Global Innovation Index 2021- India status

 In the GII 2021 India is ranked 46 and moved 2 levels high. Five Asian economies feature among the top 15 – the Republic of Korea (5th) and Singapore (8th) are in the top 10, followed by China (12th), Japan (13th) and Hong Kong, China (14th).

India ranking by pillars:

Institutions-62

-Political environment -66

-Regulatory environment-71

-Business environment-62

Human Capital and Research-54

-Education-102

-Tertiary education-64

-Research and development (R&D)-35

Infrastructure-81

-Information and communication technologies (ICTs)-86

-General infrastructure-52

-Ecological sustainability-98

Market sophistication-28

-credit-56

-investment-45

-Trade, diversification, and market scale-7

Business sophistication-52

-Knowledge workers-83

-Innovation linkages-50

-Knowledge absorption-34

Knowledge and technology outputs-29

-Knowledge creation-51

-knowledge impact-51

-knowledge diffusion-13

Creative outputs-68

-intangible assets-61

-Creative goods and services-55

-online creativity-105

India's best

Graduates in science and engineering, %-12

Global corporate R&D investors, top 3, mn US$-15

QS university ranking, top 3*-23

Government online service-24

E Participation-29

Gross capital formation, % GDP-28

Ease of getting credit*-23

Microfinance gross loans, % GDP-25

Market capitalization, % GDP-19

Ease of protecting minority investors*-13

Domestic industry diversification-12

Domestic market scale, bn PPP$-3

Joint venture/strategic alliance deals/bn PPP$ GDP-35

Intellectual property payments, % total trade-27

High-tech imports, % total trade-26

Citable documents H-index-21

Labor productivity growth, %-17

ICT services exports, % total trade-1

Global brand value, top 5,000, % GDP-28

Cultural and creative services exports, % total trade-18

Creative goods exports, % total trade-24

Tokyo–Yokohama is the top performing S&T cluster once again, followed by Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou, Beijing, Seoul and San Jose–San Francisco. The U.S. continues to host the highest number of clusters, followed by China, Germany, and Japan. Bengaluru is ranked 62 in the S&T cluster, downgraded by 2 ranks in 2021.

The top five R&D spending economies in 2019 were the United States (+10.9 percent), followed by China (+11.1 percent), Japan (−0.4 percent), Germany (+2.3 percent) and the Republic of Korea (+4.8 percent). These five economies have consistently been the world’s major R&D spenders since 2011. Business R&D expenditure – the largest component of total global R&D – grew by 7.2 percent in 2019, up from 4.6 percent in 2018. 

Technologies available with MCCIA, Pune

 Innovation and Technology Transfer Cell in Pune supported by the Rajiv Gandhi Science & Technology Commission  identified few technology/processes that are ripe for commercial exploitation: 

Technologies available with MCCIA –

• Solar plant for drying of fruits and vegetables
• Just sip nutritious dehydrated vegetables drink 
• Cottage level manufacturing technology of Santa barfi
• Hatchery technology for quality seed of mud crab 
• Milk chilling plant with energy optimised heat-based refrigeration
• Vacuum and modified atmosphere packaging of fresh fish
• Processing technology for turmeric, onion, garlic and ginger
• Pilot scale demonstration of fish and fishery Based
• Value added products from Acetes meat
• Value added fish products
• Nutritious supplementary foods from edible food wastes
• Nutritionally balanced and healthy value added emulsion products from fish 

CAN ORGANIC AGRICULTURE FEED THE WORLD?

As per a policy decision by the Sri Lankan Government the country is moving toward an eco-friendly sustainable agricultural system by promoting organic farming within the country. Going with this decision the government issued the Gazette Extraordinary No. 2226/48 of May 6, 2021, banning the importation of chemical fertilizers and pesticides with immediate effect. As a country which relies heavily on agriculture this decision came as a surprise and discussions, arguments and debates began surfacing over the good and bad sides of it. Group of Agricultural Scientists and Professionals representing universities, research stations, and other Agriculture related organizations formulated a special report and forwarded it to His Excellency the President Gotabhaya Rajapakse urging the government to rethink the strategy towards an eco-friendly sustainable agriculture as these sudden decisions could lead to catastrophic situations in Sri Lankan Agricultural sector. 

There is much criticism globally on this organic only policy of SL. Many countries have suffered food shortages due to idealistic pro-organic policies. But analyzing the situation as it unfolds exposes precisely what goes wrong when governments make decisions based on bad ideology and ignore evidence. 

Recommend this paper Organic Agriculture, FoodSecurity, and the Environment for informed discussion on this vital subject. There are several areas that deserve more research to further improve our understanding of the effects of organic agriculture. 

First, many of the available studies on yield performance and environmental effects refer to developed countries. Additional studies under typical conditions in developing countries would be very useful. 

Second, many of the existing studies with farm survey data have not properly controlled for selection bias. More rigorous empirical studies are needed. 

Third, while several studies showed that organic farming can be profitable with the existing support through subsidies and development projects, it is less clear whether organic farming could also be profitable without such external support. 

Fourth, the net food price effects of organic agriculture are not sufficiently understood. Although it is clear that organic foods are more expensive than conventional foods, it is less clear how much of the price markup is attributable to differences in farming practices as opposed to other factors such as scale effects, market structure, and efficiency. 

Finally, it would be interesting to analyze how the productivity, environmental, and profitability effects of organic farming might change through slight adjustments in the definition of what is allowed and disallowed in certified organic production.

What happened to India's Smart Cities Mission?

The Smart Cities Mission (SCM), launched on 25 June 2015, is a joint effort of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), and all state and union territory (UT) governments. It initially aimed to be completed by 2019-20, but has since been extended. One hundred cities and towns in different states and UTs of India have been selected under the SCM—they are home to more than one-third of the country’s population . The Mission aims “to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to smart outcomes,” and ensure that these cities are “liveable, inclusive, sustainable, (and) have thriving economies that offer multiple opportunities to people to pursue their diverse interests.” In other words, according to MoHUA, “smart cities are cities that work for the people.”

Report by ORF makes few pertinent observations:

The progress of the Mission has been best in the states of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Chennai and Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Indore, Bhopal and Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh, and Surat and Rajkot in Gujarat, figure repeatedly among the best performers on different criteria.

An India Smart Cities Awards Contest (ISAC) has been organised every year since 2018 to recognise the best performing cities. A special award was also instituted at the third edition of the contest in 2020 to recognise the most innovative responses to the COVID-19 crisis. The winners of this prize, announced at the fourth edition on 25 June 2021 were Chennai (Round 1), Kalyan-Dombivali and Varanasi (Round 2), Bengaluru (Round 3) and Saharanpur (Round 4).

During the current monsoon season in 2021, it has been seen that drainage systems in many of the selected smart cities have still not ensured proper management of rainwater.