Table of Contents
Defence Minister on Defence Products
- 1st detailed interview after takingover the portfolio.
- Government’s priority
- Cut down dependence on imports
- Develop indigenous capabilities
- Greater involvement of the private sector
- Special focus on start-ups
- Current contribution of privateplayers is around 20%.
- Private + Public: R&D + industrial entities
- Rafale aircraft would meet theimmediate requirements of the air force.
- Defence exports
- Few years ago were negligible
- 2018-19: Rs 10,745 crore
- Current FY target: Rs 15,000 crore
China’s Driving Force
- UN’s WIPO: China accounted fornearly ½ of global patent filings last year.
- Record 1.54 million applications.
- USA ranked a distant second, withnearly 600,000 patent applications
- Global numbers
- Patent applications: 3.3 million
- Trademark applications: 14.3 million
- Industrial design: 1.3 million
- Asia accounting for more than twothirds.
- China ranked first in all threecategories.
- WIPO director-general Francis Gurry:Asia is “increasingly the global hub for intellectual property applications”, noting “impressive increases” in India.
Bajaj e-Chetak
- Bajaj Chetak to come back in an allelectric avatar.
- Bajaj aims to be the Tesla of twowheelers.Bajaj Chetak electric has beenunveiled and the e-scooter gets some modern tech like all-digital instrument cluster in order to keep up with the competition.
Indo-US trade
- FM: Trade negotiations between Indiaand the US are going well and will conclude sooner than expected.
- Last month, India and the US failed toannounce a limited trade deal in New York.
- Washington: medical devices,information and communications technology (ICT) products, dairy products.
CEA K V Subramanian on Economy
- CEA called upon the industry to startmaking investments.
- Fundamentals of the economy are“very very strong”
- Large companies must play a criticalrole in clearing cash dues to smaller companies.
- CEA said the slowdown in the economyis due to a decline in investment.
- Corporates must recognise that in aslowdown labour is available cheaper and so it is the time to make investments.
- Subramanian said and added
- investment must be made from a longterm perspective.
No better place to invest than in India
- Investors can find no better place inthe world than India.
- Democracy
- Capitalist
- Environment
- Even if the court system is a bit delayed,India is a transparent and open society.
- Government was continuouslyworking to bring reforms.
- It has the best skilled manpower.
IMF’s advice to India
- Forecast for India: 6.1% for thecurrent fiscal
- Further monetary policy easing
- Broad-based structural reforms
- Reason for slowdown
- Corporate and environmental regulatory uncertainty
- Health of the non-bank financial sector
- Indian government has takenappropriate steps but it needs to do a lot more.
- Clean up the balance sheets ofcommercial banks.
- Keep the fiscal deficit in check.
- Severe demand slowdown andliquidity crunch.
Expand Adjudication Regime for IBC
- IBC is meant to swiftly resolvecorporate distress and redeploy the resources locked up in the failed firm.
- We need to tidy up the loose ends.
- How to allocate the proceeds ofresolution among different classes of claimants, remain incomplete.
- The government should resist thetemptation to carry out pointless tinkering with the legislation.
- Don’t small companies need to beresolved?
- The code is clear about the primacyof financial creditors over operational ones (such as suppliers of goods) with regard to claims to recoveries.
- Committee of Creditors, who nowdecide who should get how much from the proceeds of resolution/liquidation.
- IBC has brought a behavioural changein the borrowers.