Service Chiefs Must Guard Military Values
For lessons on Dharma — Duty — there is perhaps no greater text than the Mahabharata, the epic that defines not just Hindu culture, but Indianness. At the start of the climactic battle of Kurukshetra, the warrior prince Arjuna harbours serious doubt about fighting and killing his cousins, his blood relatives. Krishna reminds him about his dharma, his duty. Adherence to Dharma, Krishna tells Arjuna, upholds the cosmic order and maintains harmony in society.
In his excellent column for The Print, Lt Gen Prakash Menon has wise words for former service chiefs who have been reportedly invited to the inauguration of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya in the third week of January.
“The presence of former Service chiefs at the Ram Mandir inaugural event carries a message that is potentially at odds with the secular and apolitical values of the military institution. Even if they are retired and attend it purely out of personal religious faith, the chiefs have to be mindful of the impact it could have on serving military personnel. Especially when these personnel are part of a social fabric that has been transformed steadily by varying doses of communal disharmony generated by domestic politics. Such transformation is expected to be stemmed and managed by the current leadership.”
Retired officers, Lt Gen Menon points out, have a special role in society.
“On 22 January, as the grand spectacle of the consecration ceremony is flashed around the world, the camera can be expected to focus on VVIPs and other important attendees. Former chiefs and senior officers in attendance would, in all probability, fill the frame too. The camera will also show hordes of saffron-clad, ash-smeared sadhus, religious leaders and families of Kar Sevaks. If senior military officers in attendance look around, they might well feel discomfited by the company they are keeping. Military leaders should avoid such religious congregations in retirement. Their presence at such functions runs the risk of overtly sending messages that could be detrimental to the time-tested apolitical and secular values of the military as an institution—the last bastion of the Indian State.”
You can read Lt Gen Menon’s piece here.
Understanding China’s Border Developments
We have written earlier about Dr Nithiyanandanam Yogeswaran’s world-class research on geospatial tech in India. His blockbuster report on November 16 this year should have raised the antenna of the world’s media. Some of them did read his piece on China with respect to geospatial intelligence of recent developments in the Doklam plateau. This was one investigation that the best journalists would envy. You can read the full piece here.
Following his post, Nithiya, as he is fondly called, was invited by The New Indian Express for a YouTube interview on his findings. Neena Gopal, a senior journalist and the host of the show, asked him and other experts some perceptive questions on China’s long-term ambitions along its border with India.
As Nithiya says:
“Zooming in on recent military advancements, our geospatial analysis reveals China’s extensive footprint in the Doklam region, marked by sites like Site 10, a transformed Forward Area Refuel and Rearm Point (FARRP). This key location and others, such as Site 9, 11, 14, 15, and 16, highlight ongoing developments in the area. China's activities near the Mochu River, such as establishing villages in the valley, raise concerns about their purpose. Our findings emphasise the need for vigilant monitoring in the Doklam region.”
You can watch the full video here.
By the way, Nithiya has an excellent piece in Spacepreneur magazine. He writes about the importance of ISRO decision to make available satellite remote sensing datasets for free to the people of India. These datasets are better than NASA's Landsat and the European Space Agency's Sentinel programs. ISRO could have done this much
earlier; however, it is open today since it was one of the action points of ISRO envisaged in India's new space policy.
You can read the full article here.
Pranay and Abhiram’s Book on Semiconductors Makes It To Scroll
We have waxed eloquent on Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi’s new book ‘When The Chips Are Down’ in previous editions of Dispatch. We will resist the temptation of praising it more. But Scroll, one of India’s fiercest, most independent web outlets, decided that the book was good enough for publishing an extract.
The extract was about India’s capacity to build its own infrastructure.
As Pranay and Abhiram write:
“India only has a few fabrication facilities owned and operated by the government for critical infrastructure needs in space and defence. Prior attempts to attract private investments in these fields have failed due to cost disadvantages and uncertainty of the investment climate. These challenges remain. Combining these barriers with the fact that nearly every major chip-producing country when the chips are down is aggressively trying to localise leading-edge fabrication facilities, India is on a weak wicket.
However, not all is lost. Unlike in the past, India now has a thriving fabless design market. Rising geopolitical concerns over China and Taiwan have made companies look at India favourably. Finally, while countries such as the US, Taiwan and Japan are chasing leading-edge nodes, India’s growing electronics assembly market offers a new-found opportunity for specialised trailing-edge fabs. For instance, a large volume of components in analogue mixed-signal and radio frequency chips used in phones, wireless devices, automobiles and medical equipment are made using older technology (>90 nm). Recognising these developments, the Indian government deftly changed its policy, promising up to 50 per cent upfront financial support even for trailing edge nodes.”
You can read the extract here. But better still, buy the book here.
Pranay and Abhiram then collaborated to write a special piece for the University of Pennsylvania’s Center of Advanced Study of India.
“From a technology policy lens, the success of the Chandrayaan-3 Mission in 2023—which saw India become the fourth country to land a rover on the moon and the first to do so near the Lunar south pole—brings up a pertinent question: If largely government-run efforts could make India a bonafide space power, can some of those learnings help India become a semiconductor power? Geopolitical competition between the US and China, as well as a perceived overreliance on a seemingly vulnerable Taiwan for the vast majority of advanced chips, has made the semiconductor manufacturing sector the focus of intense industrial policy efforts over the last few years, after decades of it being the poster child of globalization.
Countries around the world have doled out state-sponsored incentives and promised favorable policy environments with the aim of establishing a local chip-making industry. India, too, announced $10 billion in incentives under the Semicon India Programme, with hopes of becoming a major hub of chip production. While India has a strong presence in the chip design services segment, it has no commercial chip manufacturing facilities. The Semicon India Programme hopes to build India’s muscle in all segments of this supply chain.”
Read the full article here.
Our Researchers Featured in the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
Dr Shambhavi Naik, the head of our research programme, and Saurabh Todi, research analyst were featured in a special podcast episode hosted by the prestigious Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
In this episode, the participants discussed advancements in gene drive capabilities and their potential as a tool to control vectors of zoonotic diseases. Gene drives are a natural process that preferentially propagate specific genetic traits through a population via sexual reproduction, and advances in genomic engineering have enabled scientists to harness this capability to target specific traits for spread in specific populations.
They are best suited for use in animals that have short reproductive cycles and produce a large number of offspring, making them impractical for humans but immensely powerful for insects.
Gene drives are being investigated as a tool to control mosquitoes' ability to procreate or their susceptibility to infections that could then spread to animals and humans, as a way to control diseases like malaria. Saurabh and Shambhavi discussed the potential benefits of these capabilities, as well as barriers, costs, risks, and other considerations that factor into decisions regarding their future use.
You can listen to episode here.
Nitin Pai’s Annual Fiction Reading List
Nitin Pai’s annual fiction reading list is out, and it is a revelation of sorts. You can see his full list here, and compare notes with him!
Last Call for GCPP | Applications Close on December 31st
That’s all from us this week. We wish you all a happy new year!