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| Relevance: General Studies Paper III — Science & Technology and Economic Self-Reliance; and General Studies Paper II — Government Policies & Institutions | Source: Essay by N. Chandrasekaran (Chairman, Tata Sons), 2026 |
| A widely-read essay by N. Chandrasekaran, the Chairman of Tata Sons, makes one bold point: technology has become the new currency of national power.
In plain terms, a country that owns the technologies others depend on cannot be easily pressured, cut off, or left behind. So a nation’s freedom in trade, defence, and diplomacy now depends on where it stands in the world’s technology chains. India built a wide technology base in its first innovation decade. The next task is to go deeper — to move from merely using technology to owning and creating it. For a truly developed India (Viksit Bharat), this is no longer a luxury; it is a strategic necessity. |
1 · The big idea: being ‘dense’ is not enough — we must go ‘deep’
| Technology sovereignty: A nation’s real freedom — in trade, security, and diplomacy — that comes from owning and controlling the key technologies it depends on, rather than borrowing them from others.
Think of a smartphone: India assembles many phones, but the chip inside and the operating system are designed and owned abroad. Doing the assembly is “innovation-dense” (many people using and improving existing technology). Inventing the chip and the system itself is “innovation-deep” — what experts call origination. |
- What the first decade built: A wide, busy base — startups, incubators, varied funding, and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) like Aadhaar and UPI (shared digital “rails” that many apps run on). Lots of players, lots of energy.
- The honest gap: India is excellent at taking and adapting other people’s technology and scaling it cheaply — but weak at creating it, that is, owning the core patents and making the most important parts.
- A rare advantage: With over a billion people, India is the world’s biggest testing ground. A solution that works for India’s hard problems instantly becomes a ready, low-cost model for the whole Global South (the developing nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America).
2 · What “owning” a technology really means — the 5 layers
| 1 | The Science. Doing the basic research yourself — making the original discovery, not just borrowing someone else’s. (For a chip, the physics of how it works.) |
| 2 | The Design. Drawing the blueprint — deciding how the technology is actually built and laid out. (The detailed plan of the chip or the operating system.) |
| 3 | Data & Core IP — the crown jewels. Holding the patents and the data everything else depends on. IP (Intellectual Property) simply means legal ownership of an idea. This layer is the real seat of power. |
| 4 | Manufacturing & Components. Making the actual parts at home and controlling the supply chain’s key “chokepoints” — the few critical points that everyone else relies on. |
| 5 | Global Standards. Helping write the world’s technical rule-book (at bodies like the ITU and ISO), so that global technology is built to fit India’s strengths. |
| How to read this: go back to the smartphone. Owning just one layer — only screwing the parts together — is merely using technology. The country that owns the design and the patents (layers 1–3) earns most of the money and holds the power; the one that only assembles earns the least. Owning all five layers is true sovereignty. India is fairly strong in the later applied layers but must climb back up to the Science and Core IP layers, where real ownership begins. |
3 · The roadblocks in the way
A. We spend too little on research
- The R&D shortfall: Compared with leading nations, India’s industrial Research and Development (R&D) spending — the money companies put into inventing new things — is low. Without heavier investment in basic science, real origination stays out of reach.
B. The double-edge of new technology
- The promise: Tools like Artificial Intelligence (AI) can squeeze decades of progress in healthcare and governance into just a few years.
- The peril: The very same AI, if left unguided, can wipe out jobs, magnify human bias, and widen the gap between the rich and the poor. The same tool can heal or harm — it depends on how we manage it.
C. Two traps to avoid
- Getting the timing wrong between State and market: In a new, risky field, the government must step in first — buying the early product and taking on the risk no private firm will. Once the field grows up, private companies should lead, while the State steps back to just providing shared facilities and fair rules. If this order is reversed, a promising sector can stall.
- The “autarky” trap: Sovereignty does not mean shutting the world out. Autarky means trying to make everything alone, in a closed, isolated economy — and it usually fails. Real strength comes from collaborating from a position of confidence, building two-way dependencies, exactly what bridge-events like Bharat Innovates 2026 aim to do.
4 · Way forward
| Become the first customer. Big companies should be the first buyers for home-grown startups and MSMEs — pulling them into their global supply chains in semiconductors, AI, clean-energy grids, and defence, instead of simply importing ready-made products. An assured first buyer is what lets a young firm survive and grow. |
| Fund and reward home-grown ideas. Tie money from the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) to compulsory tie-ups between colleges and industry, so research actually reaches factories. A “Patent Box” — a lower tax on profits earned from India-made patents — can also push companies to invent more. |
| Help write the global rules. Push hard inside bodies like the ITU and ISO to set native standards for next-generation systems — 6G, green hydrogen, and trusted AI — so the world’s future technology is built on terms that suit India. |
| Protect workers from the shock. The State and industry should jointly fund reskilling and redeployment — training people for new roles — so that automation does not push vulnerable workers out of the economy. |
| India’s next chapter will be written by a generation that chooses mastery over mere participation, and depth over scatter. The aim is not to wall the country off, but to face the world from strength — owning the science, the patents, and the standards that matter most. If public funding, big industry, and young innovators move together, deep technology can become the firm bridge that carries India’s ambition all the way to a developed, self-reliant Viksit Bharat. |
| UPSC Value Box | ||||||||||||||||
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| Mains Practice Question |
| Technology has become the new currency of national sovereignty. In this context, examine why India must shift from being “innovation-dense” to “innovation-deep”, and suggest how the State and industry can together enable this transition. (15 marks · 250 words) |
Structure hint:
Introduction — State that technology now decides a nation’s strategic autonomy; define the dense-to-deep shift.
Body Part 1 — Why origination matters — the 5 layers India must own (Science to Global Standards).
Body Part 2 — The roadblocks — low R&D intensity, the AI double-edge, and the State–market timing problem.
Body Part 3 — The autarky trap — sovereignty through confident collaboration, not isolation.
Way Forward — Big firms as first buyers, ANRF–industry tie-ups, a Patent Box, native global standards, and worker reskilling.
Introduction — State that technology now decides a nation’s strategic autonomy; define the dense-to-deep shift.
Body Part 1 — Why origination matters — the 5 layers India must own (Science to Global Standards).
Body Part 2 — The roadblocks — low R&D intensity, the AI double-edge, and the State–market timing problem.
Body Part 3 — The autarky trap — sovereignty through confident collaboration, not isolation.
Way Forward — Big firms as first buyers, ANRF–industry tie-ups, a Patent Box, native global standards, and worker reskilling.
Must mention:
Technology sovereignty ·
Innovation-deep / origination ·
Strategic autonomy vs autarky ·
ANRF · iDEX · Semicon India ·
Global standards (ITU/ISO) & Viksit Bharat
Technology sovereignty ·
Innovation-deep / origination ·
Strategic autonomy vs autarky ·
ANRF · iDEX · Semicon India ·
Global standards (ITU/ISO) & Viksit Bharat
Conclusion hint: Argue that owning core technology — not just using it — is the true foundation of national power, and the surest bridge to a self-reliant Viksit Bharat.
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