A cabinet committee on science and technology is a strategic imperative today

Harnessing national capabilities requires programme structures that enlist capital, human resource and knowledge residing across the country. (Photo: AFP)
Harnessing national capabilities requires programme structures that enlist capital, human resource and knowledge residing across the country. (Photo: AFP)

Summary

  • Power structures and equations hinge on technological advancement in today’s age of information. India must set up a high-level panel of ministers as a global tech war intensifies.

India’s government must set up a Cabinet Committee on Science and Technology (CCST) to make India a global power of this century. 

Chaired by the Prime Minister, it should include the ministers for home affairs, finance, external affairs, defence, electronics and information technology, commerce and education. 

In this information age, technology is a core element of national power, the primary agent of economic transformation and an important aspect of the day-to-day life of citizens. 

Individual departments and states must still be responsible for governing the technological aspects of their domains in a decentralized manner, as they do now. 

But there is a case for a higher-level mechanism to set the overall policy direction, coordinate between ministries and oversee strategic plans in various science and technology domains. 

Also Read: India must wake up on basic R&D for technology before it gets too late

A cabinet committee is an appropriate structure in our governmental system.

There are four major reasons. 

First, we are in an era where world politics is by technology, of technology and for technology. While technology has been a source of power throughout history, it is central to global politics today. 

The Biden administration’s moves to throttle China’s semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) industry development implicate the rest of the world. Donald Trump’s principal backers are tech leaders determined to promote their commercial interests in the US and abroad. 

If the US has adopted its tech industry’s interests as its national interests, China has been doing so from the other direction. For Beijing, its tech industry is a tool to further the interests of the Communist Party of China at home and abroad. 

Also Read: The US, China and India must pursue policies aimed at the common global good

Geopolitical considerations alone recommend that India respond to the unfolding circumstances by equipping our strategic establishment well to navigate these tides.

Second, India needs a better way to manage trade-offs across ministerial boundaries. 

A few years ago, the railway ministry decided to completely electrify the train network to achieve environmental and modernization goals. 

Yet, such a goal would be inconsistent with defence preparedness. Both the Indian army and central paramilitary forces depend on railways to rapidly move their forces to areas of deployment. 

Decentralized, self-propelled diesel locomotives are better for this than grid-supplied electric ones. 

We need a better way to resolve such dilemmas.

Cross-domain coordination will be much more important in the coming years. It is hard to foresee effective public policy in nuclear energy, radio spectrum, AI, autonomous vehicles, advanced military systems, biological weapons and information warfare without high-level inter-departmental negotiation.

Third, the old model of managing strategic programmes like atomic energy and space will not work in today’s setting. 

Expertise is diffused in private industry, research institutions and public sector enterprises. Getting things done requires careful navigation across several genuine regulatory considerations. 

Harnessing national capabilities requires programme structures that enlist capital, human resource and knowledge residing across the country. 

We now have national missions to develop AI, quantum computing, genomics and aerospace. 

Some of these might call for speedy implementation while others require long gestation periods. Many reports rightly argue for a whole-of-government approach without being clear on how that will be achieved. 

A CCST is the answer.

Also Read: India requires a specialized AI cadre for effective governance of this technology

Finally, much like the discussion between Arjuna and Krishna on the battlefield, a lot of tech policy is about determining what is more important. 

Is market competition more important than scale for global competition? Should we depend on a foreign strategic partner for technology or try to develop it in-house? 

Can we afford the cost of waiting? Should we prioritize climate goals over building energy-intensive data centres for AI? 

How do we respond to export controls, sanctions and coercive steps by our geopolitical partners?

As much as a CCST can coordinate at the Union government level, much of the action is at the state level. I do not know if the way it works currently allows for state chief ministers to be invited to a Union cabinet committee meeting. It might, however, be a good idea to invite officials of the states concerned to ensure policy alignment.

Interestingly, China not only quietly set up a secretive Central Science and Technology Commission (CSTC), but seems to have replicated the set-up at the provincial level too. 

This commission appears to oversee the science and technology ecosystem, approve mega-projects and interface with the military establishment. While there is little public information on its mission and composition, it has been set up to provide political direction to China’s scientific and tech establishment. 

Mixing science with politics is not a good idea, as Soviet and Chinese history has shown, but when has that stopped Xi Jinping?

It is abundantly clear that we are amid a global tech war which will intensify. With the right structures in place, India could better harness its resources, expertise and human capital to emerge as a major power. 

More than an administrative convenience, the establishment of a CCST is a strategic imperative.

The author is co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, an independent centre for research and education in public policy.

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