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Monday 19 April 2021

NEWSLETTER, 20-IV-2021











DELHI, 20th APRIL 2021
Index of this Newsletter


INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC. 


1.1. 100-strong unicorn club drives change in India's corporate landscape: Report
1.2. Telangana achieves 100% mark in providing drinking water to rural households
2.1. India emerging a leader in supercomputing
2.2. AICTE partners with IBM to provide skills-based training courses through NEAT 2.0 platform
3.1. High on AI, healthcare sector to breach $372 bn mark by 2022: NITI Aayog
3.2. Growing AI adoption in India, but still some way to go: Romal Shetty, Deloitte India
4.1. 2,000 laboratories set up across India for general public to test their water samples at nominal fee
4.2. Jewellery industry in India: heralding a technological transformation
5.1. Flipkart partners Adani to build a massive warehouse, data centre
5.2. Cognizant launches programme for tech professionals looking to restart careers


– AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT


6.1. Punjab CM gives proprietary rights to 3,245 slum dwellers
6.2. Centre ropes in agro-tech agencies to conduct crop cutting experiments in 100 districts
7.1. 630 plus destinations across India to be connected by IntrCity smartBus
7.2. In-depth: Analysis of e-NAM portal impact on farmers and agriculture sector
8.1. WHY GROWING CROPS UNDER SOLAR PANELS IS THE CROSS-SECTOR SYNERGISTIC SOLUTION WE NEED ON OUR WAY TO ACHIEVING SEVERAL SDG
8.2. PM to launch 'Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain' campaign today
9.1. Acceleration of digitization and automation influencing remote job opportunities across sectors
9.2. This Chennai startup helps farmers boost their income with a micro farm model
10.1. Amazon taps grocery biz to expand in towns
10.2. Amazon acquires Perpule to bolster kirana-tech play


– INDUSTRY, MANUFACTURE


11.1. ‘Digital India to play ‘decisive role’ for 5G tech roll out globally’
11.2. Union Cabinet approves Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for White Goods (Air Conditioners and LED Lights) and 'National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules
11.3. How shortages of a $1 chip sparked a crisis in the global economy
12.1. Here’s Ashok Leyland’s expansion story that’s led by AI
12.2. Mumbai Metro: Alstom awarded Rs,1854 crore contract, will manufacture 234 metro cars
13.1. Drugmakers come together to modernize India's pharma infrastructure
13.2. International firms expanding production in India as govt backs investors with PLI
14.1. India may see more local manufacturing: Foxconn's Josh Foulger
14.2. Electronics makers struggle to meet PLI scheme target
15.1. Is there an Indian recipe to innovation?
15.2. ISRO achieves breakthrough in quantum communication, precursor for quantum satellite


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


16.1. Ensuring Zero Compromise of Healthcare Systems
16.2. TCS doubles $100m+ customers in five years
17.1. Covid-19 disrupted business but India Inc. pivoted fast, NTT report says
17.2. Dell launches 17 next gen servers to help firms decode data
18.1. Telangana: KT Rama Rao inaugurates Medtronic Engineering and Innovation Center in Hyderabad
18.2. Microsoft helps 30 lakh people in India acquire digital skills
19.1. India ahead of developed countries in adoption of healthcare digital technologies: EY-Imperial College London survey
19.2. Digital Transformation to Accelerate Adoption of Colocation Industry in India
20.1. Maharashtra to launch Li-ion battery-operated electric version of 'Victoria 2.0'
20.2. Indian IT likely to post best Q4 results in five years, attrition a concern


INDIA & THE WORLD 

21.1. IBM launches 'Call for Code Global Challenge
21.2. Now, AI-based device to alert drivers when they doze off
22.1. BHEL secures first ever overseas solar project
22.2. RDIF, Virchow Biotech ink pact to produce Sputnik V vaccine in India
23.1. Intel to spend $20 billion on U.S. chip plants as CEO challenges Asia dominance
23.2. IT sector hiring could hit decade high in FY22
24.1. Lessons from the economic success of Bangladesh
24.2. Speed at which India adapts has always amazed me: Capgemini CEO
25.1. 3.1M cybersecurity positions vacant around the globe: Report
25.2. India going to be epicentre of global growth, transformation: Mukesh Ambani


* * *

DELHI, 20th APRIL 2021

NEWSLETTER, 20-IV-2021



INDIA

– GENERAL POLICY, INFRASTRUCTURES, COUNTRY FINANCES, ETC. 



1.1. 100-strong unicorn club drives change in India's corporate landscape: Report 
IANS, Mar. 23, 2021 

India's fast-growing community of unicorns -- privately-owned companies -- valued over US$1 billion, are now driving radical change in the country's corporate landscape moving at an unprecedented pace creating in excess of $ 240 billion in value, Credit Suisse said on Tuesday. 

India's fast-growing community of unicorns -- privately-owned companies -- valued over $1 billion, are now driving radical change in the country's corporate landscape moving at an unprecedented pace creating in excess of $ 240 billion in value, Credit Suisse said on Tuesday.
A special Credit Suisse report on India unicorns delves into India's 100-strong unicorn market and what India's startup boom means for the economy and the corporate landscape.

According to the research report, an unprecedented pace of new-company formation and innovation in a variety of sectors resulted in a surge in the number of highly valued and as-yet-unlisted companies.
Against 336 listed companies with a $1 billion market capitalisation, there are now 100 unicorns in India with a combined market capitalisation of $240 billion.

"Our research found 100 unicorns in India in a diverse set of industries, including technology and tech-enabled sectors, such as, pharmaceuticals/biotech and consumer goods, benefiting from formalization and accelerating digital adoption. Fast-growing and innovative (unlisted) firms are sprouting up in new sectors as well as locations across India, rapidly gaining scale as they ride unique growth opportunities from digital public infrastructure and partnerships," said Neelkanth Mishra, Co-Head of Equity Strategy, Asia Pacific and India Equity Strategist at Credit Suisse.

The Credit Suisse research found out that the sectoral split is highly diversified for the 100 Indian unicorns in addition to the largely expected e-commerce, financial technology (FinTech), education technology, food delivery, and mobility companies. Furthermore, there is a rapidly growing number of firms in industries such as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), gaming, new-age distribution and logistics, modern trade, biotech, and pharmaceuticals. Even fast-growing consumer brands have benefitted from accelerating internet penetration and formalization of sectors.

Along with the rapidly growing economy, the market capitalization of listed equities in India has risen too, making India the eighth-largest market globally. Growth for the Indian start-up ecosystem has accelerated as well, making India home to the third-largest set of unicorns globally, behind the US and China, and commanding a total valuation of $90 billion.

Constituting 30% of the Indian unicorn ecosystem, FinTechs, including e-commerce, have been leaders in the Indian unicorn landscape, with the sector spawning five unicorns having an aggregate valuation of $22 billion, the highest amongst Indian unicorns.

Ashish Gupta, Head of Asia Financials Securities Research and Head of India Securities Research, Credit Suisse said, "Indian FinTech companies have attracted $10 billion of capital and are now at the forefront of India's startup ecosystem. Digital payments are primarily leading the FinTech scale-up in India and have grown 10 times over the last five years, now having a 30% share totalling $450 billion."

As per the report, digital payments in India continue to grow, with over 200 million active users and acceptance at more than 30 million merchants compared to 5 million traditional point-of-sale (POS) terminals. It further highlights that the FinTech sector has been the second-largest recipient of private equity/venture capital funding over the past decade with payments being the leading sub-segment raising $4.2 billion followed by digital lenders raising $2.5 billion.

While digital payment in India has picked up pace during the time of the pandemic, FinTechs are seen expanding to other financial segments beyond their core/initial offerings to drive monetisation.
"While most FinTechs are operating in partnerships with incumbent banks and non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) across lending, liability and fee businesses through embedded offerings, the FinTech phenomenon is also transcending into other financial segments including lending, insurance, and wealth management. Having acquired a substantial user base of over 150 million users, FinTech players have even started offering small-ticket personal loans or short-term credit to monetize their user base," Mishra added.

Digital lenders have grown to $10 billion with more than a 40 % share in new personal and consumer durable loans and are adding new loan products as confidence in their underwriting models increase.
FinTechs have also forged partnerships with banks to embed credit products as well as investment and protection products. While adding new channels of monetization and increasing user engagement, these partnerships also help incumbent banks to expand reach and increase their share of digital business, the report said. 


1.2. Telangana achieves 100% mark in providing drinking water to rural households 
ET Gov. Mar. 31, 2021 
Goa has become the first state in the country to provide 100 percent tap water supply all over the state followed by Telangana and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. 

Telangana has achieved the distinction of providing safe drinking water to 100 percent of the households in rural areas.

According Union Ministry of Jal Shakti, before the launch of Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) on August 15, 2019, the provision for potable water through taps was available for 15,68,301 (29 percent) of a total of 54,06,070 houses in the state. The safe drinking water facility has been provided to all 100 percent households in Telangana, the ministry said.

Announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 15th August, 2019, with the aim to provide tap water supply to every rural home by 2024, Jal Jeevan Mission has reached a new milestone of providing over 4 crore rural households with tap water supply. Now, 7.24 Crore (38 percent) -- more than 1/3rd of rural households are getting potable water through taps.
Goa has become the first state in the country to provide 100 percent tap water supply followed by Telangana and Andaman & Nicobar Islands. The untiring efforts of these states/UTs have helped Jal Jeevan Mission provide assured tap water supply to every family living in 56 districts and over 86,000 villages. The states/UTs are now competing with each other and focusing on the target to ensure that every household in the country gets safe drinking water, so that no one is left out, the ministry said.

The remote Kakisnur village of Velairpad mandal, Andhra Pradesh is home to 200 people amidst thick forest, hilly area with no road connectivity and power supply. But, it just received 24x7 potable water supply under government of India’s Jal Jeevan Mission programme being implemented in partnership with states and UTs. The efforts are in line with government of India’s endeavour to provide clean tap water in rural households with focus on improving their living standards and enhancing the ‘ease of living’.

The impact of safe water in Kakisnur village is seen through the improved health outcomes among the village community. The road to 100 percent functional household tap connection (FHTC) in Kakisnur was indeed tough. District authorities faced impediments as they implemented the Har Ghar Jal programme in this remote village which was accessible after a 20km ride alongside Godavari river. Hand drilling machines were loaded on a boat, borewell was drilled close to the local stream, solar power-based dual pump was erected supplying potable drinking water to the entire village.

However, AP is lagging behind with only 46.08 percent (44,07,789 households out of 95,66,332) of drinking water connections.

Seven year-old Vaishnavi from Orumanaiyur village in Thrissur district of Kerala was tasked with the job of fetching water when both her parents and grandmother contracted CoVid-19 and had to quarantine. Being the eldest of the three siblings, she suddenly had to play the role of an elder. However, even she and her siblings were not allowed to venture out of the house as they were seen by local community as potential carriers. But to their surprise, tap water connection was provided in their home the very next day. Timely provision of tap water supply has helped this family survive difficult times.

There are many such stories from the field which show how Jal Jeevan Mission – Har Ghar Jal is changing lives, the Ministry of Jal Shakti said.

Jal Jeevan Mission is being implemented in partnership with the states with an aim to provide potable water in adequate quantity, of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis. Extensive planning exercise is undertaken by the states/UTs following ‘bottom-up approach’. Accordingly, they have firmed up the action plan to provide tap water connection to every rural household. While implementing, states are giving priority to water quality-affected areas, villages in drought prone and desert areas, scheduled caste/scheduled tribe majority villages, aspirational districts and Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna villages.

Since children are more susceptible to water-borne diseases, a campaign has been launched to provide tap water supply in schools and ashramshalas and anganwadi centers across the country so that whenever the schools reopen, children are provided with safe water for drinking. Tap water to be used for cooking mid-day meal, providing handwashing facility and usage in toilets.

Potable water supply to water quality-affected habitations is a top priority under Jal Jeevan Mission. Efforts are made to ensure safe drinking water is provided to all quality-affected villages especially arsenic and fluoride affected rural habitations. JJM gives highest priority to potability of drinking water, which will reduce water-borne diseases and improve health of people. The states and UTs are upgrading water quality testing laboratories and opening them to public enabling them to get their water samples tested at nominal rates.

Following the appeal of Prime Minister, Jal Jeevan Mission aims to make water everyone’s business, a ‘Jan Andolan’. As Prime Minister launched 'Catch the rain' campaign on World Water Day -- 22 March, 2021 -- and appealed all to conserve every drop of water, efforts are made to involve all stakeholders.

Jal Jeevan Mission is not about only infrastructure creation, focus is on service delivery by empowering local communities to function as local water utilities. It is important to spread awareness on judicious use of water especially as piped water reaches every household in the village. It is envisioned that the Gram Panchayat and its sub-committee, Village Water & Sanitation Committee (VWSC) or Pani Samiti, etc. plays a key role in planning, implementation, management, operation and maintenance of in-village water supply systems. Building responsive and responsible leadership will ensure that the water supply systems are sustainable and last the life cycle of the design period, the ministry said. 


2.1. India emerging a leader in supercomputing 
Press Information Bureau, Apr. 07, 2021 

India is fast emerging a leader in high power computing with the National Super Computing Mission (NSM) boosting it to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and start-ups in areas like oil exploration, flood prediction as well as genomics and drug discovery. 

Computing infrastructure has already been installed in four premier institutions and installation work is in rapid progress in 9 more. Completion in of Phase II of NSM in September 2021 will take the country’s computing power to 16 Petaflops (PF). MoUs have been signed with a total of 14 premier institutions of India for establishing Supercomputing Infrastructure with Assembly and Manufacturing in India. These include IITs, NITs, National Labs, and IISERs. 

Infrastructure planned in NSM Phase I has already been installed and much of Phase II will be getting in place soon. Phase III, initiated this year, will take the computing speed to around 45 Petaflops. This will include three systems of 3 PF each and one system of 20PF as a national facility. 

The National Supercomputing Mission was launched to enhance the research capacities and capabilities in the country by connecting them to form a Supercomputing grid, with National Knowledge Network (NKN) as the backbone. The NSM is setting up a grid of supercomputing facilities in academic and research institutions across the country. Part of this is being imported from abroad and part built indigenously. The Mission is being jointly steered by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and implemented by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), Pune, and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru. 

PARAM Shivay, the first supercomputer assembled indigenously, was installed in IIT (BHU), followed by PARAM Shakti, PARAM Brahma, PARAM Yukti, PARAM Sanganak at IIT-Kharagpur IISER, Pune, JNCASR, Bengaluru and IIT Kanpur respectively. 

A new dimention has now been added in India’s march towards leadership position in supercomputing with the convergence of HPC and Artificial Intelligence (AI). A 200 AI PF Artificial Intelligence supercomputing system has been created and installed in C-DAC, which can handle incredibly large-scale AI workloads increasing the speed of computing-related to AI several times. PARAM Siddhi - AI, the high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer, has achieved global ranking of 62 in TOP 500 most powerful supercomputer systems in the world, released on 16th November 2020. 

The mission has also created the next generation of supercomputer experts by training more than 4500 HPC aware manpower and faculties till date. To expand the activities of the HPC training, four NSM Nodal Centres for training in HPC and AI have been established at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, IIT Goa and IIT Palakkad. These centres have conducted online training programs in HPC and in AI. 

Powered by the NSM, India’s network of research institutions, in collaboration with the industry, is scaling up the technology and manufacturing capability to make more and more parts in India. While in Phase I, 30% value addition is done in India that has been scaled up to 40% in Phase II. India has developed an Indigenous server (Rudra), which can meet the HPC requirements of all governments and PSUs. 

The three phases will provide access to High-Performance Computing (HPC) Facilities to around 75 institutions and more than thousands of active researchers, academicians working through Nation Knowledge Network (NKN) - the backbone for supercomputing systems. 

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


2.2. AICTE partners with IBM to provide skills-based training courses through NEAT 2.0 platform 
ET Gov. Mar. 26, 2021 

The courses on Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT, Quantum Computing, and Data Science will provide industry-relevant, technical job-role-based training for students and faculty. 

IBM AICTE PartnershipWith a vision to bridge the skill gaps in tech sector and enable students with future-proof skills, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has partnered with tech-giant IBM to provide skills-based training courses on the recently launched National Educational Alliance for Technology (NEAT) 2.0 platform.

The NEAT 2.0 platform was launched by the Ministry of Education, in association with the All India Council for Technical Education on February 16, 2021, to provide the best technology courses that will upskill the youth and enhance their employability.

The courses on Cloud, Artificial Intelligence (AI), IoT, Quantum Computing, and Data Science will provide industry-relevant, technical job-role-based training for students and faculty, said a statement issued by AICTE.

Prof Anil Dattatraya Sahasrabudhe, Chairperson, AICTE, said, “The NEAT 2.0 portal leverages technology to offer the best industry courses that give students adaptive and personalized learning, better learning outcomes, and skill development in niche areas under a common platform.”

There is a need to make pedagogical systems more learner-centric and we are bringing in industry experts like IBM, with their Skills Academy Courses, to deliver high-quality content directly to colleges and students. This initiative is a big step towards developing high employability & entrepreneurship, leading to Aatmanirbhar Bharat and will bring revolutionary changes to online learning in India, Sahasrabudhe added.

As part of the collaboration, IBM will provide six courses on the NEAT platform from IBM’s Skills Academy – a world-class training and certification program designed to bridge the skills gap of learners in colleges and universities worldwide, the statement said.
Students and faculty will receive hands-on training for a more enriched learning experience, and students will also earn an IBM Digital Certification upon course completion, the statement read. 


3.1. High on AI, healthcare sector to breach $372 bn mark by 2022: NITI Aayog 
ET Gov. Mar. 31, 2021 

The latest technology adoption including that of artificial intelligence (AI) has opened new avenues of growth in the healthcare sector. 

Riding on latest technology, the Indian healthcare sector with a compound annual growth rate of around 22% since 2016 is likely to breach the $372 billion mark by 2022, according to a NITI Aayog report.
According to the report released by NITI Aayog CEO Amitab Kant, the latest technology adoption including that of artificial intelligence (AI) has opened new avenues of growth in the healthcare sector.

“Technology advancements such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), wearables and other mobile technologies, along with Internet of Things, also offer numerous avenues for investment,” the NITI Aayog report said. 

Healthcare has become one of the largest sectors of the Indian economy, in terms of both revenue and employment, report said. The report was jointly released by NITI Aayog's Member, Health, VK Paul, CEO Amitabh Kant, and additional secretary Rakesh Sarwal.

The report also outlines the investment opportunities in various healthcare segments including hospitals, medical devices and equipment, health insurance, telemedicine, home healthcare and medical value travel.
“Several factors are driving the growth of the Indian healthcare sector, including an aging population, a growing middle class, the rising proportion of lifestyle diseases, an increased emphasis on public-private partnerships as well as accelerated adoption of digital technologies,” Kant wrote in the report’s foreword.

In the first section, the report gives an overview of India's healthcare sector, including insights about its employment generation potential, the prevailing business and investment climate as well as the overarching policy landscape.
The second section highlights the key drivers of growth for the sector and the third elaborates upon the enabling policies and investment opportunities in seven key segments - hospitals and infrastructure, health insurance, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, medical devices, medical tourism, home healthcare as well as telemedicine and other technology-related health services.

Regarding pharmaceuticals, the report said, India can boost domestic manufacturing, supported by recent government schemes with performance-linked incentives, as part of the Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

“In the medical devices and equipment segment, it said, expansion of diagnostic and pathology centres as well as miniaturised diagnostics have high potential for growth. Further, medical value travel, especially wellness tourism, has bright prospects, given India's inherent strengths in alternative systems of medicine,” the report said. 


3.2. Growing AI adoption in India, but still some way to go: Romal Shetty, Deloitte India 
ET online, Mar. 31, 2021 

Companies that are adopting AI are forward looking and ready for change. This has typically been appreciated by investors, all else being equal, said Romal Shetty, President Consulting, Deloitte India. 

While financial services, Hi Tech, telecom, oil and gas, FMCG verticals in India are ahead of the curve in AI adoption, there is huge potential to be tapped in large parts of transport/logistics, retail, education, government, said Romal Shetty, President Consulting, Deloitte India in an interview regarding Deloitte- CII's recent report titled ‘The Age of with: Humans and Machines’. Edited excerpts:

Are you witnessing trends in AI adoption across certain industries more so than others? If so, what are the key industries where you see major AI adoption?
India is a major developer of AI solutions, and has seen its analytics industry move from dashboards and data warehouses, to advanced industrial and services applications of AI. Across industries, companies are trying to reap the benefits of AI. While financial services, Hi Tech, telecom, oil and gas, FMCG verticals in India are ahead of the curve in AI adoption, there is huge potential to be tapped in large parts of transport/logistics, retail, education, government, etc.

To democratize AI usage, the Indian Government’s policy think tank, NITI Aayog has been actively working on the #AIforAll program. As part of the Digital India initiative, the Government also intends to leverage AI in healthcare, agriculture and e-governance. Today, solutions are being developed from India for both the domestic and global market.

How have Indian organizations fared in terms of AI adoption when compared to other nations?
Indian companies both big and small (Indian MNCs and family-run businesses) have responded at speed to the opportunities that have been thrown up in the past year due to the pandemic disruption – specifically more so in customer facing and manufacturing areas, but also in virtualization of various parts of the enterprise, given the new normal of work, workplace and workforce.

AI has come to be used in the customer facing (sales and marketing, customer experience), operations (supply chain, logistics, manufacturing) as well as support (HR, IT, finance) functions. While a lot of companies have initiated on this journey, there is still some way to go before all of these would be used at scale enterprise wide.

As far as AI is concerned, while India is still behind developed countries, we are seeing a drive towards this direction – India-centric innovation (for India from India). This has increased significantly as lift-and-shift models haven’t really worked given Indian realities.

What type of governance and policy problems occur with increasing AI adoption? Furthermore, could you elaborate on Deloitte’s framework to tackle this?
Despite wide adoption, organizations count ethical risks as one of their top challenges in implementing AI initiatives. Concerns include lack of explainability and transparency in AI-derived decisions, using AI to manipulate people’s thinking and behavior. A well-established governance and ethical model guides organizations to adopt AI more efficiently.

Deloitte’s Trustworthy AI framework is an effective tool in diagnosing the ethical health of AI while maintaining customer privacy and abiding by relevant policies. The key features of the framework put an emphasis on privacy, on AI being fair and impartial, transparent and explainable, the organisational policies being responsible and accountable, keeping systems and stakeholders safe and secure, and AI-driven output being robust and reliable.

Historically, have investors and stakeholders responded positively to companies adopting AI?
Companies that are adopting AI are forward looking and ready for change. This has typically been appreciated by investors, all else being equal. For example, we were working with an EPC company which is looking to use AI-driven forecasts in order to look at bid values and walk-away prices for infrastructure bids. Strategic, as well as institutional/retail investors, have looked upon this company with a lens that they will be on another level compared to their peers in delivering shareholder value.

The PE/VC community already has a clear view that AI-driven solutions are valued better, in fact there is a joke that any company AI-driven will necessarily be funded.

Having said that, the story is not the same with all stakeholders. Some employees have been a bit apprehensive of being shown that machines can potentially do a better job than them, especially in areas where there are long years of experience. It is a potential classical “Deep Blue beats Garry Kasparov” moment, where machines pitted against humans can show better results in many fields (for example, even cancer detection from visual inspection apparently can be done better by AI algorithms than expert doctors).

Also, in many countries, regulators and governments have sought to regulate the usage of AI – whether it is purely AI-driven decision making, for instance for credit card approvals (which may bring in biases), autonomous cars, conversation-AI enabled digital voice assistants answering first line calls at call centres, etc, which can risk bringing up various socio-legal issues as well as create an unfair playing field.

Overall, the march of AI like any other technology will have supporters and detractors. However, the technology itself is a revolutionary one, and mankind has to figure out the right ways to use it in a meaningful and positive fashion to improve the lives of citizens and consumers.

Lastly, how can the fear of AI replacing human jobs be remedied?
As we call it the “Age of With” where humans and machines together bring disproportionate value, not one or the other. Human creativity, judgement and intelligence is as vital a component as machine intelligence, and therefore we will have both co-exist.

We at Deloitte, looking at Technology Trends, observe three stages towards achieving full utilization of AI. First being assisted intelligence – e.g. a car warning a driver when they change lanes. Second, augmented intelligence – e.g. a car warning a driver when they change lanes and if they do not act in time, it takes the decision on the driver’s behalf. Last, autonomous intelligence – e.g. a car driving itself from source to destination point.

While autonomous intelligence forms the holy grail that everyone would want to get to, we believe that most of the AI that assists in decision support on core business issues would fall in the first or second category. That is where AI will not replace humans, but assist and augment the intelligence of humans. It will be humans who will make the decisions based on their judgements. 


4.1. 2,000 laboratories set up across India for general public to test their water samples at nominal fee 
ET Gov. Mar. 19, 2021 

The Ministry of Jal Shakti is exploring use of sensor-based IoT solutions for smart monitoring of water quality. To improve service in terms of quantity, quality and regularity, a ‘smart water supply measurement and monitoring system’ is being developed. 

In a move that can positively transform the drinking water sector forever, the Ministry of Jal Shakti has set up about 2,000 laboratories across the country for the use of the general public for testing their water samples at a nominal fee.
The source coordinates of all water samples are captured and the water quality testing reports are generated online and sent to the citizen along with a copy to concerned public health engineers for immediate corrective action, if any and also in the central database for continuous monitoring and remedial action. This way, modernization of PHEDs/boards/nigams is taking place, to make them true utilities, the ministry claimed.

In continuation to all the efforts to provide safe drinking water to rural homes, water quality testing laboratories in states at different levels like state headquarter, district-level, block/sub division-level are being standardized and the NABL accreditation process is in progress.

The accreditation process has been taken up in a massive way during the Covid-19 pandemic. During Covid-19 pandemic, the need-based sampling and testing protocol adopted for Covid-19 testing was widely acknowledged and appreciated. Following the same approach, NJJM in collaboration with ICMR developed the JJM-WQMIS framework for testing and remedial action. It will function as a repository of information regarding drinking water quality testing monitoring and surveillance, including all data regarding water quality testing laboratories.

Under Jal Jeevan Mission, priority has been given to provision of tap water supply to water quality affected habitations. So far, out of identified 27,544 arsenic and fluoride-affected habitations, states have made provisions of potable water supply in 26,492 habitations.

Since piped water supply infrastructure development takes time, states have been advised to install community water purification plants (CWPPs) as a short-term measure so that minimum 8-10 litres per person per day is available for drinking and cooking requirements. As on date, there are 32,543 CWPPs have been installed across the country, the ministry said.

Under the mission, the village community is empowered to lead water quality surveillance by regular water quality testing. In every village, five persons preferably women, are being trained on water quality testing using field test kits (FTKs), so that they can test water source and delivery points every year, at least twice for bacteriological contamination and once for chemical contamination. This is in addition to the department level water testing in laboratories.

Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, an online Drinking Water Quality Management Information System (WQMIS) with its app was launched recently by the Union Minister for Jal Shakti Gajendra Singh Shekhawat giving access to data on water quality to people at fingertips. The ministry also released the ‘Drinking water quality monitoring and surveillance framework’ for proper functioning of water quality testing laboratories, timely detection of any water quality contamination, redressal mechanism thus, ensuring quality of tap water and sources.

This kind of monitoring at department level and the community empowered to carry surveillance activities locally is a unique initiative to ensure safe water is provided at household level. In an effort to transform the drinking water sector, all such citizen-centric approaches are being adopted with people at the centre. All these initiatives of the Ministry of Jal Shakti will create awareness among the people and enable them to make informed decisions.

To ensure safe water to every home, NJJM is empowering citizens using information technology by bringing transparency and accountability at all levels, thereby gradually shifting from ‘infrastructure creation’ approach to ‘service delivery’, so that public health engineering department or rural water supply department of states/ UTs can function as ‘public utilities’, the ministry said.

Basic water quality testing parameters

The Jal Jeevan Mission is being implemented in partnership with states to provide assured tap water supply in adequate quantities, of prescribed quality on regular and long-term basis to every rural household of the country by 2024. When the mission was announced on August 15, about 3.23 crore households (17 percent) had tap water supply. As on 18 March, 2021, 3.87 crore households have been provided tap water connections under Jal Jeevan Mission, meaning over 7.11 crore (37 percent) rural homes now have tap water supply.

Assured potable water to every household and public institutions -- school, anganwadi center, primary healthcare center, Gram Panchayat ghar, community wellness center, etc. -- impacts overall health and well-being of people and children, thereby healthier communities. Sustained consumption of contaminated water has adverse health impacts. Children particularly are at greater risk to water-borne diseases as multiple episodes reduce their growth, cognitive abilities and thus, diminished capacities and potential.

Further, National Jal Jeevan Mission launched an innovation challenge in partnership with Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to develop portable devices for water testing. The main objective of the exercise is to bring an innovative, modular, and cost effective solution to develop portable devices that can be used at the village/household level to test the drinking water quality instantly, easily and accurately.

Similarly, the ministry is exploring use of sensor-based IoT solutions for smart monitoring of water quality. To improve service in terms of quantity, quality and regularity, a ‘smart water supply measurement and monitoring system’ is being developed. Pilot testing for ‘sensor-based IoT’ solutions is underway in nine different locations across the country. For grievance redressal, online and toll-free number-based helplines are also being set up, the ministry said. 


4.2. Jewellery industry in India: heralding a technological transformation 
ETCIO, Apr. 07, 2021, Mayank Jha 

Modern technology and digital tools are making the jewellery landscape much more interesting than ever. Now, the power of CAD backed by the production abilities of 3D printing make it possible for the jewellery makers to do away with the conventional designs. 

The 21st century is defined by ‘technology’ with everything from shopping, communication, work and social interactions having becoming predominantly digital. Hence, it seems to be quite natural that jewellery production has also gone the digital way. India is one of the largest jewellery consumers in the world and the overall market is expected to value over $100 billion by 2025. In such a scenario, digital technology integration will increasingly drive this growth. The market has become multi-dimensional with ecommerce platforms, cloud solutions, computer-aided design (CAD), AR and 3D printing tools becoming popular. Today, technology is enhancing customer experience for jewellery buyers by transforming the production processes.

Limitless market opportunities and supply chain enhancements
The hybrid retail model has eliminated the market limits for jewellery brands. You might have a store in Bangalore, and deliver the products in Guwahati. This is how things stand with the integration of offline and online channels in jewellery retail. Supply chain processes have become far more streamlined, efficient and fast. Payments are made digitally and products packaged in a touchless manner and dispatched across the country ensuring that the customers don’t need to wait for weeks or months to get the product they want.

Demand-based products
The digital tools of jewellery production have made it possible for consumers to get exactly what they want. Manufacturers are constantly listening to consumers and quickly create product offerings that meet their expectations. This is where innovations like modular jewellery, size-changeable rings and many other such innovations are ensuring customer delight. In fact, now it is possible for jewellery designers to offer customizations on any product whether it is a ring, necklace or a bracelet. Demand and consumer expectation based production is not only leading to greater customer delight retention, but also helping retailers to move stock faster leading to greater revenue.


3D Printing
One of the most beneficial integrations of digital technology has been the emergence of 3D printing and CAD. These have created a wide range of benefits for the jewellery makers. They can make design alterations on the go, achieve detailing that is almost impossible manually, and produce the products faster! Lost-Wax Printing and Casting has allowed manufacturers to use a diversity of metals such as copper, gold, bronze, silver and brass to create trending and unique designs.

3D printing also allows customers to play a role in the jewellery design process which makes their experience more personalized and satisfactory. Elements such as polyamide, alumide, ceramics, and rubber, etc., can be integrated to make the pieces more affordable, durable and customizable.

Lasers
Laser is not exactly a digital novelty. By creating digital tech driven processes, the benefits of laser cutting have become a lot more valuable for the jewellery industry. Today, the product makers use lasers for welding, cutting and embellishing the finely crafted pieces. Laser cutting tools have enhanced the designing potential and precision of execution. Lasers are also playing a key role in ensuring genuineness and preventing theft of jewellery. The technology is so precise that it can be used to create microscopically identification marks and numbers on diamonds and gems directly.

Lightweight Jewellery
It won’t be wrong to say that the emergence of affordable, light-weight jewellery wouldn’t have been possible without digital technology driven tools such as electroforming. This technology allows jewellery makers to create intricate, light but strong metallic designs. Through the process, a thicker layer of silver or gold is created which keeps the weight light, but, products like earrings more durable.

In conclusion
Modern technology and digital tools are making the jewellery landscape much more interesting than ever. Now, the power of CAD backed by the production abilities of 3D printing make it possible for the jewellery makers to do away with the conventional designs. Customers have a far greater number of options to choose from among new, unique, light-weight and affordable product offerings. With the evolution of new tools and constant innovations, it is almost a certainty that this buyer and seller experience will also steadily improve.

The author is Head of Technology, Melorra. 


5.1. Flipkart partners Adani to build a massive warehouse, data centre 
ET Tech. Apr. 13, 2021 

As part of the Flipkart-Adani partnership, the fulfilment centre that will be set up at the Adani Logistics hub in Mumbai will be leased to Flipkart, while the proposed data centre is due to come up at AdaniConnecX’s facility in Chennai. 

Bengaluru/Mumbai: Flipkart and Adani Group will partner to build one of India’s largest warehouses for e-commerce and will together set up a data centre, according to a joint statement on Monday, signalling a concerted effort by the Walmart Inc.-owned firm to increase collaboration with Indian conglomerates.

The fulfilment centre that will be set up at the Adani Logistics hub in Mumbai will be leased to Flipkart, while the proposed data centre is due to come up at AdaniConnecX’s facility in Chennai, the companies said.

For Flipkart, the alliance with Adani Group comes at a critical juncture as it battles increasing competition from the aggressive digital forays of India’s largest business houses—Reliance Industries Ltd. and the Tata Group, in addition to the challenge posed by traditional rival Amazon.
“Homegrown e-commerce giant Flipkart is our new strategic partner,” wrote Gautam Adani, chairman of Adani Group, on Twitter. “In the two-prong partnership, AdaniConneX will build their new Tier 4 data centre and Adani Logistics, India's leader in logistics, will build their 534,000 sq. ft. fulfilment centre.”

“Thousands of new jobs in Mumbai,” he added.
Neither company disclosed the financial terms of the Flipkart-Adani partnership.

“The Adani Group is unmatched in the way it has gone about building infrastructure across India. What it brought to us was a unique combination of logistics, real estate, green energy, and data centre infrastructure capabilities,” Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy said.

The Bengaluru-headquartered e-commerce firm has been steadily increasing its collaboration with Indian companies. Last week, it partnered with Mahindra Logistics to accelerate deployment of electric vehicles for last-mile deliveries. Last year, Flipkart acquired a minority stake in Aditya Birla Fashion Ltd. and a subsidiary of Arvind Fashions Ltd. to deepen its lead in the online fashion vertical. 

The 534,000 square feet fulfilment centre at the Adani Logistics hub in Mumbai will service growing e-commerce demand in the western region. The facility, due to become operational in the third quarter of 2022, will house 10 million units of sellers’ inventory and offer direct employment to about 2,500 people and thousands more indirectly.

Flipkart is also due to set up logistics hubs in Manesar in the north and Kolkata in the east, while plans to build a centre in southern India are yet to be formalised. Rival Amazon’s largest warehousing facility in India located at Hyderabad spans 580,000 square feet following its recent expansion.
Flipkart’s move to ally with local businesses also comes amid uncertainty surrounding the regulatory framework for online commerce, including the foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines, which are slated to be revised soon.

The establishment of a data centre, the third for Flipkart in India, at AdaniConnecX’s facility in Chennai will mark one of the largest private cloud deployments in the country. It will enable Flipkart to store data locally within India and comply with the mandate of the upcoming non-personal data regulations.
AdaniConnecX is a 50:50 joint venture of Adani Enterprises and global data centre EdgeConneX to develop and operate data centres in India. The joint venture aims to develop one gigawatts of data centre capacity over the next decade.

"The new data centre will help with future demand for data storage and traffic, and act as a backup to existing data centres in Hyderabad and Chennai,” a Flipkart executive said on the condition of anonymity. The partnership with Adani Group and other (local) partnerships serve as a way to “reduce capital expenditure for Flipkart, which is something that Walmart is also keen to explore,” this person said.

The Walmart-owned e-commerce major is preparing to go public either this year or in 2022 at a valuation of around $35 billion. ET had earlier reported that the company was already in talks with investment bankers JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs for its IPO and had reshuffled its board in December to bring on board CEO Krishnamurthy. 


5.2. Cognizant launches programme for tech professionals looking to restart careers 
PTI, Mar. 31, 2021 

The Cognizant Returnship Programme, an India-first initiative, is a way to get diverse talent in the door, irrespective of when their last professional role was, according to the company. 

IT major Cognizant on Tuesday said it has started a programme that aims to offer a 12-week paid experience for technology professionals looking at restarting their careers after a break. The Cognizant Returnship Programme, an India-first initiative, is a way to get diverse talent in the door, irrespective of when their last professional role was, according to the company.

Cognizant India Chairman and Managing Director Rajesh Nambiar said, "We are now extending our D&I (diversity and inclusion) philosophy beyond the workplace and into lives and careers, supporting those whose personal goals such as taking care of the family, raising a child or pursuing a life calling have resulted in a professional break."

Cognizant has launched the Cognizant Returnship Programme, a unique 12-week paid experience for talented technology professionals looking to restart their careers after a break, he added.
Many such talented professionals looking to return to the workforce are women, and Cognizant's inaugural cohort includes women taking on engineering management roles in the digital engineering practice, he said.

"For us, unlocking the potential of diversity of thought is not just about having people with different backgrounds and experiences on our team, but also about respecting and providing a fillip to each individual's inherent potential through an environment that mentors talent without biases," he said.

The programme is focused on providing returners with a supportive environment and access to training, upskilling, mentorship and other resources.
"These professionals will work with cutting-edge technology through the programme and will subsequently be considered for full-time positions at Cognizant," Nambiar said.

Woman professionals form around 38 per cent of the overall workforce in India and nearly 45 per cent of the company's workforce in tier-II cities. Cognizant has established female hiring and retention goals for company leaders, which are part of the formal annual performance ratings process.

With a sharpened focus on accelerating gender diversity globally in the leadership pipeline, Cognizant has also pledged to put 1,000 high performing women in leadership levels through Propel - its women's global leadership development initiative - by the end of 2021.
Propel is focused on enabling women at the mid-management level to accelerate their careers through coaching and mentoring in partnership with external certified executive coaches.

"Inclusion and diversity are critical to having a more equitable workplace while developing more robust solutions for our clients, challenging the status quo, and fuelling innovation and productivity.
"Our aim is to be a leader in closing the gender diversity gap in the technology industry," Nambiar said. 



- AGRICULTURE, FISHING & RURAL DEVELOPMENT 


6.1. Punjab CM gives proprietary rights to 3,245 slum dwellers 
IANS, Apr. 13, 2021 

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday ordered proprietary rights for 3,245 slum households in three districts under the BASERA scheme, with directives to complete the process of grant of such rights to a total of 40,000 households by September. 

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday ordered proprietary rights for 3,245 slum households in three districts under the BASERA scheme, with directives to complete the process of grant of such rights to a total of 40,000 households by September.

Chairing the second meeting of the Empowered Committee under the Chief Minister's Slum Development Programme - 'BASERA', Singh asked the department concerned to expedite the process of verification and grant of proprietary rights in order to benefit the maximum slum-dwellers in the state.

He reviewed the progress made so far under the scheme by various districts.
The 3,245 households approved for proprietary rights are located at 12 slum sites in the districts of Faridkot, Sangrur and Fazilka.
Till date, 186 slums having 21,431 households have been identified in 20 districts, wherein the verification process is being carried out full swing, the Chief Minister was informed.

The virtual meeting was further apprised that the verification of 25,000 households shall be completed within the next two months and the process of granting proprietary rights to eligible slum-dwellers shall be initiated simultaneously.
The verification of 40,000 households will be completed by September, it was decided at the meeting.

The Empowered Committee, at the two meetings held so far, has given approvals, under the scheme, for 21 slums involving 4705 households, spread over Moga, Bathinda, Fazilka, Patiala, Sangrur and Faridkot districts.
The identification of another 186 slums, involving approximately 22,000 households, is currently underway.

The scheme, aimed at helping slum-dwellers realise their dream of owning a home, was launched in January this year by the Chief Minister as a visionary step towards inclusive urban development and planning.

Punjab is the first state in the country to launch such a scheme for conferring proprietary rights to every slum household occupying state government land in a slum in any urban area on the date of notification of The Punjab Slum Dwellers (Proprietary Rights) Act, 2020, i.e., April 1, 2020.

A total of 1 lakh slum-dwellers will benefit in the first phase of the scheme, which will be extended later to other districts.
Rvery slum household occupying land in a slum in any urban area on the date of notification of the Act is eligible under the scheme.
However, the beneficiaries will not be permitted to alienate the transferred land for 30 years. 


6.2. Centre ropes in agro-tech agencies to conduct crop cutting experiments in 100 districts 
ET Gov. Mar.18, 2021 

The new initiative is part of Centre’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana programme, under which the agro-tech agencies will conduct studies for tech-based gram-panchayat level yield estimates. 

The Union ministry of agriculture has roped in Leads Connect Services, a agro-tech company, along with two other independent private agencies, to conduct the crop cutting experiments (CCE) in 100 districts across India.

The new initiative is part of Centre’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) programme, under which the agro-tech agency will conduct large-scale pilot studies for technology-based gram-panchayat level yield estimates.

The agro-tech company, Leads Connect, will deploy its cutting-edge technology for remote sensing and GIS and use artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics frameworks to co-observe the CCEs conducted by the state governments for PMFBY.

“This will be a smart union of traditional Random Number based CCEs data collection with a satellite remote sensing technology based random smart sampling methodology. In future there is a strong possibility that new methodology will replace the tradition method and reduce the number of sampling points with a better yield projection model or system,” Navneet Ravikar, chairman and managing director, Leads Connect Services said.

The company will also conduct a few additional CCEs for wheat in various districts of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, covering gram panchayats in 25 districts across these states.

This pilot study may be extended to 200 districts from Kharif 2021 which is a part of Government of India Initiative to use technology for precise yield estimation and timely claim settlement under PMFBY scheme. 


7.1. 630 plus destinations across India to be connected by IntrCity smartBus 
IANS, March, 20, 2021 

The IntrCity SmartBus, one of the branded intercity bus fleet in India on Friday said that it has expanded to 630 plus routes by widening its presence from Amritsar to Ahmedabad, Varanasi to Vijayawada, and Kashmir to Kanyakumari. 

IntrCity Smartbus, one of the branded intercity bus fleet in India on Friday said that it has expanded to 630 plus routes by widening its presence from Amritsar to Ahmedabad, Varanasi to Vijayawada, and Kashmir to Kanyakumari.
In a statement, it said that it is currently operating an all-time high fleet of branded buses and is clearly the widest network of intercity buses by any private player in India.

It said that it also plans to add 25-30 buses every month backed by strong consumer traction it is generating due to differentiated experience it has been able to deliver.
On the company's footprint and milestones, CEO and co-founder Manish Rathi said, "IntrCity SmartBus as a brand stands for comfort, convenience and safety, and we are happy to now provide it across 630 plus routes in India."

Rathi said that the Intrcity Railyatri gives a lot of weightage to understand the customer's requirements and offer the best travel experience.
"The number of satisfied customers being serviced by us is growing each day and this is one metric which I personally look at the most. This is a matter of pride for us," he said.

The company said that expansion to 630 plus routes across India includes more than 300 routes in north, primarily connecting prominent cities in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan with Delhi.
It said that there are 270 plus active routes in south India which connects tier two and tier three cities like Vijaywada, Coimabatore, Ernakulam, Tirupati, Madurai, Vishakapatnam, Nagercoil, Guntur and Pondicherry to Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad.

It said that the company has small presence in west India with only 60 plus routes but is growing rapidly across Maharashtra and Gujarat.
According to the Intrcity Railyatri, the platform currently attracts more than one lakh travelers every month and recently it crossed a loyal base of more than four lakh travelers who take their buses frequently. 


7.2. In-depth: Analysis of e-NAM portal impact on farmers and agriculture sector 
ET Gov. Apr. 07, 2021, DK Das 

Electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal for Agri-produce is a key initiative by the Government of India. 

India has always been an Agrarian economy, which means it is also a huge employer. Agriculture till date continues to be the primary source of livelihood for about 58% of India’s population and contributes to around 18% to overall GDP. Thus, any sort of development and advancements in agriculture is directly proportional to development of majority of population in India.

Future of agriculture is a very pertinent question for the Government, economic planners and all other key stakeholders in India. Today, Agriculture in India is marred with Key challenges like: small land holdings per farmer, primary and secondary processing, supply chain, financing and reducing intermediaries in the market etc.
Answering some of these questions require constant innovation on part of the Government of India. While reducing small land-holdings is in fact a limiting factor, the rest of the challenges can be addressed through structural reforms.

One of such key initiatives by the Government of India in the Agriculture sector is ‘e-NAM’ or ‘Electronic National Agriculture Market’. Electronic National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) is a pan-India electronic trading portal for Agri-produce, launched in April 2016 to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities by networking existing Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs).

The original APMC framework in itself has its own set of challenges. Each state has its own APMC Act, with provisions that can vary quite a bit and this lack of uniformity or compatibility has led to the fragmentation of agricultural markets with each state functioning as a separate market.

The core purpose of APMCs was to prevent the exploitation of farmers by traders, by bringing all trade into regulated markets but creation of such fragmented markets led to restrictive practices and collusion among traders leading to excessive dependence of farmers on middlemen. As a result, this entire architecture made inter-state trade all the more difficult.
To overcome this challenge, e-NAM was constructed with the goal of creating a seamless national market where buyers and sellers can transact without being in the same location. Through e-NAM platform, more buyers can bid for a specific lot. The dispersed set of online buyers bidding anonymously reduces the opportunities traders have for colluding. This is the main advantage of e-NAM.

Under e-NAM, one license issued for a trader is valid across all markets in the State. Also, there is a single-point tax of market fees on the first wholesale purchase from the farmer. For local traders in the mandi, e-NAM offers the opportunity to access a larger national market for secondary trading. For the farmers, it increases access to markets through warehouse-based sales and thus reducing the need to transport his produce to the mandi.

Bulk buyers, processors, exporters, etc. The farmers thus benefit from participating directly in trading at the local mandi level through the e-NAM platform, thereby reducing their intermediation costs.
With e-NAM, farmers can now have access to 24x7 commodity price information on their e-NAM mobile app. It also offers advance lot registration facility which reduces the waiting time at the mandi. Farmers can further view bids being placed for their produce, along with quality assaying parameters, on mobiles.

SMS alerts for the final bid price are sent to the mobile phones of the farmers along with direct payments made by traders into their bank accounts. Similarly, traders can also buy from more than one market with the same license and quote bids online.

Overall, e-NAM is a fine concept which however will have to evolve to pass the test of time. There are a few challenges which e-NAM faces:

1) Alignment of Nationwide APMC and States
2) Awareness and Adoption by key stakeholders
3) Constantly upgrading: Adaption to rapid changes in technology

Today, e-NAM needs a legal binding arrangement across states that is mutually compatible to correct weaknesses of the APMC divergent APMC acts at State levels. States seeking integration with e-NAM must issue a) a single unified trading license for all mandis in the state, b) implement a single point levy of market fee, and c) provide for e-auction/e-trading as a mode of price discovery.

Further, in order to ensure adoption by key stakeholders a lot of work is required to upgrade the quality of existing infrastructure which is one of the major challenges to the farmers other than lack of awareness, irregular electricity, availability of working computers for large scale operations and high-speed internet across smaller towns.

A lot of which can be taken care of by building awareness on usage of mobile based platforms however the Government may have to invest time and energy into propagating the agenda among key stakeholders to ensure early adoption. Like any new initiative, success of e-NAM also requires adoption by its key stakeholders like Farmers, Mandis, traders, participating banks etc.

Talking of stakeholder, the Banking system also has a critical role to play in the success of e-NAM. Banking system over the time has not emerged as a key stakeholder but a key driver of e-NAM initiative of Government of India. Banks today offer end to end integration with e-NAM. Axis Bank is a privileged partner to the Government for e-NAM platform integration with banking services including collection through multiple modes from purchasers with adequate checks and validations, reconciliation, subsequent payment to beneficiaries, updates and host to host reporting to e-NAM platform.

We are the only bank to offer one of its kind end-to-end Auction platform for Mandis through Third Service Providers tie-ups. It includes digitization of Trade transactions for better price discovery and transparency towards settlement of beneficiaries. Farmer gets the payment through direct benefit transfer within stipulated time where we are the sole Banker to all Mandi transactions.

In the end, we can say that e-NAM will not only turn out beneficial to the farmers for real-time price discovery and reduced intermediation, but will ensure a host of other long term benefits, supply chain efficiencies, transparency and harmonisation of quality standards etc.

Even the large retailers can benefit from this and will be attracted to this due to higher profit margins due to lack of intermediaries. Although to ensure this the Government will have to propagate awareness among key stakeholders as early adoption of e-NAM by stakeholder like farmers, Mandis, Traders and participating banks will be crucial for success of e-NAM.

(The author is Executive Vice President & Head, Government Business, Axis Bank. Views are personal.) 


8.1. WHY GROWING CROPS UNDER SOLAR PANELS IS THE CROSS-SECTOR SYNERGISTIC SOLUTION WE NEED ON OUR WAY TO ACHIEVING SEVERAL SDG 
EUROSCIENTIST, 9 Apr. 2020, Pitamber Kaushik 

One of the primary deterrents to the intensification of agriculture has long been its requirement of insolation. Land put to agricultural use could not be simultaneously devoted to any kind of vertical development, given the dependence of photosynthesis – the Earth’s most abundant chemical reaction, upon sunlight. 

Another sector faces the same problem – Solar Energy. Devotion of land area is a major concern. Although unlike plants, solar panels constantly evolve to become more efficient, the progress rate does not seem fast enough to realise sea-change within our generation’s lifetime. Provision of an unobstructed surface to intercept the sunlight is the primary consideration. 

However, combining the two is not a bad idea, as recent research has shown. Aeroponics, the vertical stacking of small plants on racks equipped with root drip sprayers, to save water and land use, is already exploiting the ability of several plant species, particularly vegetables to thrive under shade or indirect and spare illumination. Initially, the cool shade provided by Solar Panels was deemed to be appropriate only for fungiculture. Shade is conducive to various kinds of plants, and studies are still ongoing. It’s a precarious territory and some varieties don’t even struggle to cope with shade, it is conducive to them, eliciting higher CO2 uptake. 

A research study led by the University of Arizona’s Greg Barron-Gafford, published in Nature sustainability in September 2019, found out that shading by Photovoltaic panels provides multiple additive and synergistic benefits. These included, amongst others, greater food production, a reduction in the plant drought stress, and a drop in the solar panel heat stress. The entire research exercise involved rigorous monitoring of various internal and ambient parameters – microclimatic conditions, panel temperature, water uptake, soil moisture, plant ecophysiological function, and phytobiomass production. The researchers foresee a steep rise in its already immense utility in the near future, in light of predicted climate phenomena as persistent warming, acute heat waves, and precarious droughts. 

The shade provided by the panels lowers soil surface temperature and evaporation, and the vegetation would reciprocate by keeping the panels cool. Solar PV Panels begin to wane in efficiency at high temperatures, hence the vegetation presence is conducive to their yield. Coverage by the panels not only provides cooling during daytime but helps retain considerable heat in the night. Of the three types of plants experimented upon, two showed a high increase in CO2 uptake as well as an immense rise in food production. Meanwhile, the third plant showed marginal decreases therein, but nonetheless considerably improved its water-efficiency. This implies that extensive trials to probe what crop plants prefer shade, or a meticulous investigation into the underlying mechanisms affording the changes is appropriated to fruitfully implement the scheme. However, overall, the results were extremely promising. 

Such spatially integrated arrangements of certain crops and Solar Photovoltaic installations, also known as “Agrivoltaics” can turn farmlands into self-reliant entities, alleviate carbon and water footprints, and vastly improve rural living standards in the third world. Combining this innovation with drip irrigation would further enhance its water-efficiency. 

Agrivoltaic installations in arid and semi-arid regions has the potential to check desertification. Plants not only serve to cool and retain moisture but also act as a shield against soil erosion and airborne dust, the latter of which poses a serious detriment to the efficiency of Solar Panels. Moreover, the panels would also hinder wind erosion and by breaking the flow of precipitation, water erosion as well. In fact, agrivoltaics may help recover certain tracts of land which were rendered unfit for cultivation. 

Rooftop agrivoltaics can also help urban infrastructure become sustainable, and households and homesteads to conveniently negate their carbon and energy footprint. In tropical areas, the benefits are three-pronged – high insolation would lead to higher energy yields further boosted by the overheating the plants prevent, a great diversity of plants can be grown, and the entire setup by simple virtue of its roof coverage would afford heat-shielding in Summers. In arid areas, the entire setup can be integrated with a rainwater harvesting system, and the roof cover would offer significant temperature moderation – cooler days and warmer nights. 

The best part is that such installations can be automated – it is more of a one-time investment. An IoT-enabled network comprising of sensors and simple robotic actuators viz. temperature and moisture sensors, simple repetitive panel cleaners, and timed watering mechanisms can render the installations near-completely independent of human intervention, even for household units. For large installations, agro-business or otherwise, Machine Learning can enable extensive automation, adaptive optimisation and yield maximisation – say by tilting and turning the panels to tune in to the motion of the Sun or reconcile or readjust the plant’s and the panel’s needs according to the immediate requirement. Constant monitoring and foresighted planning can enable the satiation of both short-term and long-term goals. 

Agrivoltaics might just be the redemptive cooperation that would salvage humanity from the ill-thought pursuit of indiscriminate competition. This adaptable, integral solution has the potential to not only make economic pursuits sustainable in general but also help achieve individual self-sufficiency and energy independence. 

By Pitamber Kaushik, columnist, journalist, writer and researcher. 


8.2. PM to launch 'Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain' campaign today 
Press Information Bureau: March 22, 2021 

Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi will launch the ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ campaign on World Water Day i.e., on 22nd March 2021 at 12:30 PM via video conferencing. In the presence of the Prime Minister, the signing of historic Memorandum of Agreement between the Union Minister of Jal Shakti and the Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to implement the Ken Betwa Link Project, the first project of the National Perspective Plan for interlinking of rivers, will also take place. 

About ‘Jal Shakti Abhiyan: Catch the Rain’ 

The Campaign will be undertaken across the country, in both rural and urban areas, with the theme “catch the rain, where it falls, when it falls”. It will be implemented from 22nd March 2021 to 30th November 2021 - the pre-monsoon and monsoon period in the country. It will be launched as a Jan Andolan to take water conservation at grass-root level through people’s participation. It is intended to nudge all stakeholders to create rainwater harvesting structures suitable to the climatic conditions and subsoil strata, to ensure proper storage of rainwater. 

After the event, Gram Sabhas will be held in all Gram Panchayats of each district (except in the poll bound states) to discuss issues related to water and water conservation. Gram Sabhas will also take ‘Jal Shapath’ for water conservation. 

About MoA for Ken Betwa Link Project 

The agreement heralds the beginning of inter- state cooperation to implement the vision of Former Prime Minister Mr. Atal Bihari Vajpayee to carry water from areas that have surplus water to drought prone and water deficit areas, through the interlinking of rivers. This project involves transfer of water from the Ken to the Betwa River through the construction of Daudhan Dam and a canal linking the two rivers, the Lower Orr Project, Kotha Barrage and Bina Complex Multipurpose Project. It will provide annual irrigation of 10.62 lakh ha, drinking water supply to about 62 lakh people and also generate 103 MW of hydropower. 

The Project will be of immense benefit to the water starved region of Bundelkhand, especially to the districts of Panna, Tikamgarh, Chhatarpur, Sagar, Damoh, Datia, Vidisha, Shivpuri and Raisen of Madhya Pradesh and Banda, Mahoba, Jhansi and Lalitpur of Uttar Pradesh. It will pave the way for more interlinking of river projects to ensure that scarcity of water does not become an inhibitor for development in the country. 

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


9.1. Acceleration of digitization and automation influencing remote job opportunities across sectors 
ETHR World, Apr. 12, 2021, Manu Saigal 

The sectors that will witness maximum impact in creating remote job opportunities will be BFSI, IT/ ITeS, Ecommerce, Logistics, Professional Services, and Education with more than 75 percent of activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity.

In the modern workplace, considerable technology-driven disruption, intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, has accelerated the pace of digitization and automation influencing and shifting talent strategies. The widespread shift to remote working has equipped organisations with a deeper understanding to view technological change not with dread but with flexibility and identify some practical actions they can take to ready themselves for what lies ahead. The post-pandemic recovery will warrant not just new types of work but also a new type of workers who will be poised to collaborate digitally and adopt online productivity tools.

Most sectors were already walking the digital transformation path and leading the change; however, Covid-19 has accelerated plans and roadmaps that were already on paper. Digitization and automation have been a high priority for sectors like BFSI, IT, Hospitality, Travel, Ecommerce and Logistics for years, although not for the reasons we need it today. The year 2020 forced organisations to make the shift to remote work, creating a rise in the digital workplace and remote workforce facilitating AI, Machine Learning, Cloud Computing, Data Science, SaaS, IoT to name a few.
According to McKinsey, even though India is known globally for its high-tech and financial services industries, the vast majority of our workforce is employed in livelihoods like agriculture and retail services and that cannot be done remotely. The sectors that will witness maximum impact in creating remote job opportunities will be BFSI, IT/ ITeS, Ecommerce, Logistics, Professional Services, and Education with more than 75 percent of activities that can be done remotely without a loss of productivity. The sectors that will see a moderate impact include Manufacturing, Healthcare, Utilities, Real Estate, Media, and Entertainment with anywhere between 20-50 percent of activities managed effectively through remote workers.

The potential for remote work is highly skewed in favour of skilled manpower employed in select industries, professions, and various geographies. Studies also indicate that remote work is more conducive in advanced economies than developed economies like India. A majority of the workforce, however, has little or no opportunity for remote work. Some of their jobs require physical/manual labour, collaborating with clients, using specialized machinery or equipment; specific activities that must be done on location; and others, such as making deliveries and field activities performed while out and about. Ironically, these are also jobs that command lower wages and are more at risk from automation and digitization. Remote work thus also highlights disparities at a social level.

As employers around the globe adapted to the new reality, automation is enabling completely new experiences - from shopping to paperless financial transactions, on-demand entertainment to collaborative working. On the other side, this also led to a growing realization that digitalization can enable a radically different way of operating with respect to remote jobs which is the new norm. The key shift in the current workplace mindset is instead of daily work being an accrual of specific activities to becoming a continuous delivery model guided by data and performance-driven insights. All this comes as the world of work copes with a more digitalized future where Gen Zers will emerge as key decision-makers across the world, shifting consumer patterns and behaviours.

Our own research indicates that the future of work will be more flexible and a hybrid model of remote and office work will be the norm. The productivity quotient of remote workers will be based on the output and impact, not on the number of hours worked. Employers are now obligated to find tools and systems to help their employees succeed and digitalization and automation to provide a great stimulus for remote working. Platforms, such as Zoom, Slack, and Hangouts, make meetings and collaborating incredibly efficient and easy.

This rapid adoption of digitization and automation in the new era of work will require new skills creating even more appetite for upskilling and reskilling. Amongst the skills most in demand, we find that a majority of the employees surveyed worldwide would like to see training in soft skills as well as in digital and remote working skills. Employers are now under immense pressure to meet and deliver on relevant skill development needs of their workforce.

There are many remote job opportunities for a digitally connected workforce. Now that location is less of a constraint, organisations are exploring getting in talent from locations where they do not have offices, promoting the remote work culture. Remote work sees a spike across all sectors, and organisations are more confident in exploring it more and more due to digitalization. On the other hand, job seekers are also capitalizing the shift to remote working, with work location and remote working being recognized as among the top factors – second only to pay parameters.

Now that we have the country-wide vaccination drive in full swing, the limitations and benefits of remote working are pretty clear. Whether you are in a sector pushing volume growth or simply trying to adapt and drive demand, organisations prioritizing digitization and automation from a ‘nice to have’ to ‘a must have’ will likely ride the tailwinds of the pandemic on a stronger footing and garner better market share in their respective markets.

The author, Manu Saigal, is Director – General Staffing, at Adecco India.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETHRWorld does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETHRWorld will not be responsible for any damage caused to any person or organisation directly or indirectly. 


9.2. This Chennai startup helps farmers boost their income with a micro farm model 
By Vishal Krishna, 28th Mar 2021 

Agritech startup Aqgromalin, founded by Prasanna M and Bharani CL, helps farmers supplement their income by diversifying into animal husbandry and aquaculture. A Chennai-based agritech startup founded in 2019 by two tech graduates aims to help small farmers mitigate risks from mono crop culture and earn additional income by diversifying into animal husbandry and aquaculture. 

With Aqgromalin, founders Prasanna M and Bharani CL enable small farmers to access the input materials, technical instruments, training, and support needed to take up animal husbandry and aquaculture without too many additional requirements. “We first conceptualised a farm-to-fork model in which we bring farmers closer to consumers and businesses,” says Prasanna. “But as we started working with a number of farmers, we felt there we more significant opportunities, where we could effectively contribute to creating a better impact on increasing their income.” 

The founders say that in Tamil Nadu, most farmers were involved in paddy cultivation, which was not too profitable compared to the time and effort invested in yielding a good harvest. “We then surveyed the progressive farmers in that area and found that a majority of them were involved in allied activities of animal husbandry and aquaculture,” says Bharani. “They were able to mitigate the risks arising from mono crop culture and were also able to see handsome returns.” Snapshot According to the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 100 million farmers out of 140 million farm households each own less than an acre. Many others own under two acres each. 

These are the small farmers Aqgromalin especially seeks to help in diversifying their income. At present, the farm diversification integrator covers close to 10,000 acres and works with 600 farmers. Easy farm set-up Aqgromalin allows farmers to take up animal husbandry and aquaculture through its “ready to implement micro farms” model, which requires little space and investment, and is not too labour intensive, say the founders. Sign up for our exclusive newsletters. Subscribe to check out our popular newsletters. While farmers receive a lot of recommendations from stakeholders such as the government, traders, companies, and startups, they want to test a model before venturing into new activities. 

So early on in 2019, Prasanna and Bharani built their model and invited farmers to see its benefit. Once the farmers were convinced, the founders began to see traction. The model works thus: Say, a farmer invests Rs 1 lakh to rear fish, ducks, goat, and pigs and intends to sell the produce at a profit. Aqgromalin buys the produce and takes it across the distribution chain. The farmer can also take it to the market if the price offered is higher. The start-up also provides an app that has information to track the growth of the produce and helps the farmer monitor the farm’s maintenance. “We monetise by supplying inputs on a subscription model after every crop cycle,” says Bharani. “We also have a buyback option, where we help farmers sell their produce through our platform.” 

At present, the start-up works with farmers in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh. “As the investment and space requirement is low, we’ve had more farmers take this model up in addition to the existing activities,” says Prasanna. The model has become especially useful for women farmers to contribute to their household income, say the founders. Gauging the potential Chennai natives Prasanna and Bharani have been friends for almost 17 years and completed their engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology in 2007. After engineering, Bharani worked with TVS Motor and Renault-Nissan, while Prasanna started an edtech company called Axiom in 2008. At the time, he designed an online test platform for competitive exams and trained students on that portal. After Axiom was acquired by another firm, the pair decided to launch an agritech start-up. 

They noticed that 85 percent of agritech start-ups were working in horticulture, while established companies including Venkateshwara Hatcheries and Suguna were involved in the poultry industry. Shrimp cultivation too yielded value, given that products are exported and bring foreign exchange to the country. Animal husbandry and aquaculture are part of the allied agricultural sector, with a potential to become large industries. This prompted Prasanna and Bharani to focus on the two segments. “We believe there are several product lines, which have the potential to gain the same traction as horticulture, poultry, and shrimp cultivation,” says Prasanna. Scaling the micro farm model Aqgromalin was bootstrapped for the first eight months after its launch, even as it gained traction from its micro farm model. After this, the founders approached some angel investors, says Prasanna. 

So far, the startup has raised Rs 2 crore from some angels in West Asia. "Having external investors believe in your vision and become part of the journey is always exciting for an entrepreneur," says Prasanna. "Customers validate your model and investors validate your vision; getting both at all times is critical for a company at all stages." Being a privately-held company, the founders do not want to disclose its revenue. The startup aims to set up 500 “ready to implement micro farms” in Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh and ensure that its 600 partner farmers at least double their household income. “As our work is predominantly in the rural areas, we encounter interesting challenges on a regular basis,” Bharani says of the scope for innovation at Aqgromalin. The startup competes with agritech firms Ninjacart, Crofarm, CropIn, Farmizen, DeHaat, and BigHaat, among others. Although the agritech sector is yet to have a unicorn, Aqgromalin’s founders see a lot of potential for growth and innovation. Aqgromalin founders “With a significant number of startups coming into this space, access to credit and technologies has become easier for farmers,” says Prasanna. “They need to leverage these available resources and take the maximum advantage. For startups also this is a very exciting space, with increased activity over the last two years. The opportunities are immense and there is scope for innovation. With internet penetration, we’re seeing more farmers become tech savvy and willing to adopt new technologies.”


10.1. Amazon taps grocery biz  to  expand  in  towns 
Mint, 29 Mar. 2021, Madhurima Nandy

Amazon India is doubling down on the fast-growing grocery business to attract more first-time buyers who are mostly from the non-metro cities and towns, a top company executive said. 

Amazon India is doubling down on the fast-growing grocery business to attract more first-time buyers who are mostly from the non-metro cities and towns, a top company executive said. 

In the past year, the US online retailing giant saw a sharp rise in first-time online shoppers, particularly from tier-II and III cities and towns. Around 65% of orders and more than 85% of new customers on Amazon India were from tier-II and beyond markets. 

On the grocery front, a relatively new category, Amazon India’s overall customer base and first-time buyers doubled on Amazon Pantry and Fresh post-covid with more than 60% share of new customers from non-metros. 

Amazon in February integrated its pantry service (dry grocery) with instant grocery service Fresh in 10 cities to create an integrated online store with express delivery. In the remaining 290 cities and towns which do not have the Fresh service currently, Pantry will continue to provide dry grocery. 

“Grocery as a sub-category grew more than 2X and became a gateway for new customers on Amazon.in. These customers have, over time, shopped across categories. There is a huge growth potential in online grocery, which is still a small market. I anticipate a complete evolution in the way people do grocery shopping in India, and this category will grow multiple times for the next few years," Manish Tiwary, vice-president, Amazon India, said in an interview. 

Expecting a large chunk of new customers to continue to come from smaller towns and villages, Amazon plans to scale its grocery offering this year through a dual approach, wherein it will expand its reach with dry grocery and double down on the top 50 cities with the entire range of fresh and dry grocery, Tiwary added. 

India’s nascent yet burgeoning e-grocery sector is creating a multi-player field where companies are adopting diverse business models to capture customer share beyond the metros. 

With Tata Digital Ltd-BigBasket and Reliance Jiomart in the fray, horizontal e-commerce marketplaces like Flipkart and Amazon are betting on grocery as a key growth frontier this year. 

The plans of online retailers have been boosted by the strict lockdown last year and the associated tailwinds as people stayed cooped indoors, which led the gross merchandise value of the e-grocery segment jump to $3.3 billion in 2020, from $1.9 billion in 2019, according to RedSeer. The research consultancy expects the sector to touch $24 billion by 2025. 

Even for its subscription-based Prime membership, Amazon saw a significant increase in new members from smaller towns. Around 3X more customers signed up for Prime during the festive season last year compared to a normal business day, with three out of five sign-ups from non-metros. 

Amazon India, which scaled its ‘Local Shops’ programme to 50,000 offline retailers across 450 cities in March, expects to double the count of stores by this year-end. 

As part of the programme, which was launched a year ago, kiranas and offline retailers can come aboard and start selling on Amazon’s e-commerce platform. It also helps supplement existing footfalls at these kirana stores with a digital presence. 

“Local Shops started as a compensation for people not walking into stores and moving online. But stores are seeing value and making this a part of their expansion. There is active participation of sellers from beyond top 20 cities. This year, seller acceleration in some of the new categories like grocery should continue," Tiwary said. 


10.2. Amazon acquires Perpule to bolster kirana-tech play 
Mint, 30 Mar 2021, Tarush Bhalla

With this, Amazon plans to up its ante in the kirana-tech space as it would now leverage Perpule’s cloud-based point-of-sale (PoS) offering ‘UltraPoS’ and offer new suite of technology products 

Bengaluru: Amazon Technologies Inc., part of Amazon.com Inc., has acquired retail tech startup Perpule in an all cash-deal of ₹107.6 crore to bolster its play in the kirana-tech space in India, according to regulatory filings. 

Amazon is expected to pay additional remuneration to Bengaluru-based Perpule’s employees, which may bump up the overall deal value to around ₹150 crores, according to two individuals aware of the discussion. 

With this, Amazon plans to up its ante in the kirana-tech space as it would now leverage Perpule’s cloud-based point-of-sale (PoS) offering ‘UltraPoS’ and offer new suite of technology products to its kirana partners, while digitising neighborhood stores. 

The acquisition is expected to provide Perpule’s investors an exit with 4x-5x returns. The four-year old startup has raised close to $4.7 million till date from Prime Venture Partners, Kalaari Capital, Venture Highway and Taxiforsure co-founder Raghunandan G. 

Most of its employees are expected to join Amazon including co-founders Abhinav Pathak, Saketh BSV and Yogesh Ghaturle, said one person mentioned above. 

Mint accessed the regulatory filings filed by Perpule with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). 

UltraPoS, which is Perpule’s primary product is a full-fledged store management solution that helps small businesses digitally manage and automate inventory, purchase orders from distributors, customer billings. 

An Amazon India spokesperson confirmed the news and said that Perpule’s cloud POS will help offline stores of all sizes manage their operations better. 

“Perpule has built an innovative cloud-based POS offering that enables offline stores in India to better manage their inventory, checkout process, and overall customer experience. We are excited to have the Perpule team join us to focus on providing growth opportunities for businesses of all sizes in India while raising the bar of the shopping experience for Indian customers," said an Amazon spokesperson. 

Perpule co-founder Abhinav Pathak declined to comment on the development. 

Last year, Amazon launched ‘Smart Stores’ to help offline retailers digitize their inventory, while allowing them to launch digital store fronts on its app. It has also scaled its ‘Local Shops’ program to 50,000 offline retailers in March and plans to double that by year-end. 

The acquisition of Perpule may also help Amazon further digitise in-store inventory of offline retailers and list them on Amazon app. 

Perpule’s ‘UltraPoS’, which had close to 10,000 store and retail partners across India, South-east Asia and UAE, as of last year, also provides core analytics for retailers to help them understand customer demographic and purchase patterns at outlets. Close to 60% of the product’s customer base are international clients including Matahari Retail in Indonesia and Landmark Group in Malaysia. 

Last year, the startup had launched its white label e-commerce solution ‘StoreSe’ to provide an end-to-end technology backend and ordering solution to offline brick and mortar retailers, to help establish their presence online. 

Mint couldn’t ascertain whether UltraPoS’s merchant base will be absorbed by Amazon, and whether Perpule will continue to operate its StoreSe platform. 

“Currently the focus seems to be on the integration of Perpule’s POS product. Whether customers will move to the new integrated product platform is a call which Amazon may take eventually. The focus of the acquisition will be on Indian retailers for now," said the second person, on condition of anonymity. 

Prime Venture Partners, Kalaari Capital and Venture Highway did not respond to queries. 

India’s kirana-tech ecosystem has seen heightened competition from new age players including Khatabook, OkCredit and Dukaan. 

Recently Mint reported that Khatabook acquired accounting software Biz Credit to equip kirana partners automatic reconciliation and digital invoicing capabilites. It also looks to launch credit and insurance for retail partners. Biz Credit’s acquisition would also help Khatabook’s retail store base with commerce capabilities, helping procure inventory digitally from distributors. 


- INDUSTRY and MANUFACTURE 


11.1 ‘Digital India to play ‘decisive role’ for 5G tech roll out globally’ 
ET Gov. Mar. 25, 2021 

TRAI secretary SK Gupta, a 1983-batch ITS officer believes that India with its digital and software capabilities, is set to play a ‘decisive role’ in the 5G technology roll out globally. 

Led by Digital India programme, India is set to be ‘way forward’ in terms of digital infrastructure to usher into the 5G era, senior administrator and Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) secretary SK Gupta said on Thursday.

Gupta, a 1983-batch Indian Telecommunication Service (ITS) Officer in his address said that India with its digital and software capabilities, is set to play a ‘decisive role’ in the 5G technology roll out globally. According to him, the new FDI policy is also likely to attract foreign investments in manufacturing programmes helping along the growth in the telecom sector.

Gupta was addressing a webinar organised by the PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI). While advocating for indigenous production of telecom equipment, Gupta said the initiative if implemented in letter and spirit “will be the way forward” for the sector. At present the telecom sector is heavily dependent on the import of telecom equipment. According to Gupta liberal Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) regime and the PLI scheme (Production Linked Incentive) for telecom equipment are set to spur manufacturing ecosystem in India, attracting large investment to the market.
The existing wide base of telecom and internet subscribers, affordable broadband services, combined with the power of advanced technologies like cloud, Artificial Intelligence, and platforms are paving the way for a digitally-strong ‘new India’, Gupta asserted.

“While there has been an exponential growth of telecom networks, we are hugely dependent on the import of telecom equipment. Telecom imports have been in the range of 1 lakh crore plus every year which is a point of concern,” Gupta said.
The focus now is on boosting the production of equipment in India and becoming self-reliant.

“Import of telecom equipment not only has an adverse financial impact but also raises security concerns. The risk associated with the concentration of supply chain in a few geographies have attracted the attention of world leaders,” Gupta added.
According to Gupta, the Centre’s call for Atmanirbhar Bharat is “well-timed” as “existing global supply chains are getting disrupted and new opportunities are emerging in the field of telecom development.”

“Given the skill base in India, the scale of domestic market and technology orientation, India presents an attractive option for global manufacturers,” Gupta said.
While speaking about the robust digital landscape, Gupta said India has 1.2 billion telephone subscribers, 1 billion digital ID holders of Aadhaar, 800 million internet subscribers. The data consumption too has risen to over 11 GB per subscriber per month. 


11.2. Union Cabinet approves Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for White Goods (Air Conditioners and LED Lights) and 'National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules' 
Press Information Bureau, Apr. 08, 2021 

The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for White Goods (Air Conditioners and LED Lights) with a budgetary outlay of Rs. 6,238 crore (US$ 848.96 million). The Union Cabinet also approved the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy's proposal for implementation of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme 'National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV (Photo Voltic) Modules' for achieving manufacturing capacity of Giga Watt (GW) scale in high efficiency solar PV modules with an outlay of Rs. 4,500 crore (US$ 612.43 million). 

Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for White Goods (Air Conditioners and LED Lights) 

The prime objective of the PLI scheme is to make manufacturing in India globally competitive by removing sectoral disabilities, creating economies of scale and ensuring efficiencies. It is designed to create complete component ecosystem in India and make India an integral part of the global supply chains. The scheme is expected to attract global investments, generate large scale employment opportunities and enhance exports substantially. 

The PLI Scheme for White Goods shall extend an incentive of 4% to 6% on incremental sales of goods manufactured in India for a period of five years to companies engaged in manufacturing of Air Conditioners and LED Lights. Different segments have been earmarked for different types of components separately to specifically target global investments into desired areas. Selection of companies for the Scheme shall be done so as to incentivize manufacturing of components or sub-assemblies which are not manufactured in India presently with sufficient capacity. Mere assembly of finished goods shall not be incentivized. 

Companies meeting the pre-qualification criteria for different target segments will be eligible to participate in the Scheme. Incentives shall be open to companies making brown field or green field Investments. Thresholds of cumulative incremental investment and incremental sales of manufactured goods over the base year would have to be met for claiming incentives. 

An entity availing benefits under any other PLI Scheme of Govt. India will not be eligible under this scheme for the same products but the entity may take benefits under other applicable schemes of Govt. of India or schemes of State governments. The Scheme will be implemented as a pan India scheme and is not specific to any location, area or segment of population. A number of global and domestic companies, including a number of MSMEs are likely to benefit from the Scheme. 

The Scheme is expected to be instrumental in achieving growth rates that are much higher than existing ones for AC and LED industries, develop complete component eco-systems in India and create global champions manufacturing in India. They will have to meet the compulsory BIS and BEE Quality standards for sales into domestic market and applicable standards for global markets. It will also lead to investments in innovation and research and development and upgradation of technology. 

It is estimated that over the period of five years, the PLI Scheme will lead to incremental investment of Rs. 7,920 crore (US$ 1.08 billion), incremental Production worth Rs. 1,68,000 crore (US$ 22.86 billion), exports worth Rs. 64,400 crore (US$ 8.76 billion) earn direct and indirect revenues of Rs. 49,300 crore (US$ 6.71 billion) and create additional four lakh direct and indirect employment opportunities. 

Production Linked Incentive scheme 'National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules' 

Solar capacity addition presently depends largely upon imported solar PV cells and modules as the domestic manufacturing industry has limited operational capacities of solar PV cells and modules. The National Programme on High Efficiency Solar PV Modules will reduce import dependence in a strategic sector like electricity. It will also support the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. 

Solar PV manufacturers will be selected through a transparent competitive bidding process. PLI will be disbursed for 5 years post commissioning of solar PV manufacturing plants, on sales of high efficiency solar PV modules. Manufacturers will be rewarded for higher efficiencies of solar PV modules and also for sourcing their material from the domestic market. Thus, the PLI amount will increase with increased module efficiency and increased local value addition. 
  • The outcomes/ benefits expected from the scheme are as follows: 
  • Additional 10,000 MW capacity of integrated solar PV manufacturing plants, 
  • Direct investment of around Rs. 17,200 crore (US$ 2.34 billion) in solar PV manufacturing projects 
  • Demand of Rs. 17,500 crore (US$ 2.38 billion) over 5 years for 'Balance of Materials', 
  • Direct employment of about 30,000 and Indirect employment of about1,20,000 persons, 
  • Import substitution of around Rs. 17,500 crore (US$ 2.38 billion) every year, and 
  • Impetus to Research & Development to achieve higher efficiency in solar PV modules. 
Disclaimer: This information has been collected through secondary research and IBEF is not responsible for any errors in the same. 


11.3. Mint, 06 Apr. 2021, Debby Wu and Takashi Mochizuki, Bloomberg 

To understand why the $450 billion semiconductor industry has lurched into crisis, a helpful place to start is a one-dollar part called a display driver. 

Hundreds of different kinds of chips make up the global silicon industry, with the flashiest ones from Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. going for $100 apiece to more than $1,000. Those run powerful computers or the shiny smartphone in your pocket. A display driver is mundane by contrast: Its sole purpose is to convey basic instructions for illuminating the screen on your phone, monitor or navigation system. 

The trouble for the chip industry -- and increasingly companies beyond tech, like automakers -- is that there aren’t enough display drivers to go around. Firms that make them can’t keep up with surging demand so prices are spiking. That’s contributing to short supplies and increasing costs for liquid crystal display panels, essential components for making televisions and laptops, as well as cars, airplanes and high-end refrigerators. 

“It’s not like you can just make do. If you have everything else, but you don’t have a display driver, then you can’t build your product," says Stacy Rasgon, who covers the semiconductor industry for Sanford C. Bernstein. 

Now the crunch in a handful of such seemingly insignificant parts -- power management chips are also in short supply, for example -- is cascading through the global economy. Automakers like Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG have already scaled back production, leading to estimates for more than $60 billion in lost revenue for the industry this year. 

The situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. A rare winter storm in Texas knocked out swaths of U.S. production. A fire at a key Japan factory will shut the facility for a month. Samsung Electronics Co. warned of a “serious imbalance" in the industry, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it can’t keep up with demand despite running factories at more than 100% of capacity. 

“I have never seen anything like this in the past 20 years since our company’s founding," said Jordan Wu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Himax Technologies Co., a leading supplier of display drivers. “Every application is short of chips." 

The chip crunch was born out of an understandable miscalculation as the coronavirus pandemic hit last year. When Covid-19 began spreading from China to the rest of the world, many companies anticipated people would cut back as times got tough. 

“I slashed all my projections. I was using the financial crisis as the model," says Rasgon. “But demand was just really resilient." 

People stuck at home started buying technology -- and then kept buying. They purchased better computers and bigger displays so they could work remotely. They got their kids new laptops for distance learning. They scooped up 4K televisions, game consoles, milk frothers, air fryers and immersion blenders to make life under quarantine more palatable. The pandemic turned into an extended Black Friday onlinepalooza. 

Automakers were blindsided. They shut factories during the lockdown while demand crashed because no one could get to showrooms. They told suppliers to stop shipping components, including the chips that are increasingly essential for cars. 

Then late last year, demand began to pick up. People wanted to get out and they didn’t want to use public transportation. Automakers reopened factories and went hat in hand to chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung. Their response? Back of the line. They couldn’t make chips fast enough for their still-loyal customers. 

Himax’s Jordan Wu is in the middle of the tech industry’s tempest. On a recent March morning, the bespectacled 61-year-old agreed to meet at his Taipei office to discuss the shortages and why they are so challenging to resolve. He was eager enough to talk that interview was scheduled for the same morning Bloomberg News requested it, with two of his staff joining in person and another two dialing in by phone. He wore a mask throughout the interview, speaking carefully and articulately. 

Wu founded Himax in 2001 with his brother Biing-seng, now the company’s chairman. They started out making driver ICs (for integrated circuits), as they’re known in the industry, for notebook computers and monitors. They went public in 2006 and grew with the computer industry, expanding into smartphones, tablets and touch screens. Their chips are now used in scores of products, from phones and televisions to automobiles. 

Wu explained that he can’t make more display drivers by pushing his workforce harder. Himax designs display drivers and then has them manufactured at a foundry like TSMC or United Microelectronics Corp. His chips are made on what’s artfully called “mature node" technology, equipment at least a couple generations behind the cutting-edge processes. These machines etch lines in silicon at a width of 16 nanometers or more, compared with 5 nanometers for high-end chips.​ 

​The bottleneck is that these mature chip-making lines are running flat out. Wu says the pandemic drove such strong demand that manufacturing partners can’t make enough display drivers for all the panels that go into computers, televisions and game consoles -- plus all the new products that companies are putting screens into, like refrigerators, smart thermometers and car-entertainment systems. 

There’s been a particular squeeze in driver ICs for automotive systems because they’re usually made on 8-inch silicon wafers, rather than more advanced 12-inch wafers. Sumco Corp., one of the leading wafer manufacturers, reported production capacity for 8-inch equipment lines was about 5,000 wafers a month in 2020 -- less than it was in 2017. 

No one is building more mature-node manufacturing lines because it doesn’t make economic sense. The existing lines are fully depreciated and fine-tuned for almost perfect yields, meaning basic display drivers can be made for less than a dollar and more advanced versions for not much more. Buying new equipment and starting off at lower yields would mean much higher expenses. 

“Building new capacity is too expensive," Wu says. Peers like Novatek Microelectronics Corp., also based in Taiwan, have the same constraints. 

That shortfall is showing up in a spike in LCD prices. A 50-inch LCD panel for televisions doubled in price between January 2020 and this March. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matthew Kanterman projects that LCD prices will keep rising at least until the third quarter. There is a “a dire shortage" of display driver chips, he said. 

Aggravating the situation is a lack of glass. Major glass makers reported accidents at their production sites, including a blackout at a Nippon Electric Glass Co.’s factory in December and an explosion at AGC Fine Techno Korea’s factory in January. Production will likely remain constrained at least through summer this year, display consultancy DSCC Co-founder Yoshio Tamura said. 

On April 1, I-O Data Device Inc., a major Japanese computer peripherals maker, raised the price of their 26 LCD monitors by 5,000 yen on average, the biggest increase since they began selling the monitors two decades ago. A spokeswoman said the company can’t make any profit without the increases due to rising costs for components. 

All of this has been a boon to Himax’s business. Sales are surging and its stock price has tripled since November. 

But the CEO isn’t celebrating. His whole business is built around giving customers what they want, so his inability to meet their requests at such a critical time is frustrating. He doesn’t expect the crunch, especially for automotive components, to end any time soon. 

“We have not reached a position where we can see the light at the end of tunnel yet," Wu said. 


12.1. Here’s Ashok Leyland’s expansion story that’s led by AI 
ET CIO, Mar.17, 2021, Bhragu Haritas 

The automotive firm is making AI the centerpiece for its business by setting up a focused group called the Analytics Center of Excellence. 

With revenue of Rs 17,563 crore and 125,000 vehicles sold in FY20, Ashok Leyland is India’s commercial vehicles behemoth. The company is the world’s largest supplier of defence logistics vehicles. It is the fourth largest manufacturer of buses and the tenth-largest manufacturer of trucks globally.
While the company is expanding its business, AI-led digital transformation is supporting its business growth.

According to Venkatesh Natrajan, the company’s CDO, Ashok Leyland was an AI-supported organization, then it transformed into an AI-enabled organisation and now, the company is aiming to become an AI-led one by building a lot of capabilities. 

Natarajan also believes that the outputs of using AI must also align with the business objectives. “This is a very important filter that we have so that we don't take any digital or AI initiatives just for the sake of it and we have clear cut business goals which we have achieved through each of the use cases,” he said.

The commercial vehicles manufacturer has established a separate group focusing on business analytics called the Analytics Center of Excellence. The group has been trained in data science and is focusing on driving AI within the organization.
In Ashok Leyland’s data science team, folks from the business side are also a part of it who act as analytic evangelists. Their role in this team is to identify challenges that their respective business functions are currently facing and how AI-enabled analytics can really play a role.

Ashok Leyland’s tech team is a combination of in-house and outsourced where more than a hundred people lie in the former category.
While the company started its digital transformation journey a decade ago, in 2016, the company started looking at digital not only for improving efficiencies or building digital for business optimization but also for generating new revenues and building new business models.

This was done with the launch of four digital platforms---iAlert, a connected vehicles platform; Service Mandi; LeyKart, a digital commerce platform for selling genuine Ashok Leyland spare parts; and e-Diagnostics.
In 2019, Natarajan came out with the ABCD strategy (each letter denoting a technology of focus--artificial intelligence, blockchain, conversational platforms, and digital twins, respectively).

“While building digital assets will continue, the ABCD strategy was established to further turbocharge the existing assets.”
Now the company is connecting all the digital dots i.e. integrating digital assets, products and platforms to gain business value.

“Earlier, we were doing analytics, then we started prognostics and we are moving towards cognitive services. With analytics, we were identifying patterns with the data, with predictive capabilities, we started forecasting what could happen in the near future and now with cognitive, we're going to the next level of AI where we can enable human-led decisions using the same data.”

Using AI for saving costs

The company’s AI-led digital initiatives have helped customers in preventing numerous cases of vehicle breakdowns and also helped customers avoid additional costs.
iAlert enables real-time fleet monitoring across various vehicle parameters. It brings together advanced Vehicle Health Monitoring Diagnostics and Reports & analytics capabilities to provide valuable data on vehicle’s performance, predict service requirements, helps customers plan maintenance schedules.

When a vehicle comes for servicing, the service engineer already knows how it is performing. Leveraging AI-driven prognostics, the company is able to identify potential areas which could lead to vehicle breakdown in the future and get it corrected even before a complaint is raised.
“This has been beneficial for all stakeholders. For us, it reduces our warranty costs, for the dealerships, it enhances revenue, and for customers, it guarantees uptime for the next 4-5 months till the next service is due,”

Another example of cost savings is a solution for fuel pilferage which is helping customers avoid the excessive cost of fitting an additional fuel sensor (costs around Rs 10,000 to 12,000) to identify the amount of fuel lost.
“This was done by using data-driven insights. Based on our onboard engine control system, ECU (Electonic Control Unit) data and our fuel sensor data, we were able to build AI logic appropriately and we are now offering that service to our customers.”

AI is also being used in pattern recognition and predictive analysis. The company has around 18 variants of ECU (Electonic Control Unit) in BS-6 and more than 1500 error codes. The automaker uses its own proprietary algorithms to predict which error codes can occur in the vehicles based on past history.
If a customer’s vehicle has encountered an error ABC on the vehicle and visited the service outlet for the same, the company is able to predict whether other errors (DEF for instance) can happen on the vehicle in the future or not.

ML algorithms are also being used for cross-selling parts. A tool recommends additional parts to retailers through a cross-selling approach to enhance the parts revenue.
With the gigantic availability of data, the automaker has been able to create a live breathing digital model of vehicles--digital twin.
Digital twins are fuelled by the integration of data from multiple sources--manufacturing data, servicing data, vehicle operational data.

“Digital twin uses data related to vehicles after they are produced and used by customers. These are continuously evolving models that can rapidly reduce the time between designing to production, production to service, and repeat services, repeat issues.” 


12.2. Mumbai Metro: Alstom awarded Rs,1854 crore contract, will manufacture 234 metro cars 
Mint, 31 Mar. 2021, Staff Writer

Alstom currently has six industrial sites across Bihar (Madhepura), Andhra Pradesh (SriCity), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore), Gujarat (Savli and Maneja) and West Bengal (Kolkata) 

French mobility company Alstom has been awarded by Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) the contract to design, manufacture, supply, test and commission 234 metro cars, including personnel training for Line 4 and the extension corridor (Wadala-Kasarvardavali-Gaimukh). The order is valued at €220 million (Rs1854 Crores). 

New products have been added to Alstom’s portfolio as part of the acquisition of Bombardier Transportation (BT) on January 29, 2021. The combined portfolio of products, signalling, engineering and services allows a significantly increased offering for customers across India and the Asia Pacific Region. 

“These are exciting times, and this first order, following our merger with Bombardier Transportation demonstrates our continued commitment towards partnering in the country’s Make-in-India mission. We are glad to have been awarded this prestigious project by MMRDA and look forward to commencing work on this. Alstom is proud to play a part in strengthening the country’s infrastructure and providing world-class mobility solutions to the commercial capital of India," said Ling Fang, Region President, Alstom Asia Pacific.The Line is a 35.3-kilometre-long elevated corridor with 32 stations. 

Alstom's products portfolio ranges from high-speed trains, metros, monorail, trams and e-buses to integrated systems, customised services, infrastructure, signalling and digital mobility solutions. 

With Bombardier Transportation joining Alstom on January 29 this year, the combined portfolio of products, signalling, engineering and services allows a significantly increased offering for customers across India and the Asia-Pacific region. 

The new group's combined revenue amounted to EUR 15.7 billion for the 12-month period ended March 31, 2020, as per the release. 

Supporting the government's modernisation initiatives, Alstom has introduced several breakthrough technologies in India with world class rolling stock, rail equipment and infrastructure, signalling and services, it said. 

Alstom currently has six industrial sites across Bihar (Madhepura), Andhra Pradesh (SriCity), Tamil Nadu (Coimbatore), Gujarat (Savli and Maneja) and West Bengal (Kolkata). 


13.1. Drugmakers come together to modernize India's pharma infrastructure 
Mint, 08 Apr. 2021, Leroy Leo 
The partnership aims to allow better track and trace of drugs, which in turn will allow consumers to know where they can get their prescribed medicines, and allow companies to better manage their inventory across the country to reduce wastage 

Multiple Indian drugmakers, including giants such as Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Cipla, Lupin and Zydus Cadila, last week came together in an unprecedented move to form ABCD Technologies LLP, with plans to digitize the country’s vast infrastructure of medicine distribution to allow better tracking and tracing of drugs. 

This includes allowing consumers to know where they can find the drugs they have prescriptions for and for companies to reduce shortage and wastage of drugs. 

How India’s banking model has changed

“If you see (covid-19 drugs) favipiravir or remdesivir, so many people can’t even know where you can get them. The entire supply chain between distributors, stockists and chemists is very scattered...The tracking mechanism will allow a chemist to tell the patient where he can find the medicine if he is out of stock. It will also allow a distributor to recognize batches that may be about to expire and send it to chemists so that the medicine is consumed and there is no wastage," Girish Vanvari, founder of Transaction Square, said. Transaction Square managed the ABCD Technologies transaction. 

On Monday, ABCD Technologies LLP completed the acquisition of 91.8% of shareholding in Pharmarack by purchase of shares from multiple shareholders for a total of Rs111 crore. The partnership is in process of acquiring the remaining stake as well over the next five years. 

Apart from Pharmatrack, the entity is also acquiring the pharmaceutical market research firm AIOCD Pharmasofttech AWACS Pvt. Ltd for Rs75 crore, with two-third being acquired now and the remaining stake over the next few months. ABCD Technologies will later be renamed IndoHealth Services LLP. 

“The business model of Pharmatrack is to connect distributors and chemists. Right now, they are good in Maharashtra. That will now go nationwide with the strength of the partnership. Similarly, AWACS is one of the most favoured subscriptions (for pharmaceutical market research) and that will also be grown," Vanvari said. 

The four companies, through their partnership, aim to allow better track and trace of drugs, which in turn will allow consumers to know where they can get their prescribed medicines, and allow companies to better manage their inventory across the country to reduce wastage. 

The track and trace mechanism is similar to the Indian drug regulator’s suggested mechanism for tracking and tracing of key drugs using a bar code system. 

Vanvari said that the entity is also looking at roping in other pharmaceutical companies in the venture and is in talks with some large Indian drugmakers for it. 

“There is a lot of interest from other pharmaceutical companies and they are keen to be a part of this initiative," Vanvari said, but declined to name the drugmakers as they are listed on stock exchanges. 

The initiative, the four companies said, is in support of the National Digital Health Mission of the government, which had envisaged supply chain management as a key component. 


13.2. International firms expanding production in India as govt backs investors with PLI 
PTI, Apr. 06, 2021 

Apple has steadily raised production of iPhones in India to lessen its dependence on Chinese manufacturing. Apple took part in the Indian scheme via its usual global contract manufacturers, observed Pande, whose seven-year old Singapore consultancy promotes investments into India. 

Leading international companies are expanding production at their newly setup units in India after the government launched attractive initiatives such as the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for smartphones and other technology-driven sectors, Girija Pande, chairman of Apex Avalon Consultancy, said on Monday.

Buoyed by the surge in interest from global manufacturers, the government is also planning PLI for other sectors to boost domestic manufacturing of wearable devices such as smartwatches.
Such incentives would help India increase manufacturing's share in the GDP to 25 per cent in the coming years from the current 17-18 per cent, he pointed out.
The PLI schemes will help India export electronic/IT goods worth Rs 2.45 trillion a year.

"While the government's intention is to bring the five largest companies of the world manufacturing laptops or tablets to India, supported by PLI offer, Apple Inc and Samsung are already expanding production of mobile phones from their Indian plants," Pande told PTI.
Simultaneously, the government is reforming rules and regulations to have the final products meet the Asian standards which has been welcomed by global manufacturers working to keep up with the consumer demand in India as well as the growing opportunities for exports, Pande added.

"Apple may bring iPad tablet manufacturing to what is fast emerging as the world's new tech manufacturing hub (India) for electronic items -- mobile phones, IT and electronic hardware," he said, highlighting the advantage of PLI at a recent virtual conference organised by the Indian Importers Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the High Commission of India here and 'easy Trade Connect'.

Apple has steadily raised production of iPhones in India to lessen its dependence on Chinese manufacturing. Apple took part in the Indian scheme via its usual global contract manufacturers, observed Pande, whose seven-year old Singapore consultancy promotes investments into India.

"Reflecting confidence in the Indian market, Apple has ramped up manufacturing of iPhones in India via the local units of Taiwan's Foxconn Technology Group and Wistron Group," he said.
A third contractor from Taiwan, Pegatron Corp, also set up a base in India last year. Foxconn has pledged to invest up to USD 1 billion to expand a factory in southern India where the Taiwanese contract manufacturer assembles iPhones.

The three Apple suppliers are said to be planning investments of roughly USD 900 million over five years.
Samsung as well as Indian firms such as Dixon Technologies, UTL, Neolyncs, Lava International, Optiemus Electronics and Micromax are also expanding their factories to take advantage of the PLI scheme.

With the consolidation of Apple's manufacturing base and Tesla Inc's entry to India, 2021 is shaping up to be the year that heralds the arrival of the country as a manufacturing hub for the world.
Ola, a major ride services player, is setting up a new factory, the world's largest two-wheeler facility on a 500-acre plot in Tamil Nadu. This facility will churn out 10 million electric scooters and two-wheelers once it reaches full capacity by June-July 2022.

Pande also said "the government currently has no intention to stop with incentives for attracting imports of value-added items that can be re-assembled or incorporated into Indian origin products and re-exported." 


14.1. India may see more local manufacturing: Foxconn's Josh Foulger 
ET Bureau, Ma, 19, 2021, Avan Pramanik 

A large part of the growth would be fuelled by export and improved domestic consumption, said Foulger. 

India is expected to see increased product design and local manufacturing as it aspires to become a $400 billion electronic manufacturing industry by 2025, said Josh Foulger, country head and managing director, Foxconn International Holding, India. 

He added that a large part of this growth would be fuelled by export and improved domestic consumption. The Foxconn India head said the National Policy of Electronics, which was announced before the pandemic, aims to support this goal significantly.

Foulger was talking at The Unfinished Agenda, an online event to celebrate the Life, Legacy and Ideas o F C Kohli. “We will see increased design, I would say, integrated design work where people really look at productization, there will be large companies, there will be medium sized companies and there will be startups. We will be looking at multiple tiered supply chain development happening, which will be enabled by the government, and also enabled by large and medium scale,” said Foulger.

He said India has a “leg-up” in terms of talent and cost.

"The $70(billion) to 400 billion growth is really going to come from export and improved domestic consumptions, and domestic manufacturing. So it's very important that we address this in the right direction," said the Foxconn India head.

According to him, India has seen good progress in mobile phone manufacturing with the Make in India initiative. "...And it has made a lot of progress. Now there are some spaces here which are sort of not hitting the headlines yet: computer hardware. And these are all big, big spaces where we can grow," he said.

He also said the industry and the government need to address the skill gap together. Foulger also lauded the conducive environment for the industry in India.

"When you look at the competing geographies or countries, China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, India kind of checks all of the right boxes. It really is a conducive environment," he said. 


14.2. Electronics makers struggle to meet PLI scheme target 
Mint, 29 Mar. 2021, Prasid Benerjee 

15 out of the 16 PLI applicants may not be able to fulfil the target, says the ICEA (Mint) 

The PLI scheme offers Indian firms 4-6% cash incentives for incremental sales over the base year of 2019-20 

Manufacturers of electronics goods are struggling to meet the target set by the Centre to be eligible for the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. In a letter to the government on 27 March, the India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) said 15 out of the 16 PLI applicants may not be able to fulfil the target. 

The PLI scheme, which was launched to boost local manufacturing, offers Indian companies 4-6% cash incentives for incremental sales over the base year of 2019-20. 

“During our review meeting of the PLI scheme with stakeholders, we are informed that except one, all other smartphone PLI applicants, in spite of their best efforts, are facing numerous challenges in fulfilling the qualification criteria of the scheme in FY21." 

The ICEA has also requested the Centre to revise the base year to FY21 and pay the PLI benefits till FY26. 

Local mobile handset manufacturers, including Padget Electronics, Lava International and Opteimus Electronics, and foreign companies such as Foxconn Hon Hai, Rising Star, Wistron, Pegatron and Samsung, had applied for PLI benefits. 

According to industry insiders, electronics manufacturers are facing challenges as demand for chips far outweighs supply. Semiconductor manufacturers globally have been struggling to keep up with the post-pandemic demand. Besides, the sanctions placed on Chinese telecom giant Huawei by the US have also affected supply of chips. 

In a letter to the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY), the ICEA said the pandemic has impacted the entire industry. 

“There is difficulty in meeting targets because of a series of events, the latest being chip shortage. Even if one chip is short, you cannot load the product on to the production line, because it is so highly automated," said George Paul, the chief executive of Manufacturers’ Association for Information Technology in India (MAIT). 

China’s early recovery from the pandemic has also impacted the supply of components and equipment for other companies. “China, at this time, was exporting finished goods to meet a sharp hike in global demand and placed undue restrictions on export of components, since its own industry was short on components in the face of an expected steep rise in global demand starting August 2020," the ICEA said. 

Travel restrictions, delays in supply of capital goods, and a global shortage of containers are other reasons for failures in meeting targets. “If we’re short by 100 million, allow us to cover it next year. Things like that have to be worked out," said Paul. “Having brought out the PLI you have to be flexible, particularly in this industry which is so fluid and dynamic. In some of the traditional industries things don’t change very fast, you have more time. Here, if you bring out a phone three months late, you’re as good as a dead duck. The openness to take input from industry on the challenges and taking quick decisions is critical for PLI to succeed." 

Under the scheme, which was announced in October, companies were asked to meet targets by 31 March. 


15.1. Is there an Indian recipe to innovation? 
ET Cont., Mar. 20, 2021 

Indian innovators are building services/products that have been built to deliver in the face of high degree of complexities related to technological constraints, user segments, competitive pricing etc. 

For the longest of time in India, innovation was either tucked away in the R&D centres of government enterprises, academia and the MNEs or was strewn around unorganised markets in the form of the cheap Jugaad. But in the last decade India has seen an unprecedented rise in its innovation ecosystem. With over 35 Unicorns (and counting), India has become the third-largest hub of Unicorns globally, something that is not even remotely replicable by others in similar class of economies (middle-income group). From playing a catch-up game in the post-liberalisation decades to creating genuine innovations that solve real unmet needs and disrupt categories - at scale, India has outperformed despite obvious constraints.

Reframing strengths and possibilities:

Introduced at the beginning of the 2020s, the ‘Vocal for Local’ credo is symbolic of a nation that is beginning to believe in its own self-worth. Far from being seen as a diktat, it becomes a statement of belief in the value that is being created by Indian businesses for India and the world. From ISRO’s groundbreaking streaks (in bafflingly low budgets) to India being a frontrunner in the Covid vaccine development, India’s ability to innovate is beginning to make a lasting impact on the world.

The once stereotypical attitude of ‘chalta hai’ is giving way to the newfound zeal around ‘how to make things work better?’ - a question that Indian entrepreneurs are applying to the products and services landscape of new India. This new collective obsession echoes with the three most important words in the world of innovation - ‘How might we…’

The Global Innovation Index indicates India has been consistently outperforming other economies in its income group when it comes to key indicators of India’s innovation ecosystem, ranging from overall institutions to human capital and market sophistication. India’s ranking has gone up from 81 (2015) to 48 (2020).

India as an ideal ‘innovation lab’: its complexity is its advantage

With the hard metrics of innovation ecosystem in place, what really acts as the magic ingredient is the vast and heterogenous user segments in India that are hungry for novel solutions to their unmet needs. This combination of strong capabilities and categories ripe for disruption makes India a fertile ground for new innovations.

India offers a vast array of user segments to test and perfect the product/service within a relatively low-cost ecosystem. The spectrum of users range from the ‘strugglers’ to the ‘elite’ (The pyramid morphs to a diamond, BCG) from a B2C perspective and from mass-entrepreneurs to highly sophisticated modern businesses from a B2B perspective. Each with a substantial base and its own set of untapped needs. With a relatively low-cost-high-quality environment compared to developed markets, India offers an ideal ecosystem to run rapid innovation cycles of need identification —> idea generation —> prototyping —> testing —> iteration.

Innovating for India, creating for the world

The last decade has seen many Indian-born brands (startups or otherwise) tapping into the international market with their product/service. Whether it is premium skincare brands like Forest Essentials or affordable modern brands like Lenskart, the formula remains sacrosanct: build an innovative solution to an existing need-gap and ensure product/service is crafted with high quality. Service brands like Zomato and Ola are confidently extending their offerings across geographies after having perfected their product through multiple cycles of iteration with user segments in India. Indian innovators are building services/products that have been built to deliver in the face of high degree of complexities related to technological constraints, user segments, competitive pricing etc. This makes the innovations highly portable to other markets with similar latent needs. India being an innovation out-performer amongst the developing nations, finds itself in a unique position to establish its innovation leadership amongst other developing markets.

Three approaches that can help unlock innovation potential across categories and user segments:

Find the ‘frame of growth’ for categories that are ripe for disruption:

This is one of the most powerful approach to innovation in a market like India, where a lot of categories are ripe for a complete re-imagination. When an innovator takes an age-old category that has only seen incremental changes and reframes its value in a new way that makes it relevant to the evolving consumer - new growth gets unlocked. Today we are witnessing different categories undergo disruptive re-framing from healthtech to trucking and everything in between.

Ayurveda is one such category that is witnessing innovation from multiple players. On the one hand, there are the likes of Kama Ayurveda and Forest Essentials which have reframed Ayurveda from a set of crude and low value products into a sophisticated premium personal care repertoire. On the other hand, there are brands like Jiva Ayurveda, which is leveraging data sciences and modern treatment protocols to reframe Ayurveda as a modern, holistic science of well-being. These players have created new ‘frames of growth’ for a category that was archaic.

2. Create around people:

The key focus here is on creating new products and services around pain-points and unmet needs of specific user groups. When the singular focus is to deliver value to core user group, solutions that emerge challenge the category status quo. Often such innovations disregard universal templates and instead create fresh solutions around actual users. Dukaan is an excellent case in point, which understood that platforms like Shopify will not be able to add value to the local grocer, who is looking for low-tech enablers of digital shopfronts. When a business creates around the user at the very centre, everything from supply chain to established sales channels are up for a rethink. Lenskart is shining example of how when the brand started to re-imagine the entire eyewear ecosystem around a sharp definition of the user need, all the established codes started to fall and what emerged was a truly disruptive business model.

3. Reframe existing strengths of the business to emerging user needs and market gaps:

A lot of innovation possibilities could emerge from fine-tuning the product/pricing mix. Here one innovates on the existing line of products to address market gaps by leveraging new features/SKUs/pricing etc. Bajaj Auto is a great example of how innovative approach to its product design and pricing, helped the brand capture a strong footprint not just in India but also across 70 countries. Bajaj took its flagship model Pulsar and started to create multiple specs under 200 cc motorbikes, which today dominates its exports to developing countries like Nepal, Thailand, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Latin American Markets. Today Bajaj’s exports are as strong as its domestic market presence.

With India slated to house more than 100 unicorns by 2025, the innovation scene is only going to get 3X more robust, exciting and evolved. As more categories become ripe for disruption, the key to success will lie in our ability to create with people at the heart of the innovation process.

(The writer is Strategy Head and Managing Partner, Open Strategy and Design) 


15.2. ISRO achieves breakthrough in quantum communication, precursor for quantum satellite 
ET Bureau, Mar.23, 2021 

The demonstration also validated the use of India's homegrown Navic receiver for synchronising time between the transmitter and receiver modules and live videoconferencing using quantum-key-encrypted signals. This is a major milestone achievement for unconditionally secured satellite data communication using quantum technologies, ISRO said in a statemen. 

India's space agency has for the first time in the country demonstrated free-space quantum communication over a distance of 300 metres, a precursor to using satellites for transmitting highly encrypted data for strategic purposes.
The demonstration also validated the use of India's homegrown Navic receiver for synchronising time between the transmitter and receiver modules and live videoconferencing using quantum-key-encrypted signals. This is a major milestone achievement for unconditionally secured satellite data communication using quantum technologies, Indian Space Research Organisation said in a statement on Monday.

The free-space Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) was demonstrated at Space Applications Centre (SAC), Ahmedabad, between two line-of-sight buildings within the campus. The experiment was performed at night, in order to ensure that there is no interference from the direct sunlight.

Traditional computers work by manipulating bits that exist in a binary state: 0 or a 1. Quantum computers, however, encode information as ‘quantum bits’ or qubits, and are not limited to the two states. As a result, they are much faster and more powerful than normal computers. This is also the field the most global companies as well as countries are investing heavily in Quantum research

The Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) technology underpins Quantum Communication technology that ensures unconditional data security by virtue of the principles of quantum mechanics, which is not possible with conventional encryption systems. The conventional cryptosystems used for data-encryption rely on the complexity of mathematical algorithms, whereas the security offered by quantum communication is based on the laws of Physics. Therefore, quantum cryptography is considered as ‘future-proof’, since no future advancements in computational power can break quantum-cryptosystem, Isro said.

In February, researchers at the Raman Research Institute had demonstrated free-space QKD between two buildings at RRI across an atmospheric free space channel.

India has national programme called Quantum-Enabled Science and Technology (QuEST), where researchers from institutions such as the Indian Institute of Science (IISC), Indian Space Research Organisation and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, are working on quantum computing and allied areas, including quantum safe cryptography and quantum communication. 


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


16.1. Ensuring Zero Compromise of Healthcare Systems 
ETCIO, Mar.24, 2021, Aryaan Parwez 

Enterprise networks have become the backbone of the healthcare system to provide a positive and significant experience. 

Hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to meet the growing demand for personalized healthcare. Besides, business models and the face of technology are changing fast. To support businesses, enterprise networks have become the foundation to deliver a more meaningful and positive experience- one that physicians, nurses, administrators, R&D personnel, and patients can rely on. We discuss this with top enterprise tech experts from the healthcare and the pharma sectors who throw more light on how having the right networking strategy can enable customer experience and business growth.

Unique Tech Challenges
We all know how important it is to derive real-time information and communication. Data must be accessible whenever it is required.
When patients were locked out at their homes due to Covid-19’s outbreak that “exposed this broken system. 80% of healthcare is delivered outside the hospitals,” Dr Satish Prasad Rath, Group CIO, Aster DM Healthcare said. Very few systems in the world were geared for this struggle. The traditional ways of healthcare could not serve their patients, even if patients wanted to be served. All bodily problems can be checked without walking into a hospital but this was mostly realized due to the outbreak.

“As a patient, now they’d want to reach the hospitals through their phones and they shouldn’t have to worry about security and VPN. Equally keeping the quality and security aspect of it,” Dr Rath said. Security and quality are the two big gambits or requirements, from infrastructure and networking solutions, and healthcare and security solutions.

A pharmaceutical perspective
Jitendra Mishra, Vice President and Group CIO at Alembic Pharmaceuticals feeld Covid-19 has been a big opportunity for the pharma sector.

“Covid is transforming us. Earlier through digital transformation, things were moving in a four to five-year phase but now they are happening rapidly. Faster innovations in new drug discovery is one highlight revolving around today’s pharmaceutical industry. India’s success story in vaccines for this virus outbreak has been extremely high, despite the amount of diversity and poverty prevailing in the country. The major challenges for the pharma is that now we can manage our core plans and regulations,” Mishra added. Thanks to the technology as it has given opportunities to conduct businesses seamlessly.

Building a network for a positive experience
Real-time monitoring was a big concern during the covid time and protecting the healthcare workers were as important. AI played an essential part here where one can extract data from all medical equipment. This helped at a hospital-level as well as a national level.

Building a model that has a responsive and secure network along with an innovative data bank is the need of the hour. In data banks, all pharmacy and healthcare-related parameters are covered. Data banks help to look for a group of people to test the drugs on or identifying repurposed drugs. Thorough participation with pharmaceutical industries is necessary for successful clinical trials.

There is a big opportunity for healthcare industries where they can promote research and help in improving the insights of on-going and previous researches. “Integrated Network Providers which has also got responsive GPU’s, as well as storage and AI containers, are the need of the hour and that would be very helpful,” Dr Rath said.

All companies will see a significant amount of changes in their business continuity policies and these policies must incorporate work from home and return to the office. Confidence must be given to the staff and workers and letting them know that they are safe in the workplace is essential and takes top priority.

State of the art network for business growth
Industries need to follow the three trends- Run, Grow and Transform. The Run trend takes the majority of any industry’s time which explains the operations optimization, access control, BYOD, Skype/O365/UCC QoS, and location services.

However, businesses need to allocate to ‘Grow’ and ‘Transform’. ‘Grow’ trend consists of the digital infrastructure, cloud, edge computing, IoT, and disaster recovery. Transform trend focuses more on human IoT monitoring which goes above and beyond pills or devices. When we talk about network, we talk about all the various devices- from the gateway, cellular backhaul, small site, indoor, wifi devices to twisted pair, BLE, RF, and other native ethernet devices.

All these devices, applications and services need to be managed seamlessly. All these devices need to be visible from one single device. This dependency has increased significantly at this time. All VDI, voice, video, telemetry, and guess access services should be able to co-habitat homogeneously. 


16.2. TCS doubles $100m+ customers in five years 
TNN, Mar. 26, 2021, Shilpa Phadnis 

The size of business you do with a customer often says much about how much confidence the customer has in you. By that yardstick, confidence in TCS’s ability to handle large contracts has risen sharply. 

BENGALURU: The size of business you do with a customer often says much about how much confidence the customer has in you. By that yardstick, confidence in TCS’s ability to handle large contracts has risen sharply. The company has in the past five years doubled the number of customers that gives it $100 million or more in business annually. There were 48 such customers in the last quarter, compared to 24 in 2014-15. Among its $100 million+ customers are Australian energy firm AGL Energy, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, Citi, ABN Amro and Walgreens.

Analysts attribute TCS’s success in mining a customer better to its client partners, account management teams, pre-sales and delivery teams that provide tailor-made solutions. Within the company, accounts belong to verticalised business units called industry solutions units (ISUs). Insurance customers, for instance, are owned by the insurance ISU.

“Client partners are like chief miners. They own the relationship and are responsible for mining the account. They have a team of 7-8 business relationship managers who are part of the account team reporting to global client partners. The latter reports to the ISU head,” a source close to the company said. Client partners help clients in defining and shaping their requirements, while the pre-sales team acts as a consulting backend outfit within the ISUs, giving customers feedback on their business and technology landscape to help articulate business propositions.

The account management, pre-sales and delivery teams within an ISU come together to address a customer’s problem statement. “There is a feedback loop when doing any work for a customer. Teams are either working to build those systems or maintain those systems. And the delivery teams are joining hands to develop contextual knowledge. Within the ISUs, there are mechanisms in place for contextual knowledge to be acquired, documented and shared with the larger account team,” a source said. There’s contextual knowledge on the business landscape of the organisation – such as, which systems cater to which businesses and how running a new data model can impact it.

In banking, TCS has built enormous competency and contextual knowledge in terms of how markets work, how regulations play out, and in analysing their impact on banking processes and business. “Incumbency gives you a huge advantage and you can only mine the customer deeper,” the source said. TCS has over 10,000 contextual masters who marry domain solutions to customers’ business problems.

The advances TCS has made with Australian energy firm AGL Energy is a good example of its mining success.. The relationship started a decade ago, with TCS managing AGL’s back-office operations, contact centres, and working on engineering services. More recently, TCS was part of AGL’s cloud transformation programme, deploying a new DevOps-based operating model with high levels of automation and self-service capabilities that will enable faster and more frequent delivery of new enhancements and features.

It is also expected to significantly accelerate innovation at AGL, harnessing cloud-native capabilities in AI, ML and IoT. Recently, TCS also developed an app providing a personalised experience to AGL customers based on their energy usage patterns. If an AGL customer is headed to his or her weekend home in the Blue Mountains West of Sydney, they could pre-purchase electricity based on their consumption patterns for their short stay. Brett Redman, MD & CEO of AGL Energy, says on TCS’s website: “TCS has demonstrated a deep understanding of AGL’s business and our technology needs.” 


17.1. Covid-19 disrupted business but India Inc. pivoted fast, NTT report says 
ET Bureau, Mar. 18, 2021 

India Inc's demand for agility has been unprecedented and accelerated in the last 12 months because of Covid-19 pandemic, according to an NTT report. Indian firms also lead in pivoting to take advantage of market opportunities. 

Pune: Indian organisations’ demand for agility has been unprecedented and accelerated in the last 12 months because of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to NTT’s 2021 Global Managed Services Report.
Indian firms also lead in pivoting focus to take advantage of market opportunities, it said.

In the Asia Pacific, 89.7% of business and IT leaders agree Covid-19 has caused significant changes to their operating processes, while 91.8% say it has accelerated their digital transformation strategy.
While the coronavirus outbreak has brought about huge change for many, enterprises in India will continue to broaden their investments in digital transformation despite what has happened, not because of it.

Currently, 74.6% of organisations in India have more than 25% of their IT managed by service providers. While this number will drop slightly to 72% over the next 18 months, the percentage of organizations that expect to have 75% or more of their IT managed by third parties will more than double from 12% to 28%.

The research found that 94.6% of organizations in India agree their overall technology strategy is either fully or partially aligned to their organization’s business strategy needs—compared to a global average of 92.4%.
Less than half, 41.3%, say that their organisation’s IT capabilities are only slightly effective when it comes to aligning with business objectives by exploring new technologies.
Aligning priorities helps plug the gap across business silos and helps enhance employee engagement.

Damian Skendrovic, executive vice president at NTT, said: “The unprecedented challenges that Covid-19 has impressed upon businesses has forced the issue of business and IT alignment into the limelight. And there is still work to do to ensure core organizational priorities are understood by all. IT is under an immense amount of pressure to deliver against present requirements, while concurrently planning for future delivery and innovation.”

Currently, cybersecurity is ranked only sixth out of 12 technology priorities, behind ‘improved IT service delivery’, ‘cloud solutions’, ‘technology consolidation/integration’, ‘digital transformation’ and ‘software lifecycle management’ by Indian companies.

The report also found that improved IT service delivery will be a priority for most (73.3%) organizations in India.
The report is based on research of 1,350 organisations conducted online by Jigsaw Research on behalf of NTT Ltd across 21 countries in six regions between October and November 2020, of which 330 were based in the Asia Pacific. 


17.2. Dell launches 17 next gen servers to help firms decode data 
IANS, Mar. 17, 2021 

Dell Technologies on Wednesday announced to refresh its PowerEdge server portfolio with 17 next-generation servers that will help firms analyse and take action on data wherever it resides. 

New Delhi: Dell Technologies on Wednesday announced to refresh its PowerEdge server portfolio with 17 next-generation servers that will help firms analyse and take action on data wherever it resides.
Dell-EMC PowerEdge servers and systems management can deliver up to 85 per cent time savings on average and eliminate dozens of steps with automation, the company said in a statement.

"Remote working culture has led to a huge rise in the amount of data being generated, a constant challenge for organizations to harness actionable insights.
"The solution will offer organizations a diverse portfolio that will allow them to bring computing power closer to their data, perform a deeper analysis at a faster pace and empower their digital transformation journeys, whenever needed," said Manish Gupta, Senior Director and GM, Infrastructure Solutions Group, Dell Technologies India.

The AI-optimised PowerEdge servers now feature PCIe Gen 4.0 -- doubling throughput performance over the previous generation -- and up to six accelerators per server to support the most challenging, data-intensive workloads.
"With the launch of Dell EMC PowerEdge server portfolio, not only are we re-imagining the demands of IT at the Edge but also empowering our customers with the help of emerging technologies, to reach their targets at a much faster pace," said Anil Sethi, VP and GM-Channels, Dell Technologies India. 


18.1. Telangana: KT Rama Rao inaugurates Medtronic Engineering and Innovation Center in Hyderabad 
ET Gov. Apr. 08, 2021 

The research and development facility was inaugurated by KT Rama Rao, minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries & Commerce, and Information Technology and his team of officials from the Government of Telangana. 

Medtronic announced the inauguration of its newly expanded Medtronic Engineering and Innovation Center (MEIC) in Hyderabad.
The research and development facility was inaugurated by KT Rama Rao, minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries & Commerce, and Information Technology and his team of officials from the Government of Telangana.

Joining the event virtually were S Aparna, secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, Govt of India, Joel Reifman, US consul general, Hyderabad, and Geoff Martha, Medtronic chairman and CEO. 

Key dignitaries present at the event were Jayesh Ranjan, principal secretary, Industries & Commerce and IT, Government of Telangana, and Shakthi Nagappan, director, Life Sciences & Pharma, Government of Telangana.

The 150,000 square feet center employs engineers currently in the areas of software development and testing, test automation, mechanical design, analysis and hardware. With this expansion, MEIC aims to leverage the sizeable pool of diverse and skilled talent in India to continue its pioneering work in the medical technology space and add further to Medtronic's 150 plus patents and 400 plus IP disclosures globally that MEIC has been a part of.

"Innovation is one of the cornerstones for Medtronic. Over the years, Medtronic has expanded its footprint, while significantly contributing to the healthcare ecosystem. Given the market size and availability of high-class talent pool, India is transforming into a global R&D hub," said Martha. "With MEIC we aim to tap the talent to continue to innovate for India and beyond. This partnership with Govt. of Telangana for the expansion of MEIC will help us serve our Mission - to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life for patients around the world." 

Globally, Medtronic has spent approximately $2.3 billion annually in research and development in recent years, and MEIC recently received an investment of INR 1200cr ($160 million) for expansion in Hyderabad. This investment planned over 5 years aims to foster global innovation and create several job opportunities.

During the inauguration, KT Rama Rao reiterated the contribution of Medtronic in India's R&D and said, "Hyderabad today is emerging as a hotspot for Medtech innovation benefitting from the progressive Government policies, abundant talent pool, extraordinary infrastructure, etc. The Government of Telangana is fully committed to foster the culture of innovation in the state and has been undertaking several initiatives to mark India on a global map as an ideal destination for both manufacturing and research & development. Hyderabad is already home to marquee technology and life sciences companies and now, we are extremely delighted to host the largest R&D facility for Medtronic outside the United States. Medical devices sector has been identified as one key focus sector by the state. Inauguration of the new MEIC site will boost Telangana's MedTech plans and cement Hyderabad's position as the medical devices hub in India."

"Hyderabad is positioned to become India's hub for technology companies across the world. We see enormous potential in energizing the medical devices innovation ecosystem in the country. The R&D team in India is a key contributor to Medtronic's global product development. The opening of the new site is an important milestone for us as it serves as a critical component in strengthening our global R&D organization and will also drive innovation and growth," said Madan Krishnan, vice president and managing director, India Medtronic Pvt Ltd., speaking at the inauguration function.

MEIC serves as a global hub for development, testing and qualification for some of the most advanced and innovative technologies. The setting up of new R&D facility is a purposeful step to create synergy by supporting Medtronic's businesses globally, in various therapy areas; including respiratory intervention, remote patient monitoring and digital health, surgical robotics, electrosurgical generators, cardiac rhythm and heart failure, and navigation, amongst others.

"The newly expanded center houses state-of-the-art labs that provide software and engineering support to Medtronic globally. The new facility has been designed with safety, comfort, and the well-being of employees as a top priority. With access to top-notch STEM professionals, the strategic goal of MEIC is to become a destination centre for medical device software and engineering solutions. Through this R&D centre, Medtronic continues to demonstrate its commitment to use medical technology to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life for patients around the world," said Divya Prakash Joshi, senior director and site leader, MEIC, Hyderabad, commenting on the unveiling of the centre. 


18.2. Microsoft helps 30 lakh people in India acquire digital skills 
IANS, Mar. 31, 2021 

Microsoft on Tuesday said it has helped over 30 lakh people in India gain access to digital skills amid Covid-19 when hundreds and thousands of students and laid-off workers turned to online courses to better prepare themselves for the job market. 

New Delhi: Microsoft on Tuesday said it has helped over 30 lakh people in India gain access to digital skills amid Covid-19 when hundreds and thousands of students and laid-off workers turned to online courses to better prepare themselves for the job market.
Globally, the company has helped over 30 million people in 249 countries and territories gain access to digital skills.

Microsoft said it is also extending its commitment to help 250,000 companies globally make a skills-based hire in 2021.
From laid-off factory workers to retail associates and truck drivers, millions of people turned to online learning courses from GitHub, LinkedIn and Microsoft during the pandemic to help prepare for and secure the most in-demand roles, including customer service, project management and data analysis.

"Skills will be the new currency in the post-pandemic world. Over the past year, we've seen the pandemic affect people all across the world, including those who could bear it the least," Microsoft Asia President, Ahmed Mazhari, said in a statement.
"For us to emerge stronger from the pandemic, reskilling needs to be at the centre of our economic reset."

In India, Microsoft has partnered with the government, industry bodies and non-profit partners to create a strong digital skilling ecosystem in the country.
Last year, Microsoft joined hands with the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) in India to empower one lakh underserved young women across India with digital skills.

Microsoft has also partnered with the Directorate General of Training (DGT), Union Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and Nasscom Foundation to create learning pathways for students at the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) in India.
To promote skilling as a national priority, Nasscom FutureSkills and Microsoft collaborated last year to launch a nation-wide AI skilling initiative that aims to skill 10 lakh students in Artificial Intelligence (AI) by 2021. 


19.1. India ahead of developed countries in adoption of healthcare digital technologies: EY-Imperial College London survey 
ET Gov. Mar. 18, 2021 

With adequate government support and incentives, India has truly set an example to the rest of the world that it can lead and pave the way for technology adoption in healthcare. The lessons learned during the pandemic must lead to continued technology investments in the healthcare sector. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital solutions and India has witnessed one of the highest adoptions of digital technologies by health and human services (HHS) organizations among the countries surveyed, according to a new survey from EY and Imperial College London’s Institute for Global Health Innovation.

The survey 'Embracing Digital: Is COVID-19 the catalyst for lasting change?' was conducted with a sample size of more than 2,000 global HHS professionals in six countries -- India, Australia, Italy, UAE, the UK and the US), including 359 respondents from India. Shows that 51 percent of respondents in India have increased their use of digital technologies and data solutions since the outbreak of the pandemic.

While 74 percent of respondents in India reported that digital technologies and data solutions have increased staff productivity, 75 percent reported that digital solutions have been effective in delivering better outcomes for patients and service users.

Gaurav Taneja, Partner and Leader, Government and Public Sector, EY India, says: “The response to the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that data and technology can make a real difference to the work of health and human services professionals in India, who have worked tirelessly and heroically in the face of this dreadful disease. With adequate government support and incentives, India has truly set an example to the rest of the world that it can lead and pave the way for technology adoption in healthcare. The lessons learned during the pandemic must lead to continued technology investments in the healthcare sector.”

Success story with digital technologies and data solutions

While health organizations have historically often lagged behind other sectors in terms of adopting digital technologies and data solutions, the response to the COVID-19 pandemic has driven a change in priorities. Almost two-thirds of respondents globally (62 percent) reported an increase in the use of data and technology solutions, as the industry adapts to new ways of working under pressure.

In terms of specific digital technologies and data solutions, the percentage of respondents using these technologies has more or less doubled across the board since the beginning of the pandemic; and mental health services are more or less equal to physical health and social services in terms of use. The UAE and India appear to be ahead of other countries in our sample, in terms of the percentage of organizations adopting these tools.

According to the survey, phone and video consultations have seen the greatest uptake across all technology solutions, with tele consultations being offered by 81 percent of HHS organizations (up from 39 percent before the pandemic) and video consultations available from 71 percent of organizations (up from 22 percent before the pandemic). Compared to this, the uptake has been higher in India at 86 percent for phone consultation (up from 48 percent before pandemic) and at 83 percent for video consultations (up from 33 percent before pandemic).

The public sector organizations in India preferred digital tools for self-help (92 percent organizations) and online self-assessment tools (89 percent organizations) over phone consultation and video consultation. Also, in India, about three fourth of the respondents reported positive experiences with digital technologies and data solutions, leading to better collaboration and efficiency in the operating model.

Within the survey, rapid development of strategic plan for digital adoption, ability to protect an individual’s identity and personal information and improvement in service users’ proficiency to use the tools were the top enablers for greater adoption of these solutions in India.

Kaivaan Movdawalla, Partner, Healthcare, EY India, says: “The power of data that can be unleashed by digital capabilities is unimaginable, which can be consolidated, analysed and leveraged for sharper intelligence and insights for research and development in the healthcare sector.

Key challenges in HHS and barriers to technology adoption

According to the survey, organizations continue to face several challenges such as maintaining safety and wellbeing of staff, maintaining access to care, operating within the budget, and managing workforce capacity while they respond to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Privacy concerns, ethical concerns about using digital technology and loss of human interaction are some of the major barriers preventing rapid adoption of technologies in India.

Nearly 40 percent of the respondents from India listed ethics and privacy concerns as one of the most prevalent barriers significantly higher than other countries in the sample, with only 11 percent of UK respondents and 20 percent of US respondents citing this as a main barrier.

Widespread technology use will continue in the future

75 percent of respondents from India indicated that they plan to further invest in digital solutions and technologies over the next three years and that the level of investment will be more than 50 percent as compared to the previous three years.

As regards to the future, mental health services are more likely to report planned investments in AI-powered diagnostic solutions over the next three years in India, at 81 percent, compared with 77 percent and 76 percent for physical health services and social services respectively.

About the survey

EY professionals worked with YouGov to conduct a survey to a subset of their YouGov Plc UK panel of 800,000+ individuals who have agreed to take part in surveys. Fieldwork was undertaken between 3 September 2020 and 29 September 2020, with respondents completing the survey online. The total sample size was 2,243 health and social care managers globally, spread across six countries -- India, Australia, Italy, UAE, the UK and the US. 


19.2. Digital Transformation to Accelerate Adoption of Colocation Industry in India 
PTI, Mar. 18, 2021 

The Coronavirus pandemic shifted the attention from offline to the digital needs of many businesses. These shifts are likely to stay in place impacting many industries especially IT and data centre in a positive manner. In 2020, the explosive growth of data was felt like never before.

As more businesses have begun to migrate their IT infrastructure to Cloud, the demand for colo or colocation facilities seems to have exponentially increased. A colocation facility is primarily a data centre wherein an organization rents space for servers and other hardware that they purchase. The colocation firm provides the building and other necessary infrastructure for the organization's functioning, such as cooling facility, power, bandwidth, and physical security. A preferred alternative to traditional hosting, colocation facilities may house multiple businesses depending on the requirements of each.

Talking about how will the shape of the colocation industry change in 2021, let's just say that one of the outcomes of the pandemic was digitization. A recent report by Crisil pointed that India's data consumption has seen a sharp 38% rise during this period expecting it to be a whopping $4.5-5 billion by the financial year 2025. Once 5G is launched, it will enable new applications requiring low latency.

Data centres will then have to be upgraded to the latest technology. The expansion is likely to be colo across all major cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi NCR, and Hyderabad. As more businesses adopt smart technologies in their homes and businesses, the demand for edge computing is bound to grow, and so will edge data centres. Due to the demand for better reliability and speed in the edge market, major colocation and hyperscale providers like Amazon are likely to enter the market during 2021. This kind of investment from a major player suggests there's a lot of expansion expected in the colocation sector in India, and abroad. "With the initiatives taken by the government, such as Digital India and emphasis on self-reliance and data protection through data localization, the IT and communication infrastructure are likely to grow double in size in the coming years. In such a scenario, many private organizations are moving from captive data centres to colocation services to minimize operations and maintenance expenditure," quoted Mr. Ravi Raj, Director, NetrackIndia.

Colocation facilities offer uninterrupted power supplies via several service providers. As of November 2020, there are 126 colocation facilities in India spanning 7.5+ million sq. ft., and an average IT power capacity of 590+ MW. The COVID-19 after-effect has created a shift towards the adaptation of cloud services that are more secure and scalable. According to NASSCOM, cloud spending in India is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 30% to reach $7.1 billion in 2022. One of the world's largest colocation providers, Equinox announced expansion into India. With so much rise and growth expected in the data and colocation industry, an escalated demand for IT and server racks and enclosures is nothing but obvious. In India, a single data centre may have the highest market share, however, colocation service is witnessing tremendous growth and is expected to be on the same level as captives.

About Netrack Enclosures Private Ltd. offers active network components to meet the demand of modern offices and businesses. The company's product range includes efficient storage and infrastructure units for data centres such as data centre racks, IT racks, Server and Networking racks, Seismic and Acoustic racks. Data Centre Technology products and so on. If you are looking to setup an office space with compact, secure and cost-efficient solution, visit www.netrackindia.com. Image: Colocation Industry in India. 


20.1. Maharashtra to launch Li-ion battery-operated electric version of 'Victoria 2.0' 
ET Gov. Mar. 23, 2021 

The GPS-driven audio tours to these landmarks will be conducted by the private transportation firm, Ubo Ridez, from 4 pm to 2 am. 

In a push to tourism in Maharashtra, the state government plans to launch an electric version of the iconic horse-driven Victoria carriage, which will serve as another tourist attraction and an addition to the city’s historical treasures and heritage.

Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray earlier on March 14 launched the electric Victoria carriage from his official residence in Mumbai. The Li-ion battery-operated ‘Victoria 2.0’ in its new avatar has a capacity to serve six passengers with one driver driving it with a speed of less than 20 km/ hour at the city's renowned landmarks such as the Gateway of India, Marine Drive and Nariman Point in the first phase, Maharashtra Tourism said in a release on Monday.

The GPS-driven audio tours to these landmarks will be conducted by the private transportation firm, Ubo Ridez, from 4 pm to 2 am. “We are encouraging e-wallet payments through all popular e-wallet platforms. As for the bookings, we are also tying up with multiple platforms such as Khaki Tours, Bookmyshow and our own Facebook and Instagram pages,” said KetanKadam, Founder-CEO, UBO Ridez.

These 12 e-carriages in red and black colours are also equipped with a GPS Intelligent Proximity Triggering dynamic software that triggers one's multilingual commentary precisely at the right place each and every time about museums, historic and cultural sites which enhances visitors experiences, Maharashtra Tourism department said. 


20.2. Indian IT likely to post best Q4 results in five years, attrition a concern 
ET Bureau, Apr. 05, 2021, Ayan Pramanik 

While Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), the country’s largest technology services firm by revenue, will kick off the Q4 results season on April 12. Infosys’ on April 14 and Wipro on April 15 will follow. 

Bengaluru: Indian IT services firms are expected to report their best fourth-quarter results in five years, analysts said, as business from clients in the US and Europe grew at a fast clip.
They will, at the same time, also report higher attrition rates due to a battle for talent among peers, global corporations and startups, the analysts said.

Acceleration in digital technologies, improved demand following the pandemic, ramp-up in previous deal wins and migration to the cloud are driving revenues of IT services companies. The sector is, therefore, likely to report best fourth-quarter sequential performance in recent years with companies seeing broad-based momentum and positive cross-currency impact, analysts have written in preview reports.

“Over the 5% QoQ posted in 3QFY21 and 6% in 2Q, we expect the sector to deliver 3.9% QoQ growth during the January-March quarter,” Apurva Prasad, IT analyst at HDFC Securities, said in a report. The “pandemic has evidently accelerated the digital transformation agenda and key lead indicators remain positive”.

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. (TCS), the country’s largest technology services firm by revenue, will kick off the Q4 results season on April 12. Infosys’ on April 14 and Wipro will follow on April 15.
Indian IT firms, which began FY21 on a negative note amid the Covid-19 lockdown in India as well as in Europe and the United States, recovered quickly with its nearly 4.5-million strong workforce helping clients manage their businesses, working remotely.

Global corporations, which had invested early in digital technologies, gained during the shift to remote working but the laggards realised the need for investing in digital and awarded large deals to companies such as TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro to help with the transition.

The top IT services companies such as TCS, Infosys, HCL Technologies and Wipro will witness the strongest fourth quarter in the past five years, predicts Mukul Garg, research analyst at brokerage firm Motilal Oswal.

“We expect Tier-I IT companies to report growth between 2.5% and 3.4% QoQ in constant currency terms (barring Tech Mahindra), their strongest 4QFY21 performance in the last five years. Tier II IT should deliver 3.3-5.2% QoQ CC growth (except Mphasis and Zensar),” Garg wrote in a preview report.

Strong deal bookings during the past four to five months are likely to lead to substantially higher growth in the fourth quarter as well as upcoming quarters.
“Early indicators like fresh high order bookings from industry peer Accenture in its Feb’21 earnings also point to an unprecedented demand for tech services, which we expect to reflect in the deal momentum in Q4FY21,” Garg said.

Analysts, however, remain wary of the impact of wage hikes on margins of these companies as they struggle to retain talent amid competition from peers, global rivals and startups.

“Except for a few (TCS, HCL Tech), wage hikes will be the major margin headwind leading to EBIT margin contraction up to 220 basis points,” Sudheer Guntupalli of ICICI Securities said in a report. Guntupalli has also forecast a tactical currency-related effect due to the second wave of Covid-19 in the domestic market.

“The ongoing second wave of Covid-19 in India, relatively higher uncertainty in domestic sectors and expectations around a weaker INR (rupee) may translate into a tactical capital rotation into IT. TCS, HCL Tech, Mindtree, Cyient should be key beneficiaries of this trade, in our view,” he wrote. 


INDIA and the WORLD 


21.1.IBM launches 'Call for Code Global Challenge' 
PTI, Mar. 23, 2021 

Now in its fourth year, the Call for Code initiative has grown to over 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations and has generated more than fifteen thousand applications. 

Tech giant IBM on Monday announced the launch of 2021 `Call for Code Global Challenge', inviting global software developers and innovators to combat climate change with open source-powered technology.
Now in its fourth year, the Call for Code initiative has grown to over 400,000 developers and problem solvers across 179 nations and has generated more than fifteen thousand applications.

"Together with Call for Code Creator David Clark Cause, Charitable Partner United Nations Human Rights, and the Linux Foundation, IBM today announced the launch of the 2021 Call for Code Global Challenge," IBM said.
This year's competition invites world's software developers and innovators to combat climate change with open source-powered technology.

The diverse and like-minded global ecosystem of experts, companies, foundations, universities, and celebrities supporting Call for Code continues to expand, it added.
"In our first three years of Call for Code, we've consistently had more people participate from India than anywhere else. In recognition of this extraordinary engagement IBM has this year has added a standalone award of USD 5,000 for India," the company informed. 


21.2. Now, AI-based device to alert drivers when they doze off 
TNN, Apr. 12, 2021, Dipak K. Dash 

The need to ensure drivers of defence vehicles don’t doze off while driving long distances has resulted in the invention of an artificial intelligence-based device that can alert the driver with a loud buzzer if his eyes close for more than three seconds. The device is developed by Colonel Kuldeep Yadav of Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering at Secunderabad. 

NEW DELHI: The need to ensure drivers of defence vehicles don’t doze off while driving long distances has resulted in the invention of an artificial intelligence-based device that can alert the driver with a loud buzzer if his eyes close for more than three seconds.

The device, developed by one Colonel Kuldeep Yadav of Military College of Electronics and Mechanical Engineering at Secunderabad, has been tested in three Army vehicles for three months. Commandant at MCEME, Lt General T S A Narayanan, said the trial was successful and this month they handed over a device to the Telangana government for trial on commercial vehicles.
“The current estimated price would be around Rs 10,000 for a device, but the cost will reduce once there is large-scale production,” Narayanan told TOI.

The AI-based Accident Prevention System is a small, rugged device that can be mounted in the driver’s compartment. It can be easily mounted on existing cars and trucks.
In a study carried out for the road transport ministry in 2019, one-fourth of drivers had admitted that they had fallen asleep behind the wheel and this was more prevalent in the case of truck drivers. 


22.1. BHEL secures first ever overseas solar project 
IBEF, Mar. 23, 2021 

On Monday, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL) announced that it has received its first overseas order for a grid-connected solar power project in Mauritius. 

BHEL said in a statement that the project will be established on an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) basis at Tamarind Falls, Henrietta (Phase II), Mauritius. 

BHEL has achieved another landmark in international business by establishing its first overseas turnkey deal for a grid-connected 8 MWac Solar Photovoltaic (PV) power plant, the company announced. 

CEB (Green Energy) Co. Ltd., Mauritius, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Central Electricity Board, Government of Mauritius, awarded the contract to BHEL. 

The project was sealed by BHEL through a competitive bidding process and is financed by the Government of India's Line of Credit. 

BHEL's Solar Business Division in Bengaluru and International Operations Division in New Delhi will execute the project. It consolidates BHEL's presence in Africa, where it has been engaged for over four decades with electricity generation projects (approximately 2,100 MW) and equipment supplies in 23 African countries. 

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


22.2. RDIF, Virchow Biotech ink pact to produce Sputnik V vaccine in India 
IBEF, Mar. 23, 2021 

Virchow Biotech, based in Hyderabad, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced a collaboration on Monday to manufacture up to 200 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine in India. 

According to a joint statement from RDIF and Virchow Biotech, the technology transfer is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2021, followed by full-scale commercial production of Sputnik V. Virchow Biotech's capabilities would enable the global supply of Sputnik V to RDIF's international partners. 

RDIF CEO, Mr. Kirill Dmitriev said, “The deal with Virchow Biotech is a significant step toward enabling full-scale domestic manufacturing of the vaccine in India and supplying our global partners.” 

The efficacy of Sputnik V is 91.6%, as reported by data published in the Lancet. 

Virchow Biotech MD, Mr. Tummuru Murali said, “We are delighted to have signed a collaboration agreement with RDIF to manufacture the Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine. Virchow's demonstrated capabilities in large-scale drug substance production should help achieve the vaccine's global demand.” 

On March 19, 2021, RDIF and India's Stelis Biopharma announced a collaboration to manufacture and supply a minimum of 200 million doses of Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine. 

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


23.1. Intel to spend $20 billion on U.S. chip plants as CEO challenges Asia dominance 
Reuters, 24, 2021, Stephen Nellis 

The move by CEO Pat Gelsinger on Tuesday aims to restore Intel's reputation after manufacturing stumbles sent shares plunging last year. The strategy will directly challenge the two other companies in the world that can make the most advanced chips, Taiwan's Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) and Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. 

Intel Corp will greatly expand its advanced chip manufacturing capacity as the new chief executive announced plans to spend as much as $20 billion to build two factories in Arizona and open its factories to outside customers.

The move by CEO Pat Gelsinger on Tuesday aims to restore Intel's reputation after manufacturing stumbles sent shares plunging last year. The strategy will directly challenge the two other companies in the world that can make the most advanced chips, Taiwan's Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC) and Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

And it will aim to tilt a technological balance of power back to the United States and Europe as government leaders on both continents have become concerned about the risks of a concentration of chipmaking in Taiwan given tensions with China. 

Intel shares rose 7.5% after the company disclosed its new strategy and full-year financial guidance for 2021. Some investors such as Third Point LLC had previously urged Intel to consider spinning off its costly chip manufacturing operations.

Intel said it expects $72 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings per share of $4.55, compared with analyst estimates of $72.9 billion and $4.77 per share, according to Refinitiv data. The company said it expects to spend $19 billion to $20 billion on capital expenditures.
Gelsinger said that 2021 forecast "reflects the industry-wide shortage" of some components such as substrates.

Intel is one of the few remaining semiconductor companies that both designs and manufactures its own chips. Rival chip designers such as Qualcomm Inc and Apple Inc rely on contract manufacturers.
In an interview with Reuters, Gelsinger said Intel has "fully resolved" its problems with its most recent manufacturing technology and is "all systems go" on chips for 2023. It now plans a massive manufacturing expansion.

That will include spending $20 billion on two new factories at an existing campus in Chandler, Arizona, that will create 3,000 permanent jobs. Intel will then work on future sites in the United States and in Europe, Gelsinger said.

Intel will use those factories to make its own chips but also open them to outside customers in what is called a "foundry" business model in the chip industry. Gelsinger said the new factories will focus on cutting-edge computing chip manufacturing, rather than the older or specialty technologies that some manufacturers such as GlobalFoundries specialize in.

"We are absolutely committed to leading process technology capabilities at scale for the industry, and for our customers," Gelsinger said, adding that Intel has lined up customers for the new factories but could not disclose their names.

He did say on a webcast Tuesday that Amazon.com Inc , Cisco Systems Inc, Qualcomm Inc and Microsoft Corp support its efforts to offer chip manufacturing services. On a conference call, Gelsinger said that Intel "will pursue customers like Apple."

The move is a direct challenge to TSMC and Samsung. The two have come to dominate semiconductor manufacturing business, moving its center of gravity from the United States, where much of the technology was once invented, to Asia, where more than two-thirds of advanced chips are now manufactured.

"Intel's investment will help to preserve U.S. technology innovation and leadership, strengthen U.S. economic and national security, and protect and grow thousands of high-tech, high-wage American jobs," U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement.

Gelsinger said Intel will aim to change the global chip manufacturing balance by embracing the foundry business where it historically has been a minor player. Intel will offer chip customers the ability to license out its own technological crown jewels - known as x86 computing cores - as well as offer to build chips based on technology from Arm Ltd and RISC-V technology from startup SiFive.

"We will be picking our next sites within the next year for U.S. and Europe," he said.
The American sites could benefit from a $30 billion subsidy package that lawmakers hope to bring to the floor of the U.S. Senate next month. The bill remains largely unwritten, and Gelsinger said on a conference call that Intel's plan "does not depend on a penny of government support. It is the right strategy for us going forward."

Intel also announced plans for new research collaboration with IBM focused on computing chip and packaging technology.
But even as Intel jumps into competition with TSMC and Samsung, it also plans to become a larger customer of theirs by turning to them to make subcomponents of its chips called "tiles" to make some chips more cost-effectively.

"I'll pick the best process technologies wherever they exist," Gelsinger said. "I leverage internal and external supply chains. I'll have the best cost structure. That combination of supply, products and costs, we think is a killer combination."

Intel has given few details of exactly how it will use outside factories, but analyst Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights and Strategy said he expects Intel to use them as "gap fillers for some of the highest performance" chip parts until Intel can regain a manufacturing lead over its rivals. 


23.2. IT sector hiring could hit decade high in FY22 
ET Market, Mar. 25 2021, Chiranjiv Chakraborty 

Acceleration in the adoption of digital services by global companies led to a slew of deal wins and an increase in demand for IT services across the world, making 2020-21 a transformative year for Indian IT companies. 

MUMBAI: Indian IT companies' net hiring in FY22 could hit the highest number of workers in a financial year since the heydays of 2011-12, brokerage firm JM Financial said in a note released on Monday.
Acceleration in the adoption of digital services by global companies led to a slew of deal wins and an increase in demand for IT services across the world, making 2020-21 a transformative year for Indian IT companies.

“This is fuelling improvement in revenue growth for the sector and also the shift towards higher offshoring. We believe that the net hiring in FY22 by the industry could possibly be the highest ever in several years,” the brokerage firm said.
In 2011-12, the net hiring by top five offshore IT companies, such as Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services, stood at 1,11,022, which has not been exceeded in the following nine years.

Largecap IT companies have already stepped up hiring, as reflected in the December quarter, in which net hiring was higher than the cumulative figures between April and December. Top executives at IT companies have already said that a talent war is coming with an enhanced need to service clients’ demands pushing companies to acquire talent at expensive salaries.

Companies are also taking steps to retain talent by offering special bonuses such as one offered by HCL Technologies recently. Analysts said that some large IT companies have also indicated that a normal wage hike cycle will resume from the next financial year, and others will follow suit soon.
“There is a war for talent and one of the things Infosys is always been good at over the years is the basic training,” Infosys chief executive officer Salil P Parekh had said at the Kotak Chasing Growth conference recently.

The emerging scenario towards higher offshore shift (and the likely strong growth rebound in FY22) favours scale players given that most Tier-II technology companies depend on lateral or off-campus hiring, JM Financial said.
However, this also has implications for the margins of Indian technology services companies as enhanced wage hikes and special bonuses could eat into profitability. JM Financial believes that large-cap tech companies are well-equipped but the industry at large will start facing supply-side headwinds in terms of talent in the second half of the next financial year.

“From a margin perspective, my own sense is growth in the overall company will help an overall growth for employees and will have a positive outlook on margins,” Parekh had said.
JM Financial for the time being is sticking with its top large-cap bets of Infosys and HCL Technologies, and mid-cap IT picks of Persistent Systems, Mphasis and Coforge. 


24.1. Lessons from the economic success of Bangladesh 
MINT, 01 Apr. 2021, Kaushik Basu

Luck played a role but credit must duly be given to its microfinance sector, labour policies and resistance of fundamentalism 

It feels strange to have known a country since its birth. For much of 1971, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) was engaged in a war for independence. With US President Richard Nixon standing firmly behind Pakistan as President Yahya Khan’s army tried to crush the independence movement by resorting to rape and genocide, millions of Bangladeshi refugees poured into India. I was then an undergraduate in Delhi and joined a team of students to work in the sprawling refugee camps that had sprung up in the Indian states of West Bengal and Odisha. 

Full-fledged aerial war with Pakistan broke out on 2 December 1971. I vividly remember catching the night train in Kolkata to return to college during a curfew, under orders to keep all the lights off in the compartment. 

This was the high point of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s career. She had opened India’s doors to the refugees and intervened militarily to support Bangladesh, refusing to cave in to US pressure, which included sending the Seventh Fleet into the Bay of Bengal. Khan’s army surrendered to an Indian-Bangladeshi allied force on 16 December 1971. Bangladesh had already declared independence on 26 March, but it was effectively born that day in December. 

At independence, Bangladesh was one of South Asia’s poorest countries—poorer than India, and much poorer than Pakistan. Described by then-US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger as a “basket case", it floundered for several years, a vast archipelago of poverty and deprivation. Things got worse in 1974, when the Nixon administration suddenly cut off food aid to Bangladesh while the country was in the midst of a famine, on the grounds that it was earning some money by exporting jute bags to Cuba. 

Today, as Bangladesh celebrates a half-century of independence, the country has become a case study in economic development that few would have predicted. When its gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate surpassed Pakistan’s in 2006, many dismissed it as a one-off fluke. But Bangladesh has outpaced Pakistan every year since then, and—astonishingly—is now one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. 

Bangladesh’s GDP per capita now closely rivals India’s and significantly exceeds that of Pakistan. Average life expectancy, at 74, is higher than in India (70) and Pakistan (68). The country is a leading global exporter of ready-made garments, and other sectors are taking off, too. Bangladesh’s pharmaceutical industry, for example, is thriving. With 300 companies (several of which conduct research) the country now meets 97% of domestic demand, and is beginning to export globally. 

True, Bangladesh still has much poverty and hardship, rising inequality, and an uncertain future trajectory. Climate change and rising sea levels continue to pose significant dangers, and political instability could yet re-emerge and disrupt economic progress. Nevertheless, Bangladesh’s remarkable economic transformation—the World Bank now classifies it as a lower-middle-income economy—deserves praise and can offer important lessons for today’s low-income countries. 

Bangladesh’s rise is a story of both deliberate interventions and chance. The country owes a large part of its success to progressive NGOs, most notably Fazle Hasan Abed’s BRAC and Muhammad Yunus’s Grameen Bank. One particular intervention that played a larger role than anyone expected was Grameen Bank’s early decision that micro- finance credits would go to the senior female member of the household. I have argued elsewhere that this gave women greater voice in the home, which in turn helped divert household expenditure toward child welfare. This is one of the main reasons why Bangladesh has made strong progress on development indicators such as life expectancy and literacy, and in combating malnutrition. 

Bangladesh has one of the world’s largest microfinance sectors, which has enabled households to break out of the debt trap and start their own small businesses. Using a computable general equilibrium model, Selim Raihan, S.R. Osmani, and M.A. Baqui Khalily have shown that microfinance did more than just help the households that received money. By bolstering fiscal and monetary policies, it boosted the country’s GDP by 9-12%. 

But Bangladesh’s success has also had a lot to do with luck. The Indian subcontinent has complex labour laws, notably the Industrial Disputes Act, which predates Indian and Pakistani independence in 1947, and has thwarted the emergence of large manufacturing firms able to realize economies of scale. Pakistan repealed the law in 1958, but for the wrong reasons, to enable big corporations to control workers. Moreover, it did so in a ham-handed way, thereby contributing to labour exploitation and crony capitalism. 

Bangladesh, having once been part of Pakistan, was born without the law’s baggage. But, unlike Pakistan, the country went on to develop its own labour regulations that were flexible without giving corporations unfettered power. This played an important role in Bangladesh becoming a successful global manufacturing hub. 

Finally, a crucial political factor underpins Bangladesh’s economic success. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has often been criticized, but she has made one essential contribution to the country’s upward trajectory. Although Bangladesh’s constitution guarantees religious freedom, it has been challenged by fundamentalist groups that renounce what the prominent Bangladeshi commentator Abul Barkat has described as the “liberal and humanistic origin of Islam in East Bengal." Sheikh Hasina, who is reputed to be innately secular, has kept these destructive forces at bay. 

Many countries have succumbed to religious fundamentalism, with disastrous consequences for their economies. Bangladesh is notable for having withstood this danger. Its buoyant, vibrant economy, now with a 50-year track record, is testimony to this success. ©2021/Project Syndicat 

Kaushik Basu is a former chief economic adviser to the Government of India, and a professor of economics at Cornell University 


24.2. Speed at which India adapts has always amazed me: Capgemini CEO 
TNN, Apr. 09, 2021, Shilpa Phadnis & Sujit John 

Aiman Ezzat took over as CEO of Capgemini about a year ago. He’s had a close relationship with India. He says he’s made at least a 100 trips here since his first brush with the country some 20 years ago. 

BENGALURU: Aiman Ezzat took over as CEO of Capgemini about a year ago. He’s had a close relationship with India. He says he’s made at least a 100 trips here since his first brush with the country some 20 years ago.

Ezzat even worked in India for a few years with IT services firm Headstrong.

The €16 billion Capgemini today has 1.2 lakh employees in India, more than half of the French IT services company's global strength. 

In an exclusive interaction with TOI, Ezzat said India is not just Capgemini’s largest delivery engine, but also a key innovation hub. Excerpts:

Do you think Capgemini has come out stronger from the pandemic? You previously said that since the global financial crisis (GFC), you've really built your resilience. What are some of the takeaways?

Capgemini today and what it was during the GFC are two different things. Business was much more centralised in the financial crisis. It’s more globalised now. We have a more diverse sector base. One of the tests for the crisis is the level of resilience and agility of Capgemini.

Investors were looking at both. And we came good on both. Last year our margin fell just 40 bps. We integrated with Altran during the pandemic. We went to 97% work from home quite quickly, and the clients were happy with what we have delivered. People were concerned about work from home, but the level of engagement and intimacy has gone up.

Capgemini expects to grow at 7%-9% in constant currency in 2021 with 450 bps coming from the Altran buyout. The organic growth forecast is between 2.5% to 4.5%. However, Indian IT firms have made a strong recovery and are looking at double-digit growth from the lows of last year.

This is an average for the year. We expect Q1 to be slightly negative, with the pace accelerating starting in Q2. We are targeting to get to our mid-term organic growth guidance of 5% to 7% by the year end.


Following the steady market recovery and with promising market dynamics, the Group is ready to create more value in 2021. We are extremely well positioned on what is driving demand – cloud, data & AI, connectivity, software and cybersecurity.

The India-based IT services players have been doing better than many of their MNC peers over the years. Their growth rates, their margins are better. How do you see that?

If you look at it from a financial numbers standpoint, they tend to have better growth and better margins. Some of it is linked to the model and business mix. When you run management consulting businesses, they don’t deliver 25% margins.

The important thing for us is our relationship with our clients and how we are positioned with them and what we do. We will not deliver the kind of margin that you see coming from those with a high offshore leverage. The fact that we have 100,000 people in Europe has an impact on the model.

In the coming years, we will see some acceleration of the topline. It’s a journey and we are transforming the business that existed for 50 years. The Indian IT firms jumped on the wagon starting 20 years ago, and it’s a newer business in a certain way.

Digital and cloud form 65% of your business. With Altran, engineering services has emerged as potentially a third engine of growth. How do you see this changing the business velocity?

Engineering and R&D is about 50,000 people and 20% of the group. The reason that we do that is not because engineering and R&D is a good business as a service line.

For us, it’s because of the digital transformation that’s happening on the operations side. And not only in what people call as 4.0, which is focused on manufacturing and supply chain. It’s across all industries. It’s about making them all intelligent. These are industries that have electronics, but no software.

How is your India delivery engine geared towards embracing a digital-first playbook?

I remember when I started running financial services in 2008, my team was based in India and within 18 months we had to switch to 90% Java. The speed at which we can make changes in India, the speed at which people here can adapt, has always amazed me.

But it’s not so much about skilling as about scalability, and we are going through a strong phase of demand in India and our challenge here is to attract and retain talent. I think what the India leadership has done in terms of talent will pay off in the long run.

What are your new expectations from India? Will the proportion of India in your overall employee base go up further?

It could. There’s still a lot of demand for India talent, but we are also working more efficiently. India is not about a delivery centre – that was ten years ago. India for us is innovation, and we have introduced the concept of India account leaders.

We have many India account leaders who will be groomed to become global account executives. As we focus on industries, we are creating centres of excellence around specific industries in India. India is a place where we know the work we do across our clients.

Someone working for an auto client in France doesn’t necessarily know what work we are doing in China or in the US for other clients. But in India, they know everything. So the India account leaders can be proactive in coming up with propositions for our clients. 


25.1. 3.1M cybersecurity positions vacant around the globe: Report 
IANS, Apr. 15, 2021 

Even as thousands of people across the world lost jobs during the pandemic, there are about 3.1 million unfulfilled positions in cybersecurity around the world, with most of them being in the Asia-Pacific region, said a new report. 

Bengaluru, Even as thousands of people across the world lost jobs during the pandemic, there are about 3.1 million unfulfilled positions in cybersecurity around the world, with most of them being in the Asia-Pacific region, said a new report.

As a result of the impact of the global pandemic, cybercrime in Asia Pacific went up by 600 per cent, said the report by professional recruitment services firm Michael Page India.
The report, titled "The Humans of Cybersecurity", highlights that 19 million ransomware and phishing attacks were identified in Asia during February-May 2020, with many being coronavirus-themed.

While it is evident that cybersecurity is a growing challenge for businesses around the world, of greater concern is the fact that most businesses do not have adequate cybersecurity practices in place, making them especially vulnerable to attacks.
The cybersecurity field is currently experiencing a 43 per cent talent shortage with skills such as application development security, cloud security risk management, threat intelligence, data privacy and security being most in demand, said the report.

"The demand for roles such as security engineers, cybersecurity analysts and cybersecurity engineers is on the rise," said Varsha Barooah, Director of Michael Page India.
"India is expected to have over 1.5 million unfulfilled job vacancies in cybersecurity by 2025."
Asia Pacific's cybersecurity market which was valued at $30.45 billion in 2019, is now expected to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.3 per cent for the period of 2020-2025, said the report. 


25.2. India going to be epicentre of global growth, transformation: Mukesh Ambani 
ANI, Mar. 26, 2021 

Noting that India is surging ahead as an economic, cultural and technology power, Reliance Industries Limited Chairman Mukesh Ambani Thursday said that the key driving force of the country's rise will be its entrepreneurs and it is going to be the epicentre of global growth and transformation. 

New Delhi: Noting that India is surging ahead as an economic, cultural and technology power, Reliance Industries Limited Chairman, Mukesh Ambani, thursday said that the key driving force of the country's rise will be its entrepreneurs and it is going to be the epicentre of global growth and transformation.

Delivering the keynote address at the virtual EY Entrepreneur of the Year (EOY) India 2020 awards ceremony, he said that India of "today and tomorrow" presents a "tsunami of opportunities" for entrepreneurs.

He said that India has the potential in the coming decades to be among three top economies of the world and new sectors like clean energy, education, healthcare and biotechnology present unprecedented opportunities.
Ambani also shared a "personal learning" saying that startup entrepreneurs "must be ready to work with limited resources but with unlimited determination".

"As I look at the India of today and tomorrow, I see a tsunami of opportunities for entrepreneurs. There are two reasons for my confidence. Firstly, our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been advocating a greater role for the private sector in India's future development. All of us should welcome this," he said.

"Secondly, we now have the revolutionary power of new technologies to transform our economy. Small, medium and big businesses have once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the needs and aspirations of 1.3 billion people for good quality of life. We have the potential in the coming decades to be among the top three economies of the world. New sectors like clean energy, education, healthcare, life sciences and biotechnology and transformation of existing agricultural, industrial, and service sectors offer unprecedented opportunities," he added.

Ambani said that Indian entrepreneurs are now capable of "providing world-beating quality to meet the needs of our market at the most competitive cost".

"This opens up the entire global market for Indian entrepreneurs. Hence, Indian entrepreneurs have dual opportunities, first, to serve the domestic markets and then the global markets. Today, our country is going to be the epicentre of global growth and transformation." 

"India is surging ahead as an economic power, as a democratic power, as a diplomatic and strategic power, as a cultural power. And also, as a digital and technology power. And the key driving force of India's rise will be our entrepreneurs who are striving to scale and globalize their businesses, who are inventing new things every day that can transform India and the world, who are disruptive and hungry for success," he said.

The RIL Chairman noted that many entrepreneurs have started new businesses.

"Therefore, I would like to share one personal learning with you. Startup entrepreneurs must be ready to work with limited resources but with unlimited determination. My young friends, my message is not to be deterred by failure, because only after many failures there is success. I am sure as an entrepreneur you will have the courage and the determination to succeed," he said.
"I am absolutely confident that you are going to script far bigger success stories for India then the entrepreneurs of my generation," he added. 

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