Quick notes: Desi drones | Globalization rethink...

• Raising a swarm: India’s R&D spending on drone technologies is not even equal to the annual maintenance costs of the fleet of imported systems. The lack of a long-term acquisition plan or a roadmap, a version of the Integrated Guided Missile Development program for drones, means there is virtually no indigenous ecosystem for UASes. Worse, all the major components for lightweight drones, the auto-pilot or the brain of the machine, the battery pack, the motherboard and the propellers and motors, are imported, the majority from the world leader in drones, China.
  
  There is exactly one project which currently holds out a glimmer of hope for futuristic military projects, the Mehar Baba Swarm Drone Competition, an IAF-funded project for creating swarm drones. The winner of the contest to build a fleet of 50 drones to deliver humanitarian assistance and disaster relief will bag a Rs 100 crore IAF contract. But such projects, which bring in the brightest in Indian industry, are few and far between... Unmanned surveillance gives us a huge tactical advantage on the seas, which satellite and aircraft-based surveillance don’t
  
  Developers point to Turkey, which has built up an ecosystem over the past 15 years and is now a world leader in armed drones. Turkish armed drones have tipped the scales in virtually every recent conflict in its extended neighbourhood, from Syria and Libya to Nagorno Karabakh. It might only be a matter of time before drones appear in our neighbourhood too, as a wake-up call.



• Latest terror strategy: Pakistan using Chinese drones to airdrop weapons in Indian border areas



• VikAss is visible: “Look at, India, it’s so filthy, the air is filthy”.



• Turns out, globalization wasn't such a blessing: Back in the ’90s, when the post-Cold War consensus was just emerging, economists tended to take a simplistic either-or view of trade—either you were a free trader or a protectionist—and forced people to choose sides.
  
  Paul Krugman branded just about everybody who questioned the rapid pace of globalization a fool who didn’t understand economics very well. Now Krugman has come out and admitted that his own understanding of economics has been seriously deficient as well. Many of these working-class communities have been hit hard by Chinese competition, which economists made a “major mistake” in underestimating, Krugman says.
  


• The Economics Nobel Isn’t Really A Nobel: Technically, there is no Nobel Prize in economics. The Nobel Foundation doesn’t pay out the award or choose the winner, but it does list the prize on its website along with the Nobels. Members of the Nobel family have spoken out against the award.



• JEE (Main) to be conducted in regional languages from 2021: “Top-scoring countries in PISA examination use mother tongue as a medium of instruction”.



• JioPages: A made-in-India browser that focuses on data-privacy, JioPages is available in eight Indian languages.. The rising anti-Google sentiment among a section of Indian entrepreneurs could work in JioPages’ favour.



• Re-embrace the bicycle:

One distressing thing I have noticed in our corner of rural India is the steady decline of the bicycle, replaced by the motorcycle. Distances as short of 1-2 km are routinely covered by motorcycles.

Recently in my ancestral village a speeding motorcycle killed a morning walker.

— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) October 20, 2020




• Why rooftop solar isn’t shining in sunny India: Smart meters coupled with time-of-the day tariffs could be the answer.



• Shenzhen SEZ: Lessons from the hardware capital of the world. “In India, SEZs are identified with tax and exchange control relaxations. But the Chinese SEZs were basically areas exempted from the application of various domestic laws, rules and procedures by giving each SEZ chief wide discretion to adapt international best practices.”
  
  While tax breaks and concessions are essential, they are not enough to sustain an environment conducive to business. This just proves that at the end of the day, there is no replacement for effective governance.



• Living Without Ego: