Gadgets
Apple, Amazon Buy Into PM Modi’s ‘Self-Reliant India’ Push
Part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Self-Reliant India” drive, the programme is expected to boost output by $520 billion (roughly Rs. 37,73,590 crores) over five years, according to official projections. Credit Suisse sees it adding 1.7 percent to gross domestic product by 2027, while creating 2.8 million jobs.
Manufacturing as share of India’s GDP
It’s tempting to see Self-Reliant India as a repackaged version of ambitions outlined repeatedly over past decades. The most recent was PM Modi’s “Make in India” campaign. Unveiled in 2014, it aimed to bump up manufacturing’s contribution to GDP from 15 percent to 25 percent over five years. Instead, the share fell and now languishes at around 13 percent.
This time around there are some early signs of success. Amazon unveiled plans in February to set up a manufacturing line in Chennai to produce Fire TV streaming devices in partnership with an Indian subsidiary of Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn. Apple said this month it will begin producing the iPhone 12 in India for local customers. “The relocating to India trend has already started to gain momentum,” says Tanvee Gupta Jain, a Mumbai-based economist at UBS Securities. “This is a significant turn in India’s manufacturing policy.”
PM Modi’s administration is courting other big-name foreign manufacturers, including Tesla, which filed paperwork in January to register a business in India, fanning speculation that it plans to open a production line there. While the company hasn’t commented on the rumours, Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has said the government is prepared to offer incentives to ensure that Tesla’s cost of making electric vehicles in India would be less than in China.
In late February, PM Modi’s cabinet approved earmarking $1 billion (roughly Rs. 7,260 crore) of the larger incentives package for a programme geared at expanding domestic production of tablets, laptops, and computers, which hasn’t kept up with surging demand. Imports of laptops alone, mostly from China, have soared 42 percent in the past five years and are estimated to have reached almost $5 billion (roughly Rs. 36,280 crores) in the current fiscal year, according to a report commissioned by the India Cellular & Electronics Association. Under the new rules, companies will be eligible for cash payments equal to as much as 6 percent of the value of their sales, depending on how much they increase domestic production.
The story in India has long been that for every optimistic new entrant, there’s a battle-scarred business looking for the door. Harley Davidson pulled out of India late last year, while Toyota Motor in September threatened to shelve expansion plans because of the high taxes India levies on new-vehicle purchases. What sends foreign companies fleeing is a combination of entrenched protectionist tendencies, complex regulations, and rickety infrastructure. India ranked 63rd among the 190 countries the World Bank surveyed in its latest Doing Business report. China came in at No. 31, and South Korea was No. 5. “The real problem in India is the unease of doing business,” says Pranjul Bhandari, HSBC’s chief India economist.
Average applied tariff
Around the world, pandemic-induced shortages and supply chain disruptions have brought new urgency to government-led efforts to achieve greater self-sufficiency, whether in ventilators or semiconductors. China’s latest five-year plan contemplates large increases in investment in areas such as integrated circuits and clean tech, while in the US the Biden administration has urged Congress to appropriate funds for subsidies to spur the construction of new US fabs.
India’s efforts to nurture domestic supply chains have historically relied heavily on import tariffs, which are still the highest of any major economy in Asia. By adding investment incentives to its arsenal, the government hopes to persuade more multinationals to open plants in the country. If the policy mix seems incongruous, it’s because in today’s India, economic priorities are often at odds with political realities. PM Modi must boost manufacturing to create the 10 million new jobs a year the country needs to accommodate its growing workforce as well as curb yawning trade deficits, especially with China. But he also has to cater to the small and midsize enterprises that make up his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s base, and they’ve become accustomed to being shielded from foreign competition.
This clash makes it tough to tell whether “Self-Reliant India” will succeed where initiatives of years past failed. India is the world’s second-most populous country, which should be incentive enough for foreign businesses. PM Modi’s sweeteners may compel more of them to take the plunge.
“At Xbox, we believe that with better tools, creators can make even more extraordinary games,” Haiyan Zhang, GM, Xbox Gaming AI, said in a blog post. “This partnership will bring together: Inworld’s expertise in working with generative AI models for character development, Microsoft’s cutting-edge cloud-based AI solutions including Azure OpenAI Service, Microsoft Research’s technical insights into the future of play, and Team Xbox’s strengths in revolutionizing accessible and responsible creator tools for all developers.”
The aforementioned AI design copilot is a toolset that will help game designers turn prompts into scripts and dialogue trees. In contrast, the character runtime will enable dynamically generated plot beats and quests. We’ve already seen heavy AI integration in games by way of procedural generation — a more recent example being the 1000+ planets in Starfield. Not to mention, enemy AI has been around for way longer.
Inworld made headlines in August when it launched a modded story mode for Grand Theft Auto V, Sentient Streets, in which players had to investigate the rise of a bizarre AI-worshipping cult — a segment loaded with characters that spoke in AI-generated dialogue, on the fly. The mod was later taken down by publisher Take-Two, leaving a permanent strike on the creator Bloc’s YouTube channel. As per The Verge, Inworld’s AI technology can also be used for narration in top-down RPGs to warn players about any events awaiting off-screen and respond to questions like we’ve seen in the past year with AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bing Chat. Microsoft has also been heavily banking on artificial intelligence, having made a $10 billion (about Rs. 83,254 crore) investment in OpenAI. The company has also integrated AI tools into its popular suite of services and also added an AI copilot to Windows.
Despite being a Microsoft-affiliated AI toolset, it would be interesting to see whether titles using them will be allowed to thrive on other platforms. In July, Valve claimed that it would be cracking down on games that included AI-generated assets if the developer didn’t own the copyright to the piece of art. For the uninitiated, when you insert a prompt to create something in AI, the software simply repurposes existing assets found online and mushes them together — basically stealing from other artists and writers without appropriate commercial licenses. Infringing them would lead to the game not being distributed on Steam, forcing the developers to seek proper licenses for the asset by reaching out to the AI companies involved. It’s unclear how Microsoft’s partnership will play out — as long as AI content is being used as a catalyst to innovate and create something new, it should be fine.
In a post on X shared by BSNL’s Andhra Pradesh (@bsnl_ap_circle) unit, the company confirmed that BSNL users can upgrade their older 2G or 3G SIMs to a 4G SIM for free. Not only will the upgrade be free, but a promotional image shared with the post suggests that users who opt for the upgrade will also receive 4GB of free data that will be valid for three months. It is speculated that BSNL is aiming to boost its upcoming 4G services with this offer. The announcement was first spotted by Telecom Talk.
To access the free data offer and the free upgrade, BSNL users are requested to get in touch with executives at BSNL’s Customer Service Centre, franchisee or retailer stores, or contact one of their Direct Selling Agents (DSA). The promo image also adds in a finer print that the offer is available with certain terms and conditions, but hasn’t detailed any, so far.
Reliance’s Jio recently launched the 4G-supported Bharat B1 feature phone in India. The handset is priced at Rs. 1,299 in India. Alongside 4G connectivity, the phone comes with JioCinema and JioSaavn applications pre-installed.
The Jio Bharat B1 is equipped with the JioPay application, which is said to allow users to make UPI payments. Aiming to increase accessibility, the phone supports 23 languages overall, including multiple regional languages.
Realme, via Weibo, announced the arrival of the Realme GT 5 Pro in China. The display of the handset is confirmed to offer 3000 nits peak brightness. It has also been teased to offer heat dissipation with a surface area of around 10,000mm2. It is confirmed to ship with Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC. The post doesn’t specify the exact launch date of the smartphone, however, given the release of the teasers, the launch could be just around the corner.
The Realme GT 5 Pro has been in the news a lot lately. It is expected to feature a 6.78-inch (1,264×2,780 pixels) AMOLED display and is tipped to come in 8GB, 12GB, and 16GB RAM options along with 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB inbuilt storage options.
For optics, the Realme GT 5 Pro is said to have a triple rear camera unit comprising two 50-megapixel sensors and an 8-megapixel shooter at the rear. The camera setup might include a Sony LYTIA LYT808 sensor, an OmniVision OV08D10 secondary sensor, and a Sony IMX890 telephoto sensor. For selfies, there could be a 32-megapixel sensor at the front. It is said to carry a 5,400mAh battery with support for 100W wired charging and 50W wireless charging.
The Realme GT 5 Pro is expected to come with upgrades over Realme GT 5. The latter was launched in China in August with a price tag of CNY 2,999 for the base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.
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