IASbhai Daily Editorial Hunt | 21st Oct 2020
When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there. –Zig Ziglar
Dear AspirantsIASbhai Editorial Hunt is an initiative to dilute major Editorials of leading Newspapers in India which are most relevant to UPSC preparation –‘THE HINDU, LIVEMINT , INDIAN EXPRESS’ and help millions of readers who find difficulty in answer writing and making notes everyday. Here we choose two editorials on daily basis and analyse them with respect to UPSC MAINS 2020-21.
EDITORIAL HUNT #200 :“Innovation Ecosystem in India | UPSC”
Amitabh Kant | Satwik Mishra
Innovation Ecosystem in India | UPSC
Amitabh Kant is CEO and Satwik Mishra is a Young Professional, respectively, at NITI Aayog.
HEADLINES:
The many bright spots on India’s innovation horizon
CENTRAL THEME:
Recognising the potential, the government is putting in place a framework of collaboration, facilitation and regulation
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 3 : Science and Technology : Schemes
MAINS QUESTION:
Innovation if held as key for the next decade can fix a sweet spot for India in the list of developed Countries . Discuss-(GS 3)
LEARNING:
- Innovation is the key
- Real Potentials
- Government of India Schemes and Policies
- Way Forward
INTRODUCTION:
- INNOVATION IS THE KEY : Innovation rearranges existing elements into permutations and combinations that benefit society.
- DEBT AND DESTINY : A fortune minus zero is a fortune.A debt subtracted from zero is a fortune.
- DEEP POCKETS : A fortune subtracted from zero is a debt. The product of zero multiplied by a debt or fortune is zero.
- REORDERED HISTORY : The novel coronavirus pandemic provides an opportunity for similar reordering for posterity.
BODY:
REALISTIC POTENTIAL
- FERTILE GROUND : India is a fertile ground to be a technology-led innovation garage.
- INTERNET USAGE : It is the fastest growing country in terms of Internet usage, with over 700 million users and the number projected to rise to 974 million by 2025.
- FINANCIAL INCLUSION : The JAM trinity (Jan Dhan, Aadhaar, Mobile) trinity has 404 million Jan Dhan bank accounts with 1.2 billion Aadhaar and 1.2 billion mobile subscribers.
- POSSIBILITIES : Innovation in India is being structured around the triad of collaboration, facilitation and responsible regulation.
- CROSS-DISCIPLINARY COLLABORATION : In his famous essay, ‘I Pencil’, Leonard Read brings forward the wonder of collaboration between people cutting trees, mining graphite, working in factories, marketing, designing and managing, just to produce a single pencil.
- EXPONENTIAL GROWTH : Innovation is a recombinant and brings tangential benefits through products and services that may not even have been its initial purpose.
- POTENTIAL OF TECHNOLOGY : People tend to overestimate the impact of a new technology in the short run, but to underestimate it in the long run.
RECENT EVENTS
- VAISHVIK BHARATIYA VAIGYANIK (VAIBHAV) SUMMIT : It was inaugurated on October 2, more than 3,000 overseas Indian-origin academicians and scientists from 55 countries participated to ideate on innovative solutions to our challenges.
- A TRUE SANGAM : The Prime Minister articulated -“a true sangam or confluence of great minds” where “we sit to form our long-lasting association for empowering India and our planet”.
- RAISE 2020 SUMMIT : This has been concomitant to the Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE) 2020 summit , which was from October 5-9.
START-UP DISRUPTIONS
- DISRUPTING START UPS : This focus on celebrating innovation has led to several start-ups disrupting the Indian market.
- THE RECENT WINNERS : ‘Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat Innovate Challenge’ – Chingari with its video communication tools and MapMyIndia with its elaborative maps, ‘Logically’ are becoming household names.
- NEO-BANKING : Yelo is offering neo-banking payment and money transfer services online for workers in the gig economy.
- NIRAMAI : Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Intelligence uses an AI-based thermal imaging portable tool that carries out non-invasive breast cancer screening for women for early detection.
- QURE.AI : It uses AI for health-care diagnostics in rural India, tackling challenges such as tuberculosis and now COVID-19.
- VERNACULAR.AI : It offers a voice-based AI product that can understand up to 10 Indian languages and around 160 dialects.
MANY INCENTIVES
- RISK CAPITAL : Innovation needs risk capital in terms of resources and psychological security for researchers.
- CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT : It needs an environment where it is safe to fail.
A COMPREHENSIVE FRAMEWORK
Government of India is incentivising research and development with several schemes such as:
- Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research (INSPIRE) scholarships
- The Ramanujan Fellowship, the Knowledge Involvement in Research Advancement through Nurturing (KIRAN) scheme
- Smart India Hackathons (SIH)
- Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)
- Biotechnology Ignition Grant (BIG) scheme
- Future Skills PRIME (Programme for Reskilling/Upskilling of IT Manpower for Employability) capacity building platform
- Scheme for Transformational and Advanced Research in Sciences (STARS)
- Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC)
- Impactful Policy Research in Social Science (IMPRESS)
MAJOR BREAKTHROUGH
- REGULATORY SANDBOXES : The Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) allow for regulatory sandboxes for piloting new ideas.
- CLOUD SERVICES : The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has recently introduced recommendations for regulating cloud services in India, suggesting a light-touch regulation in collaboration with industry.
IASbhai Windup:
A BETTER LIFE
- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE : Innovation has the potential to build a future where AI will transform education and health care.
- BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY : Machine learning and blockchain will make commerce robust and resilient.
- BIO TECHNOLOGY : Gene-drives would exterminate invasive and harmful species, gene-editing would help us bring back extinct species and reinvigorate depleted ecosystems.
There is ‘in-deed’ merit in relentless focus on innovation as it essentially augments ease of living for citizens, dematerialising and democratising products and services.
SOURCES: THE HINDU EDITORIAL HUNT | Innovation Ecosystem in India | UPSC

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