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Subject: Science and Technology

  • No takers for govt’s ₹37,500-crore coal gasification scheme

    Why in the News

    The coal ministry’s ₹37,500 crore financial incentive scheme for surface coal and lignite gasification has drawn no application from any private or public player. The last date for submission is 7 September 2026, fixed by a Request for Proposal issued on 7 July 2026. The Union Cabinet had approved the scheme to gasify 75 million tonnes of coal and lignite and to cut imports of liquefied natural gas, urea and methanol. The ministry attributes the absence of bids to the time a project proposal of this scale takes to prepare. An incentive of this size drawing nothing at its first deadline points at the economics of a gasification project rather than at the paperwork.

    How does coal gasification work?

    1. From solid fuel to gas: Dry fuel is converted into synthetic gas, known as syngas.
    2. What syngas is used for: Syngas serves as an alternative fuel and as the feedstock for methanol, fertilisers, hydrogen and chemicals.
    3. The stated emissions gain: Converting coal into gas rather than burning it directly is counted as a reduction in carbon emissions.

    What was the scheme designed to achieve?

    1. A volume target: The programme is built around gasifying 75 million tonnes of coal and lignite.
    2. Import substitution: The scheme is aimed at reducing dependence on imports of liquefied natural gas, urea and methanol.
    3. Insulation from external shocks: Domestic production of these inputs is intended to shield the country from global price volatility and supply chain disruption.
    4. The instrument: A financial outlay of ₹37,500 crore was approved for surface coal and lignite gasification projects.

    How has the coal ministry explained the empty first round?

    1. Proposal preparation takes time: Given the scale of funds each project involves, the preparation of pre-feasibility reports and project proposals runs long.
    2. Interest without applications: Several industries have communicated their interest in participating, and none has filed.
    3. The count is not final: The number of applications cannot be stated before the deadline passes, since submission is entirely online.
    4. The window reopens: Application rounds are envisaged every two months, giving industry repeated opportunities to enter.

    Challenges to the coal gasification incentive scheme

    1. High ash domestic coal raises the cost: Indian coal carries a high ash content, which lowers gas yield per tonne and raises the capital cost of the gasifier. Eg. Gasifier designs proven on low ash imported coal need modification before they run on Indian coal.
      The Fix: Tie the incentive to a gasifier configuration demonstrated on high ash domestic coal, rather than to project cost alone.
    2. The output price is set by policy, not by the market: Urea sold to farmers carries a maximum retail price fixed by the Centre, so a coal based producer’s revenue depends on the subsidy regime. Eg. Urea remains outside the Nutrient Based Subsidy regime and continues to be sold at a controlled price.
      The Fix: Offer a long term offtake price for coal based urea and methanol, so a project’s revenue is known before financial closure.
    3. No assured buyer for the other outputs: Lenders fund a plant only where a committed purchaser exists for its methanol or hydrogen. Eg. India has no binding methanol blending obligation comparable to the dated targets under the ethanol blending programme.
      The Fix: Notify a methanol blending obligation with dated targets, so demand exists independently of the capital subsidy.
    4. A coal based route to a fuel sold as clean: The process begins with coal, so the emissions case rests on capturing the carbon dioxide the process concentrates. Eg. Coal to methanol carries higher lifecycle emissions than natural gas based methanol.
      The Fix: Make carbon capture capability a condition of the incentive rather than an optional addition.
    5. Clearances have to be assembled before a bid: A promoter needs a coal linkage, land and water in place before a proposal is fileable, and the incentive supplies none of them. Eg. The Talcher Fertilizers coal to urea project in Odisha has run well past its original commissioning timeline.
      The Fix: Bundle a coal linkage and a land allotment with the incentive award, so a bidder is not chasing clearances and funding at the same time.

    Conclusion

    The obstacle here is not the size of the incentive but the absence of a price and a buyer for what a gasification plant would make. A capital subsidy lowers the cost of building the plant. It does not tell the promoter what the output will sell for, or who is obliged to buy it. The marker to watch is whether the next round is paired with an assured offtake price or a blending obligation, and whether a public sector energy company files before any private promoter does.

    Back2Basics: Lignite

    1. What it is: Lignite is the lowest rank of coal, high in moisture and low in fixed carbon, also called brown coal.
    2. Why it is used near the mine: Its calorific value is lower than that of bituminous coal, so transporting it long distances is uneconomic and it is burned or gasified close to the pithead.
    3. Where India’s reserves lie: The bulk of the country’s lignite sits in Tamil Nadu, with further deposits in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Jammu and Kashmir.
    4. Who mines it: NLC India Limited, a central public sector enterprise under the Ministry of Coal, is the largest lignite producer in the country.

    [2025] Consider the following substances:

    I. Ethanol

    II. Nitroglycerine

    III. Urea

    Coal gasification technology can be used in the production of how many of them?

    (a) Only one

    (b) Only two

    (c) All three

    (d) None

  • 16th Aero India set for Bengaluru in February 2027

    16th Aero India set for Bengaluru in February 2027

    Why in the News

    The 16th Aero India will be held in Bengaluru from 8 to 12 February 2027.

    Static Context

    1. Nature: Aero India is Asia’s largest aerospace and defence exhibition, held once every two years.
    2. Venue: The event is held at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru.
    3. Organiser: The Ministry of Defence organises the exhibition through its Department of Defence Production.
    4. Purpose: The show promotes indigenous defence manufacturing under the Atmanirbhar Bharat policy and draws global original equipment manufacturers and delegations.
    5. Last edition: The 15th edition was held in February 2025 at Bengaluru.

    Prelims Angle

    1. Aero India is held at Air Force Station Yelahanka, Bengaluru.
    2. It is a biennial event.
    3. The organising ministry is the Ministry of Defence.

    Mains Angle

    1. GS3, defence and indigenous manufacturing: A question can ask how such platforms advance defence exports and self reliance.
    2. The procurement side: It can probe how exhibition led engagement translates into actual technology transfer.
  • Cyber Physical Systems and India’s national mission

    Cyber Physical Systems and India’s national mission

    Why in the News

    Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) and India’s mission to build national capacity in the field were profiled.

    Core Facts

    1. Definition: Cyber Physical Systems integrate computation, networking and physical processes. Sensors and actuators link software control to physical machines.
    2. Applications: Uses span smart manufacturing, autonomous systems, healthcare and defence.
    3. National effort: The National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) drives India’s work in this area.
    4. Nodal department: The Department of Science and Technology (DST) implements the mission.

    Static Context

    1. Mission approval: The mission was approved in 2018 and carries an outlay of about 3,660 crore rupees over five years.
    2. Hub model: The mission set up 25 Technology Innovation Hubs (TIHs) at institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science.
    3. Scope: Covered technologies include Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics and machine learning.

    Prelims Angle

    1. The nodal department for NM-ICPS is the DST.
    2. The mission runs through Technology Innovation Hubs.
    3. The definition of a Cyber Physical System is a likely conceptual hook.

    Mains Angle

    1. GS3, awareness in the field of Information Technology and robotics: A question can ask how emerging technologies serve the economy and national security.
    2. The capacity side: It can probe skilling and research capacity.

    “[2020] With the present state of development, Artificial Intelligence can effectively do which of the following?

    (1) Bring down electricity consumption in industrial units

    (2) Create meaningful short stories and songs

    (3) Disease diagnosis

    (4) Text-to-Speech Conversion

    (5) Wireless transmission of electrical energy

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1, 2, 3 and 5 only

    (b) 1, 3 and 4 only

    (c) 2, 4 and 5 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

  • Can AI claim copyright for original work? A question of authorship

    Can AI claim copyright for original work? A question of authorship

    Why in the News

    India’s Copyright Office has rejected an application seeking copyright registration for an artwork generated by an artificial intelligence (AI) system. The application was filed by American computer scientist Stephen Thaler for a work titled ‘A Recent Entrance to Paradise’, which he said had been generated autonomously by his AI system DABUS. The application named DABUS as the author and Thaler as the owner of the copyright. The order is among the first Indian decisions to address who, if anyone, is the author when an AI system generates a work. The tension it exposes is that the Office found the image original enough to qualify for protection while holding that the entity that produced it cannot be an author.

    What is DABUS?

    1. The system: DABUS stands for Device for the Autonomous Bootstrapping of Unified Sentience, an AI system developed by Thaler.
    2. The claim made for it: The application asserted that DABUS had generated the artwork autonomously, rather than as an output directed by a human operator.

    What did the application claim and what did the Office ask?

    1. The filing: Thaler applied in 2022 to register copyright in the artwork.
    2. The first question put to him: The Copyright Office asked whether an AI system could legally be recognised as an author under the Copyright Act, 1957.
    3. The second question: It also asked who should be treated as the author if the work was indeed generated using AI.
    4. The offer he refused: During the proceedings the Office allowed Thaler to amend the application and identify himself as the author. He declined, and continued to insist that DABUS be recognised instead.

    How does the Copyright Act, 1957 treat originality?

    1. The three separate questions: The Act answers whether a work is original, who its author is, and who owns the copyright, and these are distinct questions rather than one.
    2. The protection provision: Section 13 protects original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works.
    3. The Act does not define originality: The Copyright Office therefore interprets it from Eastern Book Company v. D.B. Modak.
    4. The judicial test: The Supreme Court in that case held that a work need not be novel or groundbreaking to receive copyright protection. It must show at least a minimum degree of creativity, and it cannot be merely copied or mechanically reproduced.

    How does the Act treat authorship and ownership?

    1. The authorship provision: Section 2(d)(vi) identifies the author of a computer generated work as “the person who causes the work to be created”.
    2. The disputed phrase: The dispute was over whether that phrase refers to the machine producing the output or to the person creating and operating the system.
    3. First ownership: Section 17 states that the author is generally the first owner of the copyright.
    4. Transfer: Sections 18 and 19 allow copyright to be assigned or transferred through legally recognised agreements.
    5. What the structure assumes: The Office noted that these provisions are built around legal persons who can hold rights, transfer them and enforce them.

    What did the Copyright Office decide?

    1. Originality was satisfied: The Office found that the image generated by the AI was original enough to qualify for copyright protection.
    2. Authorship is a legal status: The Act treats authorship as a legal status carrying rights and responsibilities, and an AI system, however sophisticated, does not presently possess such recognition under Indian law.
    3. The tool test: To interpret who “causes” a computer generated work to be created, the Office looked to American copyright cases distinguishing between a tool and the person handling it.
    4. DABUS as the tool: Although DABUS generated the final image, it did so within a system designed and set in motion by Thaler, so DABUS was treated as the tool and Thaler as the person who legally caused the work to be created.
    5. Person means natural or juristic: Where an Act refers to a “person” it usually means a natural person or a juristic person such as a company, an entity capable of owning property and entering contracts. DABUS is not a recognised juristic person.
    6. The outcome: Thaler was held to be the person capable of being identified as the statutory author, so the application as filed did not meet the criteria under the Act.

    Why was the fallback request also rejected?

    1. What was sought: Thaler asked in the alternative that DABUS be recorded as the technological generator of the work.
    2. The register cannot confer status: The Office held that the register could not be used to indirectly confer legal status on an AI system.
    3. A procedural ground as well: No proper application seeking such an entry had been made.

    What has the order left open?

    1. A future application can succeed: The order leaves open the possibility of a fresh application that identifies the author in the manner the Copyright Act, 1957 requires.
    2. The change of law is reserved: Any broader change in the law would have to come from Parliament.
    3. The stated limit on administrative power: The order records that whether legal personhood or authorship should ever be extended to autonomous artificial intelligence “remains a policy decision strictly reserved for Parliament, and cannot be introduced via administrative reinterpretation”.

    Challenges to fitting AI generated works into copyright law

    1. Human contribution is not measurable at the point of registration: A registrar cannot tell from the output whether a prompt involved creative choice or a single instruction. Eg. The United States Copyright Office refused registration for the AI generated images in the comic ‘Zarya of the Dawn’ while protecting the human written text and arrangement.
      The Fix: Require a disclosure of AI involvement and of the specific human contribution as a mandatory field in the registration application.
    2. Training data use is unresolved: Models are trained on protected works without licence, so the lawfulness of the input sits behind every question about the output. Eg. Indian news publishers and a music industry body have sought to intervene in the Delhi High Court proceedings against OpenAI on this ground.
      The Fix: Legislate a statutory text and data mining exception with a transparency obligation on training corpora, so the boundary is set rather than litigated case by case.
    3. Ownership defaults to the operator rather than the investor: Treating the person who causes creation as the author leaves the platform, the model developer and the user with competing claims over the same output. Eg. Generative service terms typically assign output rights to the user by contract, which no statute confirms.
      The Fix: Make the allocation of rights in computer generated output a default statutory rule that contracts may vary, rather than leaving it to terms of service alone.
    4. Term of protection has no anchor without a human author: Copyright duration runs from the author’s lifetime, which cannot be computed where the generating entity does not die. Eg. The United Kingdom sets a fixed 50 year term for computer generated works precisely to avoid this problem.
      The Fix: Provide a fixed term measured from the date of creation for works with no identifiable human author.
    5. Enforcement needs an accountable person: Liability for infringing output, and standing to sue over it, both require someone the law can reach. Eg. An autonomously generated image that reproduces a protected character leaves no party with a stated duty under the current provision.
      The Fix: Attach statutory responsibility for infringing output to the person who deployed the system, mirroring the authorship rule the Office has applied.

    Conclusion

    The order settles who the author is and leaves untouched what the author did. A work the law accepts as original was produced by a process its named author did not perform, and the statute has no category for that gap. Parliament is the only body that can create one. The point to watch is whether computer generated works are taken up as a legislative question, or whether the issue keeps returning through individual registration applications and appeals against their refusal.

    Back2Basics

    1. Enactment: The Copyright Act, 1957 came into force in January 1958 and is India’s governing copyright statute.
    2. Administration: It is administered through the Copyright Office, which functions under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.
    3. Coverage: It protects literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works, along with cinematograph films and sound recordings.
    4. Registration is optional: Copyright arises on creation of the work, and registration serves as evidence rather than as the source of the right.

    [2014, GS3, 12 marks] In a globalised world, intellectual property rights assume significance and are a source of litigation. Broadly distinguish between the terms – copyrights, patents and trade secrets.”

  • China, US are in race to connect science with industry. India must catch up [Express]

    China, US are in race to connect science with industry. India must catch up [Express]

    Mentor Comment

    Beijing’s second World Humanoid Games has showcased a Chinese project to become the world’s leading science power, rooted in the Chinese President’s call to mobilise “new quality productive forces” released by the current revolutions in science and technology. The US administration has released Science: A New Golden Age, billed as the first major reset in US science policy since World War II, aimed at reintegrating discovery with production. Both powers are building an ecosystem that connects science with industry, from opposite starting points. India has launched missions on artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor production and quantum technologies, but its private capital has retreated from science and its state-led scientific institutions remain unreformed.

    How are China and the United States racing toward the same goal from opposite directions?

    1. China’s break with the old growth model: The Chinese President holds that the next phase of growth cannot rely on cheap labour, large-scale manufacturing, infrastructure and capital accumulation, and must come from innovation.
    2. AI diffused across the physical economy: Beijing’s objective is to diffuse AI across robotics, machine tools, automobiles, biotechnology, materials, energy, agriculture and scientific research.
      • It bets that fusing digital intelligence with the world’s largest industrial ecosystem will make China the leading technological power.
    3. From adaptation to original discovery: For decades China absorbed foreign technology, improved it through manufacturing and dominated production. It now wants to move upstream to original discovery.
    4. China’s spending signal: China spent 2.8 per cent of GDP on research and development (R&D) in 2025, and its basic-research expenditure rose by 11 per cent.
    5. China’s four-step logic: AI accelerates discovery; discovery produces technology; technology transforms industry; industrial strength generates national power and a geopolitical edge.
    6. The US reset names its own weakness: Science: A New Golden Age, released in July, recognises American strengths in universities, laboratories, technology companies and capital markets. It acknowledges the erosion of the capacity to turn discoveries into production.
    7. How globalisation split US innovation from manufacturing: Companies designed at home, produced abroad and depended on long supply chains. That model generated wealth and also the vulnerabilities exposed by the pandemic, China’s rise and geopolitical rivalry.
    8. Mirror-image fears: China begins with the largest manufacturing base and moves upstream into science. The US begins with the strongest scientific system and moves downstream into manufacturing. China fears dependence on American technology; the US fears dependence on Chinese production.

    What does “connecting science with industry” actually mean in this contest?

    1. AI as an accelerator of knowledge, not a product: Washington and Beijing see AI not merely as a general-purpose technology but as an accelerator central to the production of new knowledge that in turn transforms industry.
    2. Discovery made continuous with manufacturing: By making discovery continuous with design and manufacturing, AI-driven science transforms production itself and converts scientific speed into economic power and geopolitical capability.
    3. The ecosystem, not the model, is the prize: The contest is not about who unveils the cleverest AI model or the most sophisticated humanoid. It is about building the most effective ecosystem connecting universities, laboratories, entrepreneurs, finance, energy, factories, supply chains and markets.

    Where does India stand as the race intensifies?

    1. Missions exist on paper: Delhi recognises the trend and has launched missions on AI, semiconductor production and quantum technologies, and has a draft robotics policy.
    2. The spending gap: The Economic Survey 2025-26 puts India’s R&D expenditure at 0.64 per cent of GDP, against about 2.8 per cent for China and 3.5 per cent for the US.
    3. The absolute gap is wider: The World Intellectual Property Organisation estimates India’s total R&D spend at $75 billion in purchasing-power-adjusted dollars, against $786 billion for China and $782 billion for the United States. In nominal dollar terms India looks even smaller.

    Why does the first weakness, the retreat of private capital from science, matter most?

    1. Ambition lives in government declarations: Ambition and imagination are concentrated in government declarations at a time when the private sector contributes more than ever to producing knowledge in the US and China.
    2. Indian capital has no science project: Indian capital rarely articulates a project for mastering the new forces of production or a new project for science and basic research.
    3. It was not always so: Jamsetji Tata helped create the Indian Institute of Science in 1909. The Kirloskars and other western Indian business families sent their children to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from the 1920s, recognising that independent India’s future lay in mastering modern science.
    4. Private philanthropy built the strategic programmes: The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust supported Homi Bhabha in establishing the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which formed the nucleus of India’s atomic energy and space programmes. Indian capital has retreated from that tradition.

    Why does the second weakness, unreformed scientific institutions, compound the first?

    1. No overhaul in India’s reform era: China’s reform era, launched in the late 1970s under Deng Xiaoping, put the revitalisation of science and technology at the heart of the Four Modernisations. India’s reform era, beginning in the 1990s, produced no comparable overhaul.
    2. Same American training, different follow-through: India and China both benefited from access to American universities that trained their vast talent pools. China combined that opportunity with massive domestic investment in science and higher education and incentives for researchers to return.
    3. India does not draw talent back: India’s science sector fails to attract its trained talent home, and the shortfall is severe rather than marginal.

    Can “technological sovereignty” be built without global science?

    1. Bureaucratisation, then cultural nationalism: The Congress era saw the steady bureaucratisation of Indian science, and the BJP era is adding cultural nationalism to it.
    2. Mythology is not evidence: Civilisational pride cannot make mythology a substitute for evidence, experiment and scientific temper. India’s most confident claim should be that the greatest Indian contributions lie in the future, not that all modern science was discovered in its past.
    3. The cost of talking tall, once before: Delhi’s radical posturing on technological “self-reliance” in the 1970s and 1980s isolated India from global technological advances. Today there is grandiose talk of “technological sovereignty”.
    4. Two tracks at once: India must deepen cooperation with global science, capital, technology and talent, and at the same time build domestic research, industrial and institutional capacity. Neither track substitutes for the other.

    Challenges to India’s science-industry linkage

    1. Research sits outside the universities that supply the workforce: Most public research is done in mission agencies and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) laboratories, so graduates and firms rarely meet discovery where it happens. Eg. The Defence Research and Development Organisation, the Indian Space Research Organisation, the Department of Atomic Energy and CSIR absorb the bulk of central research spending, and State universities receive a marginal share.
      The Fix: Route Anusandhan National Research Foundation grants preferentially to State universities with mandatory industry co-investment.
    2. Industry does not fund its own research: The private sector contributes 36 per cent of India’s gross R&D expenditure, against 77 per cent in China and 79 per cent in the US and Japan. Eg. The weighted tax deduction on in-house R&D under Section 35(2AB) of the Income Tax Act, 1961 was cut from 200 per cent to 100 per cent from 2020-21, removing the one fiscal incentive firms used.
      The Fix: Restore a weighted deduction tied to patents filed and products commercialised rather than to spending alone.
    3. Deep technology has no patient capital: Venture funds back consumer applications that return within five years, not fabs or materials that need fifteen. Eg. Micron’s assembly and test plant at Sanand, approved in 2023, needed roughly 70 per cent of its project cost as central and Gujarat subsidy before private capital moved.
      The Fix: Deploy the Research Development and Innovation scheme corpus as long tenure, low interest loans and fund-of-funds equity for private deep technology projects.
    4. Public procurement does not buy the first unit: Government buyers demand a track record, so an Indian prototype finds no first customer and licenses abroad. Eg. The United States’ Small Business Innovation Research programme reserves a fixed share of federal agency R&D budgets for small firms’ first contracts, and India has no equivalent set-aside.
      The Fix: Add a first-buyer set-aside in the General Financial Rules for Indian deep technology products validated by a designated national laboratory.

    Conclusion

    The contest India has to enter is an ecosystem contest, and an ecosystem cannot be declared into existence by a mission document. Two things remain unreconciled: a state-led science system that has never been restructured, and a private sector that has stopped funding discovery. Whether Indian capital returns to the tradition that built the Indian Institute of Science and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is the marker to watch, and the disbursal of the new research finance corpus to private laboratories is where it will first show.

    About India’s Research and Innovation Ecosystem

    1. What the ecosystem measures: Gross expenditure on R&D (GERD) counts spending by government, industry and higher education on basic research, applied research and experimental development.
    2. Who does the research: Central agencies dominate, with a small set of premier institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Indian Institute of Science and the National Institute of Immunology providing the academic base.
    3. Global standing: India ranked 39th of 133 economies in the World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Global Innovation Index 2024, first among lower middle income economies.

    Laws and Rules Governing India’s Research and Innovation Ecosystem

    1. Anusandhan National Research Foundation Act, 2023: Creates an apex body to seed, grow and promote research in universities and laboratories, with a planned Rs 50,000 crore over 2023-28 of which Rs 36,000 crore is to come from non-government sources.
    2. The Act repealed the Science and Engineering Research Board Act, 2008 and subsumed that board into the new foundation.
    3. Patents Act, 1970: Governs the grant and enforcement of patents; the 2005 amendment introduced product patents in pharmaceuticals, chemicals and food to comply with the World Trade Organisation’s TRIPS agreement.

    Government Initiatives for India’s Research and Innovation Ecosystem

    1. Research Development and Innovation scheme: Approved by the Union Cabinet in July 2025 with a Rs 1 lakh crore corpus to finance private sector research in sunrise sectors through long tenure, low or nil interest loans and equity.
    2. IndiaAI Mission: Launched in 2024 by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, anchored in shared compute of 38,000-plus GPUs, the AI Kosh open dataset platform, and 570 FutureSkills and AI Labs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
    3. National Quantum Mission: Launched in April 2023 with an outlay of Rs 6,003 crore for 2023-31, building four Thematic Quantum Technology Hubs in computing, communication, sensing and metrology, and materials and devices.
    4. India Semiconductor Mission: Approved in December 2021 with a Rs 76,000 crore outlay to subsidise fabrication, display and assembly plants and to fund chip design startups.
    5. VAIBHAV Fellowship: Launched in 2023 by the Department of Science and Technology to bring diaspora scientists to Indian institutions for collaborative research stints.

    Key Facts about India’s Research and Innovation Ecosystem

    1. National Science Day, 28 February: Marks the announcement of the Raman effect in 1928.
    2. National Technology Day, 11 May: Marks the Pokhran-II nuclear tests of 1998 and the first flight of the indigenous Hansa aircraft the same day.

    Back2Basics

    1. What they were: China’s programme to modernise agriculture, industry, national defence, and science and technology.
    2. When adopted: First articulated by Premier Zhou Enlai in 1963 and again in 1975, and made the centrepiece of the reform era at the Third Plenum of December 1978.
    3. Why science was listed: Science and technology was named as the modernisation that enabled the other three, which is why the reform era began by rehabilitating scientists and reopening universities to competitive entrance examinations.

    [2019, GS3, 10 marks] How was India benefited from the contributions of Sir M.Visvesvaraya and Dr. M. S. Swaminathan in the fields of water engineering and agricultural science respectively?”

  • Navy Chief: INS Nipun will enhance our critical underwater capabilities

    Navy Chief: INS Nipun will enhance our critical underwater capabilities

    Why in the News

    The Indian Navy has commissioned INS Nipun at Mumbai, a dedicated Diving Support and Submarine Rescue Vessel built for work beneath the surface.

    What capability does INS Nipun add?

    1. It is a specialist platform for underwater work: The vessel is built for deep sea diving, underwater intervention and submarine rescue.
    2. It can carry the rescue submersible: Its ability to embark and operate the Indian Navy’s Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel is what converts it into a rescue platform.
    3. The rescue role extends beyond Indian submarines: It can respond to a distressed submarine of the Indian Navy or of a partner navy, which is the basis of the claim that India can emerge as the region’s preferred submarine rescue partner.
    4. Its diving capability supports relief work: The specialised diving capability can assist partner nations in underwater salvage and in humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR) missions.
    5. Few navies hold the combination: The vessel brings together a range of capabilities possessed by only a handful of navies.

    Why does the Navy frame this as a strategic requirement?

    1. The maritime environment is described as contested: The Chief of the Naval Staff assessed that threat perceptions are constantly evolving and morphing into newer forms.
    2. Preparedness is the stated response: The exact nature of future threats cannot be predicted, so robust capability has to be built against anticipated threats in advance.
    3. The Western Naval Command gains a full column capability: The addition allows the command to operate above, on and beneath the waves.
    4. Integration is the immediate task: The command is to fold the vessel into operational plans, exercise her capabilities rigorously and develop proficiency around her systems.

    What does the vessel mean for indigenous shipbuilding?

    1. The builder is an Indian yard: Hindustan Shipyard Limited at Visakhapatnam designed and built the vessel indigenously.
    2. The class is new to the fleet: INS Nipun is the second ship of the Nistar class of diving support vessels.
    3. The Ministry of Defence frames it as self-reliance: The induction is presented as a further step towards self-reliance in defence shipbuilding.
    4. The platform type is rarely built domestically: A diving and rescue vessel is a niche design, so building it in India establishes a capability that cannot be sourced quickly from imports.

    Challenges to India’s submarine rescue and underwater capability

    1. Rescue is a race against the air supply: A disabled submarine’s crew survives on limited oxygen, so a rescue system has to be transported and mated within hours. Eg. All 118 crew aboard the Russian submarine Kursk died in the Barents Sea in 2000 before foreign rescue assistance was accepted.
      The Fix: Keep rescue systems prepositioned on both seaboards with standing mating certification against partner navy hatch designs.
    2. The fleet operates on two seaboards with few rescue platforms: Indian submarines patrol the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, and dedicated rescue assets are limited in number. Eg. India inducted its first Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle system only in 2018, with the second following the next year.
      The Fix: Retain air transportable rescue systems that can be flown to the nearest usable port instead of sailed from a home base.
    3. Rescue only works where the hatch fits: A rescue vehicle can dock only with a submarine whose escape hatch matches its mating skirt, so cross navy rescue depends on standardisation. Eg. The International Submarine Escape and Rescue Liaison Office exists to run exercises that test exactly this compatibility.
      The Fix: Certify Indian rescue systems against partner navy hatch standards and publish the compatibility list to regional navies.
    4. Naval shipbuilding timelines stretch: Indian yards have delivered warships and submarines behind their original schedules, which delays the capability rather than the contract. Eg. Deliveries under the Scorpene class submarine programme ran years behind the timeline set at signing.
      The Fix: Link yard payments to certified milestone completion rather than to calendar tranches.
    5. Saturation diving is a scarce skill: Deep diving support needs trained saturation divers and chamber operators, and that trained pool is small worldwide. Eg. Offshore energy operators and navies draw saturation divers from the same limited global workforce.
      The Fix: Run a joint naval and commercial diving training school whose certification is recognised for offshore industry work, so the pool grows beyond service requirements.

    Back2Basics: Hindustan Shipyard Limited

    1. Status: A shipyard at Visakhapatnam that was transferred to the Ministry of Defence in 2010 from the Ministry of Shipping.
    2. Origin: It was founded in 1941 as Scindia Shipyard and built India’s first indigenous merchant ship, Jala Usha, in 1948.
    3. Work: It builds and repairs merchant and naval vessels and carries out submarine refits for the Indian Navy.
    4. Current orders: It is building the Nistar class diving support vessels and the fleet support ships ordered for the Navy.

    [2026] Which of the following items of defence hardware is/are manufactured in India?

    1. Su-30 MKI Fighter Jets

    2. T-90 MK-III Tanks

    3. Akula Class Submarine

    (a) 1 and 2

    (b) 1 and 3

    (c) 1 only

    (d) 2 only

  • Domestic chip design to receive a boost with Rs 1.27 lakh cr push

    Domestic chip design to receive a boost with Rs 1.27 lakh cr push

    Why in the News

    The Centre has notified the operational framework for its Rs 1.27 lakh crore Semicon 2.0 programme, placing the design of Indian chips and the intellectual property behind them at the front of the country’s semiconductor strategy.

    Components of the Semicon 2.0 programme

    1. Support runs across six pillars: At least three of them are devoted entirely to chip design.
    2. Three design incentives are on offer: Chips designed for strategic purposes, chips for the commercial market, and domestically developed chips deployed at scale each attract separate support.
    3. The upstream chain has its own track: Makers of semiconductor materials, chemicals and manufacturing equipment are eligible outside the design pillars.
    4. Fabrication and packaging remain funded: Fabrication plants and advanced chip packaging continue to draw subsidy alongside the design tracks.

    How will the strategic chip design track work?

    1. The government picks the technologies first: It will identify technologies and building blocks, including intellectual property for compute, memory, radio frequency, power, networking and sensors, that it wants developed in India.
    2. The trigger is national importance: The track covers chips meant for areas of national importance and for critical infrastructure.
    3. Selection runs through competitive bidding: The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), the government’s high performance computing research organisation under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, will issue requests for proposals and select developers.
    4. The state keeps a share of the intellectual property: The intellectual property created under these projects will be jointly owned by the developing company and C-DAC.
    5. Consortiums are permitted: Indian owned and controlled companies can participate independently or alongside global companies, research organisations and academic institutions.

    What does the commercial design track offer?

    1. The target is a fabless industry: The track aims to build commercially viable Indian fabless chip companies, meaning firms that design chips and contract out their manufacture.
    2. Firms get access to design infrastructure: Eligible firms receive electronic design automation (EDA) tools, multi-project wafer fabrication, intellectual property cores, compute sub-systems and post-silicon validation.
    3. Small firms receive seed money: Start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) designing commercial chips can receive up to Rs 15 crore or 50 per cent of project cost, whichever is lower.
    4. The government can take equity: It can make equity co-investments alongside venture capital or private equity investors.
    5. Large firms repay through royalty: Larger companies can opt for royalty financing and pay 5 per cent of a product’s net revenue until 1.5 times the government’s financial support has been recovered.
    6. Eligibility now reaches Overseas Citizens of India: Companies incorporated and headquartered in India qualify if they are owned and controlled by Indian citizens or Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) and maintain a significant operational and manpower presence in the country.

    What does the framework do for the upstream supply chain?

    1. Capital support is set at 30 per cent: Research and development facilities for semiconductor equipment, plants making semiconductor grade wafers, photomasks, photoresists, substrates, chemicals and gases, testing facilities, and units producing equipment and components can each claim that share of capital expenditure.
    2. Equipment makers get a declining incentive: A production linked incentive of 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 per cent runs over five years beginning FY 2028-29.
    3. The incentive is tied to domestic sourcing: It is paid on the value of the bill of materials that an equipment maker sources from domestic manufacturers.
    4. Total support carries a ceiling: Combined support for these units is capped at 50 per cent of eligible capital expenditure.
    5. The chain being targeted is largely imported today: The upstream inputs needed to operate semiconductor factories are currently brought in from abroad.

    Challenges to India’s semiconductor design push

    1. A design still has to be turned into silicon: A fabless firm depends on a foundry, and the wafers for an Indian design are fabricated abroad until domestic plants reach production. Eg. Indian design centres of global chip firms already complete chip designs that are fabricated in Taiwan and South Korea.
      The Fix: Tie the later tranches of design support to committed capacity bookings at Indian fabrication plants, so domestic demand and domestic supply arrive together.
    2. The talent sits inside multinational captive centres: India supplies a large share of the world’s chip design engineers, and most of them work on parts of products owned elsewhere. Eg. Global semiconductor companies run large design centres in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Noida.
      The Fix: Subsidise multi-project wafer runs for university teams so student designs reach silicon and full product ownership is learned before graduation.
    3. The design tools are a concentrated import: Electronic design automation software comes from a small number of United States based vendors and is subject to export control. Eg. The United States restricted sales of that software to Chinese customers in 2025 before reversing the order weeks later.
      The Fix: Secure long term licence access inside technology partnership agreements and fund an indigenous tool stack for mature process nodes.
    4. Approved outlay is not disbursed money: A start-up carries the working capital cost of a delayed claim, and slow disbursal has followed earlier electronics incentive schemes. Eg. Disbursals under production linked incentive schemes have repeatedly trailed the amounts approved across sectors.
      The Fix: Set a claim settlement deadline in the scheme guidelines with interest payable on delayed disbursal.
    5. Utilities decide where a plant can go: A fabrication plant requires ultrapure water and uninterrupted power at a scale few industrial locations can guarantee. Eg. Taiwan’s 2021 drought forced its foundries to truck in water and to cut consumption.
      The Fix: Pre-certify candidate sites for water and power reliability before approving a plant at that location.

    Conclusion

    Semicon 2.0 can transform India into a global semiconductor powerhouse by nurturing indigenous chip design, strengthening manufacturing, reducing import dependence, creating high-value jobs, and boosting technological self-reliance.

    Back2Basics: Centre for Development of Advanced Computing

    1. Establishment: Set up in 1988 as a scientific society under what is now the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
    2. Origin: It was created to build indigenous supercomputers after India was refused access to imported high performance computing systems.
    3. Flagship line: It developed the PARAM series of supercomputers, beginning with PARAM 8000 in 1991.
    4. Present mandate: It works on high performance computing, microprocessors, language computing and cyber security, and implements the National Supercomputing Mission alongside the Indian Institute of Science.

    “[2025, GS3, 15 marks] India aims to become a semiconductor manufacturing hub. What are the challenges faced by the semiconductor industry in India? Mention the salient features of the India Semiconductor Mission.”

  • Will ‘talking’ cars reduce road accident deaths?

    Why in the News

    The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways will mandate Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) communication, a system through which vehicles exchange movement data wirelessly and warn drivers of an approaching collision risk. The draft Central Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Rules, 2026 set out that mandate and invited public objections within 30 days of publication.

    How does Vehicle to Vehicle communication work?

    1. An on board unit does the exchanging: An On Board Unit (OBU) fitted in the vehicle sends data to and receives data from other vehicles wirelessly.
    2. The data exchanged is movement data: Vehicles continuously share real time speed, position, direction and acceleration.
    3. The carrier is cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology: The system uses cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X), a mobile network based standard for vehicle communication, in the 5.875 GHz to 5.925 GHz band.
    4. The alert reaches the driver before the hazard is visible: A vehicle braking suddenly triggers a slow down alert in nearby vehicles ahead of any driver seeing the brake lights.

    What do the draft Rules mandate, and by when?

    1. Compliance begins with voluntarily fitted vehicles: Two and three wheelers, cars, buses and goods vehicles manufactured on or after 1 October 2027 must meet Automotive Industry Standard 230 (AIS-230) if they carry a V2V system.
    2. Fitment becomes compulsory a year later: Vehicles manufactured on or after 1 October 2028 must be fitted with a V2V system meeting AIS-230 specifications.
    3. AIS-230 is the technical backbone: The standard lists the requirements a V2V system must satisfy and provides for phased introduction of other safety features.
    4. The spectrum was cleared first: The Centre exempted the 5.875 GHz to 5.925 GHz band from licensing requirements in June 2026, so original equipment manufacturers can use it in new vehicles.
    5. The cost sits on the new vehicle: On Board Units are expected to cost Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000 and will be installed in new vehicles first.

    What can V2V do that camera based systems cannot?

    1. Existing systems are bounded by the line of sight: Camera based advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), which use sensors to warn a driver or intervene in braking and steering, work only as far as the road is visible.
    2. V2V works around obstructions: It establishes contact with other vehicles at blind corners and behind large trucks.
    3. The warnings cover named hazards: Alerts flag sudden braking, black spots, unsafe lane changes, obstacles such as parked vehicles on roadsides, fog and potential collision risk.
    4. The detection range is about 300 metres: V2V systems typically identify vehicles within that distance.
    5. The two systems are complementary: V2V is expected to add forward collision prediction to what camera based systems already do.

    What does the limited deployment record show?

    1. Deployment abroad is narrow: V2V is working in a few countries, including the United States.
    2. Aviation already runs the same idea: Aircraft broadcast their position, speed and altitude, and nearby aircraft and ground stations receive that broadcast.
    3. The road sector is at an earlier stage: The broadcast approach is standard in global aviation and is still evolving on roads.

    Challenges to the Vehicle to Vehicle mandate

    1. The benefit depends on how many vehicles carry the unit: A network that warns only about equipped vehicles is worth little until a large share of the fleet carries the equipment. Eg. A mandate applying to vehicles manufactured from 2028 reaches none of the vehicles already registered, which stay on the road for well over a decade.
      The Fix: Fund retrofitment of On Board Units in commercial goods and public transport fleets first, since those vehicles cover the highest annual mileage.
    2. The allocated band may not carry the traffic load: It is unclear whether the frequency band set aside can support all vehicles broadcasting at once. Eg. A single congested urban intersection can hold several hundred vehicles inside the 300 metre broadcast range.
      The Fix: Fix a tested message capacity per square kilometre inside AIS-230 before the compulsory fitment date arrives.
    3. Continuous broadcasting creates a movement record: The system stores a large volume of data about vehicles, which exposes it to cyber attack and to surveillance use. Eg. FASTag toll crossings already generate a dated record of where a vehicle has been.
      The Fix: Mandate rotating pseudonymous vehicle identifiers and a fixed data retention limit in the final Rules.
    4. A wrong message can cause the crash it exists to prevent: Miscommunication between vehicles can trigger braking or a lane change that was never warranted. Eg. Automatic emergency braking systems have drawn regulatory investigation abroad over unprompted braking on highways.
      The Fix: Require cryptographic message authentication and a fail safe that suppresses alerts when integrity checks fail.
    5. The group most at risk is the hardest to equip: Two wheeler riders account for the largest share of road deaths in India, and the unit price is a significant fraction of an entry level motorcycle’s cost. Eg. Two wheelers account for roughly 44 per cent of road accident fatalities recorded in the Ministry’s annual Road Accidents in India report.
      The Fix: Subsidise On Board Units for two wheelers through the existing vehicle scrappage and safety incentive route rather than loading the cost onto the buyer.

    Conclusion

    V2V communication can make Indian roads significantly safer by enabling vehicles to detect hazards beyond line of sight and warn drivers earlier. With strong cybersecurity, privacy safeguards, affordable adoption, and wider fleet coverage, the mandate can become a major step toward smarter, safer and more connected mobility in India.

    Back2Basics: Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989

    1. Parent statute: They are framed under the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, which governs registration, licensing, permits, insurance and road safety in India.
    2. What they cover: They set vehicle construction and maintenance standards, driving licence procedure, registration requirements and control of traffic.
    3. How they are changed: The Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways notifies amendments, publishing a draft for public objections before final notification.
    4. Enforcement: Penalties for non-compliance flow from the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, whose 2019 amendment sharply raised fines for traffic offences.
  • ‘To find the rare & unusual’: NASA launches new space telescope

    ‘To find the rare & unusual’: NASA launches new space telescope

    Why in the News

    The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope aboard a Falcon Heavy rocket from the Kennedy Space Center. The telescope cost 4.3 billion dollars and is named after NASA’s first chief astronomer. It is bound for an observation point 1.6 million kilometres from Earth, the same location that already hosts the James Webb Space Telescope, and takes more than three months to reach it. A wide survey instrument is therefore being added to a fleet built around narrow and deep observation.

    What does the Roman Space Telescope add to the existing fleet?

    1. The field of view: Roman’s field of view is more than 100 times wider than that of the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in orbit for 36 years.
    2. The survey speed: A month of Milky Way observations by Roman would take Hubble a century to complete.
    3. The division of work with Webb: Webb observes a narrower field and can reach objects almost as old as the Big Bang. Roman spots new worlds first, and Webb then targets them to fill in the detail.
    4. The wider observing network: Roman joins Hubble and Webb alongside the European Space Agency’s Euclid spacecraft and the National Science Foundation’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile.

    What is the mission set up to observe?

    1. The expected catalogue: The telescope is expected to record thousands of supernovae, tens of thousands of planets, billions of galaxies and tens of billions of stars.
    2. The unseen components: It is expected to shed light on the dark matter and dark energy that make up most of the universe and remain concealed.
    3. The rate of expansion: Its catalogue of galaxies will let scientists establish how quickly the universe is expanding under those forces.
    4. The centre of the galaxy: It will scan the galactic bulge at the dead centre of the Milky Way, giving the deepest view yet of the heart of the galaxy.

    Conclusion

    The telescope is in transit and its survey work begins only on reaching its observation point. The next marker is the first release from its galaxy catalogue, since the expansion rate measurement rests on that catalogue rather than any single observation.

    Back2Basics: Dark Matter and Dark Energy

    1. Dark matter: Matter that emits no light and is detected only through its gravitational effect. It is inferred from the rotation speeds of galaxies and from the bending of light by galaxy clusters.
    2. Dark energy: The name for whatever drives the accelerating expansion of the universe. It was inferred in 1998 from observations of distant Type Ia supernovae.
    3. Their share of the universe: Ordinary matter accounts for about 5 per cent of the universe’s content, dark matter for about 27 per cent and dark energy for about 68 per cent.
    4. Why supernovae carry the measurement: A Type Ia supernova has a known intrinsic brightness, so its observed brightness gives its distance. That property makes it the standard yardstick for measuring expansion.

    “[2022, GS3, 15 marks] Launched on 25th December, 2021, James Webb Space Telescope has been much in the news since then. What are its unique features which make it superior to its predecessor Space Telescopes? What are the key goals of this mission? What potential benefits does it hold for the human race?”

    [2016] With reference to ‘Astrosat’,’ the astronomical observatory launched by India, which of the following statements is/are correct?
    1. Other than USA and Russia, India is the only country to have launched a similar observatory into space.
    2. Astrosat is a 2000 kg satellite placed in an orbit at 1650 km above the surface of the Earth.
    Select the correct answer using the code given below.

    [A] 1 only

    [B] 2 only

    [C] Both 1 and 2

    [D] Neither 1 nor 2

  • Why India took 16 years to acquire fire-and-forget Javelin missiles

    Why India took 16 years to acquire fire-and-forget Javelin missiles

    Why in the News

    India has finalised a deal to purchase the Javelin anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) system from the United States through its Foreign Military Sales (FMS) process. The purchase closes a process that began in 2010 and was shelved and revived several times in between. The original attempt collapsed over the American refusal to release the missile’s core seeker technology, and the alternative India turned to in its place, Israel’s Spike system, also failed to convert into a contract. The tension is that the deal has now closed on terms India rejected sixteen years ago, since co-production of a finished round is a different thing from the full transfer of technology that was demanded the first time.

    What is the Javelin anti-tank guided missile?

    1. What it is: A third generation, man portable anti-tank guided missile produced in the United States, designed to be carried and fired by a two person infantry team.
    2. Fire and forget guidance: The operator locks the missile onto the target before launch and the missile then guides itself to impact. The firing team can leave the position immediately, which a wire guided missile does not allow.

    Why did India want the Javelin in 2010?

    1. The stated intent: In August 2010 the Defence Minister told Parliament that the government intended to procure third generation Javelin missiles through the FMS route, and that the procurement would include a transfer of technology.
    2. The inventory gap: The move was driven by a shortage of anti-tank guided missiles in the Indian Army’s inventory.
    3. The indigenous programme slipped: The original timelines for the indigenous systems being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) had been delayed.
    4. What it was meant to replace: The idea was to replace the ageing Milan-2T and Konkurs missile systems then in use with the Army.
    5. Where the preference came from: United States forces actively showcased the system during the 2009 bilateral exercise Yudh Abhyas, after which it was highlighted as the choice to immediately fill the gap.

    Why did the first attempt collapse?

    1. The technology restriction: The acquisition was shelved because of stringent technology transfer restrictions imposed by Washington.
    2. The specific component withheld: The United States refused to share the missile’s core seeker technology, the imaging sensor that identifies and tracks the target, under a 100 per cent transfer of technology model.
    3. The consequence: The refusal caused India to pivot to Israel’s Spike missile system, manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, in 2014.

    What happened to the Spike alternative?

    1. Why Spike was chosen: In 2014 India went ahead with Spike over the Javelin, on the understanding that it could offer greater flexibility of technology transfer and local production.
    2. The order cleared: The Defence Acquisition Council cleared the purchase of over 8,000 Spike missiles.
    3. Why it was cancelled: Concerns over the system’s performance in trials, over technology transfer, and over progress in India’s own man portable missile programme led to cancellation of the $500 million order in 2017.
    4. Revived and shelved again: The deal was revived in 2018 following the Israeli Prime Minister’s visit, and was subsequently shelved again.
    5. The stopgap purchase: India undertook an emergency purchase of a limited quantity of the fourth generation Spike-LR missiles in 2019 to meet an immediate operational gap.
    6. What did get built: In August 2023 Kalyani Rafael Advanced Systems, a joint venture between the Kalyani Group and Rafael, said it had won a Rs 287.51 crore order from the Defence Ministry for the supply of the missile systems.

    What changed to make the second attempt succeed?

    1. A different bilateral setting: The Javelin reappeared in India United States strategic discussions at a point when defence cooperation between the two countries had deepened.
    2. Co-production replaced technology transfer as the ask: A United States Congressional Research Service report updated in 2025 noted that co-production discussions involving the missile were ongoing.
    3. The industrial tie-up: In February 2025 the Javelin Joint Venture, a partnership between Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, said it was exploring co-assembly and co-production in India. It signed a memorandum of understanding with Bharat Dynamics Limited.
    4. The operational trigger: Discussions gained pace after Operation Sindoor in May 2025.
    5. The two track negotiation: By July 2025 India was negotiating for the systems both as an emergency procurement and through a long term contract, the latter likely involving co-production of the weapon systems.
    6. The clearance: Washington officially cleared the sale in November 2025.

    Challenges to the Javelin acquisition

    1. A government to government sale surrenders schedule control: Under Foreign Military Sales the buyer contracts with the United States government rather than with the manufacturer, so delivery follows the seller’s production queue. Eg. GE Aerospace’s F404 engine deliveries for the Tejas Light Combat Aircraft programme ran late as European demand for American systems surged after 2024. Fix. Write dated delivery milestones with defined penalties into the Letter of Offer and Acceptance rather than relying on the standard schedule.
    2. Co-assembly is not the technology that was withheld: An arrangement to assemble finished rounds in India leaves the guidance package as an imported item, which is the precise gap that stalled the 2010 attempt. Eg. Indian co-production of imported systems has historically stopped at airframe and integration work. Fix. Tie offset credit to manufacture of the seeker and its imaging components rather than to assembly hours.
    3. Unit cost limits how deep the stock can go: A fire and forget round with an imaging seeker costs many times what a wire guided round costs, which restricts the number of rounds a formation can hold. Eg. The 2019 purchase of Spike-LR was a limited emergency buy rather than an inventory replacement. Fix. Pair the import with volume production of DRDO’s Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile so the expensive round is reserved for the hardest targets.
    4. Four missile families in one role: The Army would operate legacy Milan and Konkurs stock, Spike, Javelin and the indigenous system together, multiplying training pipelines and spares chains. Eg. The Kalyani Rafael line and a Bharat Dynamics Limited line would produce competing rounds for the same infantry task. Fix. Fix a role split by range band and phase the legacy systems out on a published timetable.

    Conclusion

    India has been short of man portable fire and forget anti tank missiles for more than a decade. The purchase answers that operational gap rather than any shift in acquisition policy, and the indigenous programme’s repeated slippage is what left the gap open. The marker to watch is whether the domestic arrangement moves past final assembly into seeker manufacture, since that is the component the first attempt broke on. If it does not, the deal has bought rounds rather than capability, and a one time exception starts to look like the practice.

    Back2Basics: Foreign Military Sales

    1. What it is: The United States government’s programme for selling defence articles, services and training to foreign governments and international organisations.
    2. How the transaction runs: The buyer contracts with the United States government, which then places the order with the manufacturer on the buyer’s behalf, so there is no direct commercial contract with the company.
    3. Who administers it: The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, under the Department of Defense, runs the programme under the Arms Export Control Act, 1976.
    4. The Congressional step: Sales above set value thresholds must be notified to the United States Congress before a Letter of Offer and Acceptance is issued to the buyer.

    Matching Previous Year Question

    “[2021, GS3, 10 marks] How is S-400 air defence system technically superior to any other system presently available in the world?”