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To build AI for all, bring in more women
Why in the News

India ranks among the world’s leading artificial intelligence ready nations, powered by Digital Public Infrastructure and a large innovation ecosystem, while women fall from 43 percent of STEM graduates to 10 percent of senior AI leadership. Every artificial intelligence system begins with data and every dataset begins with people, so a pipeline that loses women at each stage produces systems that reproduce the inequality of the society they learn from.

What is the AI pipeline?
1. Definition: The AI pipeline is the full sequence from data collection through model training and deployment to the decisions the model produces.
2. Not only technical: It is not merely a technological conduit of code, silicon and compute power. It is fundamentally a human pipeline.
3. It starts early: The pipeline begins before the first line of code is written, at the point where data about people is collected or not collected.
4. Where the consequences land: Its outputs shape decisions affecting millions, from loan sanction to clinical recommendation.
5. The failure mode: When people are absent from that data, artificial intelligence inherits those gaps.
What is Digital Public Infrastructure?
1. Definition: Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is a set of shared, interoperable digital systems, such as digital identity, payments and data exchange layers, built as public utilities on which both government and private services run.
2. Why it matters here: India’s artificial intelligence readiness is powered by DPI, which also determines whose transactions and records enter the datasets models are trained on.
What is the India AI Mission?
1. Definition: The India AI Mission is the national programme providing compute capacity, datasets, application development support, skilling and startup financing for artificial intelligence in India.
2. Relevance here: It is the vehicle through which artificial intelligence in India can be steered onto the same inclusive path that DPI followed for public welfare.
Where does the pipeline leak women?
1. STEM foundation: Women account for 43 percent of India’s STEM graduates, one of the world’s largest pools of women STEM graduates.
2. Tech workforce: Representation falls to 26 percent in the technology workforce.
3. Advanced AI roles: Only 12 percent of professionals in advanced artificial intelligence roles are women.
4. Senior AI leadership: Women hold just 10 percent of senior artificial intelligence leadership positions.
5. What the sequence shows: At every stage the pipeline leaks talent, lived experience and innovation, so the loss compounds rather than occurring at one bottleneck.
What causes the leakage?
1. Access to the network itself: Only 57 percent of women have independent internet access, compared with 72 percent of men.
2. Nutrition and education: Unequal nutrition and unequal education set the disparity before any career choice is made.
3. Caregiving responsibilities: Unpaid care work removes women from the workforce at the point where advanced technical careers compound.
4. Workplace discrimination: Discrimination at work blocks progression from entry level technical roles into advanced ones.
5. Language barriers: Artificial intelligence education is dominated by English, which excludes those schooled in other languages.
6. School infrastructure: A student cannot pursue robotics where her school lacks the necessary infrastructure, so the exclusion begins well before higher education.
7. Influence, not only presence: A woman who becomes an artificial intelligence engineer often remains the only woman in the room, with limited influence in product design.
What happens to systems built without women in the data?
1. Credit assessment: A self help group member in rural Bihar applying for a micro-loan is scored by models relying mainly on historical male financial patterns, which may underestimate her creditworthiness.
2. Maternal health tools: A community health worker in Gujarat depends on artificial intelligence enabled maternal health tools, and training data that fails to reflect local nutrition and health conditions produces inaccurate recommendations affecting maternal care.
3. The general mechanism: Artificial intelligence automates existing inequalities when trained on incomplete or biased data.
4. The learning relationship: Artificial intelligence learns from society, so an unequal society produces an artificial intelligence that reflects that inequality.
5. Why datasets alone are insufficient: Correcting the output requires more than diverse datasets, because the decisions about what to collect and what to optimise are made by the people in the room.
Does India’s AI readiness conceal an exclusion problem?
1. The readiness claim: India ranks among the world’s leading artificial intelligence ready nations, powered by Digital Public Infrastructure and a thriving innovation ecosystem.
2. The contradiction beneath it: India produces one of the world’s largest pools of women STEM graduates, and women steadily disappear as the artificial intelligence pipeline advances.
3. Formal equality achieved early: When India adopted its Constitution in 1950, it granted women and men universal adult franchise simultaneously, ahead of the sequence followed in several western democracies.
4. Substantive access lagging: That simultaneous political inclusion sits alongside a 15 percentage point gap in independent internet access between men and women today.
5. What the measure of leadership should be: True artificial intelligence leadership cannot be measured only by models, investments or patents. It must be measured by whether artificial intelligence reflects India’s diversity of languages, cultures, socio-economic realities and lived experiences.
What does the corrective path look like?
1. The precedent of scale: India has already shown how technology can advance public welfare at scale, and the India AI Mission offers the opportunity to ensure artificial intelligence follows the same inclusive path.
2. Existing women’s institutions: Across rural India, women’s self-help groups have built strong financial ecosystems through collective savings and entrepreneurship, which is usable financial data and an existing delivery network.
3. Influence changes output: When women occupy positions of influence, the technology itself shifts.
4. Four roles, not one: Women and marginalised communities must participate as researchers, engineers, entrepreneurs and policymakers, not only as subjects in the training data.
5. The constitutional foundation: The commitment to simultaneous inclusion continues through Digital Public Infrastructure, which provides the base for building inclusive artificial intelligence.
Challenges to building inclusive AI
1. Unpaid care work truncates technical careers: Time available for advanced training and long project cycles is unequal, e.g. the Time Use Survey 2019 recorded women spending 299 minutes a day on unpaid domestic work against 97 minutes for men.
2. Device and connectivity gap precedes the skills gap: Independent access, not shared household access, determines who generates data, e.g. the National Family Health Survey 2019 to 2021 found 33.3 percent of women had ever used the internet against 57.1 percent of men.
3. Language exclusion in model and curriculum: English dominant material and models exclude most first generation learners, e.g. Bhashini and BharatGen were set up precisely because Indian language coverage in large models was thin.
4. Data annotation labour has no design voice: The workers who label training data are outside the decisions the data shapes, e.g. annotation work is outsourced at low wages with no representation in product design.
5. No bias audit obligation: Automated decision systems face no statutory fairness testing requirement, e.g. the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 governs consent and processing of personal data but imposes no algorithmic audit duty.
6. Online safety drives women off the platforms that generate data: Harassment reduces sustained participation, e.g. National Crime Records Bureau data has recorded a rising count of cyber crimes against women.
7. Absence of sex disaggregated public datasets: Models cannot be checked for differential performance where the data does not record the split, e.g. many administrative datasets used for training carry no reliable gender field.
Conclusion

The central point is that the artificial intelligence pipeline is a human pipeline, and the numbers show it losing women at every stage from 43 percent of STEM graduates to 10 percent of senior AI leadership. Diverse datasets alone will not correct outputs shaped by rooms in which women are absent, so participation must extend to research, engineering, entrepreneurship and policymaking. What remains unresolved is the access gap that precedes all of it, with only 57 percent of women holding independent internet access against 72 percent of men.
August 19, 2026
Gene Editing’s Bold Move: Permanently Shut Down PCSK9
Why in the News

VERVE-102, an experimental in vivo base editing therapy delivered as a single intravenous infusion, permanently switches off the PCSK9 gene inside liver cells and cut LDL cholesterol by about 62 percent in a phase 1 trial. Cholesterol control has until now been a lifelong compliance problem, and a one time genetic change replaces that problem with a permanent, irreversible one.

How does VERVE-102 work?
1. What it is: VERVE-102 is not a traditional drug. It is a form of in vivo gene editing, meaning the editing is done inside the patient’s body rather than on cells removed and returned.
2. Step 1, delivery: Genetic instructions are delivered through a single intravenous infusion.
3. Step 2, the edit: Those instructions make a one time targeted change to the DNA inside liver cells, altering a single base in the PCSK9 gene.
4. Step 3, the effect: The edited liver cells permanently lose the ability to produce PCSK9.
5. Step 4, the outcome: With PCSK9 production switched off, the liver clears more LDL cholesterol from the blood, and the effect persists without repeat dosing.
6. The stated goal: A single infusion that permanently reduces the liver’s ability to produce PCSK9, so that a one and done cholesterol treatment could eventually replace conventional medicines.
What is LDL cholesterol?
1. Definition: LDL (low-density lipoprotein) is called bad cholesterol because high levels make it stick to artery walls and form hard fatty deposits called plaque.
2. Why it matters: These deposits narrow the arteries and block blood flow, which raises the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
What is PCSK9 and why is it the target?
1. What it is: PCSK9 is a protein involved in regulating LDL cholesterol in the blood.
2. The natural experiment: People who naturally carry certain loss-of-function changes in the PCSK9 gene have lower LDL cholesterol throughout their lives and a lower risk of coronary heart disease.
3. The inference: Reducing PCSK9 activity is therefore a safe and effective route to lowering cardiovascular risk.
4. Confirmed by drugs: PCSK9 monoclonal antibodies substantially reduce LDL cholesterol and cardiovascular events, confirming the target.
5. The limitation VERVE-102 addresses: Traditional medicines temporarily block PCSK9 or reduce its production, so their effects require continued treatment.
What did the phase 1 trial find?
1. LDL reduction: LDL cholesterol fell by about 62 percent in the highest dose group after four weeks.
2. PCSK9 reduction: PCSK9 levels in that group fell by about 88 percent.
3. Absolute fall: LDL cholesterol decreased by approximately 78 mg/dL on average.
4. Follow up length: Some participants were followed for at least one year, and the longest follow up reached 18 months.
5. Durability so far: The reductions in PCSK9 and LDL cholesterol were relatively stable across that period.
How much cardiovascular risk does that reduction translate into?
1. The established ratio: For every 1 mmol/L reduction in LDL cholesterol, cardiovascular risk falls by 20 to 22 percent.
2. Worked case: An LDL cholesterol of 4.0 mmol/L, approximately 155 mg/dL, falling to 1.6 mmol/L is a 60 percent reduction.
3. Effect of that case: That fall halves the patient’s cardiovascular risk.
4. What remains unproven: VERVE-102 has not yet been shown to prevent heart attacks or strokes directly.
5. The supporting evidence: All cholesterol lowering trials so far have shown that lower cholesterol means fewer cardiovascular events, and drugs blocking the PCSK9 protein have been shown to reduce heart attacks.
How does it compare with the treatments already in use?
1. Statins: Usually the foundation of treatment. They are relatively inexpensive, widely available, and supported by extensive evidence showing reductions in cardiovascular events.
2. Ezetimibe: A cholesterol absorption inhibitor, taken orally, that works by blocking cholesterol from being absorbed in the small intestine.
3. PCSK9 antibody medicines: They produce powerful LDL reductions and have demonstrated cardiovascular benefits, but require repeated injections.
4. Inclisiran: It reduces PCSK9 production and can lower LDL cholesterol by roughly 50 percent, with less frequent dosing that makes long term treatment easier. It does not permanently modify DNA.
5. The distinguishing feature of VERVE-102: Every existing option acts temporarily and must be continued. VERVE-102 makes a permanent change to DNA.
Does permanence justify the loss of reversibility?
1. The compliance case: Repeat prescriptions and remembering daily doses are a standing burden, and a safe one time treatment would remove that burden entirely.
2. The unknown: This is a permanent change and the long term consequences are not yet known, so treated patients will need close observation.
3. The reassurance from biology: Naturally occurring loss-of-function mutations of the gene exist, and people carrying them have less heart disease and live longer, which is the basis for the trial.
4. The evidence horizon problem: An 18 month period is very different from proving that an effect will last for decades, and that requires further research.
5. The current standing of the therapy: It is a potential future option for selected high risk patients, not a replacement for statins, ezetimibe, PCSK9 inhibitors or inclisiran.
6. Trial breadth: More diverse trials are needed to establish whether the effect holds across populations over decades.
Who would be considered for it first?
1. Familial hypercholesterolemia: An inherited condition producing very high LDL cholesterol from birth, whose patients have the most to gain from a permanent reduction.
2. Very high cardiovascular risk patients: Those whose risk is not controlled by existing therapy would be the second group.
3. The staging logic: Beginning with these groups allows observation for problems before any wider use.
4. What it is not yet: It is not a population level cholesterol intervention and is not positioned as one.
Challenges to VERVE-102
1. Irreversibility of a permanent edit: A therapy that cannot be stopped removes the physician’s ability to withdraw treatment, e.g. a statin prescription can be discontinued the day an adverse effect appears, while an edited liver cell population cannot be restored.
2. Evidence horizon is short: Durability is established only to 18 months, e.g. statin cardiovascular outcome evidence rests on trials such as the Heart Protection Study that ran over five years in more than 20,000 participants.
3. Delivery vector and off target risk: Gene therapy delivery carries historical safety precedent, e.g. the 1999 death of a participant in an adenoviral vector gene therapy trial in the United States halted the field for years.
4. Cost and access: One time genetic therapies have been priced far beyond public health budgets, e.g. Casgevy, the first approved CRISPR based therapy, is priced at over two million dollars per patient in the United States.
5. Population applicability: Early phase cohorts do not establish effect across differing lipid profiles, e.g. coronary artery disease in South Asians presents roughly a decade earlier and at lower body mass index than in western populations.
6. Regulatory pathway for permanent somatic edits: Approval frameworks for irreversible somatic edits are still forming, e.g. India’s National Guidelines for Gene Therapy Product Development and Clinical Trials, 2019 permit somatic editing under review but bar germline editing outright.
7. The competing benchmark is already cheap: A one time therapy must justify a large upfront price against an existing generic, e.g. statins cost a few rupees a day in India and are on the National List of Essential Medicines.
Conclusion

The central finding is that a permanent genetic switch off of PCSK9 through a single infusion produces LDL reductions larger than any daily medicine achieves, and that the reduction has held for 18 months. What remains unresolved is whether a permanent change is safe across a lifetime, and whether the LDL reduction converts into fewer heart attacks and strokes, neither of which the phase 1 data can answer. Until large outcome trials report, the therapy stands as an option for familial hypercholesterolemia and very high risk patients rather than a replacement for statins, ezetimibe, PCSK9 inhibitors or inclisiran.

PYQ Relevance:

Question (2021, GS3): “What are the research and developmental achievements in applied biotechnology? How will these achievements help to uplift the poorer sections of society?
Linkage: Applied biotechnology is the primary field where gene editing techniques (like CRISPR) are developed to address challenges in health and agriculture, which can specifically benefit the underprivileged
August 19, 2026
The US Research That Helped Power China’s Robot Revolution
Why in the News

China’s Unitree Robotics based the designs of its most successful quadruped robots on breakthroughs financed by the United States Army Research Laboratory, according to a former United States defence technology official and three researchers involved in the programme. The findings were published openly to advance the field, and the country that funded them has no mass producer of such robots, while the company that scaled them is now on the Pentagon’s list of Chinese military companies.

What is the Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance?
1. What it was: The Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance (RCTA) was a United States Army funded research consortium that ran from 2010 to 2020.
2. Funding body: It was financed by the DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory (ARL) alongside other military programmes.
3. Participants: It gathered government, academic and industry researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston Dynamics and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, among other research institutions.
4. Lead commercial partner: General Dynamics Land Systems, the Michigan based defence manufacturer that builds Abrams M1 tanks.
5. Publication practice: The programme’s findings were published openly to stimulate progress in the field, which is common practice in publicly funded research.
What is an actuator?
1. Definition: An actuator is the component that converts electrical power into the movement of a robot’s joint, combining a motor, a gearbox and control electronics.
2. Why it decides the design: Actuator torque, weight and cost set what a legged robot can do and what it costs, which is why an actuator design published in detail is effectively a manufacturing blueprint.
What is DARPA?
1. Definition: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the United States Department of Defense agency that funds high risk, early stage technology research with potential military application.
2. Role here: DARPA financed the MIT laboratory work on which the later Army funded University of Pennsylvania advances were built.
How did Army funded research travel from the laboratory to a Chinese manufacturer?
1. 2016, motors moved into the legs: University of Pennsylvania researchers eliminated heavy central gearboxes and placed motors in the robots’ legs, which improved the machine’s ability to sense and respond to terrain.
2. Built on DARPA funded work: That advance built on the MIT laboratory’s earlier work financed by DARPA.
3. 2019, the Mini Cheetah: The MIT laboratory presented the Mini Cheetah, adding strength and the ability to perform backflips to the University of Pennsylvania features.
4. The thesis that carried the design: Months earlier, an MIT researcher published a master’s thesis detailing the Mini Cheetah’s actuators.
5. Copies within six months: Chinese firms were manufacturing actuator copies purchasable on the online retailer AliExpress within six months of that publication.
6. Dimensional match: The dimensions of Unitree’s popular Go series were almost identical to the millimetre to the Mini Cheetah, per the MIT researcher involved in developing it.
7. The scale product: The Army funded project became the first Unitree robot that had any kind of scale, per a former University of Pennsylvania researcher on the programme.
8. 2023, the price point: Unitree’s $1,600 Go2 model, launched in 2023, let the company rapidly dominate the global quadruped robot market. Unitree was founded in 2016, three years before the Mini Cheetah was presented.
What does the scale gap look like in numbers?
1. Unitree’s volumes: The company sold more than 5,500 humanoids and 18,000 quadrupeds last year, per company filings.
2. Valuation: Unitree is valued at about $9 billion ahead of its stock market debut, and its Shanghai initial public offering drew frenzied demand.
3. United States output: No United States company has mass produced such robots, including Tesla, which has displayed prototypes of its Optimus humanoid for years.
4. A different technology base: Boston Dynamics’ 2019 canine robot Spot used different technology from the Army funded line.
5. The domestic commercialiser: Ghost Robotics commercialised the United States breakthroughs and supplies United States special forces with ruggedised robots, but its production is small and costly compared with Unitree’s.
Why did the United States not capture the market it created?
1. Capital preference: United States venture capital prefers high return software startups, which a robotics analyst described as a dropped ball on commercialising domestic research.
2. Missing industrial inputs: The United States excels in innovation and software development but needs the capital, industrial base, highly skilled workforce and parts supply chains to scale up breakthroughs, per the dean of Penn Engineering.
3. No production support after the research ended: The Army funded project kick-started the United States quadruped industry, but without support for large scale production Unitree consumed that space, per the former Army Research Laboratory director who oversaw it.
4. Price competition threatens incumbents: Boston Dynamics argued in a Congressional hearing that China’s low pricing would drive United States firms out of the market.
5. Asymmetry of actors: The contest is between private United States companies and a coordinated Chinese national strategy, per the founder of Ghost Robotics.
What structural advantages does China’s manufacturing model carry?
1. A stated ten year industrial plan: In 2015, China’s leadership set out a ten year plan to lead industries including green energy, electric vehicles and robotics.
2. Tolerance for losses: Capital has since been channelled into risky bets on low margin advanced manufacturing.
3. Critical minerals dominance: Rapid reverse engineering draws on China’s dominance in refining the critical minerals needed for magnets in robotics applications.
4. Supplier density: Motors, gears and the artificial muscles known as actuators are supplied by a dense cluster of firms near Unitree’s base in Hangzhou.
5. The pattern is not new: Backed by subsidies and component factory clusters, Chinese firms have already seized market share in solar panels, drones, electric vehicles and quantum communications, many of them first developed in the United States with government or military backing.
How have United States authorities responded?
1. June, Pentagon listing: The Pentagon added Unitree to its list of Chinese military companies, calling it a contributor to the Chinese defence industrial base.
2. Effect of the listing: The designation falls short of a sanction but limits the United States military’s future use of Unitree technology.
3. July, import ban: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) banned imports of future models of foreign made humanoid and quadruped robots, including those from Unitree.
4. Chinese response: China has threatened to retaliate against the FCC ban, and its Washington embassy accused the United States of abusing administrative power and of market distortion and unilateral bullying.
5. Company position: Unitree has said its robots are for civilian use, and one Unitree robot has been shown on Chinese state television armed and accompanying People’s Liberation Army troops on an exercise.
Should publicly funded research be published openly when a rival scales it faster?
1. Nothing was taken improperly: Unitree did nothing underhanded in using the Army research, since the programme’s findings were published openly by design.
2. The funder’s own defence: The Army Research Laboratory stated the research strengthened the broader United States robotics ecosystem and informed subsequent work across government and the private sector.
3. Researchers reject secrecy: None of the United States robotics researchers involved advocated keeping such government financed research secret, arguing publication is important to scientific and technological advancement.
4. Their alternative prescription: Policymakers should focus on enabling companies to commercialise such advances quickly enough to compete.
5. Trade barriers are insufficient: Most experts supported the import ban but said the policy alone cannot build an industry capable of catching up, since it would take more than trade barriers to boost robotics manufacturing.
Challenges to commercialising publicly funded robotics research
1. Open publication transfers advantage immediately: A detailed design published for scientific benefit is also a manufacturing specification, e.g. actuator copies drawn from the Mini Cheetah thesis were on sale within six months.
2. Hardware startups cannot match software returns: Venture funding avoids capital heavy, low margin manufacturing, e.g. Ghost Robotics supplies United States special forces but produces at small volume and high cost.
3. No domestic component cluster: Motors, gears and actuators must be sourced abroad when no local supplier base exists, e.g. the supplier density around Hangzhou has no United States equivalent.
4. Critical mineral chokepoint: Magnet grade rare earths are refined almost entirely in one country, e.g. China’s April 2025 export controls on rare earth magnets disrupted automotive and electronics production worldwide.
5. Trade restrictions do not create capacity: A ban removes a supplier without creating a substitute, e.g. the FCC July ban covers future imported models while no United States firm mass produces quadrupeds.
6. Dual use ambiguity complicates policy: A civilian product can appear in a military role without the manufacturer changing its position, e.g. an armed Unitree robot appeared with People’s Liberation Army troops on state television while the company maintains its robots are civilian.
7. Price competition ends domestic production: Cheaper imports remove the volume a domestic manufacturer needs to survive, e.g. Boston Dynamics warned a Congressional hearing that China’s pricing would drive United States firms out.
Conclusion

Publicly funded, openly published United States military robotics research became the design basis for the world’s largest quadruped robot manufacturer, based in China. The failure was not in the research or in its disclosure but in the absence of capital, supplier depth and skilled manufacturing capacity to commercialise it domestically. Export bans and military company listings restrict a competitor’s access without supplying any of those three, so the structural gap remains open.

Question (2024, GS2): “The West is fostering India as an alternative to reduce dependence on China’s supply chain and as a strategic ally to counter China’s political and economic dominance. Explain this statement with examples.

Linkage: This touches upon the global strategic response to China’s “revolution” in manufacturing and technology, highlighting the shift to move away from Chinese-dominated supply chains.
August 19, 2026
Draft rules under the SHANTI Act could favour Russia’s Rosatom in India’s nuclear opening
Why in the News

Draft rules issued by the Department of Atomic Energy under the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act require any foreign nuclear technology brought into India to be design certified by the regulator in its country of origin and already operational there or in another foreign country. Only two Small Modular Reactors are operational anywhere in the world, so a clause written as a safety filter narrows India’s field of eligible suppliers to the one country that already has an operating unit.

Mentor’s Comment

A proven technology test is the most defensible condition a regulator can write. It is also the condition that most reliably locks out every new entrant, because nothing can be operational before someone allows it to operate somewhere first.

What is the SHANTI Act?
1. Full name: The Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Act, referred to as the SHANTI Act.
2. Function: It is the statute under which India’s expansion of nuclear power generation is being governed, including the terms on which foreign nuclear technology may be sourced for an Indian plant or reactor.
3. Rule making authority: The Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) frames the subordinate rules under the Act, and has now issued them in draft.
4. Operative clause in the draft rules: Foreign nuclear technology sourced for a nuclear power plant or reactor in India must mandatorily carry design certification or approval from the regulatory body in its country of origin, and must already be operational there or in another foreign country.
What is a Small Modular Reactor?
1. Definition: A Small Modular Reactor (SMR) is an advanced nuclear reactor with about one third the generating capacity of a conventional large power reactor, built from factory made modules rather than site fabricated components.
2. Intended use: SMRs are aimed at supplying clean electricity to remote regions with limited grid infrastructure and to individual industrial enterprises.
3. India’s interest: India is examining SMRs for localised applications such as energy hungry data centres, and for scaling up baseload capacity quickly.
What do the draft rules actually require of a foreign supplier?
1. Home regulator certification: The design must be certified or approved by the regulatory body of the technology’s country of origin.
2. Prior operating record: The technology must already be operational in that country or in another foreign country.
3. Cumulative condition: Both tests must be met together, so a design certified but not yet built fails the rule, and a demonstration unit without home regulator certification also fails it.
4. Practical filter: The clause screens out first of a kind designs, which is the entire category most SMR developers currently sit in.
What does the global SMR field look like?
1. Russia, Akademik Lomonosov: A floating power unit with two modules of 35 MWe that began commercial operation in May 2020. It is a non self propelled power barge docked at Pevek harbour, supplying heat to the Arctic port town and electricity to the regional grid, and is the world’s northernmost nuclear power plant.
2. China, HTR-PM: A demonstration project grid connected in December 2021 that started commercial operations in December 2023, the second of the two SMRs operational globally.
3. United States, Holtec International: The New Jersey based developer’s SMR is still in the design certification phase and is yet to be cleared by its domestic regulator.
4. United Kingdom, Rolls-Royce SMR: Also in the design certification phase, with no operating unit anywhere.
5. United States, GE-Hitachi BWRX-300: A boiling water reactor derived SMR, likewise awaiting domestic regulatory clearance.
6. What the set demonstrates: Only Russia and China clear the operational test today, and Russia is the only country in the world with expertise in floating nuclear power solutions.
What is Russia already positioned to supply in India?
1. Existing build: Russia is already constructing conventional nuclear projects in India and holds a lead in the nascent SMR field.
2. Kudankulam: The Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) in Tamil Nadu is India’s largest nuclear power station and the flagship project of Russian and Indian energy cooperation. Units 1 and 2 use Russia’s earlier VVER-1000 light water reactors, where water cools the reactor, and are connected to the national grid supplying south India.
3. Serial construction pitch: A key negotiating point from the Russian side is serial construction of high capacity units of Russian design in India based on the new generation VVER-1200 reactor models, with technical specifications being proposed by Russia.
4. SMR pitch: Rosatom State Corporation has made a strong pitch for deploying its SMRs for targeted applications in India, and construction of SMRs of Russian design in India is under discussion.
5. Floating solutions: In April 2024, Rosatom presented its Indian partners with information on its floating nuclear power solutions.
6. Bilateral track: Progress on Kudankulam and the SMR proposal was reviewed at a working meeting in Mumbai on 10 November between the Chairman of the Department of Atomic Energy and the Director General of Rosatom.
Why does cost also point the same way?
1. Indigenous benchmark: India’s indigenous pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWRs) cost about Rs 18 crore per MW-electric.
2. Russian comparison: Russian reactors are estimated at about Rs 34 crore per MW-electric, which industry insiders describe as only marginally more expensive.
3. Western comparison: Light water reactors offered by French and United States companies are significantly more expensive than India’s indigenous PHWRs.
4. Where the cost sits: Fuel accounts for a relatively small share of the overall cost of nuclear generation, so the capital number dominates.
5. Financing and time: High upfront capital cost remains the key challenge for new projects, and financing costs and the length of the construction period are critical determinants of the final cost of nuclear power.
What are the other major changes in India’s nuclear framework?
1. Change to an existing monopoly: The reform track opens nuclear power generation beyond the exclusive preserve of state owned entities, which the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 had reserved for the government.
2. Change to an existing liability regime: The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, whose Section 17(b) gives the operator a right of recourse against the supplier, is part of the same reform track because that provision is the standing deterrent for foreign vendors.
3. New institutional target: A Nuclear Energy Mission for Viksit Bharat carries an outlay of Rs 20,000 crore for research and development on Small Modular Reactors, with at least five indigenously designed SMRs targeted to be operational by 2033.
4. New capacity goal: A national target of 100 GW of nuclear capacity by 2047 anchors the entire framework, against present installed capacity of under 9 GW.
5. New subordinate rules: The draft rules now released are the first set of subordinate legislation under the SHANTI Act governing sourcing of foreign nuclear technology.
Does a proven technology test buy safety at the cost of competition?
1. The case for the clause: A design already certified and operating abroad carries demonstrated safety performance, which is the strongest assurance a regulator can demand before a first Indian deployment.
2. The cost of the clause: Almost every SMR developer is in the design certification phase, so a rule keyed to operating status excludes the field rather than ranking it.
3. Competition effect: With Holtec, Rolls-Royce SMR and the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 all outside the gate, price discovery for Indian projects narrows to one supplier’s quotation.
4. Reciprocity problem: India’s own first of a kind designs have no operating record either, so a mirror clause applied abroad would keep Indian reactors out of foreign markets.
5. Strategic dependence: Serial construction of VVER-1200 units plus SMR supply from the same country deepens a single supplier relationship in a sector with sixty year asset lives.
Challenges to the design certification and prior operation clause
1. The eligible field collapses to two countries: Only Russia and China have an operating SMR, e.g. Akademik Lomonosov since May 2020 and HTR-PM since December 2023, so every other developer is excluded until its home regulator acts.
2. First of a kind Indian designs get no reciprocal entry: An indigenous SMR has no operating unit anywhere, e.g. the Bharat Small Modular Reactor of about 200 MWe exists only on paper, so a comparable foreign rule would bar it abroad.
3. Supplier liability still deters western vendors independently of this clause: Section 17(b) of the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010 has kept projects frozen, e.g. the Jaitapur project with French supply has been under negotiation since 2010 without a single unit built.
4. Construction period risk dominates project cost: Long build times inflate financing cost, e.g. Kudankulam Unit 1 was sanctioned in 1988 and reached criticality only in 2013.
5. Fuel supply remains external for safeguarded reactors: Imported uranium underpins the light water fleet, e.g. India sources uranium from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Russia and Canada under Nuclear Suppliers Group waiver arrangements.
6. Local acceptance and land acquisition delay siting: Public opposition has stalled commissioning, e.g. protests at Kudankulam through 2011 and 2012 delayed the first unit by over a year.
7. SMR economics depend on serial factory production: A handful of units cannot amortise a module factory, e.g. Pevek’s barge served a single Arctic town, which is not a template for grid scale Indian demand.
Conclusion

The rules under the SHANTI Act are at the stage of a draft released by the Department of Atomic Energy for public comment, and the operative clause requires foreign nuclear technology to be design certified in its country of origin and already operational there or abroad. The next milestone is the close of the comment window on 4 September 2026, after which the rules are to be finalised and notified. As drafted, the clause leaves Rosatom as effectively the only qualifying SMR supplier, with Holtec International, Rolls-Royce SMR and the GE-Hitachi BWRX-300 all still in design certification.
August 19, 2026

₹3,070 Crore Defence Boost: 405 Items to Go Indigenous

Why in the News

The Department of Defence Production notified the sixth Positive Indigenisation List, covering 405 strategically important defence items with an estimated business potential of Rs 3,070 crore. The list moves the import ban from whole platforms down to the spares, sub-assemblies and raw materials layer that keeps imported fleets flying and floating.

What is the Positive Indigenisation List?

Definition: A Positive Indigenisation List (PIL) is a notified list of defence items that can be procured only from Indian industry after a stated deadline passes.
Legal effect: The listed item stays importable until its deadline. After that date, procurement is exclusively domestic.
Issuing authority: The Department of Defence Production (DDP) under the Ministry of Defence notifies the list.
Two families of lists: One family covers capital acquisition platforms for the armed forces. The second family covers line replaceable units, sub-systems, sub-assemblies, spares, components and raw materials of Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), which is the family the sixth list belongs to.
Policy anchor: The Ministry placed the sixth list within the Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative for self reliance in defence manufacturing.

What is a Line Replaceable Unit?

Definition: A Line Replaceable Unit (LRU) is a self contained module on a platform that a technician can swap out at the operating unit itself, without sending the platform to a depot.
Why it matters: LRU import dependence decides fleet availability, since an aircraft grounded for one imported module is as unusable as an aircraft never bought.

What is the SRIJAN Defence Portal?

Definition: The SRIJAN Defence Portal is the Ministry of Defence’s online indigenisation platform on which DPSUs and the Services publish items they currently import and invite Indian vendors to develop them.
Use in this case: The detailed sixth list has been uploaded on the portal, so vendors can see item level specifications rather than only the headline count.

Components of the sixth list, by lifecycle stage

The release’s own categorisation phrase is “line replaceable units, sub-systems, sub-assemblies, spares, components and raw materials”. The table below keeps that official grouping and maps each element to the stage of the platform lifecycle it sits at.

Official category (lifecycle stage)	Platforms and systems covered	Official figures	Primary stakeholder
Raw materials (input stage)	Feedstock for the listed platforms and systems	No separate figure given in the release	Indian industry, particularly MSMEs
Components and spares (production stage)	Armoured platforms T-72, T-90 and BMP-II, and warships	No separate figure given in the release	DPSUs with MSME participation
Sub-assemblies and sub-systems (assembly stage)	Advanced Light Helicopter, Light Utility Helicopter, Chetak and Cheetah helicopters, Su-30MKI, Jaguar, MiG-29, the Light Combat Aircraft and the AL-31FP engine	No separate figure given in the release	DPSUs, in house development route
Line replaceable units (sustainment stage)	Missile systems Konkurs-M, Invar and MRSAM, defence electronics covering radars, sonars, fire control systems and satellite communication systems, and High Explosive Anti-Tank ammunition	Part of the 405 items worth Rs 3,070 crore	16 items for the Indian Coast Guard, 389 items for DPSUs
Exclusive domestic procurement (offtake stage)	All 405 listed items	Deadlines running up to December 2031	Indian industry as the sole permitted source

Why does the list target spares and sub-systems rather than whole platforms?

Sustainment is where imports survive: A platform built in India under licence still draws imported modules through its service life, so a platform level ban leaves the recurring import bill untouched.
Legacy Russian and Western fleets stay in service: The Su-30MKI, MiG-29, Jaguar, T-72, T-90, BMP-II, Konkurs-M and Invar are all of foreign origin and remain in front line use, so their spares are the standing demand.
MSMEs can enter at this scale: The Ministry stated that DPSUs and the Indian Coast Guard will indigenise through several routes including in house development, with participation from industry and particularly MSMEs.
Deadlines create assured demand: Once an item is developed locally, it will be procured exclusively from Indian industry, which converts a technical goal into a guaranteed order.
Stated economic objective: The Ministry expects the list to expand opportunities for Indian industry, strengthen the domestic defence manufacturing ecosystem, promote investment and innovation, and reduce import dependence.

What does the record of the previous five lists show?

Cumulative coverage: The last five positive indigenisation lists together comprised 5,012 critical items of DPSUs.
Delivery so far: 3,200 of those items have already been indigenised.
Value realised: The indigenised items carry an import substitution value of over Rs 3,900 crore.
Completion gap: 1,812 items from the earlier five lists remain to be indigenised even before the sixth list’s 405 are added.
Scale of the new tranche: The sixth list’s Rs 3,070 crore business potential is close to the entire import substitution value the previous five lists have delivered so far.

Challenges to the Positive Indigenisation List

Design authority remains abroad: Reverse engineering a spare does not transfer the original equipment manufacturer’s design data, so upgrades and configuration changes still need foreign clearance, e.g. Su-30MKI serviceability fell sharply when Russian spares supply was disrupted after February 2022.
Certification is the real bottleneck: A developed item still needs airworthiness or seaworthiness clearance before induction, and that queue is longer than the development itself, e.g. clearances from the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification for a single aviation grade module routinely run into years.
An import ban does not create capability: Prohibiting an import without a working domestic alternative simply postpones the requirement, e.g. the Kaveri engine programme began in 1989 and the Light Combat Aircraft still flies on the imported GE F404.
Working capital stress for small vendors: An MSME must fund development, tooling and inventory ahead of an order it may receive years later, e.g. procurement cycles under the Defence Acquisition Procedure, 2020 routinely run beyond 100 weeks from acceptance of necessity to contract.
Quality escapes damage the case for domestic sourcing: A defective indigenous item costs more credibility than an imported one, e.g. the Comptroller and Auditor General’s 2019 report on ammunition management flagged defective ammunition from Ordnance Factory Board units causing accidents and monetary loss.
Import substitution is not export competitiveness: Substituting an import for the home market does not make the product globally saleable, e.g. India stayed among the world’s largest arms importers through 2020 to 2024 even after five lists had been notified.

Conclusion

The sixth Positive Indigenisation List stands notified, with 405 items worth Rs 3,070 crore, split as 16 Indian Coast Guard items and 389 DPSU items, and uploaded on the SRIJAN Defence Portal. The next milestone is item wise indigenisation within the notified timeframes, with the outer deadlines running to December 2031, after which the listed items may be procured only from Indian industry.

August 19, 2026

[19th August 2026] The Hindu OpED: Beyond America: Gulf states must build a regional order past the US security umbrella

Question (2022, GS2): “How will I2U2 (India, Israel, UAE and USA) grouping transform India’s position in global politics?”
Linkage: This question explores how India integrates into new regional frameworks that include Gulf states (UAE) and Israel, illustrating the evolving security and economic partnerships in West Asia.

Mentor Comment

The United States President has threatened, for the second time, to bomb Oman, a long standing American ally that hosted talks between Washington and Tehran before the war was launched on 28 February. The threat against an ally exposes a conflict between an American security architecture built on bases across the Persian Gulf and a war in which those bases have become the principal liability of the states that host them.

What is the American security umbrella in the Persian Gulf?

What it is: The American security umbrella is the arrangement under which the United States guarantees the external security of the Persian Gulf monarchies through forward deployed forces, basing agreements and arms sales, in exchange for regional access and stable energy flows.
Physical form: Over the years the United States built military bases across the Persian Gulf, hosting naval, air and command elements on the territory of partner states.
Strategic premise: The arrangement rested on the assumption that an American presence deters Iran and that hosting American forces raises rather than lowers a host state’s security.
Companion policy: It was paired with a decades old policy of containing Iran through sanctions, isolation and force posture.
What the war has done to it: The foundations of this security architecture have been shaken, since American bases have turned out to be a liability in the hour of need.

What is the Strait of Hormuz?

What it is: The Strait of Hormuz is the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, bordered by Iran to the north and Oman and the United Arab Emirates to the south.
Why it matters: One fifth of the world’s seaborne oil passed through the Strait before the war, which makes its closure a global energy event rather than a regional one.

What is the Fifth Fleet?

What it is: The United States Fifth Fleet is the naval formation responsible for the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and parts of the Indian Ocean, headquartered in Bahrain.
Why its damage matters: Its headquarters is the command node of the American naval presence in the region, so damage to it is a loss of command capacity and not only of infrastructure.

What is a cold peace?

What it is: A cold peace is a settlement in which former adversaries stop fighting and maintain functional diplomatic and economic contact without reconciling their underlying political differences or building trust.
Why it is proposed here: It is the achievable objective between the Arab states and Iran, since containment has failed and full normalisation is not available.

What triggered the threat against Oman?

Oman’s original role: Oman hosted the talks between Washington and Tehran before the war was launched on 28 February, making it the diplomatic venue rather than a party to the conflict.
Oman’s continuing role: Since the failed escalation, Oman, under American influence, has been talking to Iran seeking a settlement.
Why the effort stalled: Iran, having survived two rounds of American bombings, refused to offer major concessions.
The consequence for Oman: American frustration deepened with Oman precisely because Muscat could not deliver an Iranian concession it never had the power to extract.
The nature of the threat: This is the second time the American leader has threatened to attack Oman, and the threat now falls on an ally for failing to produce a face saving deal.
What the threat reveals: Instead of reassuring allies whose territory has been struck, Washington is threatening them, which is the clearest signal of declining influence in the region.

Why has the Strait of Hormuz not reopened?

Who closed it: Iran closed the Strait after it was attacked, making closure a retaliatory instrument rather than a negotiating opening position.
The claimed breakthrough: When the American leader backed down from a threatened escalation after 13 days of bombing on Iran in July, he said the two sides were close to a deal on reopening the Strait.
Iran’s position: Iran never said that it had agreed to any deal with the United States over the Strait.
Iran’s stated preconditions: Iran issued several demands as preconditions for any agreement, including releasing frozen funds and issuing sanctions relief.
The claim against the traffic data: The American President has repeatedly claimed the Strait was open, while traffic through the waterway is nowhere near pre war levels.
Scale of what is blocked: The waterway carried one fifth of the world’s seaborne oil before the war, so the gap between claimed and actual traffic is a measurable global supply loss.

What has the war done to America’s regional military position?

Bases damaged or destroyed: At least 15 American bases are either damaged or destroyed.
The command node hit: The damaged facilities include the Fifth Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain.
Net effect on presence: The damage has substantially reduced America’s strategic presence in the region.
How Iran achieved it: Tehran turned the American basing network into a liability by repeatedly striking the bases and their host countries.
Iran’s own survival: Iran survived two rounds of American bombings and remained able to refuse major concessions afterwards.
Failure of coercive signalling: From day one of the war, American threats and rhetoric did little to advance Washington’s strategic goals or to deter Iran.

Why has the presence meant to protect Gulf states become the source of their danger?

Both propositions held simultaneously: The bases were the guarantee of Gulf security and the reason Gulf territory was struck, and the war has resolved that ambiguity against the hosts.
Iran’s targeting logic: By striking the bases and the host countries together, Tehran converted the guarantee into a cost borne by the host rather than by the guarantor.
The guarantor’s response: Washington neither restored deterrence nor reassured the hosts, and has instead threatened one of them with bombing.
The asymmetry of exposure: The host state’s territory, population and economy absorb the retaliation while the guarantor’s homeland does not.
Why the old bargain cannot simply be repaired: Reassurance would require a demonstrated capacity to deter Iranian strikes, which two rounds of bombing failed to establish.
The unresolved dependence: Gulf states have no alternative security provider of comparable capability, so recognising the failure of the arrangement does not by itself produce a substitute.

Why has the containment of Iran failed?

The record of the war: Iran absorbed two rounds of American bombing and emerged able to hold the Strait closed and to set preconditions for talks.
Coercion produced no concession: Threats and rhetoric from the first day of the war neither advanced American goals nor deterred Iranian action.
The cost fell on third parties: Containment’s enforcement damaged the host states of American bases rather than the target of the policy.
Diplomacy was subordinated to pressure: Oman’s mediation was conducted under American influence rather than as an independent regional initiative, which limited what it could offer Tehran.
The policy’s own premise collapsed: A decades old policy of isolating Iran cannot be sustained when the isolating power’s regional presence has been substantially reduced.

What would a new regional order require?

Recognition of the strategic reality: Countries in the region confront a new strategic reality in which the foundations of the old security architecture have been shaken.
Abandoning containment: Gulf states must recognise that the decades old policy of containing Iran has failed.
Looking past the umbrella: To ensure their own security and regional stability, the Persian Gulf countries need to look beyond the American security umbrella.
The organising principle: The new order must be founded on a cold peace between the Arab states and Iran, not on reconciliation or on alliance.
Regional rather than external authorship: The foundations have to be laid by the regional states themselves, since the external guarantor has demonstrated both limited capability and limited commitment.

How does the Gulf’s shifting security order affect India’s interests?

Energy dependence: India imports over 85 percent of its crude oil, and a large share of West Asian supply transits the Strait of Hormuz, so a closed Strait raises both price and freight and insurance costs.
Diaspora exposure: About 90 lakh Indians live and work in the Gulf Cooperation Council states, the largest concentration of Indians anywhere outside India.
Remittance dependence: The Gulf accounts for a substantial share of India’s annual remittance inflows, which exceeded $125 billion in recent years and are the country’s most stable external receipt.
Trade and connectivity stakes: The India Middle East Europe Economic Corridor and India’s trade agreement with the United Arab Emirates both assume a stable and navigable Gulf.
Balancing act with Iran: India’s Chabahar port investment and its connectivity route to Central Asia through Iran sit alongside its deepening partnerships with the Gulf monarchies and Israel.
Strategic preference: A cold peace between the Arab states and Iran serves India better than either containment or open conflict, since India maintains working relationships across all three blocs.

Challenges to building a new Persian Gulf regional order

Absence of a regional security institution: The Gulf has no inclusive security organisation covering both the Arab states and Iran, e.g. the Gulf Cooperation Council formed in 1981 explicitly excludes Iran and Iraq.
Sectarian and dynastic rivalry: Competition between Riyadh and Tehran runs through proxy conflicts that outlast any bilateral thaw, e.g. the Yemen conflict continued despite the Saudi Iran normalisation agreement brokered in Beijing in March 2023.
Capability dependence on external suppliers: Gulf militaries are built on American platforms, training and sustainment, so autonomy is limited by the equipment they already own, e.g. Patriot and THAAD air defence systems in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates depend on American logistics chains.
Intra Gulf divergence: The Gulf Cooperation Council states do not share a single position toward Iran, e.g. the blockade of Qatar between 2017 and 2021 was driven partly by differing approaches to Tehran.
Nuclear file unresolved: No verification framework governs Iran’s nuclear programme after the collapse of the earlier agreement, e.g. the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 2015 ceased to constrain enrichment after the American withdrawal in 2018.
Energy chokepoint vulnerability: Any settlement leaves the Strait of Hormuz physically controllable by one party, e.g. one fifth of the world’s seaborne oil transited the Strait before Iran closed it.
External power competition: China and Russia have expanding interests in the region and no shared framework with the United States, e.g. China brokered the Saudi Iran agreement of 2023 without American involvement.
Domestic legitimacy constraints: Gulf rulers face internal opposition to accommodation with Iran and to visible dependence on foreign forces, e.g. Bahrain’s own political fault lines were exposed during the unrest of 2011.

Conclusion

The war has produced a result the Gulf states cannot reverse: at least 15 American bases damaged or destroyed including the Fifth Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain, the Strait of Hormuz still functionally closed, and an American guarantor now threatening an ally rather than reassuring it. The decades old policy of containing Iran has failed, and no external power is positioned to replace the security architecture that failure has hollowed out. What remains unresolved is whether the Persian Gulf states can construct a regional order on a cold peace with Iran while their own militaries, economies and rivalries still run through the arrangement they must replace.

August 19, 2026

[19th August 2026] The Hindu OpED: A changing Asia demands more from Delhi and Tokyo, together

Question (2019, GS2): “‘The time has come for India and Japan to build a strong contemporary relationship, one involving global and strategic partnership that will have a great significance for Asia and the world as a whole.’ Comment.”
Linkage: This question directly mirrors the article, asking for an evaluation of how a strengthened partnership between Delhi and Tokyo can influence the broader Asian and global landscape.

Mentor Comment

The Japanese Defence Minister’s visit to India this week comes as Tokyo abandons its self imposed military restraint and adopts an active regional military diplomacy. The visit exposes a gap between an India Japan defence relationship that carries the full institutional architecture of a Special Strategic and Global Partnership and a level of operational and industrial cooperation that has stayed slow and incremental.

What is the India Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership?

What it is: The Special Strategic and Global Partnership is the highest tier of India’s bilateral partnership framework with Japan, elevated to that designation in 2014 from the Strategic and Global Partnership established in 2006.
Political apparatus: It rests on an Annual Summit between the two Prime Ministers, which India holds with very few countries.
Security apparatus: It carries a 2+2 Foreign and Defence Ministerial Dialogue, a defence ministerial dialogue, a defence policy dialogue and service level staff talks.
Operational apparatus: It includes regular exercises across the three services and a mutual logistics arrangement.
Where it falls short: Defence industrial cooperation and operational coordination remain well behind the political rhetoric that the designation carries.

What is the Official Security Assistance programme?

What it is: Official Security Assistance is Japan’s grant mechanism, launched in 2023, for providing defence equipment and infrastructure to the armed forces of friendly countries, kept separate from its Official Development Assistance which cannot fund military use.
What it signals: It marks the first time Japan has used military assistance as an instrument of statecraft, with early recipients including the Philippines, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Fiji.

What is a counterstrike capability?

What it is: A counterstrike capability is the ability to strike missile launch sites and related targets in an adversary’s territory after an attack has begun or is imminent, which Japan had previously renounced as inconsistent with an exclusively defensive posture.
How Japan is acquiring it: Through purchase of American Tomahawk cruise missiles and simultaneous development of longer range indigenous weapons.

What is the UNICORN naval communications antenna?

What it is: UNICORN, the Unified Complex Radio Antenna, is an integrated composite mast that houses multiple communication and electronic warfare antennas inside a single stealth shaped structure, reducing a warship’s radar signature.
Significance for the relationship: Its co development is the first bilateral defence co development project between India and Japan, announced during the Japanese Prime Minister’s Delhi visit last month.

What is a Mogami class frigate?

What it is: The Mogami class is a Japanese designed multi mission stealth frigate built for a small crew, combining anti submarine, mine countermeasure and surface warfare roles in a single hull.
Why it matters here: Australia’s decision to acquire Japanese designed Mogami class frigates is the largest defence export Japan has secured since it eased its arms export restrictions.

What is a logistics agreement?

What it is: A logistics agreement, in this case the Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement, allows the armed forces of two countries to use each other’s bases and facilities for supplies, refuelling, spares and services on a reimbursable basis.
Operational effect: It extends the reach of each navy without new basing, which is the practical foundation for sustained joint operations in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific.

What is driving Japan’s shift away from military restraint?

The primary driver: The rise of China as a great military power and Beijing’s growing political will to translate that power into concrete outcomes.
The economic turning point: China overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy in 2010, and its growing economic resources supported a massive expansion of military capabilities.
The shared method of pressure: The People’s Liberation Army applies the same methods on Japan’s maritime frontier and along India’s contested Himalayan land border, namely persistent probing and the slow but definitive alteration of the territorial status quo.
The compounding variable: The challenge from China is magnified for both capitals by the volatility of American policy, with the second American presidency reinforcing questions about the predictability of Washington’s regional commitments.
What neither capital wants: Neither Tokyo nor Delhi seeks an Asia without America, since Japan remains deeply invested in its alliance with Washington and India sees a continuing American military presence as essential to a stable Asian balance.
The policy turn: Japan’s prime minister who returned to office in 2012 accelerated the effort to adapt security policy to these circumstances.

What did Japan’s old post war bargain look like?

The basic trade: For much of the post war era Tokyo concentrated on economic reconstruction while relying on the United States for its security.
Spending ceiling: Defence expenditure remained around 1 percent of gross domestic product.
Export restriction: Arms exports were tightly restricted, effectively closing Japan’s defence industry to foreign customers.
Force constraints: The Self Defence Forces operated within narrow political constraints on role, deployment and equipment.
When it began to break: Those conditions began to change as the China challenge unfolded through the 2000s.

What do Japan’s 2022 defence reforms actually contain?

Spending target: Tokyo set the goal of raising defence related spending to around 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, and brought that target forward through additional spending last year.
Counterstrike doctrine: Japan is acquiring long range counterstrike capabilities, including American Tomahawk missiles, alongside longer range indigenous weapons.
Defensive layers: It is strengthening air and missile defence and building cyber and space capabilities.
Unmanned systems and reach: It is investing in unmanned systems and in the capacity to operate farther from the Japanese islands.
Industrial base: Tokyo is revitalising its defence industrial base and breaking down the old barriers between civilian technology and national security.
Export liberalisation: It has eased restrictions on arms exports, which is what made a foreign frigate order possible.
Security assistance: It has begun providing military equipment to friendly countries through the new Official Security Assistance programme.
What the package amounts to: Taken together these changes are larger than a rearmament, because Tokyo is treating military power, defence technology, arms exports and security assistance as normal instruments of statecraft.

What do Japan’s other partnerships demonstrate about the pace India Japan ties could reach?

Australia, the frigate order: Australia’s decision to acquire Japanese designed Mogami class frigates is a breakthrough for a country that until recently imposed extraordinary restrictions on exporting weapons, and it shows that Japanese defence industry can now deliver a major platform to a partner.
Australia, the access architecture: Canberra and Tokyo have expanded military exercises, reciprocal access, logistics and defence industrial cooperation, which is a deeper package than the logistics arrangement India and Japan currently hold.
New Zealand: Japan is deepening defence ties with Wellington, and the Japanese Defence Minister came to Delhi after consultations in Canberra with his Australian and New Zealand counterparts, signalling a coordinated Indo Pacific circuit rather than a series of bilaterals.
South Korea: Tokyo is reaching out to Seoul and other regional neighbours, which matters because it means Japan is willing to build security ties across historically difficult relationships.
Europe: Japan is strengthening security engagement with European partners, extending the same instruments of exercises, access and industrial cooperation beyond Asia.

What does the existing India Japan defence architecture already provide?

Ministerial mechanism: A 2+2 dialogue bringing foreign and defence ministers of both countries into a single format.
Sustainment mechanism: A logistics agreement giving each side reciprocal access to the other’s facilities for supplies and services.
Exercise programme: Regular exercises across the three services, alongside participation in the trilateral and multilateral formats both countries belong to.
The most recent political push: The Japanese Prime Minister’s Delhi visit last month called for more sophisticated exercises, stronger maritime domain awareness and deeper defence industrial cooperation.
The first industrial output: That visit announced the first bilateral defence co development project, the UNICORN naval communications antenna.

Why has the institutional architecture not translated into operational weight?

The stated gap: India Japan defence cooperation has expanded and remains well behind the political rhetoric attached to the Special Strategic and Global Partnership.
The slow node: Defence industrial cooperation has been painfully slow, which is why a single antenna counts as the first co development project after two decades of partnership.
Exercises are not coordination: The armed forces exercise together without moving to operational coordination, so joint activity does not accumulate into joint capability.
Asymmetric urgency: Japan is demonstrating greater purpose and urgency in responding to the changing balance of power, which places the burden of matching commitment on Delhi.
The reassurance that removes the excuse: Unlike China, India has long welcomed the prospect of a stronger Japan, so there is no political obstacle on the Indian side to a larger partnership.
Why a review agenda is insufficient: Treating the visit as an occasion to review bilateral exercises and exchanges repeats the incrementalism that produced the gap.

Where should the partnership go next?

Industrial ambition: Delhi and Tokyo need much greater ambition in joint research, development and coproduction of weapons and military technologies.
Anti submarine warfare: Operational coordination should extend to anti submarine warfare, the domain where Japanese capability and Indian Ocean geography combine most directly.
Maritime surveillance: Coordination in maritime surveillance would convert two separate domain awareness pictures into one.
Air defence: Air defence cooperation follows from Japan’s investment in layered air and missile defence.
Logistics: Logistics coordination would turn the existing agreement from an access arrangement into a sustained operating capability.
Why now: The unfolding transformation of the Asian security environment is the reason the pace has to change, not the specific content of any one visit.

Challenges to India Japan defence cooperation

Slow defence industrial delivery: Joint projects take years to move from announcement to contract on both sides, e.g. the first bilateral co development project, the UNICORN antenna, was announced only last month after two decades of partnership.
Technology transfer caution: Japan’s defence industry remains new to export and is protective of sensitive technology, e.g. the long negotiation over the US-2 amphibious aircraft never converted into an Indian order.
Procurement process mismatch: India’s defence acquisition procedure and offset requirements do not align with Japanese corporate practice, e.g. Japanese firms have limited experience bidding into competitive Indian tenders with local content conditions.
Cost sensitivity: Japanese platforms carry high unit costs relative to Indian budget norms, e.g. the US-2 aircraft’s price was a principal reason the proposal stalled.
Divergence on Russia: India’s continued defence and energy relationship with Russia limits the sensitivity of technology Japan is willing to share, e.g. India’s Russian origin air defence and submarine fleet complicates interoperability planning.
Dependence on American policy: Both partners calibrate against Washington’s commitments, so volatility in American policy slows their own planning, e.g. questions about the predictability of the second American presidency have reopened alliance debates in Tokyo.
Domestic legal limits in Japan: Constitutional and legislative constraints on the Self Defence Forces still bound what Japan can commit to jointly, e.g. Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution continues to shape the scope of collective self defence.
Chinese economic leverage: Both economies remain deeply linked to China, which raises the cost of visible security alignment, e.g. China’s rare earth export restrictions have exposed the vulnerability of both countries’ defence electronics supply chains.

Conclusion

Japan has changed the terms of its own security policy through the 2022 reforms, a spending target of around 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2027, counterstrike capabilities, eased arms exports and the Official Security Assistance programme, and has already converted that change into a frigate order from Australia. India and Japan possess the full institutional architecture of a security partnership, a 2+2 dialogue, a logistics agreement and tri service exercises, and have produced a single co development project in the UNICORN antenna. The gap is one of ambition rather than of instruments, and closing it means moving from exercises to operational coordination in anti submarine warfare, maritime surveillance, air defence and logistics.

August 19, 2026

First talks begin on retailing E10 petrol alongside E20 amid the blending row

Why in the News

Early exploratory discussions have begun within the government and the fuel industry on whether E10 petrol can be retailed alongside E20, which is currently the only standard petrol variant sold across the country. The trigger is a policy success that has produced a consumer problem: India reached 20 percent ethanol blending five years ahead of the original deadline, which pushed the entire retail network onto a fuel that most vehicles on the road were never certified for. The question now is whether a national fuel supply chain built for a single base grade can be reopened to two.

What is the Ethanol Blended Petrol (EBP) Programme?

About: The Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme requires oil marketing companies to blend ethanol into petrol at a mandated percentage before sale, so that a share of transport fuel demand is met from domestically produced ethanol.
Administering ministry: Run by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways on vehicle compatibility and the Department of Food and Public Distribution on feedstock supply.
Policy basis: Formalised under the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018, which sets the indicative blending target and defines permitted feedstocks.
Objectives: Reduce crude oil import dependence, cut foreign exchange outgo, provide an assured market for surplus sugarcane and foodgrain, and lower tailpipe carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions.
Beneficiaries: Sugarcane and maize farmers, sugar mills and distilleries, and vehicle owners through the retail fuel price.
Achievement: India reached 20 percent ethanol blending in petrol in 2025, five years ahead of the original target, and the milestone has been credited with displacing about 310 lakh tonnes of crude and saving roughly Rs 1.9 lakh crore in foreign exchange.

What is E20 petrol?

Composition: E20 is a blend of 80 percent petrol and 20 percent ethanol by volume.
Current status: It is the only standard petrol variant sold across the country, and a notification of 17 February 2026 requires all States and Union Territories to sell E20 at a minimum Research Octane Number of 95 from 1 April 2026.

What is E10 petrol?

Composition: E10 is a blend of 90 percent petrol and 10 percent ethanol by volume.
Why it is at issue: Older vehicles, particularly two wheelers, were certified for E10 petrol, and E10 was the base retail grade until the network shifted entirely to E20.

What are Bharat Stage 6 phase two norms?

Definition: Bharat Stage 6 phase two is the second stage of India’s sixth generation vehicle emission standard, which tightened real driving emission and on board diagnostic requirements for vehicles manufactured from April 2023.
Relevance here: Full E20 material compatibility was mandated under these norms, which is why April 2023 is the dividing line between compliant and non compliant vehicles.

Components of the Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme, by lifecycle stage

Component and official instrument (lifecycle stage)	Intervention and official numbers	Primary stakeholder
Permitted feedstock list under the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 (feedstock and input)	Allows ethanol from sugarcane juice, sugar and sugar syrup, B heavy molasses, C heavy molasses, damaged foodgrain, maize and surplus rice; no per unit figure attaches to this component	Sugarcane and maize farmers, sugar mills
Ethanol Interest Subvention Scheme (financing)	Interest subvention on loans for setting up new distilleries and expanding existing molasses based and grain based capacity; the release states the subvention period, not a fixed outlay per plant	Distilleries and sugar mills
Pradhan Mantri JI-VAN Yojana (plant or asset build, advanced biofuels)	Viability gap funding for second generation ethanol projects using lignocellulosic feedstock such as agricultural residue	Technology developers and oil marketing companies
Administered ethanol procurement price (production and pricing)	Differential ex mill prices fixed by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for each feedstock route, highest for the sugarcane juice route and lowest for the C heavy molasses route	Sugar mills and distilleries
Long term offtake agreements by oil marketing companies (distribution and evacuation)	Assured purchase of tendered ethanol volumes for each ethanol supply year, which runs from November to October	Oil marketing companies and distilleries
E20 as the base retail grade (offtake and demand)	20 percent blending achieved in 2025, five years ahead of the 2030 target; minimum Research Octane Number of 95 required for E20 sold from 1 April 2026	Vehicle owners

What has triggered the rethink on a lower blend?

The consumer complaint: Opposition to E20 has come from several quarters, with claims of notable reduction in mileage and engine component wear in older vehicles whose engines were not designed for higher ethanol blends.
The government’s position on mileage: The drop in mileage in older vehicles would be 3 to 5 percent at most, and would be outweighed by E20’s benefits as a superior fuel.
The government’s position on engine damage: Claims that E20 could damage engine components have been consistently rejected.
The parliamentary figure: A reduction in fuel economy of 2 to 6 percent depending on vehicle category and vintage has been stated in Parliament.
The absence of choice: Questions have been raised on why motorists are not offered a choice between pure petrol, E10 and E20, and some Opposition leaders have taken up the same point.
The first official break: A co authored opinion article published on 17 August 2026 by the Chief Economic Adviser called for a lower ethanol petrol blend such as E10 to be made available alongside E20. The views were personal, and it is the first instance of a high ranking government official publicly calling for more petrol options.
The stated rationale for restoring E10: Restoring a lower blend at the pumps alongside the option to buy E20 would calm public concern, lower total ethanol use instead of raising it, and protect the existing fleet while the retrofit programme catches up.

Which vehicles are actually affected?

The compliance line: Petrol vehicles manufactured and sold after April 2023 are considered fully E20 compliant, since this was mandated under Bharat Stage 6 phase two emission norms.
What that leaves out: All vehicles currently being sold are E20 compliant, but most vehicles sold prior to 2023 are not.
The scale of the gap: Of about 310 million petrol vehicles in use, only about 70 million built after April 2023 carry factory certified E20 compatibility.
How long the legacy fleet stays on the road: The permissible life of a petrol vehicle in the National Capital Region is 15 years, which means cars manufactured in 2022 can be in use until 2037 under current norms.
The most exposed category: The discussions were initiated specifically with older vehicles, particularly two wheelers, that were certified for E10 petrol, in mind.

Why is retailing E10 alongside E20 a logistical problem?

A parallel supply chain: Retailing E10 and E20 simultaneously requires a complex, parallel supply chain stretching from refineries to pumps.
The volume distinction: Two or three premium petrol variants already coexist with the base fuel, and their consumption is minuscule compared with base petrol, so offering small volumes alongside E20 is manageable. Retailing E10 in large volumes is a different problem, since the existing chain has shifted entirely to E20.
Underground storage is the binding constraint: Most retail outlets use single or dual underground tanks, so adding E10 alongside E20 would require replacing them with a dual tank system for petrol at thousands of pumps.
Dispensing equipment: Outlets would additionally need separate dispensers for the base fuel.
The government’s July position: Offering multiple grades of base fuel across the country would create an “enormous logistical challenge”, raise costs and reduce operational efficiencies in India’s complex fuel retail network.
The sunk investment argument: The shift to E20 required massive investments already made, and reverting to a lower blend would not be prudent.
Where the talks stand: The discussions are described as “preliminary” and as “keeping the older vehicles in mind”, are being held on technical and non technical aspects of the fuel retail supply chain, and no concrete conclusions have been arrived at.

Where does the blending success pull against the consumer?

A target met is not a fleet protected: Reaching 20 percent blending five years early moved the entire retail network onto a fuel that roughly four fifths of the petrol fleet was never certified for.
The choice question has no cheap answer: Restoring choice requires physical infrastructure at thousands of outlets, so the demand for choice and the cost of supplying it move in opposite directions.
Lower blend means lower ethanol demand: Restoring E10 would lower total ethanol use, which cuts against the assured offtake that distilleries and sugar mills invested against.
Retrofit is the alternative to reversal: Protecting the existing fleet through a retrofit programme leaves E20 intact but transfers the cost from the fuel network to the vehicle owner.
The time horizon is fixed by vehicle life: With 2022 vehicles running until 2037, the mismatch persists for over a decade regardless of which route is chosen.

Challenges to the Ethanol Blended Petrol Programme

Legacy fleet incompatibility: The bulk of vehicles on the road predate the E20 mandate. e.g. of about 310 million petrol vehicles in use, only about 70 million built after April 2023 carry factory certified E20 compatibility.
Fuel economy loss: Ethanol has lower energy density than petrol, so the same volume delivers fewer kilometres. e.g. the government puts the drop at 3 to 5 percent in older vehicles, and a range of 2 to 6 percent by category and vintage has been stated in Parliament.
Water footprint of feedstock: Sugarcane based ethanol carries a heavy irrigation demand in water stressed regions. e.g. sugarcane in Maharashtra’s Marathwada draws heavily on groundwater while occupying a small share of the cropped area.
Food versus fuel diversion: Grain routed to distilleries competes with food and feed use. e.g. surplus rice from the Food Corporation of India and maize have been diverted to ethanol, tightening maize supply for the poultry feed industry.
Fuel quality disputes: Contamination claims undermine public confidence in the blend. e.g. chloride and moisture contamination claims were raised against E20 in 2026 and rejected by state oil marketing companies after pan India testing.
Supply chain rigidity: The retail network has been optimised for a single base grade. e.g. restoring E10 would require dual underground tanks and separate dispensers at thousands of outlets.
Geographic concentration of distillery capacity: Ethanol production clusters in a few States, requiring long haul movement. e.g. Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka account for the bulk of capacity, so deficit States in the east and north east draw on long distance tanker movement.
Material compatibility in older engines: Ethanol acts on certain elastomers and metals used in pre 2023 fuel systems. e.g. rubber fuel lines and aluminium components in older two wheelers were specified against E10, not E20.

What do other countries’ dual grade fuel markets show?

Brazil: Mandates a high anhydrous ethanol blend in gasoline, raised to 30 percent in 2025, and sells hydrous ethanol as a separate grade at the same forecourt for its flex fuel fleet. The design feature is that the vehicle fleet was converted to flex fuel first, and the fuel grade followed.
United States: E10 is the de facto base gasoline, with E15 and E85 offered at selected stations rather than universally. The design feature is that higher blends are optional and geographically limited, so no station is forced to carry every grade.
Thailand: Retails gasohol E10, E20 and E85 simultaneously through its state fuel retailer network. The design feature is a differential excise structure that prices higher blends below lower ones, so demand shifts by price rather than by mandate.
Germany: Sells Super E10 alongside a Super E5 protection grade, retained specifically for vehicles not certified for the higher blend. The design feature is the legal obligation on larger stations to keep the lower blend available, which is the arrangement now being examined in India.
France: Retails SP95-E10 alongside SP98, with the lower ethanol grade preserved for older vehicles, and publishes a vehicle compatibility list so owners can check before filling. The design feature is that consumer information was issued as a public compatibility register, not left to manufacturers.

Conclusion

India met its 20 percent blending target five years early, and the cost of that speed is a national retail network carrying a single fuel grade that most of the vehicle fleet was never certified for. Discussions on retailing E10 alongside E20 are at a preliminary stage with no conclusions reached, and the binding constraint is physical, being underground tank and dispenser capacity at thousands of outlets rather than ethanol availability. The next development to watch is whether the government converts the current exploratory talks into a formal feasibility study, since the mismatch persists until the pre 2023 fleet ages out around 2037.

August 19, 2026

[19th August 2026] The Hindu OpED: Education must change to account for AI

Question (2023, GS3): “Introduce the concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI). How does AI help clinical diagnosis? Do you perceive any threat to privacy of the individual in the use of AI in healthcare?
Linkage: This is the foundational question on AI awareness. Adapting education to AI requires first understanding its core concepts and cross-sectoral applications, which are now being integrated into school and higher education curricula.

Mentor Comment:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping work in the sectors where India holds comparative advantage, including generic drugs, biosimilars and vaccine manufacture, and will eliminate a large share of entry level positions while leaving deep domain expertise in demand. This exposes a conflict between an education system built to load ever more content before entry into the workforce and an economy that now requires selection, synthesis, judgement and adaptation instead.

What is the National Education Policy’s four year undergraduate structure?

What it is: The National Education Policy, 2020 replaced the three year undergraduate degree with a flexible four year undergraduate programme offering multiple entry and exit points.
Exit ladder: A certificate after one year, a diploma after two years, a bachelor’s degree after three years and a bachelor’s degree with research after four years.
The research pathway: The fourth year is designed as a research pathway in which a student undertakes a supervised project rather than additional taught coursework.
Credit portability: Credits earned at each exit point are deposited in the Academic Bank of Credits, allowing a student to re-enter and complete the degree later.
Why it matters here: The four year structure with a research final year is the closest institutional equivalent to apprenticeship that the system already possesses.

What is vibe coding?

What it is: Vibe coding is the practice of producing working software by describing the desired outcome in natural language to an AI system, which generates and iterates on the code, rather than by writing the code line by line.
Effect on work: It removes the routine coding task that has historically been the entry level rung in software employment.

What are biosimilars?

What they are: Biosimilars are biological medicines highly similar to an already approved reference biologic, with no clinically meaningful difference in safety, purity or potency.
Why they differ from generics: A biosimilar is produced in living cells and cannot be copied exactly, so approval requires comparative analytical, non clinical and clinical evidence rather than simple bioequivalence.

What is an automated fill finish line?

What it is: A fill finish line is the final stage of pharmaceutical manufacture in which the bulk drug substance is filled into vials or syringes, stoppered, sealed, inspected and labelled under sterile conditions.
Effect of automation: Robotic and isolator based fill finish removes human presence from the sterile core, which raises throughput and sterility assurance while eliminating operator roles.

How is AI changing the nature of work itself?

Change is rapid and unpredictable: The nature of work is changing at every level, and the direction of that change cannot be forecast with confidence.
Routine work is the first casualty: Vibe coding threatens to render much routine coding obsolete, which removes the task that entry level employees have traditionally performed.
Important work also becomes routine: With wisely configured agents and other tools, even important work can be made routine, so the change is not confined to low skill tasks.
Employment shifts to oversight: Fewer employees remain, and their function becomes careful oversight of systems rather than execution of the task.
No settled timeline: Assessments of when superintelligence arrives range from a few years to many years, so institutions cannot plan against a fixed date.

How will AI reshape the sectors of Indian strength?

Generic drugs and biosimilars: AI is reshaping molecule screening and formulation in generic drugs and biosimilars.
Synthesis and quality control: Robotics and machine vision will increasingly handle synthesis and quality control in the same sectors.
Vaccine design: AI can help design antigens and predict immune responses, changing the research stage of vaccine development.
Vaccine manufacture: Robotic bioreactors, automated fill finish lines and AI managed logistics will make production faster, cleaner and more precise.
Corporate adaptation is assumed: Indian industry will pivot to meet these changes and companies may survive and prosper, so the disruption falls on employment rather than on firms.

Why does the disappearance of entry level jobs create a skills paradox?

Two requirements point in opposite directions: Employers will still need people with deep domain expertise, and the entry level positions through which such expertise was historically acquired will disappear.
Expertise cannot be front loaded: Deep domain expertise cannot be acquired at the point of entry, so it cannot simply be added to a degree programme as more coursework.
Employee profiles change, not employer demand: Companies will prosper while their employee profiles change dramatically, so the market signal to students is ambiguous rather than absent.
Oversight requires the expertise it displaces: The remaining employees must supervise systems whose outputs only an expert can evaluate, so the skill required is higher precisely where the training ladder has been removed.
The gap is institutional, not individual: No individual can resolve a missing apprenticeship rung by studying harder, which is why the response has to come from the design of education.

Why has the strategy of extending years of education run out of road?

The historical pattern: Earlier technological revolutions were met by extending education, from basic literacy to primary school, then high school, then college, and increasingly professional master’s degrees.
What each transition demanded: Every transition asked people to acquire and retain more knowledge before entering the workforce.
Why the pattern breaks now: As AI systems advance, the comparative advantage no longer lies in humans storing ever more information in their heads.
What replaces storage: The requirement is to know what must be understood deeply, what can be retrieved when needed, and how to learn quickly in unfamiliar situations.
Adding material makes it worse: A future that cannot be predicted cannot be prepared for by adding ever more material to the curriculum.

What kind of rigour must replace content coverage?

Two apparently contradictory tasks: Education must thin out what it teaches while providing far more opportunities to learn on the fly.
Not less rigour: The objective is a different kind of rigour rather than a reduction of it.
The four capacities named: That rigour consists of selection, synthesis, judgement and adaptation.
How it is built: Students need repeated experience of confronting problems whose answers are not in the syllabus, finding the relevant knowledge and applying it with judgement.
The system’s starting condition: India’s higher education system contains isolated pockets of excellence embedded in a large undifferentiated mass that is difficult to reform as a whole.

How can the four year undergraduate structure deliver apprenticeship at scale?

The ideal model and its limit: The ideal way to train an expert is apprenticeship, one student working closely with one teacher or practitioner, and that model cannot be provided at scale at present.
The available substitute: The National Education Policy’s four year undergraduate structure already provides a research pathway in the final year, the closest institutional equivalent available.
What blocks it in practice: Residual coursework crowds out the immersion the policy intends, so the final year reverts to taught classes.
The proposed fix: Universities should allow any remaining essential coursework to be completed online, freeing the year for immersion.
Where students should be placed: Students should spend that year embedded in industry, university laboratories or national laboratories.
What the placement teaches: Working alongside people solving real problems lets students encounter uncertainty and learn to acquire knowledge as it becomes necessary.

Challenges to reorienting education for AI

Faculty shortage and capacity: Immersion requires supervisors who themselves work on live problems, and Indian universities carry large vacancies in teaching posts, e.g. central universities have reported vacancy levels around one third of sanctioned teaching positions.
Absence of industry placement capacity: There are not enough laboratories and firms willing to host a full cohort for a year, e.g. the National Apprenticeship Promotion Scheme has consistently engaged far fewer apprentices than its annual targets.
Regulatory rigidity on credits: University statutes tie degrees to classroom contact hours, which blocks substitution of a year of placement for taught credits, e.g. many State universities still require minimum attendance percentages that a workplace year cannot satisfy.
Assessment mismatch: Examination systems reward recall, which is the exact capacity AI has made least valuable, e.g. the majority of Indian undergraduate examinations remain terminal written papers rather than project defences.
Digital access inequality: Moving residual coursework online assumes reliable connectivity and devices, which a large share of students lack, e.g. only about 57 percent of women have independent internet access against 72 percent of men.
Employability and credential signalling: Employers screen on degree names and marks rather than on demonstrated judgement, so students resist a less legible qualification, e.g. campus recruitment for information technology services has long been anchored to aggregate marks thresholds.
Uneven institutional quality: Reform designed for research capable institutions cannot be transplanted into colleges with no research infrastructure, e.g. a large majority of Indian undergraduate students study in affiliated colleges rather than in universities.
Financing the transition: Placement years, laboratory access and supervision cost money that public institutions do not currently receive, e.g. public expenditure on education remains near 4.6 percent of gross domestic product against the National Education Policy’s 6 percent target.

Conclusion

The core problem is not that AI will destroy work but that it removes the entry level rung through which deep expertise was formed, while continuing to demand that expertise. Adding more content to the curriculum cannot answer this, and the response is to thin the syllabus and use the National Education Policy’s four year structure to place students inside industry and laboratories for a full year. That requires moving residual coursework online and treating immersion, not coursework, as the final year’s substance.

August 19, 2026

PM CARES corpus hits all-time high as utilisation collapses to Rs 87.85 lakh
Why in the News

Audited statements of the PM CARES Fund for 2023-24 and 2024-25, both published only on 17 August 2026 after a two year delay, show the closing balance at an all time high of Rs 8,452.06 crore while spending fell to a five year low of Rs 87.85 lakh. A fund created to disburse relief in emergencies is now accumulating faster through interest than it is spending, which raises the question of what a relief fund is for when it does not disburse.

What is the PM CARES Fund?
1. Full name: The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund, created on 27 March 2020, days after the national lockdown was imposed.
2. Legal form: A public charitable trust registered under the Registration Act, 1908, rather than a statutory or constitutional fund.
3. Composition of the trust: The Prime Minister is the ex officio chairman, and the Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister are ex officio trustees.
4. Sources of money: Voluntary domestic donations, foreign contributions, interest earned on bank balances and fixed deposits, and refunds returned by implementing agencies.
5. Position on transparency: The Fund is not treated as a public authority under the Right to Information Act, 2005, and does not accept audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, being audited instead by an independent chartered accountant.
What is a public charitable trust?
1. What it is: A public charitable trust is a private legal arrangement in which trustees hold property for a charitable purpose benefiting an indeterminate section of the public, created by a trust deed and registered under the Registration Act, 1908.
2. Consequence of the form: It is not created by statute and does not draw on the Consolidated Fund, so parliamentary appropriation control and constitutional audit do not attach to it automatically.
What is a refund from an implementing agency?
1. What it is: A refund from an implementing agency is money previously released to an executing body for a sanctioned purpose and returned unspent or unutilised to the fund.
2. Why it matters here: A refund inflates receipts without any relief being delivered, so a year with high refunds and low disbursement records activity that produced no outcome.
What do the 2024-25 audited statements show?
1. Total contributions: Contributions fell to Rs 479.96 crore, comprising Rs 479.04 crore domestic and about Rs 92 lakh foreign, down about 30 percent over the previous year.
2. Interest income: The Fund received Rs 475.14 crore as interest, of which Rs 469.37 crore came from fixed deposits and Rs 5.76 crore from regular accounts.
3. Other receipts: About Rs 13.49 lakh was received as refund of tax deducted at source on fixed deposit interest, and Rs 324.65 crore came back as refund from implementing agencies.
4. Total income: Total income grew to Rs 1,279.9 crore, up 41 percent over the previous year.
5. Total spending: Total spending fell to Rs 87.85 lakh, comprising Rs 87.84 lakh on the PM CARES for Children Scheme and Rs 451 in bank and short message service charges.
6. Utilisation ratio: The Fund spent 0.01 percent of its closing balance, and between March 2020 and 31 March 2025 it spent less than one fifth, or 18.1 percent, of its total income.
7. Closing balance: The closing balance touched an all time high of Rs 8,452.06 crore, 17.83 percent above the previous year’s Rs 7,173.03 crore.
8. Two year corpus growth: The corpus grew 25.8 percent between 2022-23 and 2024-25, from about Rs 6,722 crore to about Rs 8,453 crore.
Why has the corpus grown while spending collapsed?
1. Interest now rivals donations: In 2024-25 interest income of Rs 475 crore was almost the same as donations of Rs 480 crore, so the Fund grows without any fresh public contribution.
2. The instrument shift: The corpus was moved from savings bank accounts to fixed deposits in 2023-24, which is the immediate reason for the jump in interest earnings.
3. Refunds outweigh disbursement: In 2024-25, Rs 324.65 crore came back from implementing agencies while only Rs 0.87 crore went out, so money returning exceeded money spent by a factor of over three hundred.
4. Inflow consistently exceeds outflow: Since 2022-23 the money flowing in through donations and interest has far exceeded the money disbursed in every single year.
5. Spending narrowed to one scheme: Almost the entire 2024-25 outgo went to the PM CARES for Children Scheme, so the Fund has effectively ceased to operate as a general emergency relief instrument.
Why does a record corpus in a relief fund raise a governance question rather than settle one?
1. Both readings are defensible: A large unspent corpus can be read as prudent reserve building for a future emergency, or as money raised on an emergency appeal and then withheld from that emergency.
2. The appeal was purpose specific: Donations were solicited during a public health emergency, so accumulation departs from the stated purpose on which consent to donate was given.
3. Scale of the mismatch: Utilisation of 0.01 percent of an available Rs 8,452 crore cannot be explained by a shortage of relief needs during a period of recurring floods, cyclones and heat emergencies.
4. Refunds without explanation: Neither the identity of the implementing agencies, nor the nature of the payments, nor the reasons for the Rs 324 crore of refunds has been disclosed, so it is not known whether refunds followed faulty procurement.
5. The oversight gap widens with the corpus: The larger the accumulation, the weaker the case for keeping the Fund outside both the Right to Information Act and constitutional audit.
6. No competing claim is resolved: A public charitable trust is legally entitled to build a corpus, and the objection is not to legality but to the absence of any published disbursement policy that would justify the accumulation.
What transparency questions remain unanswered?
1. Sources of funds: No information is available on who the donors are, including donors of the foreign contributions the Fund has received.
2. Identity of implementing agencies: The agencies that received and refunded money have not been named.
3. Purpose of refunded allocations: The purpose for which the refunded money was originally allotted has not been disclosed, leaving open whether refunds followed faulty equipment supply.
4. Missing audit annexures: The explanatory notes accompanying the audit report were not uploaded alongside the statements.
5. Delay in publication: Statements for 2023-24 and 2024-25 were both released only on 17 August 2026, after a failure to upload annual disclosures since 2022-23, a lapse publicly flagged on 8 August 2026.
6. Pattern of delay: The publication dates run 19 August 2020 for 2019-20, 8 February 2022 for 2020-21, 1 November 2022 for 2021-22, 28 December 2024 for 2022-23, and 17 August 2026 for the last two years together, computed from the Internet Archive and the Fund portal’s own metadata.
7. Auditor change: The prolonged delay in releasing statements coincided with the Centre changing the Fund’s auditors.
8. Statutory position: The Fund continues to refuse to submit itself to the Right to Information Act, 2005.
Challenges to the PM CARES Fund
1. Contested public authority status: The Fund’s exclusion from the Right to Information Act, 2005 rests on it being a trust rather than a body owned or controlled by government, a characterisation litigated repeatedly, e.g. the Delhi High Court has heard a series of petitions since 2020 seeking a declaration that the Fund is a public authority.
2. Absence of constitutional audit: Money raised in the name of the highest offices of the State is audited by a private chartered accountant rather than the Comptroller and Auditor General, e.g. the National Disaster Response Fund, its statutory counterpart, is audited by the CAG under the Disaster Management Act, 2005.
3. Donor disclosure gap: Neither domestic nor foreign donors are identified, so contributions from entities regulated by the same government cannot be scrutinised for conflict of interest, e.g. central public sector undertakings routed corporate social responsibility funds to the trust in 2020-21.
4. Corporate social responsibility diversion: Recognition of contributions as qualifying corporate social responsibility spending channels statutory corporate obligations into an unaudited pool, e.g. the Ministry of Corporate Affairs clarified in March 2020 that PM CARES contributions count under Schedule VII of the Companies Act, 2013.
5. Duplication with existing funds: The Fund overlaps the pre existing Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund and the statutory National Disaster Response Fund without a stated division of purpose, e.g. both the older relief fund and PM CARES made COVID-19 disbursements in the same period.
6. Idle corpus with no disbursement policy: No published criteria govern when and to whom money is released, so a record balance can coexist with unmet relief demand, e.g. Rs 8,452 crore stood unspent while only Rs 87.85 lakh was disbursed in 2024-25.
7. Refund opacity as an accountability risk: Large refunds from unnamed agencies can conceal procurement failure rather than reflect prudent recovery, e.g. Rs 324.65 crore was refunded in 2024-25 with no explanation of the original allotment.
8. Delayed disclosure defeats scrutiny: Financial statements published two years late are of limited use to Parliament or the public, e.g. 2023-24 and 2024-25 accounts were both released on the same day in August 2026.
Conclusion

The PM CARES Fund now grows chiefly on interest from fixed deposits and on money returned by unnamed implementing agencies, while its actual relief spending has fallen to Rs 87.85 lakh against a corpus of Rs 8,452.06 crore. The accumulation is legally permissible for a public charitable trust and remains unexplained as public policy, because no disbursement criteria and no donor or agency disclosure accompany it. The gap will only close when the Fund is placed within either the Right to Information Act or constitutional audit, and until then each annual statement will restate the same unanswered questions.
August 19, 2026

Search results for: “”

Why in the News

What is the AI pipeline?

What is Digital Public Infrastructure?

What is the India AI Mission?

Where does the pipeline leak women?

What causes the leakage?

What happens to systems built without women in the data?

Does India’s AI readiness conceal an exclusion problem?

What does the corrective path look like?

Challenges to building inclusive AI

Conclusion

Why in the News

How does VERVE-102 work?

What is LDL cholesterol?

What is PCSK9 and why is it the target?

What did the phase 1 trial find?

How much cardiovascular risk does that reduction translate into?

How does it compare with the treatments already in use?

Does permanence justify the loss of reversibility?

Who would be considered for it first?

Challenges to VERVE-102

Conclusion

PYQ Relevance:

Why in the News

What is the Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance?

What is an actuator?

What is DARPA?

How did Army funded research travel from the laboratory to a Chinese manufacturer?

What does the scale gap look like in numbers?

Why did the United States not capture the market it created?

What structural advantages does China’s manufacturing model carry?

How have United States authorities responded?

Should publicly funded research be published openly when a rival scales it faster?

Challenges to commercialising publicly funded robotics research

Conclusion

Why in the News

Mentor’s Comment

What is the SHANTI Act?

What is a Small Modular Reactor?

What do the draft rules actually require of a foreign supplier?

What does the global SMR field look like?

What is Russia already positioned to supply in India?

Why does cost also point the same way?

What are the other major changes in India’s nuclear framework?

Does a proven technology test buy safety at the cost of competition?

Challenges to the design certification and prior operation clause

Conclusion

Why in the News

What is the Positive Indigenisation List?

What is a Line Replaceable Unit?

What is the SRIJAN Defence Portal?

Components of the sixth list, by lifecycle stage

Why does the list target spares and sub-systems rather than whole platforms?

What does the record of the previous five lists show?

Challenges to the Positive Indigenisation List

Conclusion

Mentor Comment

What is the American security umbrella in the Persian Gulf?

What is the Strait of Hormuz?

What is the Fifth Fleet?

What is a cold peace?

What triggered the threat against Oman?

Why has the Strait of Hormuz not reopened?

What has the war done to America’s regional military position?

Why has the presence meant to protect Gulf states become the source of their danger?

Why has the containment of Iran failed?

What would a new regional order require?

How does the Gulf’s shifting security order affect India’s interests?

Challenges to building a new Persian Gulf regional order

Conclusion

Mentor Comment

What is the India Japan Special Strategic and Global Partnership?

What is the Official Security Assistance programme?

What is a counterstrike capability?

What is the UNICORN naval communications antenna?

What is a Mogami class frigate?

What is a logistics agreement?

What is driving Japan’s shift away from military restraint?

What did Japan’s old post war bargain look like?