Israel seeks ‘big data’ from India 

Israel seeks ‘big data’ from India 

Context

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to India

Major agreements

• Agriculture collaboration using Indian population’s big database: Boosting measures to counter cyberthreats and to “revolutionise” Indian farm production, Israel has proposed to access India’s Big data
  • The idea of big data was brought into the discussion by the Israeli side in the context of emphasising how technology can now be used to collect vast amounts of information and then bear on individual field and individual [Indian] farmer’s efforts, to improve the yield
  • The data under consideration would be of a magnitude to facilitate monitoring of “individual farmers’ and ‘water utilisation, cutting of crop, plantation, soil condition.”

FTA Talks

Israel’s focus, among others, was on exploring the possibility of restarting the proposed India-Israel FTA talks (on goods) and the operationalisation of the joint research and development fund created last year. The FTA talks had begun a decade ago and missed the 2014 deadline

Key term: Invest India