When India, South Korea & The US Come Together
Question: If Pranay Kotasthane wrote a book on the upbeat nature of the tech dialogue between the United States, South Korea and India, will the title be “When The Chips Are Up”?
This query zoomed past our mind when we read our colleague Saurabh Todi’s piece on the he Trilateral Technology Dialogue (TTD) between the three countries.
The Americans have the CHIPS Act (the Biden administration will award up to $6.4 billion in grants to South Korea's Samsung to expand its chip production in central Texas as part of a broader effort to boost U.S. chipmaking), the South Koreans have their own K-CHIPS Act, and India has announced that it will support chipmakers investing on its territory including American producer Micron Technologies and Taiwan's Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp.
It is a no-brainer that the three tech allies will work together to capitalize on each other’s competitive advantages, and not just in semiconductors.
Saurabh writes:
The TTD could also provide a platform for better coordination among the three partners that could defuse tensions over issues like U.S. restrictions affecting South Korean chipmakers' imports of advanced production equipment for their Chinese factories. Nuclear energy would be another area ripe for increased cooperation. All three countries have robust domestic nuclear power programs and are investing in developing new-generation nuclear reactors, such as small modular reactors (SMRs). South Korean and U.S. companies have already reached technical agreements regarding nuclear supply chains and the manufacture of SMRs. With India looking to triple its nuclear power generating capacity to over 22 gigawatts by 2031, the TTD could productively bring the partners together to work on deploying SMRs.
Saurabh feels the time is ripe for some policy collaboration in pharmaceuticals as well. He writes:
“The TTD could also be pivotal for the pharmaceutical sector where all three partners are seeking to mitigate supply chain risks around active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), the vital components that determine a drug's efficacy. China accounted for 40% of traded APIs in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic showed the vulnerability of such concentrated supply chains.”
To read the full op-ed, click here.
The most detailed discussion on semiconductor basics
Pranay Kotasthane and his former teacher, Shruti Rajagopalan, from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, sat together for a discussion on semiconductors that turned out to be so comprehensive that we decided to suspend all reading for about two hours and read the interaction between them at least twice. It’s that good.
But why should we write endlessly about it? Why don’t you read it yourself?
Talking about China and its competitive advantages, Manoj Kewalramani has published his latest article in the Institut Montaigne’s China newsletter. On Pages 11-17, you will read Manoj’s masterly attempt at explaining whether India can become the next China with its supply chain and market scale.
“On the whole,” Manoj writes, “Chinese analysts tend to view the Indian economy primarily from the perspective of strategic competition with the United States and the worsening of bilateral ties with India. Their primary statement is that while the United States and other Western countries are working to prop up India as an alternative to China as the world’s factory, India is unlikely to replicate or replace China’s centrality in global supply chains.”
Read the full piece here.
Manoj later appeared in an important discussion on India’s Sela Tunnel, an important piece of infrastructure along the Chinese border in Arunachal Pradesh. The discourse on this coincided with China unilaterally renaming 30 locations as its own. You can watch the recording here.
The 10,000 Genome Project And What It Means For India
India recently announced that it has completed the 10,000 genome project — a reference database of whole-genome sequences from people in India. Close to 20 institutions were involved in the project.
With a population of 1.4 billion and over 4,600 population groups, many of them endogamous, this project is seen as an important step to find out about genetic variants that are unique to India, to customise drugs and gene-based therapies, give us answers about certain diseases, and to provide a deeper insight into the population’s diversity, and perhaps into genetic predispositions to disease that we may have.
Therefore, it is equally important to understand the implications of this genome sequencing. How far does India have to go to reap its potential benefits? What are the ethical concerns around the sharing of this data? Is India well-enough equipped to ensure health data privacy of individuals?
Dr Shambhavi Naik, Takshashila’s head of research, sat down with The Hindu’s Zubeda Hamid to discuss this important topic. Listen to the fascinating podcast here.
The No-First-Use Policy Is Sacrosanct
India has achieved two major milestones in modernising its nuclear weapons arsenal. First, the entry of MIRV technology in March, followed by the successful user trial of the Agni-Prime ballistic missile on 3 April with a range of 1,000-2,000 km. The MIRV, or Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry Vehicle technology tests, have raised concerns about a potential nuclear arms race between India, China, and Pakistan and whether it would amplify similar concerns at the global level involving other nuclear weapon powers.
A report by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) stated, “While the Indian government may rejoice in its technical achievement, the proliferation of MIRV capability is a sign of a larger worrisome trend in worldwide nuclear arsenals that is already showing signs of an emerging nuclear arms race with more destabilising MIRVed missiles”. This view found resonance when India’s former Naval Chief, Admiral Arun Prakash, called for arming India’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with MIRV technology.
Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon, in his latest column for ThePrint, asserts, though, that despite its technological advancements, India should not give up its no-first-use policy.
He writes:
“A nuclear exchange could, at the upper end, start with the first strike aimed at neutralising the adversary’s nuclear arsenal. But given the numbers of weapons in the arsenals of nuclear powers, the amount of nuclear explosions required for the first strike would invite a nuclear winter, which, in the case of countries like India, China, and Pakistan, would impact not only the entire subcontinent but the perpetrator as well. This would amount to committing suicide for the fear of death.”
For good measure, he adds:
“For an NFU power like India, MIRVs on the SLBMs would provide the best means of strengthening nuclear deterrence. India’s future SSBNs must therefore be equipped with MIRVed missiles. However, this directional thrust must not result in unnecessarily boosting India’s warhead numbers. There should not be a shift from the doctrinal conception that nuclear weapons are political weapons and therefore the normative military logic of bean counting is inapplicable. Instead, even the possibility of a couple of nuclear weapons impacting the major cities of its potential adversaries is believed to be sufficient for deterrence to prevail.”
As always, Lt Gen Menon’s column continues to open eyes and keep us steadfast along our moral compass. Read the full piece here.
Why The Labour Market Will See A Major Shift
In his latest column for Mint, Takshashila co-founder Narayan Ramachandran has an important take on labour migration.
He writes:
“The global labour market is in the midst of a gradual but significant transformation. Driven by a dramatic collapse in birth rates, impeded globalization, changes in the capital intensity of growth, a preference shift towards fewer work hours, initial use cases of artificial intelligence (AI) and societal angst over immigration, labour market dislocations have already begun and are only about to go further out-of-whack with time. The manifestations and initial responses are different, country by country, but the meta phenomenon is a major upheaval in labour markets that will necessitate responses.”
The global shifts are forcing countries to change their immigration policies.
“Canada and Australia, for instance, have dramatically reshaped their immigration policy. Using a point-brd system for language proficiency, educational attainment and skills, Canada and Australia allowed 500,000 immigrants each last year. Immigrants account for nearly 20% of Canada’s and 30% of Australia’s population today, among the highest rates for large countries. India is the top source for both countries. The US continues with its preference for family-brd immigration, with over two-thirds of its immigrant visas issued in that category. Nearly 14% of the US population is made up of legal and illegal migrants.”
You can read Narayan’s full column here.
Another Week in the US, Another Landmark Gun Issue
In his latest column for The Free Press Journal, Takshashila’s Sachin Kalbag looks at the tragic history of gun control laws in the US. Last week, an American court convicted and sentenced James and Jennifer Crumbley to 15 years in prison because their son, 15, had shot dead four teenagers at his school using their gun.
Sachin writes:
The Jennifer and James Crumbley case will go down in American history as a major legal precedent, and it brings back to the political arena a contentious issue that has plagued the nation for decades — the Second Amendment in the US constitution which gives the right to bear arms. This is at the centre of the debate over mass shootings (at least four deaths) in the US, which accounted for one-third of such incidents from around the world between 1962 and 2016. According to the Gun Violence Archive, between 2020 and 2023, America saw at least 600 incidents of mass shooting each year (610, 690, 647 and 656 respectively). The country records an average of 118 deaths per day (yes, per day) due to gun violence. In 2023 alone, the US saw 42,987 gun-violence deaths.
Sachin pieces together why American society has not been able to agree on commonsense gun control laws and potentially save thousands of lives each year. Catch up with his piece here.
Saving Mumbai, One Bicycle At A Time
As part of his Saving Mumbai series, Sachin Kalbag sat down with Firoza Dadan, the city’s first bicycle mayor who has been leading both a battle and a collaboration with authorities to make the city safe for cyclists — both commuters as well as those that earn their livelihoods using a bicycle.
You can watch the episode here.
Our Favourite ATP Episode of the Week
Catch Professor C Raja Mohan, Visiting Research Professor at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, and Wini Fred Gurung, Communications Manager at the Takshashila Institution, discuss the complexities of India's foreign policy, exploring its perspectives on the global landscape, significant shifts in approach over the past decade, and the challenges and opportunities it faces in an ever-changing world.
Wait! There’s More
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The/Nudge Indian Administrative Fellowship (IAF) embodies the power of collaborative governance and the potential of public-private partnerships to deliver meaningful impact to millions. Join the Ask Me Anything session to learn more about this 18-month impact Fellowship aimed to infuse tech, talent & innovation into the government and other opportunities at The/Nudge IAF.
Details on OpenTakshashila here. Stay tuned to OpenTakshashila for more such events.
That’s all from this week. Take care!