How Does India Function? Let the PGP Tell You
It’s the middle of 2024, and there is another election upon us — us, meaning 968 million of us. We will vote, we will pose for a selfie with the indelible ink on our finger, tell the world we participated in our democracy, and a couple of days later, get on with our lives as if nothing happened. Until the next election, that is, when we repeat the cycle. But, as Milind Mhaske, the CEO of Praja Foundation told Takshashila’s Sachin Kalbag in his #SavingMumbai podcast, “Citizenship is a full-time job.”
At Takshashila — this is no boast — we help you take on this full-time job, armed with the fundamentals of economics and economic reasoning, government and governance, trade and markets, political and policy narratives, price and price controls, and our favourite topic of them all, banishing bureaucracy (don’t grin yet). How?
With our public policy programmes, more than 10,000 students have earned their public policy colours and have put reasoning at the centre of any discussion, debate or, well, argument they may have had with their friends, family or colleagues. Most important, though, hundreds of them have used this knowledge to actually effect change, by writing policy documents that have a profound impact on governance.
We have announced the latest cohort of our Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy (PGP), one that promises to be even more engaging and illuminating than ever before. A comprehensive 48-week program tailored for those aiming to delve deep into both the theoretical and practical aspects of public policy, it equips you with everything you need to know about how India functions.
You can head onto this page, and get a quick overview of what the course entails. We know most of you are our alumni (and therefore, our ambassadors), so help spread the word. Tell your friends, your family, your colleagues, your bosses, just about anybody who is interested in creating a stronger Indian nation, and a stronger Indian state.
Where Does India Stand On Missile Defence?
Earlier this month, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel, an attack that included 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles, and at least 110 ballistic missiles. Close to 99% of the incoming barrage was intercepted either outside Israeli airspace or over the country itself. Israel and countries including the US, UK, France and Jordan intercepted drones and cruise missiles while its three-tier umbrella of missile defence systems intercepted ballistic missiles.
Not all were intercepted. US media reports said five ballistic missiles evaded air defences and fell on Israeli territory. Four landed in the Nevatim air base in the Negev desert in southern Israel — where the country's F-35 fighter jets are based — which the officials said was Iran's primary target.
While this conflict is being played out a few thousand kilometres away, Indian strategic experts are unanimous that there are lessons to be learnt from this. If India ever faces such a missile onslaught, how ready are we to defend ourselves? How secure are our land and sea frontiers? How many rings of fire do we have to intercept a drone or missile attack? How layered is our security?
Are we still playing catch-up? What are the weak links that need to be shored up?
These are the questions senior journalist Neena Gopal asked of two military experts — Lt Gen VK Saxena, Former Director General of the Corps of Army Air Defence and Lt Gen PJS Pannu, Former Deputy Chief Indian Integrated Defence staff — and Aditya Ramanathan, Research Analyst at the Takshashila Institution.
It's a wide-ranging, 76-minute discussion, one that is filled with both data as well as on-ground experience. Aditya holds forth on India’s quest for indigenous ballistic missile defence technology, something that other countries may not be willing to share, and we may have to develop ourselves. What does this entail? What are the armed forces telling defence policymakers to do?
All of it and more, right here.
Understanding China’s Moves Needs To Go Beyond Supply Chain Dynamics
First, a background: In a move to further exclude the US from its technology ecosystem, China unveiled new guidelines last year on December 26 to effectively phase out American PCs, microprocessors and operating systems (OS) under usage by its government agencies. The guidelines, jointly issued by the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), mandated all government and party organs above the township level to ensure ‘safety and reliability’ while purchasing PCs, microprocessors and OS. This move led to commentaries claiming China’s growing confidence in competing with the US at all levels of the electronics supply chain — from chips to systems.
Okay, but are these analyses accurate?
In their latest blog post, Takshashila’s Pranay Kotasthane and Amit Kumar tell us that it is time we understood China beyond the usual columns and op-eds.
First, they remind us, it is not the first time that China has announced such a policy. Two, we need to make sense of the decision by understanding its motivations for issuing these guidelines.
“That could either be China’s suspicion or paranoia surrounding espionage and stealing of sensitive information by US companies through backdoor means,” Pranay and Amit say. “Alternatively, it could be fuelled by the realisation that sooner or later the Chinese dependence on American technology might become a vulnerability vis-a-vis its principal rival.”
They assert that,
“China’s actions, if anything, expose the weakness of its Xinchuang initiative (IT applications innovations). The mandatory domestic content and sourcing requirement was a result of the realisation that China’s homegrown alternatives aren’t as competitive and have failed to capture any significant market against their overseas rivals such as Intel, AMD or Microsoft.”
You can read their full piece here.
More on China: Military Space Advancements, Clean Tech and Its Taiwan Conundrum
This past week, Takshashila’s analysts and scholars had a flurry of columns and op-eds on important issues related to developments in China. In their piece for The Diplomat, Ashwin Prasad and Rakshith Shetty analyse China’s rapid advancements in the space sector, something that even NASA chief Bill Nelson cautioned about.
Ashwin and Rakshith point out:
“China is actively pursuing space superiority while acquiring and developing counter-space capabilities and technologies. The U.S. Department of Defense’s 2023 report on China’s military highlighted three key takeaways regarding the People’s Liberation Army’s perspective and actions in space. First, the PLA considers “space superiority, the ability to control the space-enabled information sphere and to deny adversaries their own space-based information gathering and communication capabilities” as crucial aspects for conducting modern “informatized warfare.” Second, the PLA is actively investing in enhancing its space capabilities across various areas such as intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), satellite communication, navigation, meteorology, human spaceflight, and robotic space exploration. Third, the PLA is actively acquiring and developing counterspace capabilities and technologies, including kinetic kill missiles, ground-based lasers, orbiting space robots, and expanding space surveillance capabilities aimed at monitoring and potentially disrupting objects in space, thus enabling counter-space actions.”
They explain how China’s military-civil fusion (MCF) strategy leverages civilian technologies for military purposes – in the space sector and beyond. This approach allows China to innovate and accelerate technological advancements rapidly, but also raises global suspicions of Chinese space activities.
Read their column here.
Next up is Rakshith’s study in The Diplomat on how China has become a world leader in clean tech. In fact, he points out, China’s clean energy sector was the biggest driver of its GDP growth in 2023, contributing 40 percent (around $1.6 trillion) of its economic expansion. The country’s commitment to renewable energy is underscored by its substantial investments in the industry.
He writes:
“Chinese investments in new photovoltaic (PV) supply capacity over the last 10 years exceeded $50 billion – ten times more than all of Europe. China’s wind power sector continues to expand, evidenced by the addition of 37 gigawatts (GW) in wind capacity in 2022, including significant growth in offshore farms. Notably, China’s dominance also extends to the electric vehicle (EV) market. China accounted for nearly 60 percent of global new electric car registrations in 2022. China’s electric cars comprise 29 percent of total domestic car sales, surpassing the 2025 national target well ahead of schedule.”
It is an excellent analysis on why China, despite seemingly not doing well GDP-wise, has still taken great strides in these sectors. For the full article, click here.
The third piece is by Anushka Saxena, our resident China-Taiwan watcher. Earlier in April, Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted former Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou. This was as rare as it comes, but what made Xi, who has openly talked about taking over Taiwan, host a former adversary? Ma, who led Taiwan from 2008 to 2016, supports closer ties with China. He had embarked on a 11-day tour of China, and met Xi in Beijing. It was the first time a former president of Taiwan has been hosted by China’s top leader in Beijing since Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) fled to Taipei in 1949.
Naturally, then, Anushka had to find out what happened, and why. Her piece for The Quint does just that. She writes:
“In January 2024, Taiwan witnessed one of its most important presidential and parliamentary elections, with many calling it a choice between war and peace. The election results also spoke to the divided nature of political opinion. Lai Ching-Te, the candidate of the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), won the presidential election, while the majority in the legislative yuan was won by the primary opposition party, the Kuomintang (KMT). From Beijing’s perspective, there were many wins in these results. For example, KMT’s parliamentary victory creates more pressure on Lai to moderate his anti-China rhetoric. At the same time, Lai’s own victory came amidst growing voices in Taiwan against DPP’s ability to address various socio-economic issues in its previous two terms.”
For the full piece, visit this page.
Ten Years of the Belt and Road Initiative
Manoj Kewalramani joined two other experts for an illuminating video chat with the Center for Strategic and International Studies on 10 years of Xi Jinping’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative.
The BRI, of course, is China’s flagship overseas investment project, encompassing agreements with over 150 countries and summing to around $1 trillion in projects. As the BRI enters its second decade, the initiative faces several hurdles. High-profile projects have run into challenges, many countries’ ability to borrow has declined, and scepticism of China’s broader geopolitical intentions has grown in partner countries.
The full video is here.
What’s Maldives Up To, And Why India Should Take Note
Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu’s People’s National Congress (PNC) was voted to a two-thirds majority in the 93-member house in the latest parliamentary elections. With this win, Muizzu’s party now wields power both in the executive and the legislature, thereby allowing him to steer domestic and foreign policy with little opposition.
The development has heightened concerns in New Delhi as Muizzu ran a successful ‘India-Out’ campaign in the run-up to the presidential election last year. Since assuming the presidency, Muizzu has overturned the earlier government’s ‘India-First’ policy, replaced Indian military personnel based in the Maldives to maintain and operate the two helicopters and an aircraft with civilian technical staff from India, and vowed to send back the remaining Indian troops stationed in the country by May 10. And, he chose Beijing over New Delhi for his first state visit.
In his latest piece for First Post, Amit Kumar dissects what this means for India.
He writes:
“The situation offers India an opportunity to work at the most basic level of its relationship with the Maldives and perhaps address the root cause of its discontent. It is evident from the developments so far that the ‘India-Out’ campaign resonated with the Maldivian population. It is one thing for the political parties to shore up a narrative, but completely another for the masses to buy into it. Thus, it is worth deliberating the reasons that made the anti-India narrative a success among the electorate. With high-level state-to-state diplomacy sidelined of late, it is time for India to rekindle people-to-people diplomacy. Given the Maldives’ significant dependency on India for even the most basic needs such as drinking water, medicines, and medical treatment, it is perplexing that India lacks popular support and public goodwill on the neighbouring island.”
Read the full piece here.
Nuclear Clouds are Threatening our World
Takshashila co-founder Narayan Ramachandran reminds us of a stark possibility: nuclear Armageddon, thanks to two conflicts that threaten to change contemporary geopolitical equations: the Israel-Hamas war, which threatens to widen into a regional conflict involving Iran, and, of course, the Russia-Ukraine war, which could change the latter’s history altogether.
He writes in Mint:
“Beginning in 2022 in Ukraine and continuing from last year in West Asia, opposing sides have been busy poking each other’s eyes out, resulting in a general blindness to the unimaginable consequences of a nuclear war. The proximate cause of the so far conventional escalation in West Asia is Israel’s attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria that killed several people including two Iranian Quds Force Generals. Until then, Iran was waging a covert war through it proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah and Israel was striking back at those proxies. With Israel’s attack on a diplomatic facility and Iran’s retaliation with directly targeted missiles and drones, Israel and Iran are already in a form of unstated war. Israel obliterated the facility in an airstrike whereas Iran responded with a barrage 130 drones, 30 cruise missiles and 110 ballistic missiles. Both these countries are widely believed to be nuclear powers, even if they have not declared themselves to be so.”
These are sobering facts. While Narayan is unsure of what it means for the rest of the world, he has a word of advice for India.
“India has no choice but to plan for a variety of scenarios where its diplomatic positioning and its “no first use” nuclear doctrine is tested,” he says. “India has already begun to establish a broad air-defence system.”
Read his full piece here.
Geopolitics will determine whether Israel and Iran launch a full-scale war
The erudite Lt Gen (Dr) Prakash Menon has a deep, analytical piece on the geopolitics surrounding the Israel-Iran clash in April. On April 1, Israel targeted Iran’s embassy in Syria. Two weeks later, Iran launched a massive drone and missile attack on Israel that was almost totally negated by collaborative missile defence systems.
Many fear that April was just a precursor to a larger conflict, perhaps a full-scale war between the sworn enemies. But, as Lt Gen Menon explains, this is not so certain, because it depends on a larger geopolitical context that is not defined by either country. There is both a military and a political context, and neither can escape those.
He writes:
“Carl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831) was a Prussian General and a military theorist who wrote On War; it has been acknowledged as a treatise whose core concepts have endured. “War is thus an act of force to compel our enemy to do our will,” he wrote. But he qualifies this oft-quoted statement by asserting that “Will is not sovereign”. No one is in full control, the enemy too has free will and can also dictate the issue at stake. Actions and decisions taken by any of the parties in a war are determined by the autonomy and responsibility of one’s own will, they also have to be weighed against possible consequences. In the case of both Iran and Israel, the space for free will is curbed by the constellation of both political and military forces at play.”
Read his full piece here.
Introducing: The Quad Hub
There is a new superstar in Takshashila’s firmament… a place where you can access all of our research on Quad. The Quad, as we know, is the strategic grouping involving four countries: India, the United States, Australia, and Japan.
In 2017, senior officials from the Quad countries met on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF). The grouping has expanded to regular foreign ministerial consultations and, since 2021, leader-level annual summits. The Quad’s role in the Indo-Pacific focuses on providing public goods to regional partners across numerous domains, such as cybersecurity, climate change, infrastructure, and maritime security.
The Quad Hub features interactive dashboards focusing on the Quad’s institutional history — detailing meetings at the official, ministerial, and leader levels — and outlining the key initiatives concerning the Quad’s sectoral focuses. It is a single window to Takshashila’s research, podcasts, and newsletters for advancing scholarship on the Quad, spanning semiconductors, biotech and biomanufacturing, maritime security, and the space sector.
We also have a dedicated weekly newsletter — the Quad Bulletin — that tracks the grouping’s developments in the Indo-Pacific, with an eye towards India’s expanding relations with the three Quad countries.
Head on to the Quad Hub here.
Wait! There’s More
We, The Citizens, the latest blockbuster from Takshashila’s scholars has already become a legit bestseller. This past week, Open Magazine featured it in its list of books that enrich children’s history learning. Open Magazine’s Rati Girish writes:
“We, the Citizens: Strengthening the Indian Republic is a graphic novel that breaks down complex concepts into easy-to-understand chapters. Through pertinent questions and contemporary themes, the authors and illustrators educate readers about what keeps the government functioning. Instead of simply defining the government, the book asks what democracy means for the common man, what happens when the executive functions without a safety net, and how all arms of the government function to make the life of an Indian citizen better.”
Read more here.
Our favourite podcast of the week is the one on DigiYatra. An allegedly unscrupulous one-person company has been handling data and infrastructure for DigiYatra, the biometric boarding system used at airports. In this episode of All Things Policy, Anupam Manur and Bharath Reddy discuss the implications. Listen to their angsty discussion here.
Is the United States really the benchmark of equality as far as justice delivery is concerned? Takshashila’s Sachin Kalbag suggests it isn’t, given how billionaire and former President Donald Trump has been able to evade the wrath of law for so many years while most of his associates and former colleagues have been jailed. You can read his scathing piece here.
That’s all from us this week. Take care.