India@100 | First-world country

The Metaverse. The idea belonged in science fiction and cyber culture imaginations till Mark Zuckerberg made it the new handle of his colossal digital empire. The nomenclature stood for an expansive network of interconnected digital universes that could, conceivably, virtually enhance physical reality while physically transforming virtual reality. Sounds like gobbledygook? Here’s the simple explanation. Right now, despite the fabulous advances in technology, we largely rely on 2D interface communication— the kind you see on Zoom or MS Teams. You have virtual meetings, but not the sense of shared physical space. What happens when you are finally able to make real eye contact and read body language? Why, you could even do a beam-me-up-Scotty kind of thing, and teleport your digital avatar to a factory to inspect it or try out new clothes at a shop. What you will need is 3D communication technology. It is in the making and you will have to wait for it, not till 2047, when India celebrates 100 years of its Independence, but till 2027—just four years from now.

What you could have in 2047 is 4D communication technology. It promises to make life more comfortable and exciting. Imagine having 4D maps to help autonomous (driverless) vehicles navigating roads or flight paths, ensuring zero collision and the fastest commute. Or your own robotic exoskeleton—a whole body suit a la Iron Man—which responds to your thoughts and uses the power of machines to augment physical capabilities. Shaky hand, did you say? Your exoskeleton will hold your glass for you so that you do not spill anything. And that’s only a simple task, it can follow much more complex commands. A quantum leap in computing, communications and extraordinary human creativity have led to a convergence of technologies that is making possible what was once considered impossible.

Welcome to the Brave All-New World. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his Independence Day address this year, called the next 24 years Amrit Kaal (auspicious period) and urged citizens to collectively work towards transforming India into a developed nation by 2047. However, the definition of a developed India@100 is vastly different from the conventional yardstick currently employed to categorise a developed country. Today, it not only means a country that has sustainable economic growth with a robust and efficient transport and communications infrastructure. It necessarily entails a well-rounded human development index, reflecting a uniformly high standard of living with a healthy and well-educated citizenry. We must also aim for high per capita incomes averaging $20,000 (nearly Rs 16.7 lakh) annually or more. India currently has a per capita income of $2,400 (Rs 2 lakh), which, according to the World Bank standard, puts us in the class of lower-middle income economies, where the per capita income ranges from $1,136 to $4,465 (approximately Rs 94,400- Rs 3.7 lakh). We are, therefore, in the same boat as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. The per capita income in China, whose GDP at $18 trillion is nearly six times India’s $3.4 trillion and whose population has now become second to ours, is $12,800 (approx. Rs 10.6 lakh). That places it in the upper-middle-income category but not in the league of developed nations.

What works in India’s favour is what PM Modi identified as a trinity of Ds—demography, democracy and diversity. From being the fifth-largest economy in the world, he is confident that India will become the third-largest before 2030, going past Japan and Germany. Around this time, China may overtake the US’ GDP of an estimated $28 trillion and emerge as the world’s largest economy. But as both India and China demonstrate, the sheer size of an economy does not determine its status as a developed country.

So, what will it take for India to become a truly developed country when it completes 100 years of Independence on August 15, 2047? There is no way we can achieve this exalted status with business as usual. Instead, the country will need a revolution in 10 key sectors—Energy, Transport, Communications, Agriculture, Defence, Health, Education, E-governance, E-commerce and Computing. Driven by rapid technological innovations, each of these major fields is undergoing dramatic changes. If India does not keep abreast of, and adapt to, these developments, it will be left far behind, with exploitation and deprivation as its permanent fate.

Let’s start with Communications. India can take pride in the fact that its average cost of Rs 14 for 1GB of mobile internet data is among the lowest in the world. Users in the US, in comparison, pay 33 times more and those in the UK 4.5x what we do. Also to its credit, India has moved quickly to be in lockstep with advanced nations in the introduction of 5G telecom networks. However, the real test will come with next generation telephony—6G. It is designed to be 100 times faster than 5G and to handle enormous amount of data transmission without any latency. Its coming will transform the way we communicate at work, home and play. Among its uses will be guiding autonomous cars, enabling ‘teleporting’ to remote locations in addition to hologram meetings that will combine the physical with the virtual. India could use it for digitising its land records—a major source of disputes as well as corruption—by providing 4D images. It will also vastly improve E-governance, especially the delivery of public services in rural areas while facilitating speedier and secure Ecommerce— another major engine of economic growth.

To do all this and more, among the technologies India will have to master is quantum computing, which can process information a thousand times faster than the conventional binary transistors. Such superfast processors will revolutionise the banking, health and defence sectors. India will also need mission-scale effort from both government and industry to acquire leadership in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The prowess of ChatGPT has already captured the popular imagination, but this is just the beginning. It is encouraging that Indian companies are among the world leaders in AI. Mumbai-based Fractal Analytics, for instance, is working with more than 150 Fortune 500 companies.

In addition, India will have to plug into other emerging technologies such as Light Fidelity or LiFi. Unlike WiFi that uses radio frequency, LiFi harnesses the photons emitted by LED to transmit data at 14 times the speed and eliminates the need for electronic devices like routers and modems. Meanwhile, satellite internet facilities provided by Bharti Global, which has a constellation of 634 low earth orbit satellites, could provide high-speed connectivity to remote areas, promising to transform rural India. The country, however, lacks mastery in semiconductor chips and urgently needs to develop indigenous competence. In short, what we need to build in the next two decades is a powerful Indiaverse.

Energy comes next. Currently, India imports as much as 85 per cent of its crude oil requirement and spent Rs 13 lakh crore, or close to 4 per cent of its GDP, in 2022-23 on this. That’s unsustainable both in terms of financial costs and given the worldwide environmental constraints on the use of fossil fuels. Under the Paris Climate Change agreement, India has committed to reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by at least 45 per cent by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, in addition to ensuring that 50 per cent of its cumulative electric power installed capacity will be from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources. So far, wind, solar power and biofuels are the main renewable energy sources that India is banking on. But the game-changer could come in the form of Green Hydrogen, with India launching a mission to make the country a global hub for its production, use and export. Green Hydrogen is produced using the high school principle of electrolysis, which employs an electrical current to break down water molecules to hydrogen and oxygen using electrodes. Its costs are currently prohibitive, but big firms worldwide, including Indian giants like Reliance, Adani and L&T, are working towards lowering them.

And with the transport sector intrinsically linked to energy, India will have to master other critical technologies for it to make the leap to an advanced economy. Lithium batteries, for instance, are the best alternative to conventional lead acid batteries not only because they charge much faster but also because they can store higher amounts of energy in similar volume, thereby lasting longer before needing recharges. That is the reason why Li-ion have become the batteries of choice in Electric Vehicles (EVs), soon replacing petrol and diesel engines, which have serious carbon emission concerns. NITI Aayog estimates that there will be a 50-fold increase in the domestic demand for advanced chemical cell batteries by the end of this decade—both for EVs and also for storage on electricity grids using solar and wind power. Globally, China is the big boy of batteries, accounting for 70 per cent of the world’s manufacturing capacity. India needs to move fast—it has discovered mineable lithium in Kashmir, but has yet to master the technology to manufacture such batteries at a commercial level. Especially if the goal is to make 30 per cent of all private cars and 80 per cent of two- and three-wheelers totally electric by 2030.

The other imperative for India is high-speed transport to transform mobility. In railways, for instance, Vande Bharat trains travel at a peak of 160 kmph. In comparison, Japan’s Shinkansen or bullet train can travel at 320 kmph, or almost twice the speed. With India tying up with Japan for the 500-km Mumbai-Ahmedabad rail corridor, the first Indian Shinkansen to roll out in 2027 will cut travel time between these two commercial hubs from seven hours to a mere two. India will need many more such high-speed trains, but made indigenously to meet the massive demand for faster rail traffic.

When it comes to roads, Nitin Gadkari, the Union minister for transport, has done a commendable job of adding over 50,000 km length of highways in the nine years of the Modi government. However, the daily average of 350 km that Indian truckers traverse is still half of what their counterparts in the US are able to do. In addition to reducing tolls, India needs intelligently controlled highways that provide real-time data on snarl-ups and accidents and help unclog roads for speedy travel.

Aatmanirbharta, or self-reliance, is what India needs in its food and defence sectors too. There cannot be a greater irony than the fact that while the country is the largest producer of pulses in the world, it is also their biggest importer. While India has creditably reduced this import dependence from 19 per cent of total demand to 9 per cent in the past decade, we are still nowhere near meeting the per capita protein requirement of our people. India will need a technological breakthrough in the next decade to achieve a Pulses Revolution to gain self-sufficiency in pulses production. Likewise, we import 60 per cent of our edible oil requirement, which is again the highest in the world. We need to make giant strides in boosting our vegetable oil production even as we keep environmental concerns in mind.

The same sorry tale attends India’s defence programme too, with the country importing more than 60 per cent of its military equipment. If we are to retain our strategic independence, it is crucial that we push the pedal on indigenously making cutting-edge equipment such as jet engines and lethally-armed drones.

This leaves two other critical sectors—education and health—in which India needs transformative changes if it is to join the high table of developed nations. India may boast of a demographic advantage, with over 54 per cent of its population below the age of 25 years. But that advantage is undone by the huge skills gap. A recent UNICEF study showed that by 2030 over 50 per cent of India’s youth will lack the necessary skills for employment. The Union and state governments, therefore, have to take urgent steps to reverse the situation and spend as much as it takes to do so. What is also needed is boosting—and more evenly spreading—STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum education in India. Demand for STEM jobs rose by 44 per cent in the country between 2016 and 2019.

Equally important is improving the health delivery system to ensure quality, accessible and affordable services for the masses and deploying advanced solutions like gene therapy towards that endeavour. India also has a huge opportunity to regain self-reliance in manufacturing Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs)—the key components in any medicine—which it had ceded to China. Also, for making biosimilars, which promise to significantly reduce the cost of expensive drugs.

These 10 sectors are by no means an exhaustive list of the innovations and reforms India needs in its quest for first-world status. Rather, they are a roadmap for the country to focus its energies on what can best deliver citizen welfare. As the PM said in his I-Day speech, “The actions we take, the sacrifices we make, the penance we undertake in this era will lead to Sarvajan Hitay, Sarvajan Sukhay (the welfare and happiness of all).” There cannot be a nobler aspiration for India@100.