.”

The Delhi-based Lilaowala grew up surrounded by Parsi textiles and developed an early passion for design. As a textile design student at National Institute of Design (NID), he undertook a project on the kusti (sacred thread won by Parsis) in collaboration with the Unesco Parzor Foundation, which preserves Zoroastrian cultural heritage, in Delhi. At the same time, he also participated in a project on the development of gara embroidery. “I travelled to China, Iran, and across India, documenting collections. We also did workshops across India to make people aware of the embroidery,” he recalls.

After graduation, Lilaowala started an embroidery unit, and making garasaris for friends led him to launch his eponymous label in 2012. “When I started the label, I wanted to create something which wouldn’t just be like copying an old gara,” he says. “There had to be some innovation, be it changing the colours, form or fabric.” The designer’s signature saris are distinctively Parsi in craftsmanship, but the motifs are reinterpreted through placement and proportion. While many designers have dabbled in gara, the craft is the bedrock of Lilaowala’s aesthetics. With a following that extends beyond the Parsi community, Lilaowala has expanded into accessories and bridalwear and collaborated with labels like Ekaya. In 2018, he launched his maiden flagship outlet in Delhi. Sitting in the store, Lilaowala spoke to Lounge on the history and significance of gara, modern interpretations and breaking myths. Edited excepts:

How did ‘gara’ come to be a part of the Parsi community and clothing culture?

Embroidered textiles, ceramics and many other things were by-products of the Parsi trade with China for tea and opium. The (Parsi) community was prosperous, and these textiles were unique from what was available in India before. Once the women started travelling to China, they added their own touches and flair to it. That’s when the craft grew and it became an amalgamation of Chinese, Persian and Indian traditions with elements of European culture. We have full saris called garas, and then we have borders called kors. A lot of women on day-to-day basis would wear these bordered saris. The fully embroidered ones were a luxury, and worn on occasions or festivals. For everyday wear, borders were much more flexible—you could put it on a sari and remove it later. The children would wear ijars (loose trousers) and jhabla (tunics) on festive occasions, when they went to fire temples, etc. Gara became an identity marker for the community. At one point it was quite popular not only in the community but among the richer circles of Bengal, Hyderabad, and north India (as well).

What makes ‘gara’ distinct from other textiles and embroideries?

If you notice the embroidery, it’s very artistically accurate. Parsi embroidery is all about nature, a reverence for nature, so it’s full of animals, birds or flowers, but not in any abstract way. It’s all very realistic. You won’t see a highly digitized motif—a peacock has to look like a peacock, a flower will be in full bloom. It is a very clear artistic representation.

How do you reinvent the ‘gara’ traditions in your designs?

Traditionally gara was made with gajji silk and salli gach, a light Leno weave. The colours used are blacks, purples, maroons, reds, darker hues with lighter embroidery. We’ve worked on net and incorporated gara on bandhani and leheriya; our new collection includes organza. In a few collections, we have done white-on-white embroidery and pastel colours.

Does the reinvention also extend to the motifs you use?

I’ll give an example of one motif—cranes. They are very much a part of Parsi embroidery but you’d always see it in a scene. My first sari depicted a lake with cranes flying on top—despite the water, you just saw the cranes. There was no pallu, or border. It became a sort of marker for our design direction. With the next collections, we blew up the (proportion of the) cranes and did lotus ponds with dragonflies and butterflies. We have a polka dot motif called kanda-papeta (meaning onions and potatoes), made bigger for an obvious statement. These are small interventions—it’s not like we’re doing something very different, but we are taking the repertoire further.

In our new collection, we have used the trellis design. You find it in saris but it’s rare and limited to borders. We have a sari with three borders and saris with silver work. Then there is another stitch called the khakha stitch, a small Peking knot that we do with a curved ari needle.

Ensembles from Lilaowala’s collection ‘Vintage Tales’.

Isn’t ‘khakha’ the forbidden knot embroidery?

Yes, it is. But the myth of forbidden knots causing blindness is, in my opinion, bakwaas (rubbish). Research can dispel a lot of myths. People say that garafabrics are soft because they are woven underwater. As a textile designer, I can assure you that nothing can be woven underwater. There are always legends that travel and grow stronger, and we’ve been working on kind of pushing those things out.

Your designs also feature Chinese motifs—calligraphy, pagodas. Is it a tribute to the textiles’ roots?

Historically, I think there was this fascination about China. The pagodas and bridges were architectural wonders. It’s a historical design and we’ve taken elements from it to create our own motifs.

How has your clientele evolved over the years?

We have a good Parsi clientele, but our whole business is not based on them. We have customers from Delhi, and even in Singapore, Dubai and the US. A lot of women who want to wear a gara don’t want to buy things that look exactly like what they already have. I’d say we’ve been very lucky that the women who buy from us come back. If we are innovative enough to have created something new, they buy again. That’s the challenge—to take the same language and change it.

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AAPI

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Friday 18 January 2019

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NEWSLETTER, 20-I-2019

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC.

- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT

- INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURE