Gati Shakti for Transforming Connectivity

“We shape our buildings; thereafter, they shape us.” – Winston Churchill

The new India is marching on the roads of an unprecedented transition into an entirely new dimension of modern living, where system are both solution-oriented and sustainable. By rightly identifying the hitches, the focus has shifted to ‘building afresh’ in the recent years. While prominent initiatives like Make in India, Vocal for Local, Self-Reliant India, Startup India, and others have ignited a sense of awareness and stimulation in India, especially boosting sectors like manufacturing and entrepreneurship, all of this is being rightly taken to the next level by working on the infrastructural development like never before across the country.

PM Gati Shakti, which runs on a transformative approach for economic growth and sustainable development, is driven by seven engines, namely, Roads, Railways, Airports, Ports, Mass Transport, Waterways, and Logistics Infrastructure. All seven engines can lift up the growth curve of the entire country, if supported by the complementary roles of Energy Transmission, IT Communication, Bulk Water & Sewerage, and Social Infrastructure. Such an economic breakthrough can create a plethora of job and entrepreneurial opportunities for all, catering to especially the youth.

The introduction of Gati Shakti, as the name suggests, is a powerful means to get almost all the imperative sectors of the economy up and running with ‘Connectivity’ being the main fuel, as ease in transportation relentlessly brings down the logistics cost. This retention further relaxes the budget plots across various sectors, leading to exports competitiveness, boosting labour employment, resulting in more investments and vigorous economic expansion. More and more connectivity convenience naturally leads to the development of multiple urban, industrial centres. These urban centres are enabler of balanced regional development, paving way for more and more industrial clusters to sprout up across the country. Further, a good roads infrastructure would feed well into railway lines, which in turn, would feed into ports, resulting in faster goods transportation, stirred up supply chain systems, quick manufacturing and more trade and business.

It is well documented that as a proportion of the total value of goods, logistics costs are almost double in India (around 14%) as compared to developed nations (around 7%), hence there is lot of room of improvement. This underlines the need and power of Modern logistics mechanisms, which is the aim of the endeavour of Gati Shakti. The government also has in its pipeline the National Logistics Policy to ease supply chain bottlenecks and accelerate India’s logistics sector, which frequently deals with competitiveness gap. The plan will improve India’s trade competitiveness, create more jobs, improve India’s performance in global rankings and pave the way for India to become a logistics hub.

Indian Healthcare Sector – Coming of Age amidst Pandemic

It is indeed remarkable that India has achieved both the highest number of vaccinations as well as highest percentage of population being vaccinated . This is an unparalleled large-scale implementation in handling the pandemic while considering welfare of all at home with ‘Sabka Saath’ and abroad with Vaccine Maitri. Right communication regarding vaccines at the grassroots level was pivotal. For this, a five-point strategic action framework was utilized to draw up the guidelines – Advocacy; Capacity Building; Media Engagement and social media; Social Mobilization and Community Engagement; and Crisis Communication using AEFI (Adverse Events Following Immunization).

One of the key aspects that haven’t gotten enough attention is the vaccination teams’ compassionate attitude and approach during the vaccination drive. All were trained to engage and show empathy to beneficiaries seeking information or sharing their concerns irrespective of their socio-economic or demographic status. The first and foremost preparatory step that was imperative prior to the launch of the vaccination drive was to train and build the capacity of skilled resource personnel. The success of the vaccination initiative was highly dependent upon the quality of training being provided.

Following the successful development of two vaccines – the indigenously developed COVAXIN and AstraZeneca’s COVISHIELD through technology transfer – India embarked on a new herculean task of vaccine distribution to every nook and corner of the country. Government formulated the National Expert Group on Vaccine Administration (NEGVAC) for COVID-19. NEGVAC facilitated the high level of coordination required at the national, state, and district levels to establish effective levels of coordination among key departments. The Co-WIN platform was at the heart of the vaccination drive. The software performed the crucial functions of registration, real-time status on booked and available booking slots on different dates and at different sites, end-to-end implementation of vaccine process, etc. at national, state, district and block levels. In the global battle against COVID- 19, various low-cost innovative technologies developed and scaled up by start-ups from all over the country played a critical role. E-Sanjeevani, the largest telemedicine service, made its efforts towards successful communication. State-level monitors undertook the continuous supervision of vaccine arrival and distribution cycle and ensured quality orientation in vaccine receipt and distribution.

Right information has changed the minds of those who were skeptical about inoculation, and turned the Indian vaccination journey from resistance to acceptance.

Abstained to make a point

“India is deeply disturbed by the recent turn of developments in Ukraine. We urge that all efforts are made for the immediate cessation of violence and hostilities. No solution can ever be arrived at the cost of human lives,” said India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti on behalf of India, which abstained from voting on a UNSC resolution that condemned Russia’s “aggression” against Ukraine and demanded the withdrawal of Russian forces from the neighbouring country. By abstaining, India has chosen to keep its window open to reach out to concerned sides in an effort to find the middle ground with an aim to foster back dialogue and diplomacy.

There are times when even history fails to provide any account or instances that one could refer to in order to shepherd a way out of a crisis. While the recent launch of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia is not unfamiliar to history, it has certainly increased the criticality quotient for India, as it handles its UNSC Presidency with utmost ministration, and at the same time pulls out all the stops to evacuate Indians back to its soil.

The military attacks on Ukraine has reshuffled an already intricate world order, leaving India to walk on a tightrope of protecting its diplomatic ties with the NATO states as well as with CSTO and Russia. As both of these alliances enjoy the veto votes in UNSC, It would make it rather difficult for India, which has been seeking a permanent membership at the high table, to chair a council that has already begun to split into factions.

The US too has to settle on a decision. Either it could allow Ukraine to be steamrolled and Moscow to get all power-backed. Or it could decide to intervene indirectly and levy sanctions that do not hurt Russia directly. Or it could also intervene directly and maybe even launch a nuclear war that would devastate the world and all the people living in it.

As for the imposition of financial sanctions on Russia, the possibilities of such counterattacks are never hard to guess. Perhaps, this is why it looks like Washington is taking the second option of levying enormous sanctions on the Kremlin that would hurt some but not all of its sectors. In such a case, the world could contemplate the following choices : i) Focus on saving more and more Ukrainian lives, ii) Focus on preventing anymore destruction in Ukraine, iii) Focus on how to halt Russia’s massive offensive into Ukrainian territory, iv) Rebuild Ukraine after the war.

However, the above mentioned choices seem far from getting picked currently, which could result in a more deteriorating aftermath and might leave Russia’s next targets, the Stans, vulnerable. Peace should try to be restored by India and others, or else the world might end up giving birth to another humanitarian crisis. India has prioritized citizens first, of the world and of its own. Ensuring this is also in tandem with action points identified by NATO leaders, as they called on Russia to stop the “senseless war” & immediately cease its assault by withdrawing all its forces from Ukraine, and turn back to the path of dialogue.

S.M.A.R.T. Agriculture in India

As the government welcomes modern tech-based agricultural solutions, including use of Kisan drones, Nano-technology based fertilizers, digitization of land records, and more to keep India’s agricultural growth trajectory robust, India has shifted to practices of what can be called ‘Smart Agriculture’ which has begun to transform the lives of Indian farmers.

The word SMART, when combined with ‘Agriculture’, deciphers a plethora of actions and practices that must be well adapted to by all the stakeholders of the agricultural sector, be it government, institutions, producers, sellers and every individual linked to the Agro-chain. One could smartly break the acronym (SMART) into Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based, which are key factors in deciding the fate of Agriculture and allied sectors.

By identifying the precise new technologies and working to acquire them for its agricultural requirements, India is being ‘Specific’. By building capacity and infrastructure to come up the farm, production and land records and create tools and schemes to make new ones, it is being ‘Measurable’. It has been ‘Attainable’ by ensuring and celebrating exports growth, record production, record organic exports growth, maintaining satisfying MSPs, timely and easy release of funds under various schemes like Kisan Samman Nidhi & others through DBT, opening up of 44.23 cr Jan Dhan Accounts, etc. India is also being ‘Relevant’ as it looks forward to solutions facilitating use of Kisan drones and convergence of AI & machine learning, blockchain technology, remote sensing-based tools and technologies with Agriculture. And all this is being done with a ‘Time-based’ approach, meeting deadlines.

Terming it as the future, PM Narendra Modi addressed a webinar on ‘Smart Agriculture’ calling on policymakers and stakeholders to begin the execution of the provisions discussed in the budget 2022-23 for the agriculture sector. PM Modi laid out seven ways which hold the potential to turn Indian agriculture smart enough. These include natural farming, use of modern technologies, Mission Oil Palm to reduce our dependence on import of edible oils, new logistical facilities for transportation of food-grains and other farm products, agriculture waste management, agriculture research and use of post offices in providing banking services to the farmers.

Over the past six years, farm outputs have seen an unprecedented growth registering new records, following the continuous impetus from the government through different plans. This oscillates in tandem with the goals that have been defined by it to double farmers’ income by 2022-23, promote farmers welfare and bring parity between earnings of farmers and those working in non-agricultural professions. The food grain production rose to 298 million tonnes in 2019-20, 311 million tonnes in 2020-21 and estimated 316 million tonnes in 2021-22. However, it vacillated before 2016-17, hovering between 245 million tonnes and 265 million tonnes.

Rescuing amidst Crisis

Time and again, India has shown the world how swiftly it could react on matters pertaining to the security and safety of Indians across the globe. From Operation Sankat Mochan (evacuation of 46 Indian nurses from ISIS) to recently concluded Operation Devi Shakti (evacuation of Indians and Afghans from Afghanistan) the world has witnessed India’s unrelenting grit in face of crises. Amidst the spiraling tensions between Russia and Ukraine, India is once again up to pick the challenge of bringing back thousands of their nationals stuck in the foreign land to their home country.

“I underline once again that more than 20,000 Indian nationals including students are located in different parts of Ukraine including in its border area. We are facilitating the return of all Indian nationals including students as may be required,” India’s Permanent Representative to UN, Ambassador T S Tirumurti said today. India is ready to reach out and take care of every citizen, no matter what the crisis is. The present Russia-Ukraine crisis has spiralled into dangerous territory however.

He further said that, “The Security Council has met two days ago and discussed the situation. We had called for urgent de-escalation of tensions and emphasised on sustained and focus diplomacy to address all issues concerning the situation. However, we note with a regret that the calls of the international community that give time to the recent initiative undertaken by parties to defuse tensions were not heeded to. The situation is dangerous spiralling into a major crisis. We express our deep concern over the developments which if not handled carefully may will undermine the peace and security of region. We call for immediate de-escalation and for refraining from any further action that could contribute to worsening of situation. We call on all party to exert greater effort to bridge divergent interest. I would like to underline that the legitimate security interest of all the parties should be fully taken into account. India has consistently advocated at the United Nations the need for peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with International law and with agreements entered into by parties concerned.”

Amidst weeks of diplomatic efforts to broker a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced ‘a special military operations’ in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region. Following Moscow’s act, the West has rallied in their support for Ukraine. Condemning Russia’s attack as ‘unprovoked and unjustified’, US President Joe Biden said, “Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.”

India has put its stand in very clear words that, “We believe that the solution lies in the sustained diplomatic dialogue between the concerned parties. In the mean time we strongly emphasize the vital need for all sides to maintain international peace and security by exercising the utmost restrain.”