Revealed: The Secrets of Marathi Via Biotechnology
Sharing with all our dear newsletter readers a visual of quotable quotes created by one of our outgoing PGP students to capture the memories from the PGP workshops, classes, readings, and conversations.
If the breadth and depth of the knowledge captured in the snippet above intrigue you, we are glad to inform you that the registrations for the next cohort of our PGP programme are ongoing. For more details, click here. Or read our fantastic coverage on PGP from last week, here.
Anyway, back to the current business.
In 1989, the government of Maharashtra invited some of the greatest daughters and sons of the soil — public intellectuals, scientists, sportspersons, artists, litterateurs, politicians, industrialists, cinema and theatre personalities — and honoured them on stage at the Jagatik Marathi Parishad (World Marathi Conference). You could have called it the Marathi equivalent of a multidisciplinary Solvay Conference of 1927, and not even raised eyebrows, such was its cerebral heft.
The ‘favouritest’ literary son of the Marathi soil — Pu La Deshpande (Marathi initials are almost always phonetically pronounced) — was called on stage to speak about the honorees. Pu La made a short, eight-and-a-half-minute speech, but in those 520 seconds, he had the entire stage in splits, a platform that included the bitterest of political rivals. He was perhaps the only man in Maharashtra who could unite Sharad Pawar (then Congress) and Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena). PV Narasimha Rao, who would become India’s Prime Minister two years later, was also on stage (Rao studied law in Pune and reportedly knew 17 languages, including Marathi).
Takshashila’s Shambhavi Naik carries forward the same rich tradition of Marathi intellectual heft in her first piece for Loksatta. When we shared the Marathi piece internally, many of our colleagues confessed that they learned new words, thanks to the top-class translation by Shambhavi’s brother Ashay Naik. For instance, जैवअर्थव्यवस्था for bioeconomy.
Truth be told, more than about learning new words, Shambhavi’s piece on the need for a dedicated biotech department in Maharashtra is an eye-opener.
“Maharashtra has a cumulative base of 1162 biotech startups,” Shambhavi writes, “with the biotechnology startup community growth at a rate of 20%. Despite being a hub for biotechnology, there is no dedicated department within the state that can own responsibility for promoting biotechnology in a sustained manner.”
“The establishment of a biotechnology department would be advantageous in five ways — a) dedicated year-on-year funding; b) ability to negotiate with other ministries; c) power to negotiate with foreign companies and states; d) analyse future requirements; and e) streamline bureaucratic processes to increase efficiency.”
It's not that Maharashtra has not been doing anything, but it’s growth has been in spite of an updated biotech policy, rather than because of it. You get the drift? Shambhavi charts the roadmap in one single article. Maharashtra would do well to pay heed.
What’s with China’s SSF disbandment decision?
In his latest piece for First Post, Takshashila’s chair of the Indo-Pacific Programme, Manoj Kewalramani, writes:
“Chinese President Xi Jinping’s concentration of power over the past decade has heightened concerns about the efficiency and flexibility of policymaking in China. Three questions have been key to this discourse. First, has concentration of power and centralisation of decision-making enabled breaking through bureaucratic and vested interests to enact changes? Second, what has been the impact of centralisation on the flow of information within the system, particularly to the top leader? Third, has centralisation of power led to greater rigidity in policy thinking and implementation, resulting in the persistence of evidently adverse choices? The recent decision to disband the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) and create three specialised arms offers an interesting case study in this context.”
This is an important introduction because it sets the context for what is happening in China when it comes to the SSF.
“The SSF emerged as part of a sweeping reorganisation of the PLA, which began in late 2015. That process created a new theatre command structure. It also resulted in the PLA expanding to include six forces, i.e., the PLA Army (PLAA), PLA Navy (PLAN), PLA Rocket Force (PLA RF), PLA Air Force (PLAAF), PLA SSF and PLA Joint Logistics Supply Force (PLAJLSF). In terms of its mandate, the SSF brought psychological warfare, information warfare, space warfare, cyberwarfare, and electronic warfare under one umbrella. China’s 2019 defence white paper stated that the SSF had been created by “combining strategic support forces across the services and Central Military Commission (CMC) organs.”
Manoj adds:
“The creation of the SSF is an example of Xi’s centralisation of power enabling the leadership to cut through bureaucratic interests, and carry out much-needed reform. However, clearly the SSF’s performance over the years, including persistent corruption, left much to be desired.”
You can read his full piece here.
What does China’s biggest military shakeup in a decade mean?
Anushka Saxena added to Manoj’s above-mentioned piece by analysing what China’s announcement of the creation of new independent People's Liberation Army units for information, space and cyber operations means.
This is its most sweeping military reorganisation in nearly a decade. According to media reports, the old Strategic Support Force (SSF) was broken up and replaced with three new arms, one of which, the Information Support Force, is responsible for gathering and analysing information, building communication networks and protecting vital systems.
Anushka writes:
“While little more has been said yet publicly about the ISF, three things can be inferred from the restructuring of the SSF. The first is that its breakup shows the amalgamation of complex new and emerging warfare domains -- including cyberwarfare, space and information -- under a single umbrella support force was a failed experiment for China. With the restructuring of domains previously under the command of the SSF into specialized forces under the direct control of the CMC, it is evident that the country's highest military decision-making body wishes to keep a close eye on potential graft in equipment procurement and management. The restructuring will simplify the chain of accountability by removing the SSF commander as a mediator.”
There are deeper things to be read between the lines, of course. You can read her full piece here.
Understand The (Sort Of) American Decline
If you have been a Takshashila follower for over a decade (we know many of you are), you’d recall Nitin Pai’s non-conformist writings on the myth of American decline, when several US-based intellectuals were actively speaking about it. As Nitin himself puts it in his latest column for Mint,
“I gave three reasons why fears of America’s terminal decline were exaggerated. First, the American political system is designed to recover from serious mistakes that its leaders (like all leaders) tend to make. Second, that its higher education eco-system is outstanding. And third, that it has long been the magnet for the world’s most talented and most enterprising people. As long as the United States held on to these advantages, I argued, it will remain the world’s dominant power.”
Well, that was then, and what is now, is this:
“In the past fifteen years, it is shocking how the United States has inflicted serious damage on all three pillars of its strength. No, I still do not think you should short the United States, but the harm it has inflicted on itself is perhaps unprecedented. Unless its self-correcting mechanism kicks in in time, decline is possible. Even after the 2008 global financial crisis, I never thought I’d write this sentence.”
Like most people who change or modify their opinions when the facts change, Nitin feels that it is time to examine the American scene more realistically in the current context.
“…in the past decade, extreme partisanship has wrecked self-correcting mechanisms. The US Supreme Court has reduced itself from being an credible arbiter to just another player. Congress has become dysfunctional. There is a highly controversial presidential election this year. There is, of course, a lot of resilience in the system at all levels, but it is under greater strain today than it has been in decades.”
Read his full piece here or here (non-paywalled).
A Case for Quad Cooperation in Biofuels
Bharat Sharma’s latest policy brief argues that the Quad grouping should dedicate a focus to the biofuels sector as part of its broader efforts concerning biotechnology cooperation within the grouping. Why? Because advancement in the sector is also beneficial for the Quad countries’ bioeconomies. More importantly, aligning bioeconomic supply chains may create certain “bubbles of trust” amongst the four countries.
It explores two particular areas of cooperation in this space. First, quadrilateral cooperation in the aviation space can be achieved by creating complementary standards and frameworks, along with bolstering the manufacturing capacity of sustainable aviation fuels in the four countries.
Second, greater collaboration between the Quad countries on third-generation biofuels research, especially through utilising Indian research and institutional capabilities, will provide a quadrilateral R&D ecosystem, which — in the long-term — will underpin the commercialisation and deployment of third-generation biofuels.
To quote Bharat from his document:
“In the short term, the focus should be on an initiative clarifying biofuels as one of the priorities within the Quad’s larger cooperation efforts in the biotechnology space. The Quad countries can aid each other’s efforts to meet targets by creating complementary standards and frameworks, including synergising low-carbon fuel standards in the aviation industry. A focus on biofuels within the Quad’s Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group may help create complementary standards, given its purpose in the coordination of technology standards, design, development, and use. This will help align policy incentives and lead to firmer industry linkages. This is also an initiative possible under the broader umbrella of initiatives catered to supporting a clean energy transition in the Indo-Pacific.”
Read his complete policy brief here.
Meanwhile, Antony Blinken visited China. What exactly happened?
Anushka Saxena reminds us that in the past two years, the United States and China have been “riding a wave of hyper-diplomacy in a bid to turn down simmering tensions between the two sides.” Naturally, an already-tense relationship has been repeatedly pushed to the edge by events such as then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei in August 2022 and the “spy balloon incident” of February 2023.
“So when it was announced on April 22 that U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be visiting China for the second time in less than a year, it continued the trend of relative optimism.”
But what really happened in Beijing and Shanghai? What can we gauge from the visit? What are the positives to take from the meetings?
“Among other things, trade and technology ties between the United States and China were also discussed during Blinken’s meetings, and as one would expect, the conversation was quite strained. It was ironic, for example, that while Blinken strongly condemned China’s “non-market, trade-distorting” economic policies and practices, he also continued to justify restrictions on the export of U.S. advanced technologies to China in the name of national security. U.S. policies on “open markets” and “fair competition” are being pinched by the fact that China dominates 100 percent of the supply chains in key sectors such as electric vehicles, EV batteries, and solar photovoltaic cells. In an equation such as this, trade and tech ties are being viewed especially by the U.S. as zero-sum.”
Read Anushka’s full piece here.
Wait, there’s more!
Anupam usually inflicts his brand of humour on us colleagues (sometimes it’s like a military ambush!), so we told him why should we suffer alone. Not the one to back out of a challenge, Anupam wrote this (really funny) piece for The Times of India. It’s on subsidies. Read it. If you laugh, don’t blame us.
Our favourite All Things Policy episode of the week is this illuminating discussion on labour migration between Takshashila’s Kripa Koshy and Divya Varma, Co-founder and Director (Knowledge and Policy) at Work Fair and Free, an organization committed to advancing worker-centric knowledge and action. Listen to it here.
Finally, we cannot recommend this enough. Prof Karthik Muralidharan, author of the much-acclaimed magnum opus ‘Accelerating India’s Development’ is in conversation with Pranay Kotasthane, Saurabh Chandra and Khyati P in their latest episode of Puliyabaazi, easily India’s policy podcast in Hindi. Listen to their conversation here.
That’s all from us this week. Take care.