The Sheathed Sword: From Nuclear Brink to No First Use
Dear Readers,
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Takshashila Dispatch. Last week was exciting for us with the launch of a new book on nuclear policy edited by our in-house nuclear policy specialists. In this newsletter, we also bring to you our latest on building an AI hardware ecosystem in India, a biotechnology strategy for India, the math behind the slogans of the Chinese Communist Party, dual citizenship for Indians and much more.
Book Launch | The Sheathed Sword: From Nuclear Brink to No First Use
A new book titled ‘A Sheathed Sword: From Nuclear Brink to No First Use’, edited by Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon, Director, Strategic Studies Programme, and Aditya Ramanathan, Associate Fellow at Takshashila released recently.
The Sheathed Sword is a collection of essays by the world’s top scholars and practitioners on the role of nuclear weapons in global security. The contributors examine how individual states view nuclear weapons, the devastating effects of nuclear war on the world's climate and the issues around nuclear no first use. They also debate the feasibility and desirability of a global no-first-use (GNFU) agreement.
An AI Hardware Ecosystem in India
Much of the public discourse on artificial intelligence (AI) is centred around the software dimension of AI. In last week’s research output, ‘An AI Hardware Ecosystem in India: A SWOT Analysis’ by Arjun Gargeyas, Samparna Tripathy and Anup Rajput, the authors cover the growth of the AI hardware ecosystem around the world and how India can focus on building its domestic capabilities in the domain. Since it is imperative to understand where India stands currently, the document presents a SWOT analysis from both semiconductor and AI perspectives.
In terms of recommendations, the document proposes that If an AI hardware policy is implemented in India, the policy priorities should include:
A dedicated trailing edge fab that handles AI inference chip manufacturing;
Supporting and funding open source projects specifically related to AI hardware design;
Expanding existing manufacturing and design policy schemes to include AI hardware development; and
International collaboration, especially with the US and Quad, to integrate AI hardware at the multilateral stage.
Biotechnology Initiative for India
On September 12, 2022, the United States (US) federal government announced the launch of a National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative, under which it will provide a wide range of new investments and resources for boosting its bioeconomy. Based on our past research on biotech, our latest Issue Brief on ‘Biotechnology Initiative for India’ presents a biotech strategy for India. Given the short and long-term economic opportunities in the biotech sector and allied sectors, we argue that India’s strategy must be centred on the following themes:
New economic value drivers, including a national fund to promote affordable innovation in biotech and healthcare;
Strategic public investments in the sector, including doubling the number of biotech parks to 30;
Regulatory reform for growth, including setting up a single nodal ministry and review of biodiversity legislation; and
Extending biotech collaboration with the US and others through the Quad.
Army’s Role in North East India
A fall in the insurgency in the Northeastern States of India has meant that the Indian Army has mostly handed over its counterinsurgency responsibilities to the Assam Rifles and is instead concentrating on the threats from China. However, the issue of duality in command and control of the Assam Rifles between the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) persists. In his weekly column for The Print, Lt. Gen. Prakash Menon writes on why the issue must be resolved by bringing Assam Rifles under the MoD:
Considering the contemporary geopolitical and strategic environment, especially on the northern borders, the Northeastern states, and Myanmar, the primary and major threat is from China. It can also be imagined as flowing across the IMB to India through proxies by China that may not be so active now but are still located in the vicinity of the IMB and could be energised to carry out cross-border activities in cahoots with insurgent elements in India. The Chinese threat may take different forms, but the point to note is that it is orchestrated by a single entity, the Chinese Communist Party, now under the authoritarian leadership of Xi Jinping. It is axiomatic that only one ministry must be the lead in dealing with the China threat.
The Benefits of Emigration to India
In recent years, more and more Indians are giving up their citizenship to settle abroad after emigrating there since, as of today, Indians cannot hold more than one citizenship. In an article for the Hindi daily Patrika, Pranay Kotasthane and Ritul Gaur discuss the economic and political impact of outbound migration on India and solutions like dual citizenship to address the issue.
CCP with Math Characteristics
Creating slogans and using numbers is one of the distinctive features of the Communist Party of China’s discourse strategy. You would have probably encountered phrases like the “two safeguards” or the “four self-confidences.” Why is it that the Party uses such a communications strategy? Manoj Kewalramani joins Pranay Kotasthane in last Tuesday’s episode of All Things Policy to decode the math behind CCP’s slogans.
Special Credit Course: Ethical Reasoning in Public Policy
Ethical Reasoning is a new course where you will learn to use concepts and frameworks to examine and resolve ethical questions in public policy. Although the course incorporates moral principles, the emphasis is pragmatic: evaluating policy choices through ethical reasoning.
You will learn to assess the trade-offs inherent in public policy problems. By extension, you'll also start seeing these choices in your professional life.
The course faculty is Nitin Pai, Co-Founder and Director of Takshashila Institution.
That’s all for this week. Take care!