AIR Spotlight: India’s Jump in Global Innovation Index and Rise as Innovation Hub

AIR Spotlight is an insightful program featured daily on the All India Radio Newsonair. In this program, many eminent panellists discuss issues of importance which can be quite helpful in IAS exam preparation. This article is about the discussion on “India’s Jump in Global Innovation Index and Rise as Innovation Hub”

Participants:

• Jiten Kumar Jain, Cyber Security Expert 
• Sanjay Jha, Journalist

Context: India, for the first time, made it to the top 40 countries at the Global Innovation Index (GII) recently.

Introduction:

• The 15th edition of the Global Innovation Index launched globally on September 30, 2022.
• India was ranked 46th position in 2021, and 81st rank in 2015.

Image Source: Niti Aayog

• Switzerland is the most innovative economy in the world in 2022 – for the 12th year in a row – followed by the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
• India entered the top 40 for the first time and overtakes Vietnam (48th) as the top lower middle-income economy for innovation.
• According to the 2022 index, India produces more innovation outputs relative to its level of innovation investments. 

Image Source: Niti Aayog

Read more on Global Innovation Index 2022 

Significance of this jump in ranking:

• The 2022 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII) tracks the most recent global innovation trends against the background of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, slowing productivity growth and other evolving challenges.
• As per the report, India continues to lead the world in the ICT services exports indicator with the first rank while holding top rankings in other indicators.
• GII has established itself as a tool for Governments across the world to reflect upon policies and their impact. 
• This improvement in ranking recognizes India’s continuous rise due to the progressive measures taken by the government and industry working hand in hand.
• 2022 index can be used as a reference in future economic plans or policies to improve our Innovation ecosystem.

Supporting Government Policies:

• The Government of India launched the Digital India campaign on 1st July 2015  to empower the country digitally in the domain of technology with a goal of a trillion-dollar digital economy.
  • Digital technologies are used in several areas, including mapping capital assets using GIS technology and revolutionising payments through Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
  • Penetration of Digital technology creates significant economic value and changes the nature of work for tens of millions of Indians.

Image Source: Mckinsy.com

• The public sector has been a strong catalyst for India’s rapid digitization. The government’s efforts to ramp up Aadhaar, the national biometric digital identity program, has played a major role. Aadhaar has enrolled 1.2 billion people since it was introduced in 2009, making it the single largest digital ID program in the world, hastening the spread of other digital services. 
• To further strengthen innovation, the National Education Policy was introduced which promoted the spirit of enquiry by setting up incubation & technology development centres.
• Over 9000 Atal Tinkering Labs across the country have been established to encourage youth to develop solutions to society’s problems.
  • This provides basic facilities of research and innovation to everyone in every district in the country.
• India has one of the world’s most affordable mobile broadband in the world. 
• Last-mile internet connectivity has helped them tremendously in various fields with real-time data crunching using Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
• India is fostering innovation by executing structural standards such as improved spending on research and development, funding in education, and facilitating entrepreneurs to initiate an enterprise more efficiently and for failed businesses to retire the market more quickly. 
• Along with improving the production scale under policies such as Atma Nirbhar Bharath and Make in India, India has also strived to enhance its study capabilities by introducing new Science, Technology, and Innovation Policy 2020. These efforts  play a critical part in promoting the country’s innovative power.
• Structural Reforms in Intellectual property rights including modernization of IP offices, reducing legal compliances and facilitating IP filing for start-ups, women entrepreneurs, the small industries and others.
  • Domestic filing of Patents registered a 46% growth in the last 5 years.

Impact of Innovation on Economic Growth:

• Innovation is often seen as one of a driving force for a sustainable long-term economic growth of any country.
• India’s vision of becoming a $ 5 trillion economy is complexly connected with an innovation-oriented approach to economic expansion. 
• In financial terms, innovation defines the development and application of visions and technologies that enhance goods and services or make their production more efficient. 
• India is moving towards an innovation-led economy, because inventions bring new concepts and technologies, and produce more important outputs with the same input. This results in better-made goods and services, boosting earnings and business profitability.

Way Forward:

• While government initiatives are a welcome development, an increased level of public-private partnership, with a greater focus on inclusive innovation is necessary to further improve the innovation ecosystem in the country.
• The private sector will have to invest significantly in R&D. This will help develop a mind-set of value growth. Such a mind-set promotes experimental thinking and is oriented to solving customer problems in new ways.
• Corporates should thus partner with research and educational institutions and create commercialisation paths for deserving projects. Young innovators should be encouraged to go on exchange programmes and get internships or grants to help fuel research.
• Focus on bringing startup ecosystems in every corner of India including remote districts with access to incubators and finance. 
• The broad-brush tax on all investments means an unnecessary cost is imposed on the wider start-up community simply because of the lack of better means at the government’s disposal to tackle black money.
• The government shall focus on Taxation reforms to incentive for new domestic companies.

Conclusion: Increased R&D investments, quality education, participation of private sector and universities, incentives for the startup companies, and reasonable taxes for startups could catalyse India’s growth as innovation harbours the key to transitioning any developing economy toward the developed class. India has the potential and ability to be such a country that alters its economic originality by leaning on innovation.

Read previous AIR Spotlight articles in the link.

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