The Seven Pagodas: An Ancient Abode Of The Gods Called Mamallapuram

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Mamallapuram is in the news globally due to the impending summit of the Indian Prime Minister with the Chinese premier during October 11-12, 2019. Situated on the east coast around 60 kilometres south of Chennai, this ancient town has a rich history dating back to the 1^st century BC. Declared as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the town is a major tourist attraction in the state of Tamil Nadu in India.

Mamallapuram was a major seaport during the first millennium CE and the region thrived during the reign of the Pallavas. It was founded by the Pallava king Narasimhavarman I during the 7^th century AD. The name of the town itself is perhaps derived from “Mamallan”, meaning a great warrior, a reference to Narasimhavarman I. It was ruled by the Pallava kings from Kanchipuram, the capital of their kingdom, from the 3^rd to the 9^th centuries AD. They used the port as a major trading centre with Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. The port was also an active hub of global trade during this period as Chinese and Roman coins from the 4^th century AD have been found at this place.

The town was also known by several other names during ancient times, such as Mamallapatinam and Mahabalipuram. The ancient town had seven pagodas on the shore, of which only one, known as the Shore Temple, now survives. Due to these seven pagodas, the town was also known as The Seven Pagodas to the ancient mariners.

The temples at Mamallapuram depict events mainly from the Indian epic Mahabharata and were built largely during the reign of Narasimhavarman and his successor Rajasimhavarman. There are 32 monuments in the town spread over an area of around four square kilometres. The major monuments include rathas or temples in the form of chariots, mandapas or cave sanctuaries, massive open-air rock reliefs such as the Descent of the Ganges, and the famous 7^th century Shore Temple dedicated mainly to Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu.

The Chinese Connection

Mamallapuram also has a significant historical connection with China. The port was a major trading hub with China, Sri Lanka and South-East Asian countries. The Chinese traveller Hiuen Tsang is said to have visited the town. It is also believed that Bodhidharma, a famous Buddhist Monk in China, was a son of a Pallava king who travelled to China from Mamallapuram in the 6^th century AD.

With its rich history and historical connections with China, Mamallapuram is the most appropriate place for a historic summit between the leaders of the two most populous nations and emerging superpowers in the world.

Source of the Photograph: http://www.traveltriangle.com

(The author is a senior IAS officer in Tamil Nadu and is currently working as the Principal Secretary, MSME Department. The views are personal).

Empowering the Poor Through Mobiles

Can a simple device like a mobile phone be used for empowering the poor and the marginalized? Consider this: an NREGA worker receives her weekly wages in her bank account. However, she has no way to check the amount credited unless she visits the bank branch or goes to an ATM. Doing so may involve substantial costs in travel and lost wages as they are most likely to be located far away from her village. However, if her bank account is mobile enabled, she can do virtually all the transactions through a simple SMS or voice based interface in her own language.

There are myriad other ways in which a mobile phone can empower the poor. A Primary Health Centre (PHC) in a rural area can send SMS or voice alerts to all pregnant women for scheduled health check- ups. The same can be done for immunizations for children. A health worker can visit the households in her village with a low-cost mobile phone or a tablet with an application to capture all the information about the health status of the family and the data can be transmitted to the backend server in real time. All this can dramatically improve the outcomes of programmes like the National Rural Health Mission. Similarly, for all sales of commodities under the PDS, SMS alerts can be sent to the ration card holders to keep a check on fraudulent withdrawals. A citizen will also be able send a complaint about deficiency in any service far more easily using a mobile phone. All this information can be captured and made available to the concerned government departments in real time and can be monitored from anywhere. Imagine the impact it will have on transparency, accountability, and quality of service delivery across the board. Improving the systemic accountability and bottom-up participation of citizens in governance are sure shot ways to improve the quality of governance and make a substantial dent in the all-pervasive corruption.

How can all this be made possible? Mobile phones are ubiquitous in India today with over 900 million subscribers, of which over one third are in rural areas. The reach of mobiles is much greater than that of computers and internet. They have relatively low physical infrastructure requirements and are more cost-effective in remote areas. SMS and voice are powerful mobile technologies that do not require internet connectivity to work. This can prove to be a boon in rural and remote areas. With the falling prices of mobile devices, endless possibilities have emerged for their use in significantly enhancing the outcomes of social and economic development programmes. Their entry barriers are low as they require only basic literacy for use and offer affordable, portable, and real-time access to communication and information to the people who previously had no access to such communication modes.

Mobiles can be used for enhancing developmental impacts in diverse sectors such as health, education, agriculture, animal husbandry, etc. They can help in combating poverty by improving the delivery of services in these areas. Tablets can significantly enhance the educational experience of students through well-designed content. Mobiles can also act as potent instruments for saving lives by sending warnings and alerts in disasters and crisis situations. They can also be used as tools for economic empowerment for the farmers and poor micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas by reducing information asymmetries as market information can be accessed almost instantly reducing travel expenditures and increasing speed of trade. For women, they allow greater independence and enhanced security and can be used to monitor violence against them.

Mobile technologies can also be used in new and innovative ways to engage with citizens and stakeholders, for example in holding consultations and gathering feedback. They can help in strengthening the demand side of governance by allowing the citizens to engage with public institutions and demand better services. This can foster transparency and accountability and generate new possibilities for open government. They can also enable disintermediation in the delivery of services by facilitating direct contact with the citizens.

M-governance is an umbrella term that covers the use of mobile technologies (e.g., SMS, USSD, voice, location, mobile applications, etc.) to enhance the governance and developmental impacts in various domains. While deeply intertwined to e-governance, it has emerged as a separate domain aimed specifically at addressing the digital divide in access to government services and programmes. However, by themselves, they cannot be effective in development or governance. To make them act as catalysts in this process, policies need to be in place to support access to information, development of relevant content and services in the local languages, an enabling infrastructure, and an effective awareness and communication campaign aimed at the end users. Recent initiatives by the RBI for mobile based financial inclusion and by the Department of Electronics and IT to make mobile based provisioning of government services mandatory by all government departments and agencies offer great hope to achieve this vision.

(The above article was published on February 27, 2013 in The Hindu. It is available at: https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-opportunities/empowering-the-poor-through-mobiles/article4457237.ece)

India In The Global Cyber Security Market

Introduction

The cyberspace, comprising ICT networks, computer systems and mobile networks and devices connected to the Internet, is by its very nature borderless. A country’s cyberspace is an integral part of the global cyberspace. The increasing penetration of Internet, particularly in developing countries, is leading to exponential growth in cyberspace. The rapid growth in the ownership of smart mobile devices (mobile phones and tablets) that can access the Internet has added to the increasing expansion of cyberspace in the country.

The exponential expansion in the global cyberspace has raised very pertinent questions about its security. The success of the global Internet system can be chiefly attributed to its relative openness and low entry barriers. However, these very same factors are also partly responsible for the grave threats to the cyberspace in the forms of cyber espionage, cyber warfare, cyber terrorism and cyber crime (IDSA, 2012). As nations spend heavily on creating the necessary ICT infrastructure to bring more citizens online to derive benefits from social and economic development opportunities that the Internet provides, cyberspace is expected to face greater threats in the future. Cyber security has consequently acquired much greater importance today than in the recent past. Several incidents of cyber crime across the world have led to heightened awareness about ensuring cyber security. What are the opportunities and challenges that this scenario is likely to throw up domestically and globally? How can countries like India address the challenges and benefit from the opportunities in the domestic and the global cyber security market? In this article, I attempt to answer these central questions.

The rest of the paper proceeds as follows. First, I discuss the main features of the global cyberspace briefly. Then I discuss the main vulnerabilities of the global cyberspace and how they pose a threat to its security. Next, I discuss the organizational and coordination challenges for cyber security. Then, I discuss the opportunities and challenges for the country in the domestic space for cyber security and then I present the opportunities and challenges for India in the global cyber security market. Finally, I conclude.

The Global Cyberspace

To appreciate the opportunities and challenges in the global cyber security market, it is necessary to understand its size and nature in all its ramifications. As per the latest estimates, the number of Internet users in the world has risen to over 2.7 billion in 2013 corresponding to nearly 40% of the world’s population (ITU (1), 2013). The active mobile broadband subscriptions stood at 2.1 billion in 2013. Globally, 750 million households, comprising 41% of the total, are connected to the Internet. The expansion of the Internet is projected to be on an unprecedented scale in the future with the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) and the IPv6 protocol that would make possible virtually unlimited IP addresses.

Similarly, the expansion of the Internet is taking place at an exponential rate in India as well. The total percentage of individuals using the Internet in India has grown from a mere 3.95% in 2007 to 12.58% in 2012 (ITU (2), 2013). The total number of Internet users in the country is estimated at 164.8 million as on March 31, 2013 (TRAI, 2013). Out of these, 143.2 million users accessed the Internet through mobile devices.

Vulnerabilities of Cyberspace

As noted before, by its very nature, the global cyberspace is borderless and cannot be isolated to national or regional boundaries. One of the fundamental concerns on cyber security arise from the fact that the core Internet protocols are insecure and the expansion of Internet is taking place on the same insecure systems. The global explosion in mobile based Internet usage is increasing the vulnerability of the cyberspace. As the Internet has become central to the social, economic and political life of citizens and nations, countries are investing heavily in establishing information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure to bring more and more citizens online. Thus, protection of the critical ICT infrastructure has emerged as another major challenge in addition to securing the communications and transactions conducted over the Internet.

The vulnerability of the cyberspace is already being exploited by both state and non-state actors (Marmon, 2011). The attacks in the cyberspace can be mounted by potential adversaries intending to inflict damage at social, economic or commercial interests. They can also be targeted at achieving political or military objectives. They are often aimed at weakening or crippling the critical ICT infrastructure of the adversary to cause denial of access to information and networks or to render them non-functional. In 2007, there were massive cyber attacks on Estonia aimed at disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies. The attackers, suspected to be from a major country with involvement of state actors, employed sophisticated cyber warfare techniques to disable Estonia’s critical ICT networks and e-government infrastructure (Traynor, 2007).

The nature of cyberspace makes it very difficult to identify the perpetrators of these attacks and makes it especially attractive for enemies who do not want to be engaged in conventional conflicts. There is no contact or physical action across the border and the attacking party can completely deny any involvement. The attacked party may not even be sure as to when and how to react. Both the state and non-state actors have developed capabilities to engage in cyber attacks for prolonged periods without being identified.

Organizational and Coordination Challenges in Cyber Security

There are some additional features of critical ICT infrastructure and cyberspace that merit discussion here. Cyber infrastructure is largely owned and operated by the private sector. However, ensuring cyber security involves a multi-agency and multi-layered effort involving both state and private agencies. This poses a significant organizational and coordination challenge for the agencies dealing with cyber security.

At an organizational level, cyber security is not merely a technological issue, but a management issue as well. This encompasses enterprise risk management and involves human, process reengineering, change management, legal, network and security aspects. While the private agencies are responsible for securing their individual pieces of the infrastructure, the seamless flow and exchange of information and inter-linkages amongst the networks make it essential to coordinate the entire effort through an integrated command and control entity that is accountable for cyber security. The roles and responsibilities of all the parties need to be clearly specified. There is a need for governments to establish the appropriate policy mechanisms and legal structures. While security investments made by the private industry take care of their individual corporate needs, they might fall short of the requirements to secure a national network-wide infrastructure. Thus, a pure market-based approach to ensure cyber security may not work. A key challenge in this regard is to provide for the additional investments that might be required to secure the cyberspace and the critical ICT infrastructure for the country. This might come from incentives provided to the industry to generate collective action in a well planned approach to secure the critical ICT infrastructure.

Lack of capacity at the executive and policy making levels within organizations is another major challenge in ensuring cyber security. There is a need for a focused approach to build capacities to deal with security incidents, deploy latest technological solutions, provide adequate training to all the relevant levels of employees and deal with process transformation and change management required to achieve this goal.

Opportunities and Challenges in the Domestic Market for Cyber Security

Before we discuss the opportunities and challenges for India in the global cyber security market, it is relevant to discuss the cyber security scenario and the emerging opportunities and challenges within the country and how the government and the industry can meet them and benefit from the opportunities. As India develops its ICT infrastructure in an effort to bring more and more of its citizens online through projects such as the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) and makes greater efforts to provide public services electronically through its e-governance projects, the risks for cyber security in the country are going to be much higher in future. It would also make the entire ICT infrastructure and cyber assets in the country far more vulnerable to cyber attacks from both state and non-state actors from countries inimical to India. Are we geared to meet these challenges?

The government has recently taken several steps to ensure greater focus on these issues within the country. It has recently notified the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 (DeitY, 2013) with the goal of addressing the cyber security domain comprehensively from a national perspective. The main goal of the policy is to make the cyberspace secure and resilient for citizens, businesses, and the government. The policy envisages the establishment of national and sectoral mechanisms to ensure cyber security through the creation of a National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC). Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) shall act as the nodal agency for coordination of all cyber security and crisis management efforts. It will also act as the nodal organization for coordination and operationalization of sectoral CERTs in specific domains in the country.

Though efforts are being made to create an effective policy framework to deal with cyber security in the country, there are areas where significant challenges lie in ensuring cyber security. I would like to mention e-governance as a specific case in point here. The country has put in place a separate core ICT infrastructure for e-governance consisting of state wide area networks (SWANs) and state data centres (SDCs) in each state and union territory. Common Service Centres (CSCs), run by private village level entrepreneurs (VLEs), act as the front end for delivery of these services in rural areas. Currently, over 100,000 CSCs are operational across the country. Recently, mobile governance has been implemented to bring all government services on the mobile platform. The National e-Governance Plan is the flagship programme in e-governance consisting of 31 Mission Mode Projects (MMPs) spanning across a large number of government ministries and departments both at the national and state levels. During the last seven years of its implementation, NeGP has achieved good success with 23 out of the 31 projects delivering services electronically to the citizens and businesses.

Though NeGP has succeeded well, ensuring cyber security has been a big challenge as it involves protecting critical ICT infrastructure such as SWANs, SDCs and the applications of various departments running on them. Though scheme specific guidelines have been issued and several states have made significant efforts to protect their cyber assets, there is a need for a comprehensive policy on cyber security in e-governance and ensuring uniformity in its implementation across the country. Application level security is another important domain where greater efforts are required to ensure security.

The scenario discussed above presents big opportunities for the government and the industry to address cyber security comprehensively. As the government moves forward to put a policy framework in place, the IT industry can develop appropriate technological solutions to address the cyber security requirements of the core ICT infrastructure and applications. Massive opportunities for the industry are also opening up in sectors such as defence and telecom where the needs for cyber security are more critical.

Opportunities and Challenges in Global Cyber Security

Protecting the cyberspace and the critical ICT infrastructure have emerged as major challenges globally due to the factors discussed above. The Internet has emerged as the central feature affecting the lives of billions globally through e-commerce, banking, travel, e-government, email, etc. With the emergence of smart technologies, a host of utility services such as water supply networks, electricity distribution, etc. are critically dependent on ICT networks. Electronic systems and communications play a key role in the operation of equipment in the defence sector.

What are the opportunities and challenges that such a situation presents before nations like India? To analyse these aspects, it is important to understand the key trends in emerging technologies and how they impact the security scenario in cyber space. In the following paragraphs, I discuss seven such key trends and explain how they present challenges and opportunities for the Indian industry globally.

The most important phenomenon that is driving the expansion in the usage of Internet worldwide is mobility. The advent of mobile devices has brought unprecedented numbers of users online and has consequently increased the risks associated with cyberspace as many of the mobile and tablet users may be first time users of Internet and may not be skilled enough to understand these risks. Expansion in the usage of smart phones and tablets has also brought into focus the security of the operating systems and the applications that run on them. As the usage expands, so will the attempts by hackers to break into these devices and steal sensitive personal and corporate information. While this poses challenges for the device manufacturers and OS developers, it presents great opportunities for the Indian firms working in the mobility domain. As India is known for its prowess in software development, developing security solutions and secure applications for the mobile world is an unprecedented opportunity globally that is just waiting to be grabbed.

The second most important technology trend that is driving the ICT industry is the emergence of the cloud platform. While this phenomenon started emerging a few years ago, it is only now that it is maturing and the cloud based solutions are being deployed across a number of domains in business, industry and government. Ensuring proper security of applications and data on the cloud is a major challenge and its entire implications are still not clear. Even a few cloud failures can result in massive breaches in security and devastating loss of data for the users. As the cloud encompasses the entire gamut of infrastructure, platform, and software as services, developing security solutions for this platform presents the Indian industry with an outstanding opportunity globally. A related segment which also presents great opportunities is data centre operations and management. Another related phenomenon is the emergence of security as a service on the cloud. This is another space that offers good opportunities for Indian firms.

The third important trend that has emerged recently is that of use of multi-factor authentication to improve security. Just a simple password is not enough to ensure access to a host of applications and services in areas such as banking, insurance, financial transactions, government services etc. In India, already Aadhaar based biometric authentication has emerged as a new mechanism to authenticate the identity of users. This presents an excellent opportunity for the Indian industry to develop applications in this domain and address the security concerns.

The fourth trend that is causing significant impact on cyber security globally is the continuous morphing of hacker groups and individuals to maintain their anonymity. This poses serious challenges for the organizations and government agencies trying to secure cyber space as the attacks cannot be attributed to any specific entity. However, this situation also presents very good opportunities for the Indian industry to continuously evolve technologies that can help in unmasking the identity of these anonymous attackers. Active cooperation amongst government agencies and organizations internationally are required to achieve the desired objectives in this area. Efforts in this direction by agencies such as the United Nations are already going on and the issue of global cyber security is likely to come up at the 68^th session of the UN General Assembly in September 2013 (United Nations, 2013).

The fifth trend that is impacting the cyber security scenario is the increasing involvement of state actors in cyber war aimed at crippling the information and communication infrastructure of their targeted countries and crippling their social, economic, government and military activities. There is enough evidence of involvement of state actors in several recent incidents of cyber attacks (Marmon, 2011). Stuxnet is a case in point (Vijayan, 2012). This situation has emerged as a serious challenge for countries like India which are surrounded by several inimical neighbours. However, this also presents the country with a big opportunity to develop solutions to secure its ICT infrastructure and cyber assets.

The sixth emerging trend that will have a significant bearing on cyber security is the related issue of ensuring privacy and confidentiality of information pertaining to individuals and businesses. One of the motivations for cyber attacks is to gain access to or steal information that has commercial value or that helps the attackers to commit fraud with that information. To ensure privacy, effective laws and regulations need to be put in place to ensure what data can be used and shared and for what purpose. It also has bearings on where the data can be stored in servers. This is already a major concern in some domains such as healthcare, where privacy and security concerns about hosting and sharing health data are very significant. As India is the world leader in IT services outsourcing business, this offers a big opportunity for the Indian government to put in place effective policies to assure the international community that the country respects the concerns on privacy and confidentiality of data. The Indian industry should exploit this opportunity in a big way to get a bigger share of the worldwide market in IT and IT enabled services.

Lastly, there are greater efforts being made now internationally at multilateral level to address the global concerns on cyber security. Recently, the international Group of Governmental Experts, representing 15 countries including India, has submitted a report to the United Nations secretary general on enhancing cyber security globally (United Nations, 2013). International cooperation in cyber security presents great opportunities for India to spearhead and lead the efforts to build global consensus around the approaches to address the issues. It would also open up tremendous opportunities for the Indian industry to develop and showcase its capabilities to offer technical solutions to deal with the threats.

Conclusion

Cyber security has emerged as one of the most important concerns internationally due to the enormous damage that cyber attacks can cause to the core ICT infrastructure and information assets that are central to the social, economic and political life of nations, citizens, and businesses. As the attackers can disguise themselves easily and their real identities are very difficult to ascertain, it is even more incumbent upon the stakeholders involved to take urgent measures to ensure cyber security. While India has recently taken a number of steps to enhance the security of its vital ICT infrastructure and cyber assets at the national level, specific domains such as e-governance, telecom, defence, etc. need specific strategies to deal with cyber security more comprehensively. Globally, a number of countries are grappling with similar issues and are stepping up efforts to enhance cyber security within their territories. Efforts are also on at multilateral level, such as the UN, to deal with the issue comprehensively and formulate strategies that can succeed in addressing the concerns globally. As India is known worldwide for its IT prowess, this scenario presents great opportunities for the country to lead the efforts internationally to build consensus around approaches to address cyber security globally. It also presents tremendous opportunities for the Indian IT industry to develop technical solutions to deal with the threats and secure the ICT infrastructure and the cyber assets both in the domestic space as well as internationally.

References

DeitY. (2013). National Cyber Security Policy. Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY). Accessed August 25, 2013 from: http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/National%20Cyber%20Security%20Policy%20%281%29.pdf
IDSA. (2012). India’s Cyber Security Challenge. IDSA Task Force Report. Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA). March 2012. Accessed August 9 from: http://idsa.in/system/files/book_indiacybersecurity.pdf.
ITU (1). (2013). The World in 2013. ICT Facts and Figures. International Telecommunications Union. Accessed September 18 from: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Documents/facts/ICTFactsFigures2013.pdf.
ITU (2). (2013). Statistics. Time Series by Country. Percentage of individuals using the Internet. International Telecommunications Union. Accessed September 18 from: http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/stat/default.aspx.
Marmon, W. (2011). Main Cyber Threats Now Coming From Governments as “State Actors”. European Affairs. November 2011. Accessed September 15, 2013 from: http://www.europeaninstitute.org/EA-November-2011/main-cyber-threats-now-coming-from-governments-as-state-actors.html.
TRAI. (2013). The Indian Telecom Services Performance Indicators, January – March 2013. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Accessed August 25 from: : http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/WhatsNew/Documents/Indicator%20Reports%20-01082013.pdf.
Traynor, I. (2007). Russia accused of unleashing cyber war to disable Estonia. The Guardian. 17 May 2007. Accessed September 17 from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/may/17/topstories3.russia.
United Nations. (2013). Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. Accessed September 16, 2013 from: http://www.un.org/disarmament/topics/informationsecurity/.

Vijayan, J. (2012). Government role in Stuxnet could increase attcks against US firms. Computerworld. June 2012. Accessed September 19, 2013 from: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9227696/Government_role_in_Stuxnet_could_increase_attacks_against_U.S._firms?pageNumber=1.

(The above article was published in Seminar, October 2013. It is available at: http://www.india-seminar.com/2013/650/650_rajendra_kumar.htm).

Nurturing Startups As Engines Of Economic Growth And Job Creation

Startups play a very important role in economic growth and employment creation. They also drive innovation and create fresh competition for the incumbent firms, thereby lowering costs and enhancing efficiency. As these startups grow, they contribute significantly to the economic dynamism of the cities and regions they inhabit, attracting more firms to these regions and creating a virtuous cycle of innovation, economic growth and employment generation. We just need to look at how Infosys transformed Bangalore, Microsoft transformed Redmond and Google changed Mountain View to understand the multiple impacts that startups can have on the economic growth of cities and regions. As they grow and become public, they also generate immense wealth for their employees and shareholders.

How can a developing country like India benefit from nurturing startups? As a nation grappling with the issue of employment generation for the masses, we must realize that most of the new employment has to be created by the private sector. It is in this context that promoting startups, and entrepreneurship in general, can play a crucial role in our economy. However, how strong is our startup ecosystem and what policies are needed to make it grow further? Some estimates suggest that today, India is home to close to 50,000 startups from just around 7,000 in 2008. In terms of the size of the ecosystem, we are the third largest in the world, next only to the US and China. As per a study by NASSCOM and Zinnov Consulting, during the last five years alone, around 7,500 technology based startups have been incepted and the overall startup base has grown at a rate of 12-15% during 2018. Total investment into startups has also grown sharply to $4.2 billion in 2018. India is now home to 18 unicorns, startups with a valuation of over $1 billion. Eight of these unicorns have been added during the last year alone. These startups have directly created around 40,000 new jobs during 2018 with the indirect jobs created estimated at around one lakh. The main verticals where a majority of the technology driven startups are emerging include enterprise software, FinTech, e-commerce marketplaces, HealthTech and EduTech. Advanced technologies driving the expansion in these verticals include data analytics, AI, IoT, Blockchain, and AR/VR.

There are some key features of the fast evolving startup ecosystem in India. Contrary to popular perception, over 40% of the new startups are being incepted outside the main metros in the country, though Bangalore, Delhi NCR and Mumbai continue to lead as the main startup hubs. However, newer hubs like Jaipur, Trivandrum, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad and Pune are fast emerging. To support the growth of startups, over 200 incubators and accelerators are active across the country, supported by the industry, educational institutions and governments. There has also been a significant rise in international exchange missions, allowing the homegrown startups to expand globally.

What are the key drivers behind the growth of the startups in India? India is the world’s fastest growing major economy with a growth rate of over 7% and has an internet user base of over 56 crores, which is second only to China in the world. A fast growing economy combined with a large internet user base is opening up unprecedented opportunities for technology focused startups to grow with innovative products and business models. It has also attracted huge funding for the startups. Increasing digitalization in the government through initiatives like the Digital India programme and policies focused on financial inclusion are also driving growth in this sector. The growing number of incubators and accelerators across the country has also helped the startups to get mentor support, tap various sources of funding and develop linkages with the industry.

Initiatives like Startup India have helped the sector through tax exemptions and easy access to financing. Over 20 states have their own focused policies for supporting the startups in their states. These policies focus on mentorship, setting up institutional structures to support the startups, developing partnerships with the industry, online accessibility and improving the ease of doing business. Some states like Karnataka have specific policies to encourage women entrepreneurs.

How can our startup ecosystem grow further and become more competitive globally? To achieve this objective, some specific initiatives must be taken. Early stage startups face two key problems: that of access to finance and markets. Institutional support, both by the government and the private sector, must be strengthened to address these twin issues. Government must also encourage procurement of good and services from the startups by its departments and organizations. Startups should also be supported for obtaining quality certifications, testing, patent filing, etc. at affordable costs. Finally, the governments and the industry must work together to strengthen the growing ecosystem of incubators and accelerators to provide well-developed toolkits, focused training programmes, access to funding, industry linkages and a well-connected network of mentors. With quality institutional support from the government and the industry, startups can certainly contribute much more to innovation, economic growth and employment generation in the country and become competitive globally.

(The above article was originally published on May 6, 2019 in DT Next. It is available at: https://www.dtnext.in/News/Business/2019/05/06005513/1116987/Nurturing-startups-as-engines-of-economic-growth-and-.vpf).

Target Olympics: How to Win More Medals?

The recently concluded Rio Olympic Games have grabbed the attention of everyone in the country, not least because of the dismal performance by India, which won just two medals this time compared to the six it had won at the previous edition in London just four years ago. A lot has been written about the reasons for such a poor performance by our athletes. These include lack of world-class sports and training infrastructure, lack of adequate incentives for the players, sports not being a viable long-term career option for sportspersons, lack of a sporting and fitness culture in the country, infighting and indiscipline in the sports federations which select and train the players and poor oversight and management by the government.

Is there any hope for us to improve our performance and achieve sporting glory in the foreseeable future? When small countries like Fiji and Kosovo can win gold medals at the Olympics, why can’t we, a nation with over 125 crore population? We must realize that long-term and sustainable improvement in sports cannot be brought about by this once-in-a-four- year obsession with the Olympics alone in our cricket-crazy nation. It requires sustained development and promotion of a sporting culture in the entire population with specific focus on the school going children from where our future sporting champions would come. This needs to be matched with creation of quality sports infrastructure reaching right up to the village level to ensure that access to such facilities is widened and made more equitable. Instead of the overall size of the population, what is more important is how many people have access to quality sporting infrastructure. Unfortunately, the proportion of the population having access to good sports infrastructure probably does not exceed more than 15% in our country. Widening the participation, spotting the right talent at a young age and grooming them to become future champions hold the key to success in sports. This is the strategy that worked so successfully in producing champions in athletics in countries like Jamaica.

While the central and state governments need to play a critical role in creating the sports and training infrastructure across the country, the various sports federations need to play an equally important role in selecting and training the sportspersons. However, in many sporting disciplines, the federations are ridden by factionalism, corruption and lack of transparency with no proper focus on promoting the game. Reforms in the federations on the lines of the Supreme Court mandated reforms in the BCCI are long overdue. Such a move would help in addressing many of the current ills in the system.

Though the government has substantially increased the cash incentives and employment opportunities to successful sportspersons, sports are still not seen as a viable full time career option by many. This needs to change through participation by the private sector in providing suitable employment opportunities. To think that the government alone can provide employment to all of them is unrealistic.

Wider private sector participation also holds the key to rapidly improve sports infrastructure and groom the talented sportspersons. Suitable public-private partnership (PPP) models should be devised to allow the private sector to invest in creating quality infrastructure across the country. Specialised centres of excellence or academies in various disciplines should also be created through PPP model to groom the talented sportspersons to achieve excellence at international level. This approach is already yielding good results in a few disciplines such as badminton and squash. To achieve the objectives outlined above, the present level of investments in creating the necessary infrastructure and training and supporting the sportspersons in the country needs to be enhanced manifold. We cannot hope to win medals at the Olympics with the current level of facilities and support that we provide. While a substantial part of the enhanced investments have to come from the government, both at the centre and in the states, the private sector needs to contribute too in a significant manner. Hopefully this would happen once the participation levels expand and there is more focus on achieving success in Olympic disciplines at the international level. Britain, after its relatively disappointing performance at the 1996 Olympic Games where it won just one gold medal and a total of 15 medals, increased its investments in sports and training of athletes substantially through its national lottery programme. As a result, during the past two decades, its performance has improved dramatically with the country winning 27 gold medals and coming second overall in the medals tally at Rio. If we have a strategic action plan in place as outlined above, there is no reason why we cannot win, say, 10 medals at Tokyo in 2020 and more in the future Olympics.

(The above article was originally published in Deccan Chronicle on September 11, 2016. It is available here: https://www.deccanchronicle.com/sports/in-other-news/110916/target-olympics-how-to-win-more-medals.html)