Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that as India is headed to become the third largest economy soon, he was confident that the country will emerge as a global player in the sunrise sectors such as semiconductors, electronics manufacturing and green energy.

Addressing the inaugural session of ‘Journey Towards Viksit Bharat: A Post Union Budget 2024-25 Conference’ at the Vigyan Bhavan here, PM Modi said new opportunities are emerging in sunrise sectors and India Inc. must capitalise on them.

“The whole world is looking at India today. India’s policies and ethics and aims and investment is the basis for progress for the whole world,” the Prime Minister remarked.

PM Modi said that despite global headwinds, India is the only ‘high growth, low inflation’ country in the world in contrast to the “low growth, high inflation” other countries. India’s fiscal prudence is a role model for the world,” he added.

“The world today wants to invest in India, and world leaders are positive about India. This is a golden chance for Indian industry and we must not lose this opportunity,” he told the captains of Indian industry.

“I sincerely believe that industry will help make India a global player in sunrise sectors. A confident India will become a global player,” the Prime Minister said.

“The wealth creators are the driving force for India’s growth story,” he remarked.

Prime Minister Modi pointed out that the last Budget presented by the Manmohan Singh government in 2014 was only Rs 16 lakh crore. Ten years later, the Union Budget 2024 presented by us a few days ago is Rs 48 lakh crore, which is three times the amount.

The Prime Minister said that Budget 2024-25 would strengthen the momentum towards achieving Viksit Bharat.

He pointed out that the Budget would give further impetus to the manufacturing sector with schemes such as the industrial parks being created in 100 big cities with plug-and-play facilities for setting up industries. These parks will emerge as the industrial hubs nationwide powering the country to Viksit Barat.

He also pointed out that MSMEs, which are large creators of jobs, would get a big boost from the budget which had made it easier for them to get working capital and credit loans. Taxes for these small units had also been reduced, he added.

He also said that the country was embarking on a green energy roadmap which includes green hydrogen projects, electric vehicles and nuclear energy. Industry will benefit from our steps on small nuclear reactors, he added.

The Prime Minister said that the government was according high priority to critical minerals and very soon the first phase of bidding for offshore mining blocks would start.

He also said that the PM’s package in the budget was a holistic and comprehensive strategy that would benefit more than 4 crore youth in the country and create a skilled workforce that will be in demand both in India and abroad.

“The budget is focused on skill development, employment keeping in mind industry 4.0,” the PM said.

He highlighted the incentives being offered to the industry under the internship scheme as he urged India Inc. to march shoulder to shoulder with the government towards achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat. AGENCIES

Designed and manufactured in India, telecom equipment are now being exported to over 100 countries, the Centre has informed.

Last year, the country exported telecom equipment and services worth more than $18.2 billion.

“Many of our homegrown telecom companies have made their mark in Western nations, including the US, despite fierce global competition,” said Madhu Arora, Member (Technology), Digital Communications Commission, Department of Telecom.

“The Indian Army has recently integrated its first indigenous chip-based 4G mobile base station, developed by our own R&D firms,” she informed.

Addressing the ‘Defence Sector ICT Conclave’ in the national capital where 18 companies showcased their products, Arora said Information and communications technology (ICT) forms the backbone of defence operations.

“India’s vibrant ICT sector, marked by innovation and integrity, has established a significant presence over the past decades. The Indian ICT industry is providing solutions to the world, showcasing India’s leadership in this domain,” the senior official remarked.

Abhishek Singh, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, said the MEA is actively working to enhance cooperation with Africa in the ICT sector.

“By focusing on emerging technologies like AI and blockchain, we aim to address specific challenges faced by African countries,” he noted.

India has emerged as one of the top five investors in Africa, with cumulative investments of around $75 billion.

Several Indian companies have been instrumental in driving digital transformation across the continent.

According to Sandeep Aggarwal, Immediate Past Chairman, Telecom Equipment & Services Export Promotion Council (TEPC), ICT is critical for maintaining the sovereignty and integrity of India.

India, with its long-standing cooperation and respect for African sovereignty, is a reliable partner in this field.

“Our expertise in data analytics and artificial intelligence empowers our defence forces with predictive insights and actionable intelligence, enhancing decision-making and operational effectiveness in the front,” Aggarwal mentioned. AGENCIES

 India’s spacetech sector witnessed record-breaking funding of $126 million in 2023 — a 7 per cent increase from the $118 million raised in 2022 and a whopping 235 per cent increase from $37.6 million in 2021, a report showed on Tuesday.

In 2024, the year-to-date funding for the sector stands at $10.8 million.

Despite a global slowdown in funding, the spacetech sector has been experiencing an upward trend, driven by substantial government support and significant innovations, according to data provided by market intelligence firm Tracxn.

There are more than 100 spacetech startups, the majority of them being founded in the last five years. The Union Budget’s funding of Rs 1,000 crore is expected to boost the industry significantly, attracting more entrepreneurship and investment in the coming months.

Currently, the country boasts 55 active space assets, including communication, meteorological, and earth observation satellites.

“The significant funding and strategic investments we’re seeing now are setting the stage for India to become a major player in the global space industry,” said Neha Singh, Co-founder of Tracxn.

The combination of solid early-stage funding and supportive government policies will be key to driving this growth and establishing India as a leading centre for space exploration and technology, Singh noted.

In 2023, early-stage rounds attracted $120 million of the total $126 million raised, reflecting a notable growth from $114 million in 2022, which represents a 5 per cent increase.

In 2024, early-stage funding has reached $8.5 million to date.

Seed-stage funding has also seen a significant rise, growing from $4.3 million in 2022 to $5.3 million in 2023, marking a 24 per cent increase.

However, despite this growth in early-stage and seed-stage funding, the nascent ecosystem for private sector participation in Indian Space Tech startups has not yet experienced any late-stage funding, the report said.

Skyroot Aerospace leads as the highest-funded active space tech startup in India, with overall funding of $99.8 million, followed by Pixxel at $71.7 million and Agnikul at $61.5 million.

No other startup in this segment has raised funds above $50 million.

Despite the vibrant funding landscape, no acquisitions have been observed in 2024.

The only acquisition to date is the 2022 purchase of Prakshep, a satellite imagery provider for the agricultural industry, by Arya.

Bengaluru leads the list of top-funded cities in India’s spacetech sector, followed by Hyderabad and Chennai. AGENCIES

In a bid to make 5G accessible to billions of smartphone users worldwide, including in India, leading chip-maker Qualcomm on Tuesday launched Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 mobile platform to re-define the entry-level mobile experience.

The chip will make 5G accessible to over 600 million Indian smartphone users, offering peak download speeds up to 1 Gbps, which is seven times faster than the LTE platforms typically available in the same price tier.

Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 will be initially adopted by key OEMs, including Xiaomi and its other brands, with the first commercial device expected to be announced before the end of the year, said the chip maker.

The new Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 platform offers gigabit 5G connectivity, robust power efficiency for all-day battery life, and skilled camera capabilities.

Chris Patrick, SVP and general manager of mobile handsets, Qualcomm, said they are immensely proud of the engineering teams for their exceptional work in developing a solution that will significantly enhance mobile experiences for millions of people, not only in India but around the globe.”

According to Savi Soin, Senior Vice President and President, Qualcomm India, access to 5G will be a key factor towards furthering India’s journey of digital transformation and securing its presence as a global player.

“With the 5G rollout in India a su”5G can bridge the digital divide, empowering Indians with crucial tools and services in education, government services, healthcare, and payments more reliably and securely, as well as drive India’s Made in India agenda,” said Soin.

Snapdragon 4s Gen 2 will be initially adopted by India’s leading mobile OEM, Xiaomi and its other brands, with the first commercial device expected to be announced before the end of the year.

“We are excited to be working with Qualcomm Technologies to enable access to gigabit-fast connectivity for users across India” said Muralikrishnan B, President, Xiaomi India.

Qualcomm has been at the forefront of innovation in India for the past two decades, contributing significantly to advancements in technology, particularly in fields such as 5G and artificial intelligence (AI).

AGENCIES

The government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) on Tuesday introduced an interoperable QR code that is set to transform the e-commerce landscape and empower every seller — from local artisans to neighbourhood shopkeepers.

Sellers have been limited by platform constraints, struggling to make their products visible to a wider audience.

The interoperable QR code, currently in its alpha phase, allows sellers to generate a unique QR code that customers can scan using an ONDC-registered buyer app, starting with magicpin and Paytm, and soon expanding across the entire network after initial testing.

“ONDC’s interoperable QR code breaks down the barriers that have held small businesses back. Now, every seller has the power to reach customers digitally, just like the e-commerce giants. It’s a massive leap towards an open, inclusive, and democratised digital marketplace,” said T Koshy, MD and CEO, ONDC.

With this, sellers can display their QR codes anywhere — on storefronts, products, marketing materials, or social media — instantly connecting with customers both offline and online, said the open network launched by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Last month, in a bid to empower micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), the government announced an initiative to onboard five lakh MSMEs to the ONDC.

“Think of the local shopkeeper, the street vendor, the artisan — they can now be discovered and patronised by anyone, anywhere,” Koshy said.

“This isn’t just a new feature; it’s a catalyst for economic growth and digital inclusion. Millions of businesses will come online, creating new opportunities and driving India’s digital economy forward,” he added. AGENCIES

 Indian equity indices opened flat on Tuesday following mixed global cues.

At 9.38 a.m., Sensex was at 81,409, up 53 points. Nifty was up 24 points or 24,860.

The market trend remained positive. On the National Stock Exchange (NSE), 1,488 shares remained in the green and 538 shares remained in the red.

Among the sectoral indices, FMCG, realty, media, energy, and commodity were in the green. However, IT, pharma, fin Service, and pharma were the major losers.

Midcap and smallcap indices remained bullish as compared to largecap indices. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was at 58,537, up 175 points or 0.30 per cent, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 19,155, up 112 points or 0.59 per cent.

NTPC, Power Grid, Asian Paints, HUL, Tata Motors, and Tech Mahindra were the top gainers in the Sensex pack. UltraTech Cement, Bajaj Finserv, Sun Pharma, M&M, and Tata Steel were the top losers.

According to the market experts, “Sustained capital flows into mutual funds and the retail investor enthusiasm will keep the market resilient. The elevated valuations continue to be a concern, particularly in the broader market.”

“A healthy trend in the market now is that high-quality stocks with good earnings visibility are gaining strength on buying by institutions,” They added.

Global markets were trading with mixed cues. Tokyo, Jakarta, Seoul, and Hong Kong were in the green. Bangkok was in the red. US markets closed mixed. AGENCIES

 SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, said on Tuesday it plans to begin full-fledged production of its next-generation GDDR7 graphics memory chip in the third quarter.

The company said the GDDR7 boasts industry-leading qualities, with an operating speed of 32 gigabits per second, a 60 percent improvement from the previous generation.

When adopted for high-end graphics cards, the product can process data of more than 1.5 terabytes, equivalent to around 300 full-HD movies, in a second, reports Yonhap news agency.

The new chip also comes with improved power efficiency, by more than 50 percent compared with the previous generation, by adopting new packaging technology that addresses heat issues resulting from its ultra-fast data processing.

Lee Sang-kwon, head of the DRAM product planning division at SK hynix, said that GDDR7 is expected to be adopted by a wider range of applications, such as high-specification 3D graphics, AI, high-performance computing and autonomous driving.

“We will continue to work toward enhancing our position as the most trusted AI memory solution provider by strengthening the premium memory lineup further,” Lee said.

Meanwhile, SK Group will secure 80 trillion won ($58 billion) by 2026 for investments, mainly in artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

SK Telecom, the country’s leading wireless services providers, and telecommunications firm SK Broadband will invest 3.4 trillion won in establishing AI data centres by 2028, it said. AGENCIES

Aerospace industry leaders Thales and Garuda Aerospace on Tuesday announced a collaboration to promote the development of the drone ecosystem in India.

As part of the agreement, Thales will provide expertise in the field of unmanned traffic management (UTM) solutions, UAV detection and system integration, while Garuda will bring its skills in the manufacture and use of UAVs, as well as its expertise in the Indian market.

Established in 2015, Garuda Aerospace has a vast fleet of over 2,500 drones and 4,000 pilots across 400 districts.

This collaboration, said the companies, aims to foster innovation and advance the development of technological solutions that can enable safe and secure drone operations and help the growth of drone-based applications in the country.

The government is providing a robust foundation for the drone ecosystem, fostering opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and growth.

“This collaboration aligns well with the Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) vision, and seeks to support the country in realising its ambition to become a major global hub for drones by 2030,” said Ashish Saraf, VP and Country Director, Thales in India.

Thales has built end-to-end solutions for drone integration and the development of advanced UTM systems.

The company works closely with civil aviation authorities and air navigation service providers to deliver strategic UTM capabilities, including registration, authorisation and geo-awareness.

Agnishwar Jayaprakash, Founder and CEO, Garuda Aerospace, said that ever since Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched 100 Garuda drones in 100 villages, they cemented market dominance in the precision agri-drone segment, where 50 per cent of agri drones are from Garuda.

“Equipped with the largest fleet in India coupled with Thales’ UTM technology and their worldwide experience, Garuda Aerospace will aim to revolutionise the drone sector and play a key role in the transformation of India into a global drone powerhouse,” said Jayaprakash.

Present in India since 1953, Thales has over 2,200 employees in the country.

Founded in 2015 with a team of five, Garuda has scaled to a more than 200-member team. It manufactures 30 types of drones and offers 50 types of services. AGENCIES

 Tech giant Apple has responded to certain allegations regarding its AI models, saying it takes precautions at every stage — including design, model training, feature development, and quality evaluation — to identify how its AI tools may be misused or lead to potential harm.

The company said in a technical paper that it will continuously and proactively “improve our AI tools with the help of user feedback”.

It last month revealed Apple Intelligence that will offer several generative AI features in iOS, macOS and iPadOS software over the next few months.

“The pre-training data set consists of… data we have licensed from publishers, curated publicly available or open-sourced datasets and publicly available information crawled by our web crawler, Applebot,” Apple wrote.

Given our focus on protecting user privacy, we note that no private Apple user data is included in the data mixture, the company added.

According to the technical paper, training data for the Apple Foundation Models (AFM) was sourced in a “responsible” way.

Apple Intelligence is designed with the company’s core values at every step and built on a foundation of industry-lead privacy protection.

“Additionally, we have created Responsible AI principles to guide how we develop AI tools, as well as the models that underpin them,” said the iPhone maker.

The company further said that no private Apple user data is included in the data mixture.

“Additionally, extensive efforts have been made to exclude profanity, unsafe material, and personally identifiable information from publicly available data. Rigorous decontamination is also performed against many common evaluation benchmarks,” Apple elaborated.

To train its AI models, the company crawl publicly available information using its web crawler, Applebot and “respect the rights of web publishers to opt out of Applebot using standard robots.txt directives”.

“We take steps to exclude pages containing profanity and apply filters to remove certain categories of personally identifiable information (PII). The remaining documents are then processed by a pipeline which performs quality filtering and plain-text extraction,” Apple emphasised. AGENCIES

Google-owned YouTube is helping Indian creators unlock ‘fandoms’ in three ways — creation, monetisation and community – allowing them new tools to generate revenue directly from dedicated fans, Ishan John Chatterjee, Director-India, YouTube, said on Tuesday.

Speaking to IANS, Chatterjee said features like Super Chat, Super Stickers and Channel Memberships are allowing Indian fans to financially support their favourite creators while deepening their connection.

A decade ago, YouTube FanFest in Mumbai marked a pivotal moment in Indian pop culture, as fans embraced creators with the same fervour reserved for movie or sports stars.

“Today, marking the 10th anniversary of YouTube Fanfest, fandom has evolved into a powerful force shaping trends, communities, and the entertainment industry itself,” said Chatterjee.

A recent survey by Google and SmithGeiger noted that 62 per cent of Gen Z fans agree that they are a part of a fandom that no one they know personally is a part of.

“This diversity means there’s a fandom for everyone, and new communities are constantly emerging,” Chatterjee added.

He said that at YouTube, they offer more creative formats than other platforms to experiment and express yourself — from a 15-second short, to a 15 minute video, a 1.5 hour podcast or even a 15 hour livestream.

“We’re making our tools more intuitive and accessible, enabling fans of all levels to express their passion through creative content. From easy-to-use video editing features such as the Create App to formats like Shorts, we’re lowering the barrier to entry for fan participation and expression,” Chatterjee noted.

The YouTube Partner Programme established the first sustainable pathway for creators to thrive, giving creators more freedom, choice and opportunity to build a business and a community online.

“Besides, ads, subscriptions and our BrandConnect platform for sponsored deals, we give creators tools to leverage the power of community to earn in ways that are fun & engaging for them and their audience,” the senior company executive informed.

From posts and vertical live, multi-language audio and Gen-AI dubbing, the platform said it is giving creators the tools they need to connect with their fans on a deeper level. AGENCIES