NYTimes: “Suddenly India has become home to at least 140 registered space-tech start-ups, comprising a local research field that stands to transform the planet’s connection to the final frontier. It’s one of India’s most sought-after sectors for venture capital investors. The start-ups’ growth has been explosive, leaping from five when the pandemic started. And they see a big market to serve. Pawan Kumar Chandana, 32, Skyroot’s chief executive, anticipates a global need for 30,000 satellites to be launched this decade…The business of space has changed, too. Driven more by private enterprise than by gigantic government budgets, space technology is fulfilling smaller-scale, commercial purposes. Imaging systems feed information about the planet back to Earth, helping India’s farmers insure their crops or commercial fishing fleets track their catch. Satellites bring phone signals to the country’s remotest corners and help operate solar farms far from India’s megacities…India’s vendor ecosystem is staggering in size. Decades of doing business with ISRO created about 400 private companies in clusters around Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune and elsewhere, each devoted to building special screws, sealants and other products fit for space. One hundred may collaborate on a single launch.”
FT: Unlike China and Vietnam, one-party states whose rulers can make the bureaucracy jump to do their bidding, India is a democracy with strong powers for states in a federal system and vocal interest groups. While Indian unions are not all-powerful, they do have a voice for workers in manufacturing. This suggests a more unpredictable future lies ahead for Apple, Foxconn and others as they seek to make India a leading “China plus one” manufacturing location. “If India wants to attract tech manufacturing and replace or at least become an alternative to east Asian competitors, the labour laws will need to be updated,” says Anirudh Suri, author of the book The Great Tech Game. However, he adds: “The reality of India is that the socio-economic and political complexity of the country often makes progress on those ambitions slower than you would want because you need to take the whole country along.” Advocates of deregulation point out that India’s economy struggles to create enough jobs, and that decent factory work should be prized in a country where underpaid and informal work is ubiquitous.”
Jagannathan: “The truly talented among the underprivileged need mentoring, financial support and supportive networks to compete with the best, not endless quotas and reservations. They need to be encouraged to become entrepreneurs, not depend endlessly on deadbeat government jobs. For seven decades now, we have constantly sent the message that group identity matters for jobs. What, then, is the subliminal message we are sending on the importance of individual effort and upskilling? Can we replace discrimination with elite condescension and call this “progress?” One cannot quote a better example than Babasaheb Ambedkar, whose tremendous social and intellectual contributions were the result of his own efforts, with marginal support from well-wishers. Quotas may be inevitable for some time, but ultimately quotas kill talent and true meritocracy. We must start pilot projects and experiments to create better alternatives for a post-quota future. Quotas will not create the next Ambedkar.”
Law Liberty: “The Federalist Papers, the collection of eighty-five essays authored by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the pseudonym of “Publius,” are remarkable. They played a significant role in the ratification of the Constitution of 1787 and at the same time provided the United States with the most brilliant work of original political philosophy by an American, in this case, three Americans. Publius aims at several different audiences that include those concerned with political theory, a loss of state power, the protection of individual liberties, the loss of political power, and foreign hostility. In meeting these challenges, Publius employs varied rhetorical strategies including appeals to ancient Greek and Roman history, analogies to state constitutions (e.g., New York, Virginia, Delaware), analogies to Great Britain, vivid (if not at times lurid) metaphors, emotional appeals, logic, and common sense.”
