Tag: business standard

News: Safety concerns have emerged after several recent incidents in which e-scooters have caught fire, causing panic and loss of life. While the government has ordered an enquiry, the authorities must review and reorder the road-safety ecosystem. Contents1 What are the reasons behind fire incidents?2 What are some issues with battery packs used in e-vehicles… Continue reading On fire hazard from e-vehicles: Read the smoke signals

News: Recently, IIM Ahmedabad (IIMA) witnessed a lot of turbulence over changes in the logo. Other IIMs in the country also witnessed disturbances over a variety of issues. This has raised questions over governance in the premier management institution of India.  What changes have been introduced by the IIM Act 2017?  The Act has given… Continue reading Time to revisit the IIM Act 

News: Union Commerce and Food Minister Piyush Goyal’s stated optimism about India’s wheat exports scaling a new high in FY23, though his projection of the volume of likely shipments being around 10 million tonnes seems rather modest. What are the new opportunities for Indian exports? Russia-Ukraine war: Russia and Ukraine together normally account for 25-30%… Continue reading Export Opportunity

News: Recently, the New Monetisation Pipeline (NMP) and the National Infrastructure Pipeline were launched by the central government. As a result, Public-private partnership (PPP) models have come under the focus as various projects will be funded under PPP.   What have been the Indian expereince with various PPP models?  (A) Indian experience:  Almost all Indian companies… Continue reading Measures to rejuvenate public-private partnerships 

News: Environmental scientists are beginning to worry about the harmful effects of data on climate. The impact is not exactly due to the data, but the servers, data farms and other hardware required for creating, storing and processing data for the increasingly digital life. Contents1 How the pace of generation of data has picked up?2… Continue reading The carbon cost of data

News: The government had launched the PLI schemes for 15 sectors. However, various companies across IT hardware, telecom products and mobile devices have failed to achieve their investment target and meet their production targets. They missed the deadlines for the first year ended on March 31. What are the benefits of the PLI Scheme? Growth… Continue reading Testing times for PLI schemes: Covid-related delays put firms in pressure

News: Recently, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) was signed between India and the United Arab Emirates last month. Further, such a free trade agreement is also going to be signed between India and Australia.   What are the provisions in the India-UAE trade deal?   The deal provides for harmonisation in the regulatory system. It also… Continue reading Opening up procurement 

News: Recently, two Indian researchers wrote an unpublished paper “Artificial Intelligence and the armed forces: Legal and ethical concerns”. This has led to the resurgence of a debate on Artificial Intelligence (AI) based arms and weapon system.   In 1950, Alan Turing in a paper titled “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, considered the question: “Can machines… Continue reading Thinking hard on AI 

News: A recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has pointed out that climate change has caused substantial damages, and increasingly irreversible losses, in terrestrial, freshwater and coastal, and open ocean marine ecosystems. Policy approach to tackle climate change: The policy approach to tackling this has tended to concentrate on supply-side changes,… Continue reading Lifestyles for climate justice

News: Recently, the Chinese and Russian leaders visited New Delhi. Both developments are important in the context of India’s position over the Russia-Ukraine war   What has been India’s position on Ukraine crisis? India has consistently abstained from voting on all resolutions by both the West and Russia. For example, India abstained from Russia’s resolution in… Continue reading Between BRICS and Quad