India’s defence manufacturing industry is a significant part of the Indian economy, producing over 800 billion INR worth of defence goods and services. Due to persistent territorial conflicts with our neighboring countries, as well as escalating insurgency and other domestic threats, demand for arms equipment is likely to expand tremendously. Despite having the world's second-largest military and third-largest defence budget India is heavily reliant on imports to maintain its arsenal. It has emerged as the world's second-largest arms importer, accounting for more than 9% of global arms imports compared to 4.7 percent of China and 2.7 percent of Pakistan. This reliance has a negative impact on the policy framework, national security, international relations, and economy. In India's pursuit for Atma-Nirbharta, indigenous defence equipment manufacturing is being hailed as the prime key to accomplishing several goals.

The Department of Economics, functioning under JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) – School of Humanities and Social Sciences, organized a five-day national level webinar titled Prospects of Indigenous Defense Manufacturing on India's Quest for Atma-Nirbharta from January 24 to January 29, 2022. The webinar aimed to cultivate awareness regarding the prospects of indigenous defence manufacturing, the opportunities and prerequisites associated with it, and its impact on India’s public policy in regards to the economy, national security, and international relations. The webinar offered participants an opportunity to interact with experts in the defence sector and gain valuable insights into the real-world developments that aim to accelerate indigenous defence manufacturing.

January 24, 2022: The speaker for day 1 was Ambassador Anil Trigunayat, a former member of the Indian Foreign Service. The session had Major Dr. Rekha Sinha, Director of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, deliver the welcome address. She spoke about the sacrifices made by Indian soldiers to protect the nation's sovereignty and the importance of indigenous manufacturing in boosting India's strategic capabilities and economic prosperity, in addition to solidifying it as a regional power in its quest for Atmanirbharta.

The keynote speaker, Anil Trigunayat, began his speech with India’s long dependence on imports of defense equipment. He cited the example of the Bofors guns and their immense strategic value in the Kargil war. He then went on to discuss more recent matters, like the Covid-19 pandemic and border skirmishes with China and according to him, these recent episodes brought to light India’s most pressing need for indigenization. He highlighted some of its benefits, such as the conservation of our foreign exchange and the reduced reliance on foreign manufacturers for vital spare parts. He also added that general global supply chain resilience was the key to India’s success. The Ambassador then went on to talk briefly about the history of self-production (Atma Nirbhar) from the times of the Swadeshi Movement to the LPG reforms and how foreign companies are finding it easier to produce in India given that they have choices between private and public corporations. This choice is further made easier given public initiatives such as the defense corridors, defense expos, and the promotion of start-ups.

He spoke about India’s start-up environment and how start-ups in the defense space face multiple hurdles in product development due to the rigorous testing and approval methodologies required. Furthermore, he highlighted India’s tryst in defense technologies and how it persuaded other countries to not only sell to India but also make and export from India. He made salient points regarding India’s grasp on the global defense industry as one of the largest importers and rising eminence as an exporter (19th rank), especially with the sale of the Brahmos batteries to the Philippines, and referred to the interest of India’s portfolio of weaponry amongst other nations for products such as the Akash Missiles and HAL’s aviation goods. He then finally spoke on the ramifications of defense exports/imports that are generally faced in an increasingly polarized world where America and its allies can place sanctions on countries that purchase equipment made by Russia, especially referencing Turkey and Iran and how the sanctions on Iran affected India’s oil imports.

January 25, 2022: The second day had Mr. Arpan A. Chakravarty as the guest speaker. He is a lawyer and currently serves as Assistant Director (Strategy) at Alexis Group, India. Mr. Arpan A. Chakravarty started his presentation with an introduction to the defense industry and Ordnance Factory Board and how it was disbanded and merged into seven public companies and that they manufacture “everything”. He then moved on to discuss the history of various ordinance factories.

Mr. Arpan deep-dived into the trade statistics related to military production. He pointed out that India is responsible for close to 12% of the world’s arms imports but is only responsible for 0.2% of the total exports due to the lack of a defense export policy. The promotion of exports since 2016 was also in part due to the collaboration of public and private enterprises in trade negotiations. Further on, Mr. Arpan summarized case studies related to reforms within defense industries, such as the United States export department, and the same in Israel and South Korea. Mr. Arpan went on to list a set of measures that could be implemented to replicate the success of other industrial countries.

He also stated that diplomacy, capability, and platform are the three key factors that will aid India in its success with a specific export strategy. He emphasized that India’s latent advantages lie in its powerful diplomatic ties and strong research core; he cited the ties between India and Russia in developing the Brahmos missile. He believes that there should be an urgent focus on technical objects as it may lead to export opportunities, such as the Tejas and IAC Vikrant programs. He believes that India should focus on advertising its defense products and supply chains to gain better market traction. Mr. Arpan further added that the industry requires an agency to guide and support it due to the capital-intensive nature of the products. In addition to rising markets in Africa, he identified South East Asia and Eastern Europe as the key defense import markets. He further moved on to how the upcoming theater command system will consolidate Indian industry to better serve the armed forces by making the industry lean and smart.

In his concluding notes, Mr. Arpan stated that India may be a large importer of high technology weaponry and that we should strive to replicate the success of the pharmaceutical industry and provide affordable weaponry to nations that cannot afford to purchase from developed western and Asian countries.

January 27, 2022: The speaker for the day was Major General Harsha Kakar. The Major General started his presentation by linking the concepts of national security with development. He cited examples of AUKUS and NATO. He also feels that India’s private sector entered the military industry too late. He continued to cover the overall security environment and did present an interesting point that India has majorly fought only land wars. He continued to talk about the characteristics of the Indian security situation and how policymakers have only considered the west as a security problem and only in recent times has it been a hard look to the east.

The Major General also went on to cite an example of the development of radars within the defense ecosystem and how it was inferior to imports, but nothing could have been done about it due to the existing restrictions. He pointed out that, the higher the technology levels and research in a country, the lower its dependency on imports. He also pointed out that the private sector would be instrumental in turning the domestic defense industry away from imports and promoting technology-centric research and development.

January 28, 2022: The fourth day of the webinar had multiple speakers. The session's first speaker was Corporal Shree Vaishnavi J, who spoke about new initiatives taken up by the government to encourage indigenous defense manufacturing. She mentioned that she was spurred to take up the topic after taking a tour of the HAL Museum.

The next speaker was Mr. Ashutosh Dash, a student of MA Economics (IV Semester), who spoke on the topic, The Military Industrial Complex; the Good the Bad and the Ugly. He introduced the audience to the concept and its wide-ranging implications for the Indian economy.

The next speaker was Lance Corporal Harini Ravindra, who spoke about high levels of technology at low cost in short time frames in defense production. She primarily spoke about the area of defense acquisitions.

The last presentation of the session was by Lance Corporal Isha R, who spoke about the Export Promotion of Indigenous Defence Manufacturing Equipment and gave the audience detailed insights into the operating ecosystem of current manufacturers, and highlighted governmental bodies promoting such exports.

January 29, 2022: The speaker for the day was Major Raghavendra. C. He began his presentation by enunciating the definition of a superpower and why India is not a superpower yet despite the claims made so far. He believes that Atmanirbhar Bharat is something that individuals inherently do not believe in as we are focused only on our exams and are bound to forget it when we pass our exams and that Atmanirbhar is about service to the self and the nation.

He brought up 9/11, a date considered to be unanimous with the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He believes that Atmanirbhar Bharat is not only limited to the manufacturing of goods within our domestic territories, but also to the principles that can be brought up by a change in our ideologies, principles, virtues, and honesty. He stated that one of the major problems persistently affecting such principles were the slow actions taken to eradicate corruption and problems related to discrimination.

Defense Equipment in the country, according to him, should be made to fit the idea of ‘state of the art’ and designed to serve the military and well-being of the troops. He subsequently dwelled on the role of the private sector and how APJ Abdul Kalam was the one that propagated the involvement of the private industry in the sphere of defense to help lead innovation and manufacturing. He believes that only through such involvement will the country be a superpower by 2024.

The major touched upon the duality of the Indian public in this regard by pointing out that India is one of the largest markets for Chinese products and it was not a coincidence as Atmanirbharta was not a thorough process/principle imbibed, but in the case of defense manufacturing, ‘defense’ is a purview of safety and security and therefore should be exclusive ‘Indian’. He concluded this part of his presentation with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see.”

The subsequent minutes of the presentation dwelled upon the worth of a soldier, where the major pointed out that 1 soldier is a loss, 2 soldiers are mourning, and 100 soldiers are a statistic, and that we only offer our deepest thoughts and candlelit mourning at events such as the Pulwama attacks, but still refuse to change our purchasing habits. The major also retrograded through history and asked us to note the rich cultural and technological history of India. He pointed out the fallacy of our pharmaceutical industry in the aspect that we may be the largest exporter of certain medications, but we continue to be heavily dependent on imports from China, and the issue that exists is the sustainability of the movement.

He concluded the presentation by emphasizing that Atmanirbharta comes from understanding that we are united by our country's flag and constitution and that at the end of the day, Atmanirbharta is why our soldiers continue to protect our borders.

The NSS wing and Eco Club of JAIN (Deemed-to-be University), School of Sciences, organized a health camp in association with Trustwell Hospitals organized a health camp for teaching and non-teaching staff. The camp was organized on February 24, 2022, at the JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) campus in Jayanagara 9th Block.

Turstwell Hospital, located on JC Road in Bangalore, is dedicated to serving people's health and well-being. It is a multi-super specialty hospital located in the center of Bangalore. This is one of the finest hospitals in Bangalore, India, and it offers world-class healthcare facilities. Trustwell Hospital is a one-of-a-kind venture where the people who know the most about a patient's requirements also run it.

Medical tests conducted at the health camp:

• Height & Weight
• BMI
• ECG
• Random Glucose Test
• Blood Pressure
• Consultation with a general physician

The medical camp began at 9:00 a.m. and ended around 5:00 p.m. and took place under the supervision of Mr. Manjunath R. - Department of Mathematics, Mr. Upendra Sharma -Department of Life Sciences, and Dr. Saluman D. E. - Department of Biotechnology. Around 25 student volunteers also contributed to sucessful commencement of the event. The health camp attracted 150 teachers and staff members and went off without a hitch.

Data Engineering and Artificial Intelligence - An Ocean of Opportunities

In the 21st century, data engineering is not an alien term. Though the coinage of the term happened just around 2011, it spread too fast like a wildfire. So, let us introduce you data engineering and artificial intelligence.

What is Artificial Intelligence & Data Engineering?

Data is the new oil and data engineers are the refineries. Skilled data engineers are responsible for building pipelines that transport and transform data in a particular format. The data becomes highly usable by the time it reaches data scientists or other end users. Artificial Intelligence, when used with this structured and usable data, can create wonders for any business out there in the market today.

New Program in B.Tech with specialization in Artificial Intelligence & Data Engineering

For the first time in India, an educational institution will have an AI & DE company, Futurense Technologies, on its campus to provide students with the right industry exposure by giving them an opportunity to work and learn simultaneously.

The program is designed to empower students with the required knowledge and skills of these domains through an immersive way of teaching. With multiple guaranteed paid internships with Futurense Technologies, the students will get to work on real-time projects, all while pursuing their degree. Eligible students will also get 100% placement assurance based on their performance during the four years of college.

Just like how all the medical colleges in the country have an on-campus hospital for the students to have the right industry exposure, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University)’s association with Futurense Technologies aims to democratize the playing field, and provide the right industry tether to the tech talent of the country.

To know more about the program - Click Here