India emerges 3rd largest ecosystems for successful startups
Relevance: G.S paper III: Economy and Economic Development
- According to Hurun Global Unicorn List 2019, India, with 21 unicorns, has emerged as third largest ecosystems for more successful start ups right behind China and US but ahead of Britain and Israel.
Key highlights:
- Hurun Research found 494 unicorns in the world, based in 25 countries and 118 cities. Set up seven years ago on average, they are worth $3.4 billion on average and $1.7 trillion in total.
- With 21 unicorns, India has emerged as third largest ecosystems for more successful start ups right behind China and US but ahead of Britain and Israel.
- Leading the pack from the India are payments solutions platform One97 Communications ($10 billion), cab aggregator Ola Cabs ($6 billion), online educator Byjus ($6 billion), and travel-stay finder OYO Rooms ($5 billion).
- China pipped the USA to lead by 206 versus 203, together accounting for over 80 per cent of the worlds unicorns. Europe has 35 unicorns.
- City wise, Beijing is the worlds unicorn capital with 82 unicorns.
- As a region, Silicon Valley leads the world with 102 or 21 per cent of the worlds unicorns.
- TB cases see decrease in India
Relevance: G.S paper III: Health
- World Health Organization (WHO) released the Global Tuberculosis Report 2019.
About:
- The world is not on track to reach the 2020 milestones of the End TB Strategy. The END TB strategy by the WHO aimed to reduce TB by 20 per cent from 2015-18. However, between 2015 and 2018, only 6.3 per cent TB cases showed a cumulative decline.
- In 2018, 7 million new cases of TB were notified — an increase from 6.4 million notified in 2017.
- Further, cases of the multi-drug resistant (MDR-TB) and rifampicin-resistant TB (RR-TB) have also increased. Rifampicin is the first-line of drug used to treat TB.
Indian Scenario:
- The report estimated that 10 million people had TB in 2018. India accounted for 27 per cent of the world total. China was a distant second with 9 per cent.
- India also had 27 per cent of a total 130,000 drug-resistant TB cases while China had 14 per cent and the Russian Federation 9 per cent
- The tuberculosis incidence rate in India has decreased by almost 50,000 patients over the past one year. In 2017, India had 27.4 lakh TB patients which came down to 26.9 lakh in 2018.
- Incidence per 1,00,000 population has decreased from 204 in 2017 to 199 in 2018.
- The number of patients being tested for rifampicin resistance has increased from 32% in 2017 to 46% in 2018.
- And the treatment success rate has increased to 81% for new and relapse cases (drug sensitive) in 2017, which was 69% in 2016.
- The operative word must be bilateralism
Relevance: Mains Paper 2: International Relations: India’s foreign policy options
Context
- The global order is now dipping into a vortex of disruptions largely caused by the United States, China and Brexit.
- India also stands at the crossroads in terms of its foreign policy approach. In this context, it is necessary to understand India’s foreign policy options, India-US relations, issues in the relation and way forward.
What are India’s foreign policy options?
- Non-alignment and strategic autonomy.
- Join unilateralism.
- Multi alignment and transactional autonomy.
- India-US relationship.
- The good part is linked to historic terms, a key example being.
- The India-U.S. civil nuclear deal.
- The signing of three “foundational defence agreements”, i.e.
- The Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement,
- The Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement and the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Cooperation.
Issues
- The bad part is current trade challenges, the U.S.’s call for the removal of the “developing country” tag assigned by the World Trade Organisation.
- And the ugly part is when during the 1971 war, the U.S. sent its fleet towards India to assist Pakistan.
- The episode of procurement of defence material from Russia and some unreal expectations such as India having military boots on the ground in Afghanistan are also major issues.
- With respect to Pakistan, there is confused signalling from the US’ leadership
Way forward
- India must focus on multi alignment both with the U.S. and Russia especially in terms of getting a waiver under the Countering America’s Adversaries. Through Sanctions Act in purchasing the S400 missile system from Russia.
- With respect to the IndoPacific, the U.S. views it as a platform to contain China hegemony which should be taken advantage of
Conclusion
- The friendship between India and the US has the potential to grow stronger by the day without sacrificing India’s global positioning at the altar of unilateralism.
- Not green, but green wash
Relevance: Mains Paper 3: Environment: Technological solutions and combat ecological challenges
Context
- From producing artificial meat to using renewable energy, businesses seem to be driven by concern for our planet.
- In Mumbai, despite a sustained and widespread citizens’ campaign, the Aarey forest has been chopped down for metro infrastructure.
Issues
- The argument of the supporters is that building a Metro will prevent an increase in emissions. They are comparing car and bus emissions saved by the building of Metro transport with the carbon absorbed by a forest.
- It is forgotten that it cannot provide habitat, recharge groundwater, or safeguard our soil.
- Apart from deteriorating air quality and climate, this is a crisis of the loss of biodiversity, freshwater, soil, forests.
- Also, there isn’t much evidence that when a Metro arrives in a city or the bus system gets better, car sales drop.
- It is opined that more fuel efficient cars have meant that car owners take many more trips, in effect nullifying the saving of fuel from the technical innovation.
Way forward
- Thus when a technological solution advocates ecological damage, it leads to greater damage to the ecology and thus must be avoided.