PM Modi to address India’s partnership with US
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will today address the US-India Business Council’s (USIBC) 45th India Idea’s Summit online.
Focused on nurturing stronger US-India relations, the summit will focus on, among other things, increased collaboration in the technology and defence sectors.
With both Google and IBM answering Modi’s calls for increased investment in Indian technology infrastructure, today’s address will stress the need for greater technological cooperation, especially as a potential route to kickstart the country’s post-pandemic economic recovery. As a result, India will likely partner with the US on the development of 5G technology, consider bids from various European and Japanese firms to build infrastructure, and continue banning Chinese telecom giant Huawei from said networks.
On defense, both the US and USIBC have called for greater investments in Indian aerospace security considering recent India-China tensions but face pushback from India’s Ministry of Defense (MoD). Specifically, the MoD’s ‘Make in India’ initiative looks to decrease India’s reliance on foreign security by stipulating defence spending be directed to indigenous Indian firms. As such, New Delhi is unlikely to harp on increased defence production cooperation with Washington. Instead, over the long-term, India will boost the amount of indigenous content required of all defence spending from the current 30%-50% to support manufacturing. However, as much of this indigenous content has been relegated to textiles and India continues to purchase American aerospace equipment, it is unlikely to find total independence.
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