Tech-powered aspirations for Amrit Kaal

Three recent announcements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi have stirred public debate on what kind of decadal goals must Bharat aspire for. The first announcement came in Mumbai on October 15 during his keynote address at the 141st session of the International Olympic Committee. In his speech, PM Modi declared the nation’s aspiration to host the 2036 Olympics apart from plans to host the Youth Olympics in the run-up to the same. The next two announcements came a few days later during a review with Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) of Gaganyaan, India’s first manned mission into outer space. 

During the review, PM Modi set a target to Isro of launching “Bharatiya Antariksha Station” (Indian Space Station) by 2035 with more ambitious plans for a manned moon mission by 2040. With the announcements filling up the decadal calendar in the run-up to 2047 when independent India turns 100, there has been a predictable debate on the costs and benefits of such aspirational goals and on whether the country should be prioritising them over more mundane developmental matters.

Underlying these seemingly disparate announcements, from the Olympics to space missions, is a common theme that harks back to a speech by Modi several years ago. On September 19, 2011, at the culmination of his three-day “Sadbhavana” fast, then Chief Minister Modi’s speech carried poignant remarks that put his emphasis on Amrit Kaal, almost a decade later, as Prime Minister into perspective. In his speech that day he posed the question why a nation of billion people had stopped dreaming big. Citing the example of the Americans, the Europeans and the Chinese, he asked why India had shied away from setting decadal goals that challenged its aspirations and stretched its ambitions. Emphasising why it was important to dream big, he highlighted how the determination to achieve these dreams can positively impact the nation. Connecting the dots from 2011 to 2023, one can see the method underlying the series of decadal goals being laid out for Amrit Kaal in order to realise the dream of a developed Bharat by 2047.

The path to realising these decadal goals, however, will require a significant cultural change within the machinery of government that incentivises innovation and experimentation. It is unfortunate that the United Prog­ressive Alliance era’s lost decade not only saw scams and scandals while India veered off the reforms trajectory but it also imbued deep roots within the machinery of government creating perverse incentives for maintaining status quo for fear of adverse audit objections and never-ending vigilance witch-hunts. The cumulative effect of this deep root within the machinery of government has been a culture that is suspicious of innovations and resistant to reforms when it comes to investing in new technologies or promoting indigenous products. A fallout of this culture has been the tendency to adopt the path of least resistance that often privileges established, large multinational technology majors over innovative home-grown startups. Pathbreaking reforms by PM Modi over the past nine years, opening up the space sector and regulating drones, have seen Indian startups break new ground to carve out a niche for themselves in both these sunrise segments. The PM’s personal championing of Aatmanirbhar Bharat has also resulted in refinements of the general financial rules and public procurement norms, lowering barriers for Indian start-ups to compete with larger multinational incumbents in cutting-edge technology domains in response to need. This needs to be further sustained by nurturing and mentoring Indian startups at all levels of public procurement in cutting-edge technologies if the dream of Aatmanirbhar Bharat is to be realised.

As the race to develop sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) systems and powerful quantum computing technologies heats up, it would be all the more important for India to not only set for itself multiple decadal goals across emerging technologies but to also develop a public-private ecosystem that identifies indigenous startups and nurtures them to compete head-on with established global technology majors. An instructive lesson emerges from recent advances by China in developing a home-grown silicon chip by Huawei in response to restrictions imposed on it against the import of advanced semiconductor technologies. Indigenous technology development efforts in 4G/5G and D2M broadcasting are indicative of the latent potential within India to compete against global technology majors in the mobile/wireless space. A decadal goal to not only design and fabricate mobile chips in India but also develop an AI-powered mobile device that can converse in any Indian language could go a long way in spurring indigenous innovation that can compete with global technology products and platforms. Similar ambitious goals will have to be set in a wide range of technology domains from electric vehicles and battery storage systems to bio-engineering for India to dream big and breach the frontiers of emerging technologies. A decadal calendar of multiple such technology-powered goals for Amrit Kaal may be essential if Bharat is to realise the Prime Minister’s vision of becoming a developed nation by 2047.

The writer is former CEO, Prasar Bharti