Skip to main content

India slips in Global Innovation Index to 81st position from 76th in a year, worst among BRICS nations

A new report, prepared by the Cornell University, US, has rated India at 81st position in Global Innovation Index (GII) 2015, suggesting, despite a regime change in the country, things have failed to improve. The report says, “Over the last four years India has witnessed a reduction in its overall GII ranking, which dropped from 62nd place in 2011 to 76th in 2014.”
The only consolation for India is, its neighbours performs even worse – with Pakistan raking 132, Sri Lanka 85, and Bangladesh 129. However, its main “competitors”, members of the so-called BRICS club, of which India is also a part, have all outperformed India. Thus, China ranks 29th, Brazil 70th, South Africa 60th, and Russia 48th.
Prepared in partnership with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), consultants AT Kearney and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), among others, the nearly 450-page report notes that till 2008, “the policy regime in India has evolved to become favourable in terms of innovation, but since the economic slowdown in 2008—specifically after 2010—the performance of the Indian economy has remained somewhat unstable.”
Pointing out that “changing dynamics of the country’s political, educational, and business environment” has been a major reason for India’s downslide in GII, the report underlines, India has particularly found to be performing poorly in “input parameters” during the last four years. These parameters are "political stability, ease of starting a business, tertiary inbound mobility, and environmental performance”, it underlines.
“These findings also resonate with the general public’s perception that the government has been relatively inactive during this period in terms of making policy decisions. Among the reasons for this inactivity is the slowdown experienced in the overall economy, the country’s high inflation, and clamour over severe corruption charges against the incumbent government”, the report underlines.
“Weaknesses that are underscored in the GII occur in the area of ease of starting a business— a persistent matter of contention in India, which presents regulatory hurdles to entrepreneurs through a highly complex compliance regime and heavy bureaucratic interference”, the report says, adding, “Such government interference discourages entrepreneurs from effectively starting and running businesses”.
“India ranks poorly in terms of its ease of doing business parameters”, the report states, adding, “This will remain a major obstacle that India must address if it is to hasten its economic growth (in terms of its GDP) from its current level of 5–7% to 10% and above.”
Coming down heavily doing well on environmental front, the report states, “As a developing nation, India still holds a debate between the procurement of expensive, eco-friendly technology and the use of traditional, lowcost technologies that have a high carbon footprint. India’s dismal ranking (155th out of 176) in the 2014 Environmental Performance Index is evidence of the fact that the country has lacked efficient policy measures to tackle this issue.”
Then, the report states, “In India, a persistent contradiction exists between protecting intellectual rights for commercialization and profitmaking and catering to the social needs and obligations to the poor. Owing to this contradiction, policy and patent laws have been crafted to strike a balance between these two considerations. This has resulted in a relatively weaker intellectual property rights (IPR) regime than those of other developed nations.”
Another area of concern, the report states, is higher education. “India lacks an adequate number of higher education institutions to cater to its growing number of aspiring students”, it points out, adding, “The level of university-industry collaboration in India is also minuscule compared with that of other developed nations, and there is dearth of high-quality teachers in the education system.”
Then, the report states, there is a need for creating new jobs. “As the world economy becomes more volatile and India faces the adverse effects of this economic instability, it is essential for the government to stimulate job creation in the economy far more than usual by devising new methods”, the report underlines, adding, “This goal can be achieved through building a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem and incentivizing innovation-driven start-ups.”

Comments

TRENDING

World Hijab Day? Ex-Muslim women observe Feb 1 as No Hijab Day, insist: 'Put it on a Man'

I didn't know that there could ever be a thing as World Hijab Day until I received an email alert from Maryam Namazie of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB), stating that several ex-Muslim women's groups had observed the same day—February 1—as No Hijab Day! According to Namazie, the day "was created on February 1 as a direct response to World Hijab Day" to "illuminate the coercive and oppressive realities of the hijab as a pillar of sex apartheid and a war on women."

Google powered AI refuses to correct grammar of a 'balanced' piece on Trump sending chained immigrants to India!

This is a continuation of my blog on how, while the start-up-developed AI app DeepSeek is being criticized for consistently rejecting content related to China or Maoism, there appears to be no mention in Western media about why another app, developed by the powerful Google, Gemini, remains silent on Indian political issues.  

Gujarat a police state? How top High Court advocate stunned a senior-most journalist

Rajdeep Sardesai, Anand Yagnik This is a continuation of my earlier blog on well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai's lecture in memory of the late Achyut Yagnik at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA). I was a little surprised when I received the intimation about the venue for the lecture.

5% poor in India? Union govt claim debunked, '26.4% of population below poverty line'

A recent paper, referring to the Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2022-23 of the Government of India (GoI), has debunked the official claim that poverty has substantially declined. Titled "Poverty in India: The Rangarajan Method and the 2022–23 Household Consumption Expenditure Survey", the paper —authored by scholars CA Sethu, LT Abhinav Surya, and CA Ruthu—states that "more than a quarter of India’s population falls below the poverty line."

Why predictions of an imminent collapse of the Russian economy may be wrong

A veteran Canadian journalist, settled in Russia, stated in a Facebook post that President Donald Trump "is apparently listening to experts who tell him that Russia's economy is on the verge of 'imploding,' and if he just squeezes a bit harder," his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin "will fall into line."

Talking of increased corporate control over news, Rajdeep Sardesai 'evades' alternative media

When I received an intimation that well-known journalist Rajdeep Sardesai was to speak at the Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) on February 2, my instant reaction was: I know what he is going to say—his views are quite well known; he wouldn’t be saying anything new. Yet, I decided to go and listen to him to catch his mood at a time when the media, as he (and I) knew it, is changing fast due to the availability of new technological tools that were not accessible even a decade ago.

Why burn Manusmriti? Why not preserve it to demonstrate, display historicity of casteism?

In a significant Facebook post, Rana Singh, former associate professor of English at Patna University, has revealed something that few seem to know. Titled "The Shudras in Manusmriti", Singh says,  because Manusmriti is discussed so often, he thought of reading it himself. “This book likely dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and the presence of contradictory statements suggests that it is not the work of a single author,” he says in his Facebook post in Hindi, written in 2022 and recently reshared.

How the middle classes are returning to the BJP fold, be it Delhi or Gujarat: Mahakumbh, Sitharaman's budget

Whatever reasons may be offered for the Aam Aadmi Party's defeat in Delhi—whether it was the BJP's promises of more freebies than AAP, the shedding of ultra-nationalist slogans, or the successful demolition of Arvind Kejriwal's "Mr. Clean" image—my recent interaction with a group of middle-class individuals highlighted a notable trend. Those who had just begun to sit on the fence were now once again returning to the BJP fold.

Gujarat's water anarchy? 16.7% of Narmada water going to industry, 33% of targeted area irrigated: Govt insider

The Narmada project is something that has always excited me, including how much water will be distributed and to which sector. A few days ago, when I was talking to a top Gujarat government insider, I was a little surprised when I was told that it is up to the “respective states to decide how much Narmada water they would distribute among various sectors” out of the total quota allocated to the four states—Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Rajasthan—as per the Narmada Water Disputes Tribunal award of 1979.