elcina - electronics outlook

Semiconductors scarcity causing crisis in Electronics Industry

TECHNOLOGYThese 169 industries are being hit by the global chip shortage

SPECIAL ARTICLEClinical Digital Thermometers

The Second Wave- Let’s be prepared for the Third!

ELCINA

Electronics Outlook

VOL 24 | ISSUE 2MARCH-APRIL 2021

THE INDIAN ELECTRONICS & IT JOURNAL

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ELCINA Electronics Outlook

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CONTENTSMarch-April 2021

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4 INDUSTRY UPDATEMarket Trends from India & Abroad

31 TECHNOLOGYThese 169 Industries are being hit by the Global Chip Shortage

Why Shortages of a $1 Chip Sparked Crisis in Global Economy

36 POLICY UPDATEGovt. Policy, Business Procedures & Regulations

45 BUSINESS UPDATEOpportunities & Events

47 ELCINA ACTIVITY UPDATEUpdate on ELCINA Activities

50 SPECIAL ARTICLEClinical Digital Thermometers

51 IN REMEMBRANCEWg Cdr Suresh Khanna, VSM (Retd)

Mr. Stanley R Chellappa

52 MEMBERS’ SECTIONAT & S India to bear cost of Covid-19 vaccination for all its employees

March-April 2021 Vol. 24, Issue 2

IN THIS ISSUE

FOREWORD

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ELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

The Second Wave- Let’s be prepared for the Third!

The second wave of Covid has struck India with surprising fury and has caught us completely off-guard. It is a moot point whether this is a surprise or we were simply over confident, ostensibly due to our success in overcoming the first encounter with this virus. The scenario is frightening and currently, even with the government and people firing on all cylinders, the uncertainty and alarm about the future persists.

In a complex country like India with 1.3 billion people, the challenges in fighting the monster are significant. Inspite of commendable efforts by our doctors, medical staff and frontline warriors, the sheer size of the task makes it hard to accomplish. While masks, social distancing and sanitization are the first stage preventive measures, the fight cannot be won without a nationwide massive drive for testing and vaccination. We have had ups and downs on this account and need to do much more and much faster. Unfortunately, we now have far more serious issues to deal with. The medical infrastructure is creaking and hospital beds, oxygen supply, critical medication, paramedic staff and whatever other medical resource we can think of, is in severe short supply. How we wish, we had taken the ‘second wave’ threat more seriously and begun preparation months ago.

The adverse impact of such a pandemic is both social and economic. Both are intertwined and two sides of the same coin. The biggest impact is on those who live by a wage or salary with little financial buffer. We saw the return of the migrant workers last time and the same is beginning to happen this time. This is bound to impact the availability of workers and productive capacity as unemployment rises and some drop out of the labour force. The medical and health uncertainties threaten to restrict the mobility of people with long term economic consequences. Though manufacturing units have not been shut under lockdowns, service sector is severely impacted which will result in economic contraction and depressed demand. How long this will continue, is anybody’s guess though experts are worried that the impact of the second wave will have a longer term impact compared to the first wave from which our recovery was quick and brisk.

As the second wave of Covid-19 infections is spreading across the country, state after state is announcing restrictions, though a nationwide lockdown has been avoided. Unfortunately, Covid is no longer concentrated in urban areas only as was earlier believed. Thus it is certain that contraction of the economy will take place though it may not be entirely predictable at this stage. But let’s not trivialize the issue as much harm has already been caused. The economic impact so far has not been extensive as the stringency of lockdowns has been less severe in most states than what we saw in the nationwide lockdown last

RAJOO GOELSecretary General

ELCINA

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FOREWORDELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

As per reports, both Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute together have a 75 million dose monthly capacity. Even at 100% capacity, we can at best give 60 crore doses or vaccinate 30 crore people by December. That’s not good enough and this needs to be augmented to atleast twice as much to complete vaccination of majority of the population by year end.

year. Industrial activity is being allowed which has restricted exodus of migrant labour, or atleast slowed it considerably. Even the PM realizes the serious economic impact of total lockdowns, he has been advising that it should only be the last resort. However, how long we can follow this advise remains to be seen as it would depend on the spread of infections. As we go to print, the situation looks grim and we pray that the spread would slowdown.

Fortunately there are some positive economic indicators when we compare with last year. “For instance, power demand which was down about 30% in the first wave, is down about 10% so far. The labour participation rate has so far declined by just a percentage point or so and logistics indicators like railway freight traffic have fallen lesser than what we saw during the first wave”, says Sonal Varma, Chief Economist, Nomura. Economists are assuming (and hoping) that the virus will peak out in May limiting the severe impact over two months only and thus it should be less than last year.

As of now, the speed of vaccinations appears to be the key to pull India out of this grim situation. And ofcourse the so called new variants of Covid should succumb to the vaccines available. The government needs to boost production and availability of vaccines. At present, the limited and staggered supply of vaccines is the stumbling block. As per reports, both Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute together have a 75 million dose monthly capacity. Even at 100% capacity, we can at best give 60 crore doses or vaccinate 30 crore people by December. That’s not good enough and this needs to be augmented to atleast twice as much to complete vaccination of majority of the population by year end. This virus is not a gentle one and needs a fitting and robust response. Following a scientific approach is a must and vaccination holds the key. In addition, it is high time that we expand and strengthen our medical infrastructure to prevent the immense social and economic misery that has been caused to our people, from all walks of life. We certainly do not deserve this and are capable of much better!

INDUSTRY UPDATE

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Market Trends from India & Abroad

TOP STORIES

India’s electronics exports cross pre-Covid levels, touch record high of Rs 8806 crore in DecemberIndia’s exports of electronics goods have not only recovered to pre-Covid levels but also touched an all-time high of Rs 8,806 crore in the month of December 2020, data released by commerce ministry last week showed. Of this, mobile phones remained the top contributor with exports worth Rs 3,061 crore - or roughly 35% of total electronics exports - which though is still to reach pre-Covid levels which were as high as Rs 3,254 crore. For 2020, however, electronics exports declined 4.32% to Rs 73,132 crore due to washout of production for 45 days during shutdown of factories. Import also continued to remain high at Rs 3.5 lakh crore as India mostly imports components required to as-semble electronic goods which are then exported. The National Policy on Electronics 2019 envisages total pro-duction of electronics in India to the tune of $400 billion by 2025. Close to $190 billion, or 48% of this is expected to come from mobile phones as per official figures. Further, the industry is estimating that 13% of this target production can be achieved from lap-tops, tablets or PCs and another 22% from industrial electronics. Although, handset production is steadily catch-ing up to targeted levels with produc-tion in FY21 estimated to be Rs 2.14 lakh crore, laptops and PC segment is still lagging behind. For instance, among all electronics goods, laptops/tablets/PCs is the largest category of imported products valued at close

to Rs 30,000 crore while exports are abysmally low at Rs 122 crore during calendar year 2020.(ET, Mar 02, 2021)

India to launch more Aadhar like Public Digital Platforms shortly – Secretary, MeitYMr. Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Informa-tion Technology (MeitY), Govern-ment of India, while addressing the inaugural session of IndiaSoft-2021 International Exhibition and Confer-ences, organized by Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) yesterday late evening said that the public digital platforms being developed by India for health-care, education, agriculture, matching jobs with skills, logistics etc would be launched soon. The public digital plat-forms in these avenues would add to India’s digital backbone and are being developed by a pool of experts and will open up a lot of opportunities for the private sector for developing tools and devices that can help citizens to ac-cess such platforms and to carry out their innovative pursuits; Mr Sawhney said, adding that countries, all over the world, could take advantage of these innovative products. IndiaSoft 2021, which is being held digitally this year, will have country specific buyer-seller meets and conferences to promote Indian products and solutions mostly from the MSME and startup sectors. There will be B2B meets focusing on North America, Europe, Africa, Japan, South Korea, Latin America and the Middle East. (Orissadiary.com, Mar 08, 2021)

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Centre kicks off ‘Go Electric’ campaign to promote e-mobility awareness, adoptionThe Union government on Friday launched the ‘Go Electric’ campaign to spread awareness about the ben-efits of e-mobility and electric vehi-cle (EV) charging infrastructure in India. The campaign was launched in the presence of Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways, Micro, Small, Medium Enterprise and R K Singh, MoS (IC) Power and New & Renewable Energy, MoS Skill Development and Entre-preneurship. The launch witnessed the unveiling of the ‘Go Electric’ logo which depicts the evolution of the e-mobility ecosystem. Bureau of En-ergy Efficiency (BEE), under the aegis of the Ministry of Power, is mandated to undertake an awareness drive for promoting public charging, e-mobili-ty and its ecosystem. To implement the Go Electric campaign at the na-tional and state levels, BEE will ex-tend technical support to the State Designated Agencies (SDAs) and other partners to ensure uniformity of information.(ET, Feb 19, 2021)

Koo targets 10 cr users this year with ‘micro-blog of India’ tagEven as Twitter faces intense scru-tiny in India, home-grown vernacular micro-blogging platform Koo, which has crossed 40 lakh users within no time, aims to garner 10 crore users by the end of this year, its Co-found-er Mayank Bidawataka said on Mon-day. According to Bidawataka, the company is prepared to handle such heavy traffic as it is investing in tech-nologies that can support such mas-sive user base at scale.”We want Koo to become a world-class app and want to be known as the micro-blog of India. Our teams are prepared to handle the growing online traffic. We have just closed Series A funding and our finances are stable,” Bidawa-taka told IANS. Koo has raised $4.1 million as part of its Series A fund-ing. Infosys veteran Mohandas Pai’s 3one4 Capital is the latest addition to the investors on board, according to the company, and Accel Partners, Kalaari Capital, Blume Ventures and Dream Incubator also participated in the round. Koo has fast become a fa-vourite among several Union minis-ters, including IT Minister Ravi Shan-kar Prasad who is at the forefront of the government’s war with Twitter.(ET, Feb 22, 2021)

5G’s selective roll out in India by 2021 endBy the end of this year, India is ex-pected to join the select club of countries like the US, Canada, the UK and many European Union nations where 5G technology has already been launched. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT), under the Communications Ministry, in a detailed note submitted to a parlia-mentary committee recently, held that “the specific time frame” for the rolling out of 5G technology in India is “by the end of 2021”.Current-ly, 4G technology has been a major inflexion in mobile technology with packet-switched data transmission and high-speed connectivity. The DoT Secretary’s note, accessed by IANS, told the committee that the 5G technology will be “rolled out not on a pan-India basis but in select areas first where the demand would justi-fy the capex”.In simple words, the technology will be rolled out in those selected areas which will be able to justify the capital expenditure in-curred by the entity concerned on the 5G spectrum. The government also clarified that “the 5G technology will initially ride on the 4G technology”.”It is not that one fine day 5G will come and replace all 4G. (Indian Defence News, Feb 26, 2021)

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Motherboard manufacturing likely to grow 6-fold to $81.5 bn by 2026: ReportDomestic demand for electronic motherboards is expected to grow by over six-fold to USD 81.5 billion by 2025-26, according to a report re-leased by IT hardware makers body MAIT on Friday. The size of domestic electronic motherboards, technically called printed circuit board assembly (PCBA), was around USD 15 billion in 2019-20, Manufacturers’ Associa-tion for Information Technology said. “It is expected that India’s domestic PCBA market demand will touch USD 81.5 billion by 2025-26. The planned capacity investments by EMS com-panies are not only anticipated to address the domestic demand but position India as a competitive play-er in the global market too. “Between 2020-21 and 2025-26, India will gen-erate cumulative export revenues of USD 101 billion,” the report said. The report was released by Meity joint sec-retary Saurabh Gaur at a virtual event organised by MAIT. “PCBA is a major segment for future manufacturing and in terms of exports. Out of all the elec-tronics imports, PCBA still accounts for almost 15 per cent. MAIT’s report is a great collation to look over further policy actions,” Gaur was quoted in a statement issued by MAIT.(BS, Feb 12, 2021)

Acute shortage of semiconductors: Why India should see it as an opportunity? The auto industry is recovering at a steady pace. The numbers have been encouraging and pent-up demand has sustained. However, it doesn’t mean the end of structural changes that the industry has been going through. The industry has seen several disruptions which include a shift to BS-VI, change in axle loading norms and increased insurance cost. The sword on tran-siting to the electric vehicles contin-ues to hang on its head. To its credit, the industry has bared it all. But, just

when it was moving on, the pandemic struck. The industry is left to deal with supply-side constraints since then.

Currently, global automobile and elec-tronic equipment manufacturers are facing an acute shortage of semicon-ductors. It is a crucial component in vehicles. This has directly impacted vehicle production. It can not be good news at a time when the economy is thought to be at a cusp of an upcycle. Emerging reports suggest that it could take anywhere between 4-6 months for supplies to normalize. While this is a matter of concern for the global auto industry, India is particularly ex-posed to this given its dependence on imports of semiconductors.(Free Press, Feb 12, 2021)

India rated as best alternative option for companies planning to relocate out of ChinaIndia, along with Vietnam, is rated as the best alternative options for com-panies which are planning to relocate their operations out of China, says a survey by Agility Logistics, a global logistics player. The US-China trade war first made companies, especially those in the US, to sit up and consider the possibility of de-risking their oper-ations by reducing their dependence on China when it comes to sourcing. When the Covid-19 pandemic struck China and caused supply-chain dis-ruption, their mind was made. Indian government has been taking mea-sures to attract such capacities. It even sharply reduced the corporate tax rate to attract companies. The move has already started with Germa-ny’s Eickhoff Wind Ltd to invest ₹621 crore to manufacture gearboxes for wind energy production, near Chennai. This is a relocation of the company’s production facility from China and Germany.(BusiessLine, Feb 12, 2021)

Triton EV Plans To Launch Electric Car In India This Year – To Rival Tesla : af-ter Tata Nexon EV, Tigor EV, Hyundai Kona, and MG ZS EV, world’s leading EV manufacturer Tesla has also set

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up its office in India. We are also witnessing a number of startups in this space, who are currently work-ing on their respective prototypes. Triton-EV N4 The newest entrant is American company Triton-EV that has announced plans to launch its first product in the Indian market. Named N4, the electric sedan will be rivalling Tesla Model 3 in the In-dian market. However, N4 will be a lot cheaper at a starting price of Rs 35 lakh. In comparison, Tesla Model 3 is expected to be launched in India at around Rs 50 lakh. Pre-bookings for Triton-EV N4 sedan are current-ly open at the company’s website. From a visual perspective, Triton-EV N4 looks futuristic with its aerody-namic, fluid design. Some of the key features include sleek headlamps with DRLs, blacked-out grille with Triton logo, sporty red accents on the front bumper, sculpted bonnet, edgy rear tail lamps and stylish rear bumper. However, the car’s design is currently in development phase. So, production variant could be different from what we can see right now.(Rush Lane, Feb 06, 2021)

Smartphone brands shipped over 100 million units in H2; Xiaomi led in Q4CMR Following a muted H1, smart-phone brands launched impressive smartphones, marketed aggressive-ly, provided attractive offers as well as discounts, resulting in the smart-phone shipments exceeding 100 mil-lion units for the first time in H2 2020, according to CMR Mobile Handset Market Review Report for Q4 2020.At the same time, India’s smart-phone market grew 20% on-year in Q4 2020, led by China’s Xiaomi which pipped Samsung to emerge as the top smartphone brand with a market share of 27%, according to the re-port. Samsung, which slipped to the second position in the smartphone market, held a share of 20% followed by Vivo (14%), Realme (11%), and Oppo (10%), respectively. “As a con-sequence of the supply chain and geopolitical challenges, the year saw a gradual realignment of smartphone supply chains…As we move forward, we believe India’s smartphone man-ufacturing ecosystem will get a fillip, and gain strength in the post-pan-

demic future,” explained Anand Priya Singh, Analyst-Industry Intelligence Group (IIG), CMR.(ET, Feb 12, 2021)

Electronics: IT Min looks to restart production under ITAThe Ministry of Electronics and In-formation Technology (MeitY) is looking to restart manufacturing and export of electronic goods under the multination Information Technology Agreement (ITA), sources in know of the development told The Indian Express. “We will conduct a study on the various aspects of it, such as whether the manufacturing under ITA is feasible for domestic compa-nies and export sops that need to be given,” an official said. Under the ITA, first signed in December 1996, signa-tories agreed to the manufacture and export of the then high-tech prod-ucts such as computers, conductors, semi-conductors, testing equipment, and software. All the signatories are members of the World Trade Organi-zation (WTO). As per the rules of the ITA, all the signatories have to “elimi-nate and bind customs duties at zero

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for all products specified”. Though India joined the ITA in 1997, it could not scale up electronic manufactur-ing or export under the scheme due to the lack of a suitable ecosystem. In a meeting of the WTO in 2012, India had highlighted the skew of the domestic ecosystem of electronics and related component manufacturing by arguing that each vertical was dominated by a handful of companies, most of which were foreign. This, India had then said at the WTO, was a huge barrier for en-try of new companies and prevented large scale participation in the inno-vation process. Domestic companies had, as late as 2015, flagged the issue of viability and competition they faced from global electronic manufacturing giants.(The Indian Express, Jan 29, 2021)

Apple aims to end its dependence on China, to start assembling iPhone 12 in India from this quarterApple is reportedly ramping up produc-tion of iPhones, iPads, Macs, and other devices in India and Vietnam to end its dependence on China and new iPhone 12 series could be assembled in India “as soon as this quarter”, Nikkei Asia reported on Thursday. Apple is already assembling its highest-selling mod-els iPhone 11 and XR in India, along with iPhone SE, 7 and 6S. Meanwhile, the iPhone maker is said to shift iPad manufacturing from China to Vietnam, with the production planned to begin from the middle of this year, the report mentioned. The report quoted sources saying that the iPad production will begin in Vietnam as early as the mid-dle of this year, marking the first time that the world’s biggest tablet maker will build a significant number of the devices outside of China. Mac mini production has already been moved to Malaysia. Apple may move parts of its MacBook production to Vietnam later in 2021, and the report also highlights Apple’s existing footprint in Vietnam aimed at AirPods and HomePod mini production. Late last year, Apple sup-plier Foxconn invested $270 million in

Vietnam to set up a subsidiary in the country.(Business Insider, Jan 28, 2021)

Microsoft launches new India Development Centre facility in NoidaMicrosoft recently launched its new India Development Centre (IDC) facil-ity at Noida the architecture of which is inspired by the Taj Mahal. The new facility will serve as a premier hub for driving engineering and innovation, Microsoft said, adding that the new fa-cility is Microsoft’s third Development Centre in India after Bengaluru and Hyderabad. The centre will provide opportunities for engineering talent in the areas of business and productivity tools, Artificial Intelligence, cloud and enterprise, core services, and the new gaming division. It will collaborate with Microsoft teams globally to build products and services for driving digi-tal innovation.(Business Insider, Jan 28, 2021)

DoT explores ‘fair’ alternative to spectrum auction The government is looking for a “fair and transparent” means of spectrum allotment other than auctions, as part of wider reforms to plug deficiencies that have led to much of the scarce natural resource lying idle, a senior official said. The Department of Tele-communications (DoT) has been ad-vised by attorney general KK Venu-gopal to approach the Supreme Court on the matter, as all natural resources holding commercial value are being auctioned based on the top court’s orders of 2012, said the official.“The government is considering a reform of spectrum auctions,” the person said. “One of the questions facing it is how to put a perishable commodity like spectrum to more efficient use for better delivery of services.”“Whatever spectrum remains unsold lies idle with the government — it should be put to use and airwaves should be available on tap,” the official said. For exam-ple, less than 27% of spectrum on of-

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fer was sold in the FY13 auction. In FY14 and FY15, 81.9% and 89%, re-spectively, of offered spectrum was sold while in FY17, it was 41%.“Is this really a market discovery of a price point?” the official asked. The issue has also come under government scrutiny because spectrum usual-ly gets sold at close to the reserve price. The official pointed out that there has been a nearly five-year gap in spectrum sales — from October 2016 to the upcoming one in March. Since there is no other way to allo-cate airwaves, a substantial amount of bandwidth has been lying unused with the government.(ET, Jan 22, 2021)

Acute shortage of components derail Indian handset players’ smartphone comeback plans Acute shortage of phone parts such as display, memory and chipsets is plaguing the comeback plans of do-mestic handset companies—Lava, Micromax and Karbonn—who are be-ing forced to delay launch schedules and cut down on production, dealing a setback to their efforts to take on their stronger Chinese rivals. Jaina India Managing Director Pardeep

Jain told ET that because of the shortage of components and con-sequent skyrocketing of their pric-es, Karbonn’s smartphone re-entry plans have been impacted.”We are now targeting March 2021 to launch our phones in the Rs 6,000-Rs 10,000 price category. With the govern-ment’s policy, we are now focusing on increasing visibility of Karbonn in the market. We have increased investments in R&D already,” said Jain. “The biggest challenge for Indi-an brands is planning because there is no visibility for next 2-3 months for sourcing components,” said Tarun Pathak, research director at Coun-terpoint. “Global brands get priority whenever there is a supply crunch because of their volumes but for In-dian companies it becomes tougher, especially when they are competing in the sub-Rs15k segment with low margins and huge competition.”(ET, Jan 21, 2021)

India’s 5G smartphone shipments to hit 38 million units in 2021: Counterpoint5G smartphone shipments in India is expected to hit the 38 million units mark in India in 2021 and will account for a 21% share of the total smart-

phone market in the same year, ac-cording to Counterpoint Research’s ‘India Market Outlook’ report. As of Q3 2020, India’s 5G shipments stood at 1.7 million units, which is expected to cross the 4 million mark by the end of 2020. These shipments were pri-marily driven by two brands--China’s OnePlus, which launched the Nord 5G smartphone in August 2020, and Apple’s 5G iPhone 12 series. OnePlus is the only smartphone vendor with a 100% 5G portfolio.“Going forward, 5G smartphone shipments are expected to increase by more than nine times to reach 38 million units in 2021,” the report said.”The growth will be driv-en by intense competition among original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and the decline in the price of 5G smartphones,” it added. The market reached its inflection point after the launch of the mid-priced OnePlus Nord. Its shipments in the first two months after its launch were more than the total 5G ship-ments of other brands till June. Ac-cording to the report, to increase the adoption of 5G smartphones, OEMs will have to bring the prices below Rs 20,000 ($275) mark which will be possible by incorporating affordable 5G chipsets.(ET, Jan 21, 2021)

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GENERALELECTRONICS

India’s global ER&D market to hit $63 bn in 2025: Nasscom India’s share in the global engineer-ing and research and development (ER&D) market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12-13% to reach $63 billion by 2025 from $31 billion in 2019, said the Karnataka State Policy for ER&D 2021 released on Tuesday by the de-partment of information technology and biotechnology of the Karnataka government in association with Nass-com. The three leading sub-sectors driving growth of ER&D in 2019 are software products, semiconductors and automotive, the report said. The Policy intends to foster innovation, en-hance ER&D penetration in the state, and enable development of skills required to address the critical and evolving needs of the global technol-ogy landscape. “We expect the new policies to improve the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows in R&D and provide a boost to the innovation and research ecosystem,” said Ashwath-narayan C.N., deputy chief minister, Karnataka.(Mint, Mar 02, 2021)

India’s first machine tool park ready for investors in KarnatakaKarnataka, which is home to India’s first Aerospace SEZ, electronics city and several IT parks, is now ready with India’s first integrated machine tool park. The park, spread over 530 acres at Vasanthnarasapura, about 90 kms from Bengaluru, is developed under the scheme of Enhancement of Com-petitiveness in Indian Capital Goods Sector (ECICGS), jointly by the state government and the Dept of Heavy Industries, Govt of India. The Indian Machine Tools Manufacturers As-sociation (IMTMA), has provided the technical assistance to the country’s biggest machine tool park which is ready for occupation. Both the state and central governments have set up a special purpose vehicle named Tu-makuru Machine Tool Park (TMTP) to develop the new industrial cluster. It

has 158 ready-to-build industrial plots of various dimensions.(Deccan Herald, Mar 01, 2021)

Lot of concerns about behaviour of big tech firms: Piyush GoyalThere are a lot of concerns about the behaviour of big tech companies and India would like to protect its policy space and express its concern regard-ing these entities not willing to adhere to the law of the land, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday. He said India is con-cerned about big corporations holding a lot of data of Indian citizens and that data often being used by those firms for cross businesses or across their different sectors. The Ministry of Elec-tronics and IT (MeitY) has already put forth the first data privacy law which is in the public domain and is being debated in the parliamentary standing committee and many global compa-nies have also made presentations be-fore that panel, Goyal said. “But at the same time, there are lot of concerns about the behaviour of big tech com-panies and India would like to protect its policy space and India would like to express its concerns about some of these big tech giants not willing to ad-here to the law of the land and to the social fabric that we value very much in India,” he said.(BS, Feb 17, 2021)

French auto and electronics firms to work on improving supply chain glitches:French companies from the automo-bile and electronics sectors will be working together in the near-term to improve and fix supply chain glitches that have hit the country’s car indus-try, said the French finance ministry on Thursday. Carmakers around the world have been hit by the shortage of chips used in engine management and driver-assistance systems, which mainly come from Asia and espe-cially Taiwan. Last week carmakers Renault and Stellantis said they had

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both suspended car production at several factories as they grappled with a worldwide shortage of crucial semiconductors. The COVID-19 cri-sis has driven up demand for chips used in electronics such as laptops and phones, and manufacturers are struggling to keep up, with some Chi-nese suppliers also hit by U.S. sanc-tions by the former Trump adminis-tration.(ET, Feb 12, 2021)

Fix inverted tariff structures to boost industrial growth in India A steady decline in import tariff rates in manufacturing industries had been an important feature of India’s economic reforms during the 1990s and 2000s. The average import tariff rate was reduced from about 84% in 1990 to the lowest-ever level of 8.6% in 2010. Consequently, imports of goods plus services as a percentage of India’s gross domestic product (GDP), which is essentially a mea-sure of import openness, steadily in-creased from 8.5% in 1991 to 30.6% in 2012.

The period since 2010, however, wit-nessed a gradual increase in import

tariff rates, while exports of goods and services as a percentage of In-dia’s GDP decreased from a peak of 25% in 2012 to 18.6% in 2019. This is a clear reversal of the trends ob-served during the first two decades of economic reforms and reflects a decline in export openness since 2012. During 2000-2011, India’s ex-ports recorded high annual growth rates of 21% and 24%, respectively, for goods and services.(Mint, Jan 27, 2021)

India’s e-commerce economy to touch Rs 7 lakh crore in 2021India’s consumer Internet econo-my (e-commerce industry) is set to touch the $100 billion (Rs 7.29 lakh-crore) mark for the first time in 2021 driven by massive growth in consumer adoption across sectors. This is a growth of a little over 30% over last year. In 2020, the overall Internet GMV (gross merchandise value) touched $75 billion (Rs 5.46 lakh crore), which includes services and products after Covid-19-induced lockdowns forced consumers to pur-chase goods and services from their homes, according to experts tracking the sector. Indian Internet economy

is expected to cross triple digits GMV for the first time in 2021. It will even-tually become a $250 billion scale and 10% of private consumption in 2025, as per Anil Kumar, CEO of Red-Seer. RedSeer tracks the ecommerce sector in India.(Deccan Herald, Jan 27, 2021)

Vodafone Idea inks strategic partnership with MFine for telemedicine servicesVodafone Idea (‘Vi’) has extended its suite of digital offerings by forging a strategic partnership with AI-pow-ered healthcare platform MFine to of-fer instant chat and video-based con-sultation to its customers. Through the MFine app, Vi customers can se-lect a doctor from a trusted hospital with whom they wish to consult. The MFine app also allows patients to up-load images, past medical records, and prescriptions. Avneesh Khosla, Chief Marketing Officer, Vi says “It enables Vi customers to access the finest in healthcare services offered by 600 partner hospitals, 4000 doc-tors across 30 specialties, in India, from within the safe confines of their home,”(ET, Jan 21, 2021)

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INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY

India’s move to deter digital monopolies may hit Amazon, Walmarte-tIndia’s draft e-commerce rules to prevent creation of “digital monopo-lies” and aid local startups may raise costs and stymie expansion plans at companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc. The draft rules seek to prescribe a code of conduct for on-line retailers and define cross-border flow of user data, according to a note titled Draft Ecommerce Policy. The lat-est proposals build on laws that curb the two U.S. companies from offering deep discounts, deter exclusive ar-rangements with preferred sellers and investing in merchants offering prod-ucts on their websites. The new com-prehensive e-commerce policy will address growth and aim to “reduce prevalent market distortions,” the note said. The nine-page document formed the basis of a discussion by officials of various ministries at a meeting called by the Department for Promo-tion of Industry and Internal Trade in India’s Ministry of Commerce & Indus-try. The draft proposals seek to ensure algorithms created by e-retailers do not discriminate against sellers. (ET, Mar 14, 2021)

Bengal e-commerce start-up plans to help small electronics retailersMagitronix EComm, a startup firm, is focusing on buyers in small towns for its online marketplace and helping neighbourhood electronics shop own-ers who are not able to get access to the network of big e- commerce play-ers, a company official said on Sunday. The startup firm from West Bengal has also received approval from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Com-merce Ministry and will start transac-tions through its portal ‘Ononya.com’, he said. The offline sales of electron-ics shops across the country have been hit due to the COVID-19 pandem-ic. Citing a recent study released by IT body Nasscom and retail consultancy firm Technopak Advisors, CEO, Magitr-

onix, Ghosh said, “The emergence of ‘online offline’ (O O) market is seen as a rising collaboration of digitally en-abled retail stores.” He said a report of FIS also suggested the business of India’s digital marketplaces will touch USD 111 billion by 2024. (LiveMint, Mar 14, 2021)

Union Minister Sanjay Dhotre inaugurates MEMP 2021 virtuallyMinister of State for Electronics and IT, Sanjay Dhotre today inaugurated the International Conference on Mul-tifunctional Electronic Materials and Processing (MEMP 2021) virtually on the occasion of 30th foundation day of Centre for Materials for Electron-ics Technology (C-MET). Speaking on the occasion, Mr Dhotre said that the domestic production of electron-ic items has increased from over 1,90,000 crore rupees in 2014-15 to over 5,33,000 crore rupees in 2019-20 at a CAGR of 23%.

He said, India’s share in global elec-tronics manufacturing has grown from 1.3 per cent in 2012 to 3.6 per cent in 2019, as per industry esti-mates. Mr Dhotre said that Make in India’ and Atmanirbhar Bharat spirit has propelled electronics manufactur-ing and it is visible in over 200 manu-facturing units of mobile phones and accessories creating almost 6.3 lakh direct and indirect jobs. The Minister also said that promoting electronics manufacturing in India will be a key element of Digital India in the coming years.(All India Radio, Mar 08, 2021)

Addverb Technologies inaugurates Robots manufacturing facility ‘Bot-Valley’ in Noida Addverb Technologies, one of India’s biggest Automation and Robotics companies, has launched its Rs 75 crore manufacturing facility in Noida. The company said that the facility has a capacity to manufacture more

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than 50,000 robots of varied types in a year, and is equipped with best-in-class electronics and mechanical machines. “We have entered a na-scent paradigm shift (industry 4.0) where technology will help Addverb meet the growing needs and demand of the present business ecosystem. Robotics holds huge potential in streamlining the processes across industries right from retail to health-care and from warehousing to supply chain,” said Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, who inaugurated the Addverb facility. This one-in-a-kind manufac-turing hub will employ 450 workforc-es and provide equality and empow-erment to both men and women. (India TV, Mar 04, 2021)

Bihar judicial records and free legal advice in digital modeIn a move aimed at ensuring that common people get easy access to the law through digital technology, the status of 46.18 lakh cases, 8.3 lakh orders and judgements of var-ious courts in Bihar have been up-loaded on the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), created in collaboration with the Supreme Court of India. As

part of the plan, nearly four lakh Com-mon Services Centres listed as enti-ties under the Ministry of Electronics & IT of the Government of India are working with lawyers are providing free litigation advice to those who log in from across the country.

Sharing the details after inaugurat-ing the Patna High Court’s centena-ry building on Saturday, Patna Sahib MP and Union IT and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the status of 18.09 crore cases and 13.59 crore orders have been uploaded on NJDG. “Case status and orders available can be accessed by anyone at the click of a button. This is the way to ensure justice through the digital ini-tiative,” Prasad said. Prasad added that the Common Services Centres are facilitating free litigation advice from a panel of acclaimed lawyers.(Indian Express, Mar 01, 2021)

India’s first Digital Varsity comes up in KeralaKerala took a major step forward in its progress towards a knowledge society with the inauguration of the country’s first Digital University,

based in Technocity at Mangalapu-ram near here on Saturday. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan presided over the function, where Governor Arif Mohammed Khan, who is also the Chancellor of the Kerala Univer-sity of Digital Sciences, Innovation and Technology (KUDSIT), unveiled the varsity plaque. …. In his inaugu-ral address,Khan said the launch of the Digital University is part of the state’s resolve to embrace new tech-nologies and desire to use them for bringing positive changes in the life of people and become a global hub for higher learning and technology. Praising the state government for recent initiatives in higher education including the launch of Sree Naraya-na Guru Open University, the Gover-nor said “In any aspect of life, knowl-edge brings courage, understanding, acceptance, unity and also liberates us from the clutches of ignorance….. The society expects the Digital Uni-versity to provide intellectual sup-port to lap up the new world of op-portunities arising through artificial intelligence (AI), Block chain, Data Analytics and other digital transfor-mation courses,” he said.(The Tribune, Feb 20, 2021)

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Flipkart is positioned to win India’s e-commerce future: Walmart’s McKenna Walmart-owned companies in India, Flipkart and PhonePe have risen to the challenges of the coronavirus health crisis and have emerged stronger with the adoption of digital technologies accelerating across the country, said Judith McKenna, president and chief Executive officer of Walmart Interna-tional, the segment which includes the retail giant’s operations outside the US. She said e-commerce firm Flipkart saw more than 250 million customers over a five-day period during its recent flagship ‘Big Billion Day’ sale event, and digital payments firm PhonePe has just reached that milestone of 1 billion monthly payment transactions. “Both businesses have consistently delivered against our expectations,” said McKenna, during a meeting with the investment community, on Thurs-day night. The Bentonville-based company (in Arkansas) is locked in a battle with US rival Jeff Bezos-led Amazon and Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance’s JioMart for dominance in India’s online retail market through Flipkart, which it bought for $16 billion in 2018. Digital payments giant Pho-nePe also came to Walmart as part of the acquisition.(BS, Feb 19, 2021)

‘Future of Governance’ shines a light on India’s successful tryst with e-governanceFor the past few years, e-governance has proven to be an effective tool in disseminating public services and amplifying the reach of government schemes. The digitalisation of pro-cesses and public services is also in tandem with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for ensuring ‘minimum gov-ernment, maximum governance.’ But, India’s vast geography, logistics, and demographics, among others, raises questions about whether the coun-try is fully tapping into e-governance potential. YourStory’s ‘Future of Gov-ernance’ event aims to bring industry leaders, government delegates and

other stakeholders together to delib-erate various issues that surround the future and impact of e-governance. The event will be organised virtually on March 19, 2021….The digital event will put the spotlight on the success sto-ries wherein technology-enabled gov-ernance initiatives are driving growth and accelerating social impact.(Your Story, Feb 12, 2021)

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, rapper Jay-Z plan bitcoin development fund for India, Africa In a tweet, Dorsey said the two are plan-ning to give 500 BTC to a new endow-ment to fund the development of Bit-coin in India and Africa. The fund will be a blind irrevocable trust, with zero direction from both of them. The duo is also looking for three board mem-bers for the fund. The development comes at a time when Indian govern-ment is considering a ban on crypto-currencies in India. Late January, a Lok Sabha bulletin mentioned Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) for a bill tabled in the ongoing parliament session. Titled “The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Cur-rency Bill, 2021,” the proposal aims to ban all private cryptocurrencies, while setting the stage to roll out the legal framework for an “official digital cur-rency”. Earlier this week, India-based cryptocurrency startups CoinDCX, WazirX, Unocoin, CoinSwitch Kuber, Zebpay and PocketBits signed up for an online petition to educate and build awareness amongst policy makers and the public about cryptocurrencies. (VC Circle, Feb 12, 2021)

Government established 420 e-Hospitals under the Digital India initiatives: Ravi Shankar PrasadTransaction value of as many as INR 18.37 crore transactions have taken place since September 2015, assert-ed the Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology. More than 420 e-Hospitals have been es-in

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tablished across the country as part of the Central government’s Digital India initiative, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad informed off late. He also informed that over 18.37 crore transactions have taken place since September 2015. “e-Hospital is an initiative of #Digital India that has made it easy for the citizens to take appointments in major hospi-tals. Now there is no need to stand in long queues to take appointments, when you can get it online,” the Min-ister said. As per the graphic shared by the Union Minister, e-Hospital is a one-stop solution for connecting patients, hospital and doctors on the digital platform.(BW Smart Cities, Feb 11, 2021)

Electronics Design and Manufacture Hub The sixth edition of ‘Automotive Elec-tronics’ conference, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and its partner IDA Ireland, conclud-ed a successful virtual edition. In a unanimous admission, the automo-tive industry’s transition to a more electronic and digital future was deemed inevitable. Averred Dr Ta-

pan Sahoo, Executive Vice President (R&D), Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., the growing electronics content in vehi-cles is driving affordability, safety and efficiency on the whole. Acknowledg-ing the Covid-19 induced hit taken by the automotive industry as a litmus test for India’s aspiration to become an automotive electronics design and manufacture hub in the near future, Dr Sahoo expressed confidence in re-gaining the lost ground over the medi-um to long term to be on course. “The industry in the short term will have to overcome volatility, uncertainty, com-plexity and ambiguity,” he exclaimed. (AutoComponents India, Feb 08, 2021)

E-commerce will be vital in Atmanirbhar Bharat vision: Amazon India headE-commerce will play an important role in the government’s vision of ‘At-manirbhar Bharat’ (self-reliant India) as more homegrown brands scale up and go global, leveraging digital infrastructure, a top Amazon India executive said on Wednesday. Amit Agarwal, global senior vice president and country head Amazon India, said e-commerce is at nascent stages in

India given that it is hardly even 3 per cent of the country’s total retail con-sumption. “What I predict is you’re going to witness a kind of structural shift that propels us faster towards this vision of Digital India. “I think Make in India is going to go global at massive scale, you’re going to have Indian brands become global brands and all of this is going to create a digitally robust business ecosystem across the country that is going to power millions of livelihoods,” he said. He further stated that “this is going to help us realise that vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and e-commerce is going to play an important role. Speaking at a TiEcon event, Agarwal said the Indian e-commerce market looked very different when the com-pany had entered India seven years ago. He said the market at that time was mostly an urban phenomenon, people shopped on select events and it was not common to have people pay for shipping and convenience. Also, the infrastructure was not so-phisticated and the seller base did not have the skills to go online yet.(PTI, Jan 27, 2021)

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Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology’s Republic Day Tableau 2021 conceptualised & designed by ITW PlayworxMinistry of Electronics and IT’s show-stopper Republic Day Tableau 2021, based on the theme of “Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat” has been con-ceptualized and designed by ITW Playworx, an Entertainment, Media & Communication arm of ITW Consult-ing Pvt. Ltd. MeitY’s spectacular 3-di-mensional tableau has been inspired by Hon’ble Prime Minister’s vision of a self-reliant India, and therefore, vi-sualized on the theme of “Digital India AatmaNirbhar Bharat”….. MeitY’s Digi-tal India AatmaNirbhar Bharat tableau depicts the digital revolution that is transforming the nation by making key sectors in India self-reliant and self-sustaining. Abhishek Singh, Pres-ident & CEO, NeGD, MyGov, Ministry of Electronics and IT said, “India’s path to being AatmaNirbhar & Digital is indeed a celebratory moment. These initiatives have encouraged people to push boundaries and strive for excel-lence. We wanted a team who would plan and execute this flawlessly and successfully and we are glad to have associated with ITW Playworx for the same. The tableau for this year is a representation of progressive India and its innovative minds.”(Media Growth, Jan 27, 2021)

E-commerce in India will grow 45%, e-grocery 8X by 2025: RedSeer ResearchIndia’s consumer internet economy showed strong resilience in 2020. The overall gross market transaction val-ue dropped earlier last year due to the pandemic but recovered by the end of the year. Industry experts like Vivek Sunder – COO of Swiggy, Umang Be-di-Co-founder of DailyHunt, Mukesh Bansal-Co-founder of CureFit and Visheh Shrivastava, MD of Temasek all were of the opinion that COVID-19 has accelerated digital adoption and changed consumer behaviour. These

experts said that consumption in Tier II & III cities picked up more due to a number of reasons like reverse migra-tion, adoption of digital mode among others. According to RedSeer Consult-ing, retail has suffered post COVID but is almost back to pre-COVID levels. RedSeer’s research shows that the market size dropped from $906 billion in 2019 to about $780 billion in 2020. Mrigank Gutgutia, director at RedSeer, said, “2020 has been a year of remark-able 40% growth in e-tailing, which re-sulted in multifold increase in online penetration across categories.(India Retailing.com, Jan 25, 2021)

‘Govt Should Ban WhatsApp Pay For Privacy Violations’, Says Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation: Report The government should completely ban WhatsApp Pay’s operations due to alleged privacy violations and its payments services should be de-cou-pled from its messaging app, the At-manirbhar Digital India Foundation (ADIF) said in a letter to the govern-ment and regulators. The letter says WhatsApp’s new privacy policy vi-olates data localisation norms and guidelines on data disclosures, the Economic Times reported. The letter, sent to the Prime Minister’s Office, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the Ministry of Electronics and Informa-tion Technology (MEITY), said that WhatsApp’s new privacy policy up-date is a looming threat to the pay-ments and financial data of millions of users. Since Unified Payments Inter-face (UPI) transactions on WhatsApp Pay will utilise Facebooks’ infrastruc-ture, the two entities may share data to “provide customer support to the user or keep payments safe and se-cure,” it said. MediaNama reached out to Ajay Data, secretary general of ADIF for comment. His responses will be in-cluded once received.(Medianama, Jan 24, 2021)

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ELECTRIC VEHICLE

Huawei aims to make electric cars later this yearChinese tech giant Huawei is planning to make electric cars under its own brand, and some models may even be launched before the end of this year. According to GSM Arena, Richard Yu, head of Huawei’s consumer business group, who was in charge of the com-pany’s amazing rise in the smartphone world, is said to shift his focus to EVs, which will target the mass-market segment. Huawei is in talks with state-owned Changan Automobile and oth-er automakers to use their car plants to make its electric vehicles (EVs), according to two of the people famil-iar with the matter. Huawei is also in discussions with Beijing-backed BAIC Group’s Blue Park New Energy Tech-nology to manufacture its EVs.In ad-dition, another Chinese tech company Xiaomi is also planning to build its own car and is considering it as a stra-tegic decision, but specific details and the path it aims to take are yet to be determined. (ET, Feb 28, 2021)

Triton EV’s Manufacturing Plans for IndiaTriton Electric Vehicle LLC, the young and most enterprising Electric Vehicle company headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey-USA, has unleashed its firm plans to enter India with its man-ufacturing facility set up. The compa-

ny is in discussion with a few Indian states for setting up a well-equipped EV car manufacturing base in India with all the advanced technologies and state of the art infrastructure. The year 2021 is very action-oriented for Triton EV. “We have announced the availability of SUV Model H and Triton EV Sedan Model N4. Very soon, we will showcase these Triton EVs for Indian consumers.” While confirming Triton EV’s Indian manufacturing plans, Hi-manshu B Patel, CEO & Founder, Triton EV also stated, “We are in discussions with few authorities and states gov-ernments. Uttar Pradesh Government and Gujarat State Government repre-sentatives are proactively discussing the possibilities of Triton EV’s entry to any of these places. Our legal team evaluates the scope of EV policies of these states and strategic values for the company and product. Niti Aayog has been very supportive in ensuring all the necessary support for our Indi-an entry.”(Businesswire India, Feb 22, 2021)

CSC SPV launches campaign in rural India to promote electric vehiclesState-run e-governance services en-tity CSC SPV on Saturday said it has started a rural e-mobility programme urging people to switch to electric vehicles to preserve the environment and reduce carbon emissions. Under

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the programme, CSC e-Governance Services will facilitate loans for the purchase of electric vehicles and focus on setting up charging in-frastructure. “CSC Rural e-Mobility programme will write a new chapter in rural empowerment as it would increase mobility at low costs. It has much significance in rural India where connectivity is a major issue. It will not only add environmental benefits but also create new models of inclusive development in terms of connectivity in remote corners of our country,”

CSC Managing Director Dinesh Tya-gi said in a statement. CSC is a Spe-cial Purpose Vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT and manages over 3.5 lakh common service centres (CSCs) across the country. “We are focusing on rural ar-eas for which we have launched the Rural e-Mobility Programme at our 100 CSC centres. We are providing e-scooters and e-rickshaws in rural and semi-urban areas through CSCs. We have tied up with various e-vehi-cles manufacturers and also finan-cial institutions for offering attrac-tive loans to people in rural areas,” Tyagi said.(HT, Feb 21, 2021)

Electric Vehicles This Week: Tesla Rivals Come To India, Ola To Automate EV Manufacturing & MoreUS-based electric vehicles (EV) giant Triton, which competes with Rivian, Tesla and other luxury EV makers, is looking to launch its N4 electric se-dan in India. The electric car is said to be more economical than Tesla’s most affordable option Model 3. “The base model will be priced at Rs 35 Lakh thus, showing the amount of market research that has been put by the company to cater the re-quirements of the Indian market. We aim to make our sincere contribution towards ensuring a future-ready so-ciety with environmentally friendly clean energy practices,” the compa-ny said. Meanwhile, Elon Musk-led Tesla will start sales in India this year. The company, which has set up a subsidiary in Karnataka, will also look into assembling in India if the demand requires. (INC42, Feb 11, 2021)

An American electric car maker explains why it took a different route than Elon

Musk’s Tesla, Tata Motors or MahindraA US-based carmaker Triton is gear-ing up to enter India with its electric sedan N4, the same year as Elon Musk, and the company’s founder and CEO, Himanshu Patel, got candid in an exclusive interview with Busi-ness Insider. “We’ve really talked through every component, like from the grid infrastructure to the con-ditions of the roads of India. We’re building the car based on every com-ponent of India’s infrastructure,” said Patel, who believes that the solar panel atop Triton’s cars give it the edge over its potential competitors in India. The reason for Triton’s entry at this time is pretty evident. From, Elon Musk-led Tesla registering its Indian subsidiary in Bengaluru to Tatas planning a slew of EV launch-es in 2021 — everyone wants a bite of India’s booming EV industry. But Patel is confident because, accord-ing to him, “the Indian carmakers are just trying to make a very cheap price point to enter the market just like Ta-tas or any other manufacturers of In-dia. I think that’s the wrong approach in my opinion.”

(Business Insider, Jan 25, 2021)

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TELECOM

Used-phone seller Cashify raises $15 million from Olympus CapitalCashify, a re-commerce marketplace that sells and buys used smartphones and other electronic gadgets, has raised $15 million from Olympus Capital Asia. Olympus Capital will make the invest-ment through Asia Environmental Part-ners (AEP), its clean energy and sustain-ability platform. “We are looking forward to accelerating our investment in the electronics reuse and recycling sector and thereby enabling OEMs and con-sumers to materially reduce their car-bon footprint,” said Mandeep Manocha, founder and CEO of Cashify. Founded in 2015 by Manocha, Nakul Kumar, and Amit Sethi, Cashify is an online platform to sell used mobile phones for instant cash and offers free home-pickups. From selling 80,000 devices per month in September 2020, Cashify today sells more than 125,000 devices a month and is looking at achieving profitability in the next 6 months.(LiveMint, Mar 04, 2021)

Google Cloud eyes public sector for growth in IndiaGoogle Cloud has achieved a full Cloud Service Provider empanelment by suc-cessfully completing an audit from India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT? (MeitY), a top official said. The empan-elment will enable the Indian public sec-tor to deploy on Google Cloud, Manag-ing Director Bikram Singh Bedi said in a blog post on Tuesday. This includes government agencies at the central and state level, and public sector undertak-ings across sectors from power to fi-nancial services.”The next phase of our commitment to customers in India sees us working to deliver on the needs of public sector organizations,” Bedi wrote in the blog post titled ‘Solving for the In-dian Public Sector with Google Cloud’. Designed, built, and operated with secu-rity at its core, Google Cloud strives to help enterprises digitally transform to better serve their customers, and em-power their employees.

(ET, Feb 23, 2021)

Apple lobbies for India incentives as it plans iPad assembly: sourcesApple Inc is angling to participate in a new scheme to boost India’s ex-ports of computer products, part of what government and industry sourc-es say are plans to bring iPad tablet manufacturing to the South Asian country. India launched a US$6.7 bil-lion plan to boost smartphone exports last year, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi stepped up efforts to promote electronics manufacturing and create jobs. Apple, which has steadily raised production of iPhones in India to less-en its dependence on Chinese man-ufacturing, took part in that scheme via its contract manufacturers. Now the government is preparing to unveil another incentive to drive local manu-facturing of IT products including tab-lets, laptops and servers, three sourc-es closely involved in the drafting of the plan told Reuters. The new perfor-mance-linked incentive (PLI) scheme, which offers cash-back to manufac-turers for exports, will have a budget of up to 70 billion rupees (US$964.5 million) over five years, the sources said. It’s expected to be launched by the end of February. Apple, along with others, is lobbying for a bigger budget-ary outlay of 200 billion rupees before that plan is finalized, as India doesn’t yet have the scale or the supply chain for making IT products and competes with duty-free imports of tech prod-ucts, two of the sources said.(CNA, Feb 18, 2021)

Kerala fibre optic network: Phase 1 of project comes on streamWith the Kerala government inaugu-rating last Monday the first phase of the ambitious Kerala Fibre Optic Net-work (KFON) project, over 8,000 gov-ernment offices and educational insti-tutions in the state will get to enjoy the benefits of high-speed connectivity. KFON envisages laying a complemen-tary optical fibre network across the state and augmenting the broadband infrastructure, bringing into the fold

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a total of 30,000 entities. It is a joint venture between the Kerala State In-formation Technology Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL), Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) and the state, in which the two companies hold 49% each and the state the remaining 2%. A con-sortium led by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) is executing the project and will be responsible for the operation and maintenance of the 35,000-km-long network for the next seven years. In the first phase, the dedicated optical fibre network will provide high-speed, reliable and scalable connectivity with non-discriminatory access to all ser-vice providers. All government institu-tions, including schools and hospitals, are being linked to the State Data Cen-tre (SDC), to ensure secure and fast e-governance.(FE, Feb 22, 2021)

Mavenir emerges as top contender to provide 4G core to BSNL; gets shortlisted by state-run ITITexas-based Mavenir has emerged as the main contender to provide 4G core technology to state-run telecom operator, BSNL, through ITI Limited which has selected the OpenRAN ma-jor following an open request for pro-posals (RFPs) for technology vendor selection. State-run ITI already enjoys a 20% reservation in telco’s 4G tender, as a part of a policy initiative. It already has non-commercial tie-up Tejas Net-works as well as system integrators - Tech Mahindra and Tata Consultan-cy Services (TCS) to deploy core and radio network for BSNL. However, Ma-venir’s selection didn’t go well with a section of home-bred companies and international vendors. They have now sought clarification from BSNL about bidding rules for local and internation-al vendors. “Yes, we participated in ITI’s open RFP invited for the selec-tion of technology partners who own the technology, meet all technical con-ditions of BSNL’s 4G EoI and ready to Transfer Technology to ITI to enable them to manufacture the radio equip-ment locally in their plants,” a Mavenir

spokesperson told ET. The spokesper-son added that Mavenir complied with all the technical conditions of the RFP and also offered the “best competitive financial bid” to secure the winning position. “We are expecting the letter of award soon, to partner with ITI for future deliverables.”(ET, Feb 12, 2021)

Fiber broadband subscriber base to reach 10 million in India by 2025: NokiaThe fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) connec-tions in India grew from 0.7 million in 2014 to 4 million in 2020, and it is forecast to reach 10 million by 2025, a report said. India’s fixed broadband subscriber base grew by 12% on-year to reach 22 million in 2020, driven by a range of factor such as work from home amidst the COVID-19 pandem-ic, bundled packages with OTT and cellular connectivity benefits, along with government schemes and entry of private players, according to the Mobile Broadband India Traffic Index (MBiT) 2021 report by Finnish telecom gear maker Nokia. Consequently, the growth in subscribers is forecast to drive revenues for the fixed broadband segment at a CAGR of 8.6% during 2020-25, the report noted. Nokia’s chief marketing officer Amit Marwah said that the growth will be driven by larger telecom operators’ expansion plan in the country. He added that small internet service providers may have seen a slowdown in their custom-er additions due to constraints about their business case and funding. “Tel-cos are bullish on this segment.”(ET, Feb 12, 2021)

Amazon, Flipkart, Microsoft to pay 2% extra tax now The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has welcomed the Budget pro-posal to impose 2 per cent extra tax on foreign e-commerce companies whether engaged in business of sale of goods or providing services, accep-tance of offer for sale, placing of pur-chase order, acceptance of purchase

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order, payment of consideration or supply of goods and services partly or wholly. As per a statement, it has also been clarified in the Budget that the tax will be applicable for consid-eration of sale of goods, irrespective of whether the provider owns the por-tal, and consideration of provisions of services irrespective of whether services are provided or facilitated by e-commerce operators. The pro-vision has been made in the Budget by proposing amendments to Sec-tion 163 sub clause (3), Section 164 clause (cb), Section 165 sub section (3) and clause (b) of The Finance Act, 2016.(ET, Feb 03, 2021)

Lava re-enters smartphone space; investing Rs 800 crore to expand operationsHome-bred handset maker Lava In-ternational made its comeback into the country’s smartphone market, backed by a Rs 800-crore investment plan to expand its local manufactur-ing and designing capabilities, and is aiming to bring 5G devices to the country for under Rs20,000.The com-pany has enhanced its production capacity to 30 million smartphones and 45 million feature phones and

is further looking to expand it. It has also shifted its research and devel-oping and design facility from China to India.“We are targeting Rs 6,000-Rs 10,000 smartphone range and will soon enter the mid-price range...5G shift is happening in the market and we will be there,” Sunil Raina, Presi-dent and Business head, Lava Inter-national, told ET. “We will launch 5G phones in the Rs 15,000-Rs 20,000 price segment.” Lava is targeting 5% smartphone volume share by the end of this calendar year in a market dominated by Chinese players, led by Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme, and Korea’s Samsung. (ET, Jan 07, 2021)

DoT explores ‘fair’ alternative to spectrum auctionThe government is looking for a “fair and transparent” means of spectrum allotment other than auctions, as part of wider reforms to plug defi-ciencies that have led to much of the scarce natural resource lying idle, a senior official said. The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has been advised by attorney general KK Venugopal to approach the Supreme Court on the matter, as all natural resources holding commercial value are being auctioned based on the top

court’s orders of 2012, said the offi-cial.“The government is considering a reform of spectrum auctions,” the person said. “One of the questions facing it is how to put a perishable commodity like spectrum to more ef-ficient use for better delivery of ser-vices.” The official said DoT is aware of weaknesses in the current system, pointed out by mobile phone compa-nies.“Whatever spectrum remains unsold lies idle with the government — it should be put to use and air-waves should be available on tap,” the official said. For example, less than 27% of spectrum on offer was sold in the FY13 auction. In FY14 and FY15, 81.9% and 89%, respectively, of offered spectrum was sold while in FY17, it was 41%.“Is this really a market discovery of a price point?” the official asked. The issue has also come under government scrutiny be-cause spectrum usually gets sold at close to the reserve price. The offi-cial pointed out that there has been a nearly five-year gap in spectrum sales — from October 2016 to the upcoming one in March. Since there is no other way to allocate airwaves, a substantial amount of bandwidth has been lying unused with the gov-ernment.(ET, Jan 22, 2021)

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DEFENSE & SOLAR ENERGY

Will the DRDO make AIP ready by 2023 to be fitted on Kalvari Class submarines?The Fuel Cell based Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) System of the De-fence Research and Development Or-ganisation has cleared another level of testing on Tuesday (March 9, 2021). An official statement issued by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has stated that land-based prototype has crossed another milestone in user specific tests on March 8, 2021. According to the statement, the system being de-veloped by Naval Materials Research Laboratory (NMRL) of DRDO, as per the user requirements, was operated in endurance mode and max power mode. As has been reported earlier the AIP is considered critical for the Kalvari class submarines, as it makes the diesel electric submarine more lethal as they can remain submerged for longer duration. And, according to DRDO the Fuel cell-based AIP has mer-its in performance compared to other technologies. It uses hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity and has almost no moving parts (this helps in making them quieter) and produces minimal waste. “Compared to the AIP systems being used by other navies internationally, the fuel cell-based AIP of NMRL is unique as the hydrogen is generated onboard. This technology has been developed with the support of industry partners including L&T and Thermax,” says the official statement. In October 2019, as has been report-ed earlier, the DRDO had announced a major breakthrough in the fuel cell-based AIP system for Indian Naval Submarines after crossing several milestones in technology maturity.(FE, Mar 09, 2021)

44 companies given FDI approvals for joint production of defence items with foreign companies: Shripad Naik A total of 44 Indian companies, in-cluding public sector units, have got approvals related to foreign direct investment (FDI) till now for joint pro-

duction of defence items with foreign companies, said Minister of State for Defence Shripad Naik on Monday. “So far, FDI inflows of about Rs 4191 crore have been reported by the companies operating in defence and aerospace sector in the country,” Naik said in a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha. These items include fixed-wing aircrafts, aerospace and aero structures components, simulator, un-manned aerial systems, optical goods and optical instruments, radar sys-tems, mortars and tactically protected vehicles, he added. On September 17 last year, the government had permit-ted FDI in defence production up to 74 per cent under automatic route. It had also permitted FDI in defence pro-duction above 74 per cent under au-tomatic route if it is “likely to result in access to modern technology”. Before September 17, 2020, FDI in defence production had been permitted up to 49 per cent under automatic route.(FE, Mar 08, 2021)

HPCL fuel stations get street lamp integrated EV chargerMumbai-based electric vehicle (EV) charging company Magenta Power has installed street lamp integrated chargers at Hindustan Petroleum Cor-poration Limited (HPCL) fuel stations in Delhi and Mumbai. The ChargeGrid Flare chargers—installed at HPCL’s Bandra Kurla Complex outlet in Mum-bai and Nitimarg outlet in Delhi—pro-vide a low-cost charging solution that causes less street clutter than other approaches. The ChargeGrid Flare—inclusive of power-saving efficient LED lamp, robust street light pole and electric vehicle supply equipment—can be remotely monitored through online mode. It has an automated pay-ment gateway through the ChargeGrid App, which eliminates the need for a station marshal to monitor, main-tain and operate the chargers at the location. The EV charger is an ideal solution for installation into car park-ing lots and at retail outlets. Maxson Lewis, managing director of Magenta, said their company aims to deploy 1000 ChargeGrid Flare across India

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this year and is in touch with original equipment manufacturers and fuel station owners. (PV Magazine, Mar 04, 2021)

REIL seeks 150,000 multi-crystalline silicon solar cellsJaipur-based Rajasthan Electronics & Instruments Limited (REIL) has in-vited bids to supply four-/five-busbar multi-crystalline silicon solar cells rated for 4.5W output. An aggregate 150,000 quantity is required. The so-lar cells should be 156×156 ± 1.0mm or 156.75×156.75 ± 1.0 mm in size, with a cell thickness of 200±20 mi-crons. Cells with plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition of silicon nitride as anti-reflection coating are preferred. Only REIL-approved bid-ders will be considered against this tender. Those not listed as REIL-ap-proved vendors will be required to provide a sample of 140 cells for evaluation and acceptance before the due date of the tender. The con-tract period is up to April 15. Quantity is to be supplied on a monthly ship-ment basis as mutually agreed. Only Indian manufacturers are eligible to bid for supply. (PV Magazine, Mar 04, 2021)

ISRO gears up to launch its new-generation mini rocket on maiden flight The Indian Space Research Organisa-tion (ISRO) is getting ready to launch a new- generation compact rocket on its maiden orbital test flight, the space agency said. Bangalore-head-quartered ISRO has over the years realised five generation of launch vehicles -- SLV-3, ASLV, PSLV, GSLV and GSLV-MK-III. It had taken up de-velopment of the mini rocket -- Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV) -- to cater to emerging global small satel-lite launch service market. Multiple sources in ISRO said on Thursday SSLV-D1 is targeted to be launched towards the end of March or early April -- most likely in the first month of the financial year -- though no firm date has been set so far.”We are flying an earth observation satellite (EOS-02) on board the first develop-ment flight of SSLV”, ISRO Chairman and Secretary in the Department of Space, K Sivan told PTI. SSLV has been designed to meet “launch on demand” requirements in a cost-ef-fective manner for small satellites in a dedicated and rideshare mode. It is a three-stage all solid vehicle with a capability to launch up to 500 kg sat-ellite mass into 500 km low earth or-

bit (LEO) and 300 kg to Sun Synchro-nous Orbit (SSO).By comparison, PSLV -- the workhorse of ISRO -- can take up to 1,750 kg payload into SSO of 600 km altitude, according to ISRO officials. With lower per kg launch cost, the mini launcher will have mul-tiple satellite mounting options for nano, micro and small satellites.(Indian Defence News, Feb 26, 2021)

India-US climate ties must prioritize green transition financeThe United States and India should work together to encourage greater foreign institutional investment in In-dia’s green transition to help further progress the global effort to combat climate change, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress (CAP) and India’s Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). The report says U.S. institu-tional investors, holding $26 trillion in assets as of 2020, are increasing-ly prioritizing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consider-ations. With the Covid-19-induced downturn in the global economy, they are looking for robust avenues for re-turns. India’s green transition offers opportunities to respond to both ob-

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jectives. The report recommends that President Joe Biden and Prime Minis-ter Narendra Modi launch a U.S.-India Green Transition Finance Initiative, a program to mobilize private finance for India’s sustainable transition and make it the centerpiece of a new lead-ers-level climate change strategy. “Foreign institutional investment can play a critical role in advancing India’s transition to a green economy,” said Alan Yu, senior fellow and director of International Climate Policy at CAP and co-author of the report. (PV Magazine, Feb 19, 2021)

IESA partners Norway’s Greenstat to support India’s hydrogen missionIndia Energy Storage Alliance (IESA) and Greenstat Hydrogen India, a Nor-wegian energy organization, have signed a Memorandum of Understand-ing for two years to accelerate the hy-drogen technology development in In-dia. The two partners will collaborate on establishing a Norwegian Centre of Excellence on Hydrogen in India and the development of green hydro-gen technologies in India. In the Union Budget 2021, India’s government an-nounced its plan to launch a National Hydrogen Mission. The draft mission is likely in the next two months. For the financial year 2021-22, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has been allotted INR 25 crore for re-search and development (R&D) in hy-drogen. Once the draft of the mission is in place, it will be floated for public consultation. There will be five focus areas, including R&D, demand cre-ation, industry application, eco-sys-tem creation (including policies) and bringing industry on board along with international partnerships. In these five areas, demand creation will fo-cus on the niche products that can be taken up and effective use of the fuel in trucks and buses. In the industrial sector, the government is looking at hydrogen as a replacement for coke in the steel industry and making use of the fuel in the fertilizer sector. (PV Magazine, Feb 19, 2021)

Global market is quite big, presents lot of opportunity for Indian defence companies: Neeraj Gupta, MD, MKU Ltd Kanpur based MKU Ltd, is the only Indian company present in the LAC region. Despite all odds, the company has been expanding its presence in the region. Last December MKU complet-ed the delivery of 14500 Bullet Proof Jackets to Brazil and is now all set to execute the order for night vision de-vices received recently from Brazilian Army. On the side-lines of the recently concluded Aero India 2021, the Man-aging Director of the company Neer-aj Gupta shared with Huma Siddiqui his company’s journey in the region and its presence in India. From the beginning we had made a conscious decision to not remain focussed only on India for this niche business as the requirements are finite and cyclical in the defence business. We went out and explored the market outside India. Not only did we focus on the LAC Re-gion but in other regions as well. Yes, it’s true that the LAC region is one of our focus areas and we have been able to achieve reasonable success in the region. We are today not just sell-ing our body armour and helmets but also night vision devices.(FE, Feb 12, 2021)

Aero India: Grene Robotics signs MoU with Bharat Electronics to develop air defence solutionHyderabad-based firm Grene Robotics said it has signed an MoU with Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) at Aero India 2021 to jointly develop Autonomous Man-portable Air-Defence Data Link (AMDL) system, a first-of-its-kind air defence solution that brings isolated man-portable air-defence (MANPAD) operators into a networked environ-ment. The company said that partner-ship is aimed to bolster India’s auton-omous air defence capability, bringing it on par with the best autonomous defence systems of the world. This technological collaboration has signifi-

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cance for various C5ISRT (Command, Control, Communication, Computers, Collaboration, Intelligence, Surveil-lance, Reconnaissance, and Target-ing) segments and will reduce the asymmetries in controlled warfare. The technology will be the first to be deployed on MANPADS (short-range weapon systems). In a statement, the company said that MANPADS are for-ward-deployed air defence systems widely used across the world. “It ad-dresses existing operational limita-tions in forward areas enabling the Command Centre to give real-time fir-ing commands to the soldier leverag-ing sensor-to-sight capabilities using Augmented Reality and Virtual Reali-ty,” said the company.(TechObserver, Feb 06, 2021)

Tamil Nadu could save INR 35,000 crore with shift from coal to renewables The Tamil Nadu state government and its cash-strapped Discom TANGEDCO can save INR 35,000 crore over five years through a com-bination of retiring 3.1 GW of old coal power plants, freezing expen-diture on 3.5 GW of new plants at early stages of construction and availing of cheaper power to meet future demand, according to an anal-ysis by research group Climate Risk Horizons. The report Recipe for Re-covery points out that TANGEDCO’s participation in the Ujjwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY Scheme) in 2017 has failed to revive the dis-com. The Centre recently approved a bailout package of INR 30,230 crore for TANGEDCO, but without measures to either lower the cost of power supply or raise tariffs, energy experts fear overdues will continue to accumulate. The report identifies cost reduction and savings oppor-tunities available. The report says avoiding retrofits by phasing out 3.1 GW of plants 20 years and older will save approximately INR 1,670 crore. These plants are Tuticorin, Mettur, North Chennai and NLC II Stage I. (PV Magazine, Feb 05, 2021)

Kalpataru Power Transmission acquires controlling stake in Brazilian EPC firm Fasttel Kalpataru Power Transmission Limit-ed (KPTL), a Mumbai-headquartered power and infrastructure EPC player, today announced the acquisition of a controlling stake in Brazilian compa-ny Fasttel Engenharia Ltda (Fasttel) for US$ 8.80 million. The acquisition was made through the company’s Brazilian arm Kalpataru Power do Brasil Participações, which signed a definitive agreement with Fasttel for the investment. Fasttel, founded in 1988, is engaged in EPC and mainte-nance of power transmission lines, substation and distribution systems across various voltage range up to 750 kV. The company earned around US$ 47-million in revenue in 2020 and has an order book of around US$ 95 million as of date. “The acquisi-tion of Fasttel is in line with KPTL’s strategy to strengthen its core EPC business and have greater geograph-ical presence in stable and growing markets. The transaction is likely to close by the end of Q1FY22,” read the KPTL statement. Commenting on the acquisition, Sanjay Dalmia, executive director, KPTL, said, “We continue to expand our geographical reach aligned to our vision of being a local player in the global environment. (PV Magazine, Feb 05, 2021)

DST to fund trans-national research in digitalization for green energy transitionThe Department of Science and Technology, under India’s Ministry of Science and Technology, has issued a call for research, development and demonstration proposals in digital transformation for green energy tran-sition. The call, launched in collab-oration with joint programming plat-form ERA-Net Smart Energy Systems and Mission Innovation, invites glob-al trans-national projects that accel-erate the implementation, adaption, and knowledge creation of digital solutions in energy systems and net-works. The solutions must identify and address critical challenges in the digitalization process towards a green energy society. DST has allo-cated a total funding amount of one million euros for the Indian partners. “Projects are strongly encouraged to involve “need-owners” and relevant stakeholders in all project phases to maximize market acceptance and uptake within the development of technologies and solutions. These shall also consider adoption by ad-dressing market and regulation top-ics and are highly encouraged to identify and involve need-owners in development”—reads the RfP docu-ment. (PV Magazine, Feb 05, 2021)

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India to see tremendous increase in defence exports in next 4-5 years, says DRDO chairmanThere will be tremendous increase in defence exports from India in the next four to five years, chairman of the state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) G Satheesh Reddy said on Thursday. “Within next 4-5 years, this country will have a lot of indigenous content in the Indian armed forces and we will be seeing tremendous amount of increase in exports,” he said at a webinar organised by industry body CII. Reddy enlisted a number of mea-sures the government and the DRDO have taken to boost the participation of private defence industry. “In each project of ours, we have invited devel-opment and production partner from the industry. Even critical systems like missiles have been opened to the pri-vate industry,” he said. Recently, the government has approved the export of Akash missiles to various coun-tries, he mentioned. On December 30, 2020, the government had approved the export of indigenously-developed surface-to-air Akash missile system and set up a panel to ensure faster approvals for acquisition proposals by various countries.(The Print, Jan 21, 2021)

Boeing plans to tap Indian SMEs to build global manufacturing ecosystem Boeing, in order to create an aerospace ecosystem in India has developed and transformed dozens of Small and Me-dium Enterprises (SMEs) from other businesses into aerospace manufac-turing.“This has been done for the future and core of building a globally competitive supply base right here in India,” said Salil Gupte, President, Boeing India. “Our engagement in In-dia goes beyond the single JV or sin-gle supplier. We support India with the latest set of defence capabilities and with a wide-narrow-body commercial aircraft.” he added Ankur Kanaglekar,

Director, India Fighters Lead, Boeing Defense, Space & Security said, “The company has seen 4x growth under Make in India since 2015. It was $100 million in 2012, it grew to $250 million in 2015 and last year ( 2020) it touched $1billion.”Boeing, on Thursday, shared its 2021 growth strategy for the Indian market, underscoring its confidence in the fundamentals of the country’s avi-ation and defence industry, and pro-jecting future growth for the sector.(Defence Aviation Post, Jan 27, 2021)

Hartek Solar commissions rooftop PV project for a hospitalExtending its footprint to the health-care segment, Chandigarh-based Hartek Solar, the rooftop solar division of the Hartek Group, has announced the commissioning of a 50kWp roof-top project at Alchemist Hospital in Panchkula district of Chandigarh. Based on the latest remote sensing technology that gives real-time alerts on energy generation and savings and equipped with all safety devices like walkway and safety lifeline, this solar plant at Alchemist Hospital will generate 72.5 MWh of clean electrici-ty annually, offsetting 1,397 tonnes of carbon emissions, the EPC firm said in a release. There is a growing realiza-tion among institutions like hospitals and schools about how rooftop solar can substantially reduce their elec-tricity bills and provide a reliable and uninterrupted electricity source with-out depending on bulky inverters and diesel-based generator sets. “Going by the favorable trends, private insti-tutions and commercial units will set the pace for rooftop solar in coming months,” he said.(PV Magazine, Jan 19, 2021)

Tesla launches solar inverterTesla has come a step closer to a more comprehensive ecosystem by launching a proprietary solar invert-er. In the last years, multiple inverter companies have ventured into electric vehicle (EV) charging and expanded the power electronic ecosystem, re-

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peatedly emphasizing the inverter’s importance at the center of the sys-tem. Tesla has gone the other way. Starting with EVs, the carmaker pen-etrated the residential solar market with panels and batteries but only now has brought an inverter to mar-ket. The product – the Tesla Solar In-verter – comes in 3.8 kW and 7.6 kW versions featuring two and four max-imum power point trackers (MPPTs), respectively. That is slightly above average as most sub-10 kW inverters have just two MPPTs but the prod-uct’s efficiency is somewhat below the figures achieved by market lead-ers. Tesla says its solar inverter has 97.5% efficiency, though it does not specify whether that is CEC [Califor-nia Energy Commission]-weighted or maximum efficiency. As is mandato-ry in the U.S., the inverter comes with integrated rapid shutdown capability and provides arc-fault and ground fault protection. The EV maker says the product has been designed to neatly integrate with the Tesla Pow-erwall battery as well as the Tesla app, which enables the monitoring of power generation and consumption patterns.(PV Magazine, Jan 19, 2021)

Floating solar plant operational at Cochin AirportKerala’s Cochin International Air-port – which claims to be the first in the world powered entirely by so-lar – has commissioned a 452 kWp floating PV plant. The array, on two artificial lakes at the 130-acre air-port golf course, covers an acre of the water surfaces.The installation takes the airport’s solar generation capacity to 40 MWp, helping it pro-duce around 1.6 lakh kWh per day against daily consumption of about 1.3 lakh kWh, the airport said. The floating plant features high-density polyethylene floats which host 1,300 solar panels. Pre-commissioning tri-als demonstrated the panels, which cost around INR2 crore, were produc-ing power with maximum output ef-ficiency, as one of eight solar arrays distributed on airport property, added

the airport. The floating plant is con-nected to the Kerala State Electricity Board grid. French floating PV spe-cialist Ciel & Terre provided technical assistance on the project.“Tradition-ally, the installation of [a] floating power plant costs two to three times more than that of [a] ground-mount-ed one but the use of … novel French technology allowed [the airport] to bring down the project cost [to be on] par with that of [a] floor installation,” stated the airport.(PV Magazine, Jan 19, 2021)

Madhya Pradesh to have 4.45 GW of new solar park capacity within three yearsThe Indian State of Madhya Pradesh is going to have 4,450 MW of new so-lar park capacity completed before the end of October 2023. The state minister for new and renewable en-ergy, Hardeep Singh Dang, has giv-en the instructions to complete the

proposed solar parks in the State within the scheduled time-frame. He gave the instructions to complete the 1500 MW solar park in Agar-Sha-japur-Neemuch by December 2022, 600 MW Omkareshwar Dam floating solar power project by July 2023, 950 MW in Chattarpur by July 2023, and 1400 MW project in Morena by October 2023.The minister also asked to complete the installation of 45,000 solar pumps in the State be-fore July 2023. Rooftop solar plants are also proposed to be installed on school buildings in the State. Mad-hya Pradesh is already home to a 750 MW solar project in Rewa. Set upon an area of 1590 hectares, it is one of the world’s largest single-site solar plants. Seventy-six percent of the power generated from the project is being provided to the state’s Power Management Company and 24% to Delhi Metro. (PV Magazine, Jan 19, 2021)

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CONSUMERELECTRONICS

AC makers set to hike prices to offset rising input costs; expect high double-digit growth this year Leading AC manufacturers are firming up plans to increase prices of residen-tial air conditioners by 5 to 8 per cent before the crucial summer season starts. Leading players such as - Vol-tas, Daikin, LG, Panasonic, Haier, Blue Star and Samsung - are expecting a high double-digit growth, as they are betting on pent-up demand, swelter-ing summer and continuance of work from home, which will create demand for additional cooling products. This season, several makers have intro-duced health and hygiene features in their range of ACs, claiming to protect their customers from the virus amid the pandemic.(Outlook, Mar 14, 2021)

TV prices to go up from April as open-cell panels get costlier in global marketsPrices of LED TVs are set to rise fur-ther from April as the cost of open-cell panels has gone up in the global markets by up to 35% in the past one month. Brands including Panasonic, Haier and Thomson are considering to increase prices from April this year, while some like LG have already raised prices due to hike in prices of open-cell. Seeing current trends, it might go up 5-7 per cent more by April. (ET, Mar 11, 2021)

Panasonic to buy software firm Blue Yonder for $6.5 billion: Report Panasonic Corp will buy U.S. software firm Blue Yonder for 700 billion yen ($6.45 billion), the Nikkei reported on Monday, saying it was the Japanese electronics firm’s biggest acquisition since 2011.While Panasonic bought 20% stakes of Blue Yonder in 2020, it is now in the final stage to acquire the rest from shareholders including Blackstone Group Inc, the Nikkei said, citing unnamed sources. The move

comes as the Japanese company aims to expand hardware that com-bines software, sensors and other de-vices to help companies improve oper-ational efficiencies, Nikkei said. (ET, Mar 08, 2021)

Wipro Consumer Care & Lighting India biz grows 14 per cent in Apr-DecWipro Consumer Care & Lighting (WCCL) on Thursday said it has seen about 14 per cent growth in its India business in the first nine months of the fiscal ending March, even during a pandemic-hit year, on the back of operational efficiencies and new prod-uct launches. The company, which also witnessed strong performance in international markets, also plans to introduce new products exclusively on e-commerce channels as it looks to tap into the increasing adoption of digital platforms in the country.(ET, Mar 04, 2021)

Xiaomi expands smartphone, TV capacity in India with 3 new plantsLeading consumer electronics firm Xiaomi has enlisted three original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to boost its supply of smartphones and smart televisions (TVs) in India. The Chinese major will now have three ad-ditional plants to feed local demand that has grown rapidly after the lock-down in mid-2020.Xiaomi, that leads in both the smartphone and smart TV markets in India, has partnered two Chinese OEMs — BYD Electron-ic Company and DBG Technology — for smartphone manufacturing here. Shenzhen-headquartered BYD has been a supplier to Nokia and Motorola for years, and is currently setting up a plant for Xiaomi in Chennai. DBG, that originated from Huizhou (in Chi-na’s central Guangdong province), has already set up a facility in Bawal in Haryana. Additional capacity of-fered by DBG has increased Xiaomi’s monthly smartphone supply by 20 per cent in India. While the smartphone

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company did not specify numbers, the data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) shows Xiaomi hav-ing shipped 41 million smartphones, or 3.4 million devices every month, in 2020.(BS, Feb 26, 2021)

Ecommerce accounts for nearly a third of several consumer electronic categories, research showsEcommerce now accounts for nearly a third of several electronic catego-ries, almost half of smartphones sold and about a fifth of all apparel sales in India, increasing at their highest pace in 2020 when most consumers hunkered down in their homes due to Covid related restrictions and feared shopping at brick-and-mortar stores, as per just released data by research-ers GfK, Nielsen, IDC and company officials. For daily essentials and fast moving consumer goods, sales tracker Nielsen said the e-commerce spurt is more prominent in the metro-es. E-commerce contribution to total FMCG sales touched an all-time high of 2.8% in 2020 up from 1.9% a year back. In metroes, the contribution is at 7.5%. Large manufacturers like Hindustan Unilever, ITC, Nestle and Marico have said their e-commerce contribution has more than doubled in 2020 to around 5-6% of total sales. For television and home appliances, e-commerce contribution has surged by 3 to 5 percentage points of total sales in 2020 over the previous year.(ET, Feb 20, 2021)

Boat appoints Vivek Gambhir as CEOConsumer tech products brand Boat on Friday said it has appointed for-mer Godrej Consumer Products ex-ecutive Vivek Gambhir as its Chief Ex-ecutive Officer. At Boat, Gambhir will be closely working with co-founders Aman Gupta and Sameer Mehta to drive the company’s vision and accel-erate the overall growth, a statement said. Previously, Gambhir served as

the CEO and Managing Director of Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL) where he spearheaded the transfor-mation and global expansion of the organisation, it added. Before join-ing Godrej, Gambhir was a founding member of Bain & Company’s con-sulting operations in India and has also led the firm’s FMCG and tele-communications practices in India. He also worked with Bain & Company in Boston and Singapore. On his ap-pointment, Gambhir said while Boat has made tremendous progress, this is just the beginning.(ET, Feb 19, 2021)

Amazon to start making Fire TV sticks in first India manufacturing pushAmazon.com Inc. will begin making devices in India for the first time, join-ing a flock of technology companies setting up manufacturing operations in the South Asian country. The Se-attle-based e-commerce giant will start making the devices via a sub-sidiary of its manufacturing partner Foxconn Technology Group and pro-duction will start later this year in its facilities outside Chennai, the com-pany said in a blog post on Tuesday. “The device manufacturing program

will be able to produce hundreds of thousands of Fire TV Stick devices every year, catering to the demands of customers in India,” the company said in the blog. “Amazon will contin-uously evaluate scaling capacity to additional marketplaces.” The online retailer is joining electronics giants such as Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. in making devices like phones and tablets in the South Asian nation. On Tuesday, Amazon’s India chief Amit Agarwal briefed the country’s minister for electronics and information technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on the details of the company’s manufacturing plans as it reiterated its commitment to the gov-ernment’s Make in India push.(The Print, Feb 16, 2021)

Moving From Assembly to Manufacturing BaseIf you were to ask me, what is the one thing that’s critical to drive the Atma Nirbhar Bharat agenda for the elec-tronics industry, component manu-facturing ecosystem will sit right on top. To drive the key tenets of Atma Nirbhar Bharat, from the Appliances, Consumer Electronics (ACE) or the electronics industry’s perspective, component manufacturing becomes

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the bedrock of the ecosystem. The market size of India’s ACE industry was Rs 76,400 crore ($10.93 billion) in 2019. It is expected to double to reach Rs 1.48 lakh crore ($21.18 billion) by 2025. Component manufacturing not only gives the necessary impetus to the industry, but also provides a ma-jor boost to the economy at large. Re-duced dependencies on import lead to greater demand for Make-in-India and employment generation, including training and skilling India. Looking at the current manufacturing economies in Asia, it has taken decades for the industry and the government to reach the current levels. From establishing a supply chain to achieving economies of scale in manufacturing, it has been a journey of discovery for China and other South East Asian countries. If I have to take Panasonic’s example, we have been running manufacturing op-erations in Thailand and Malaysia for several decades and are exporting air conditioners from there to more than 50 countries.(Business Today, Feb 15, 2021)

Apple partners with TSMC to develop ultra-advanced displaysApple Inc has partnered with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co to develop ultra-advanced display tech-nology in Taiwan, Nikkei Asia report-ed on Wednesday. The iPhone maker plans to ultimately use these micro OLED displays in its upcoming aug-mented reality devices, the report said, citing sources. Apple is collaborating with TSMC, the sole supplier of iPhone processors, as micro OLED displays are far thinner, smaller and use less power, making them more suitable for use in wearable AR devices, the report added. According to the report, the micro OLED project is currently at the trial production stage, and it will take several years to achieve mass production. Both Apple and TSMC did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment. (BusinessLine, Feb 10, 2021)

Samsung India FY20 profit up 88 pc to 2,902 crore; revenue up 7.6 pc to Rs 78,651 crore Samsung India Electronics’ stand-alone net profit increased 88.4 per cent to Rs 2,902.30 crore in 2019-20, as per data provided by business in-telligence firm Tofler. Samsung India had posted a net profit of Rs 1,540.10 crore in the financial year 2018-19.To-tal revenue was up 7.6 per cent to Rs 78,651.20 crore in FY20 as against Rs 73,085.90 crore in the previous fiscal year. The company’s revenue from operations in FY 2019-20 stood at Rs 75,461.50 crore, up 6.8 per cent from Rs 70,627.70 crore earlier. Samsung India gets around 70 per cent of its revenues from the mobile phone seg-ment. Samsung India competes with players like Xiaomi and OnePlus in the mobile handset segment and LG, Sony and Panasonic in the TV and applianc-es segment.(ET, Feb 09, 2021)

Consumer Durables index at new high; Voltas, Crompton, Polycab up over 5%Shares of consumer durables compa-nies, including electronics products and household appliances, were on a roll at the bourses on Thursday after Havells India reported a strong set of numbers for the quarter ended December 2020 (Q3FY21) on the back of strong festive demand, market share gains and in-creased penetration in smaller towns. Havells India, Polycab India, V-Guard In-dustries, Orient Electric, Voltas, Cromp-ton Greaves Consumer Electricals and Whirlpool of India were up between 5 per cent and 10 per cent on the BSE on Thursday. Out of the top 10 gainers from the S&P BSE500 index, six stocks are from these sectors on the BSE, at 10:31 am. The S&P BSE Consumer Du-rable index, the top gainer among sec-toral indices, was up 2.4 per cent, as compared to 0.55 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. The consumer dura-ble index hit a record high of 31,775 in intra-day trade today.(BS, Jan 21, 2021)

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TECHNOLOGYELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

These 169 Industries are being hit by the Global Chip Shortage

The ongoing global chip shortage has roiled the automotive and consumer technology industries for months. But the ripple effects of the crisis, which could last into 2022, stretch far be-yond automakers idling plants and consumers waiting longer for the lat-est gaming consoles.

According to an analysis by Goldman Sachs (GS), the semiconductor short-age touches a mind-blowing 169 in-dustries in some way. We’re talking everything from steel product and ready-mix concrete manufacturing to industries that build air conditioning systems and refrigerators to brewer-ies. Even soap manufacturing is im-pacted by the chip crisis.

To determine which industries were hit by the shortage, Goldman Sachs

looked at each industry’s’ need for mi-crochips and related components as a share of their GDP. Industries that spend more than 1% of their GDP on chips, the firm says, will be impacted by the semiconductor shortfall.

For reference, in the automotive sec-tor, 4.7% of industry GDP is spent on microchips and related semiconduc-tors, on this basis, according to Gold-man.

The automotive industry has been par-ticularly burned by the chip shortage due to the way its supply chain works. Automakers tend to run incredibly lean on supplies for vehicles to keep costs down. But the coronavirus pan-demic upended that entire system.

When the pandemic began, automak-

DANIEL HOWLEYTechnology Editor,

Yahoo Finance(finance.yahoo.com/news/)

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Disclaimer: This article is sourced from the Internet and reproduced here for the benefit of the industry without

any expectations of monetary gain. The due acknowledgement has been

given to the source and the author.

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32


ers, figuring consumers would slow down auto purchases, cut down on their supplies of semiconductors used in everything from their vehi-cles’ infotainment systems to high-end driver-assistance technologies.

But consumer interest in vehicle pur-chases rebounded faster than the automakers had predicted. And by Q4 of 2020, they were outpacing Q4 2019 sales numbers. At the same time factories remained idling due to coronavirus restrictions, putting au-tomakers even further behind.

While that was happening, people around the world began buying up consumer technology goods to ad-just to the pandemic induced work-from-home and remote learning en-vironments. With automakers not purchasing chips, semiconductor makers started working on chips for consumer tech products.

Once the automakers realized they needed more chips than they thought, the chipmakers were al-ready dedicating time to making chips for consumer tech companies. Now both industries are struggling for support from the limited number of global semiconductor manufac-turers that can meet their needs.

Chips aren’t exactly easy to make, ei-ther, with advanced semiconductors taking up to 6 months to produce. According to Goldman Sachs’ Spen-cer Hill, the semiconductor shortfall could wallop U.S. GDP by as much as 1%, despite the uptick in consumer spending as lockdown orders contin-ue to ease.

“Some computer chips have no avail-able substitute, and if output of ev-ery product that uses chips were to decline proportionately, the drag on 2021 GDP would be around 1%,” Hill wrote in a research note.

While that prediction may sound dire, Hill says the true impact on GDP will likely be milder, with GDP taking a 0.5%, as companies that are able to use different available chips make adjustments to their needs.

The chip crisis is still far from over, however, and as industry leaders and politicians work to ease the strain on manufacturers across the country, consumer goods will still cost more as a result, with Goldman predicting a 1% to 3% jumping in prices.

In other words, if you’re in need of a car or some kind of laptop or other piece of consumer tech, now is the time to buy — if you can find them.

President Joe Biden holds up a silicon wafer as he participates virtually in the CEO Summit on Semiconductor and Supply Chain Resilience in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Monday, April 12, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

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TECHNOLOGYELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

Why Shortages of a $1 Chip Sparked Crisis in Global Economy

To understand why the $450 billion semiconductor industry has lurched into crisis, a helpful place to start is a one-dollar part called a display driver.

Hundreds of different kinds of chips make up the global silicon industry, with the flashiest ones from Qual-comm Inc. and Intel Corp. going for $100 apiece to more than $1,000. Those run powerful computers or the shiny smartphone in your pocket. A display driver chip is mundane by con-trast: Its sole purpose is to convey basic instructions for illuminating the screen on your phone, monitor or nav-igation system.

The trouble for the chip industry -- and increasingly companies beyond tech,

like automakers -- is that there aren’t enough display drivers to go around. Firms that make them can’t keep up with surging demand so prices are spiking. That’s contributing to short supplies and increasing costs for liq-uid crystal display panels, essential components for making televisions and laptops, as well as cars, airplanes and high-end refrigerators.

“It’s not like you can just make do. If you have everything else, but you don’t have a display driver, then you can’t build your product,” says Stacy Rasgon, who covers the semiconduc-tor industry for Sanford C. Bernstein.

Now the crunch in a handful of such seemingly insignificant parts -- power

DEBBY WU AND

TAKASHI MOCHIZUKI

Bloomberg(bloomberg.com/news/)

Disclaimer: This article is sourced from the Internet and reproduced here for the benefit of the industry without

any expectations of monetary gain. The due acknowledgement has been

given to the source and the author.

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34


management chips are also in short supply, for example -- is cascading through the global economy. Auto-makers like Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG have already scaled back production, lead-ing to estimates for more than $60 billion in lost revenue for the industry this year.

The situation is likely to get worse be-fore it gets better. A rare winter storm in Texas knocked out swaths of U.S. production. A fire at a key Japan fac-tory will shut the facility for a month. Samsung Electronics Co. warned of a “serious imbalance” in the industry, while Taiwan Semiconductor Manu-facturing Co. said it can’t keep up with demand despite running factories at more than 100% of capacity.

“I have never seen anything like this in the past 20 years since our company’s founding,” said Jordan Wu, co-founder and chief executive officer of Himax Technologies Co., a leading supplier of display drivers. “Every application is short of chips.”

The chip crunch was born out of an understandable miscalculation as the coronavirus pandemic hit last year. When Covid-19 began spreading from China to the rest of the world, many companies anticipated people would cut back as times got tough.

“I slashed all my projections. I was us-ing the financial crisis as the model,” says Rasgon. “But demand was just really resilient.”

People stuck at home started buying technology -- and then kept buying. They purchased better computers and bigger displays so they could work remotely. They got their kids new laptops for distance learning. They scooped up 4K televisions, game con-soles, milk frothers, air fryers and im-mersion blenders to make life under quarantine more palatable. The pan-demic turned into an extended Black Friday onlinepalooza.

Automakers were blindsided. They shut factories during the lockdown while demand crashed because no one could get to showrooms. They told suppliers to stop shipping com-ponents, including the chips that are increasingly essential for cars.

Then late last year, demand began to pick up. People wanted to get out and they didn’t want to use public transportation. Automakers reopened factories and went hat in hand to chipmakers like TSMC and Samsung. Their response? Back of the line. They couldn’t make chips fast enough for their still-loyal customers.

Himax’s Jordan Wu is in the middle of the tech industry’s tempest. On a recent March morning, the bespecta-cled 61-year-old agreed to meet at his Taipei office to discuss the shortages and why they are so challenging to resolve. He was eager enough to talk that interview was scheduled for the same morning Bloomberg News re-quested it, with two of his staff joining in person and another two dialing in by

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phone. He wore a mask throughout the interview, speaking carefully and articulately.

Wu founded Himax in 2001 with his brother Biing-seng, now the compa-ny’s chairman. They started out mak-ing driver ICs (for integrated circuits), as they’re known in the industry, for notebook computers and monitors. They went public in 2006 and grew with the computer industry, expand-ing into smartphones, tablets and touch screens. Their chips are now used in scores of products, from phones and televisions to automo-biles.

Wu explained that he can’t make more display drivers by pushing his workforce harder. Himax designs display drivers and then has them manufactured at a foundry like TSMC or United Microelectronics Corp. His chips are made on what’s artfully called “mature node” technology, equipment at least a couple gener-ations behind the cutting-edge pro-cesses. These machines etch lines in silicon at a width of 16 nanometers or more, compared with 5 nanome-ters for high-end chips.

The bottleneck is that these mature chip-making lines are running flat out. Wu says the pandemic drove such strong demand that manufac-turing partners can’t make enough display drivers for all the panels that go into computers, televisions and game consoles -- plus all the new products that companies are putting screens into, like refrigerators, smart thermometers and car-entertainment systems.

There’s been a particular squeeze in driver ICs for automotive systems be-cause they’re usually made on 8-inch silicon wafers, rather than more ad-vanced 12-inch wafers. Sumco Corp., one of the leading wafer manufac-turers, reported production capacity for 8-inch equipment lines was about 5,000 wafers a month in 2020 -- less than it was in 2017.

No one is building more mature-node manufacturing lines because it doesn’t make economic sense. The

existing lines are fully depreciated and fine-tuned for almost perfect yields, meaning basic display drivers can be made for less than a dollar and more advanced versions for not much more. Buying new equipment and starting off at lower yields would mean much higher expenses.

“Building new capacity is too expen-sive,” Wu says. Peers like Novatek Microelectronics Corp., also based in Taiwan, have the same constraints.

That shortfall is showing up in a spike in LCD prices. A 50-inch LCD panel for televisions doubled in price be-tween January 2020 and this March. Bloomberg Intelligence’s Matthew Kanterman projects that LCD prices will keep rising at least until the third quarter. There is a “a dire shortage” of display driver chips, he said.

Aggravating the situation is a lack of glass. Major glass makers re-ported accidents at their production sites, including a blackout at a Nip-pon Electric Glass Co.’s factory in December and an explosion at AGC Fine Techno Korea’s factory in Jan-uary. Production will likely remain constrained at least through summer this year, display consultancy DSCC Co-founder Yoshio Tamura said.

On April 1, I-O Data Device Inc., a ma-jor Japanese computer peripherals maker, raised the price of their 26 LCD monitors by 5,000 yen on aver-age, the biggest increase since they began selling the monitors two de-

cades ago. A spokeswoman said the company can’t make any profit with-out the increases due to rising costs for components.

All of this has been a boon for busi-ness. Himax’s sales are surging and its stock price has tripled since November. The U.S.-traded shares gained 1.6% in New York Tuesday morning. Novatek’s shares closed up 5.6% in Taiwan to a record high, pushing its increase for the year to more than 60%.

But Wu isn’t celebrating. His whole business is built around giving cus-tomers what they want, so his inabil-ity to meet their requests at such a critical time is frustrating. He doesn’t expect the crunch, especially for au-tomotive components, to end any time soon.

“We have not reached a position where we can see the light at the end of tunnel yet,” Wu said.

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POLICY UPDATEELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

POLICY/NOTIFICATIONS

Govt. Policy, Business Procedures & Regulations

India’s draft e-commerce policy calls for equal treatment of sellersIndia will require e-commerce firms to treat sellers equally on their platforms and ensure transparency, accord-ing to a draft policy seen by Reuters on Saturday that follows criticism against business practices of big on-line companies. India has been delib-erating a new e-commerce policy for months amid complaints from brick-and-mortar retailers who allege online giants like Amazon and Walmart’s Flipkart flout federal regulations. The companies have denied the allega-tions. A Reuters special report last month revealed that Amazon has for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its India plat-form and used them to circumvent the country’s foreign investment rules. The latest draft of the policy document says operators should be impartial in their dealings with sellers.”E-com-merce operators must ensure equal treatment of all sellers/vendors regis-tered on their platforms and not adopt algorithms which result in prioritiz-ing select vendors/sellers,” it says. A spokesman for the commerce minis-try declined to comment. The policy will apply to Amazon and Flipkart - two top e-commerce players in India - as well as domestic players like Reliance Industries, which has plans to expand its JioMart online platform. All three firms did not immediately respond to a request for comment.(ET, Mar 14, 2021)

Twitter India Looks For Law Enforcement Liaison As Govt. Clears Air On IT RulesMinister of electronics and informa-tion technology Ravi Shankar Prasad has clarified that the Indian govern-ment does not intend to interfere in the activities of social media plat-forms like Facebook, Twitter and others. This at a time when Twitter India has put out a job posting look-ing for an executive to liaison with law enforcement agencies, or a law enforcement (LE) outreach manager. The IT minister’s statement comes in the backdrop of India’s latest IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules of 2021, which states due diligence, grievance redressal and self-regulation for news portals, social media and over-the-top (OTT) platforms. The government will soon constitute an inter-departmental committee (IDC) consisting of repre-sentatives from various ministries, to look into complaints regarding the on-line content of these digital media in-termediaries. The minister referred to these guidelines as a “soft-touch over-sight mechanism” to prevent “abuse” and misuse” of digital intermediaries and social media platforms. The union minister, in an interview with ET, said that the government would not want to look at the content or seek decryption of messages, but only to trace the ori-gin of a message that caused serious criminal offences. He was referring to the traceability clause that mandates messaging platforms to report to the government within 72 hours on the or-igin of messages that lead to offenc-

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es that are serious in nature. Prasad added that the government will fol-low due legal procedures and seek the court’s orders or law enforce-ment agency’s permission before submitting such requests.(INC42, Mar 08, 2021)

Union Cabinet approves PLI Scheme for IT Hardware ProductsThe Union Cabinet has approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for IT hardware products such as Laptops, Tablets, All-in-One Personal Computers (PCs) and Serv-ers. The Scheme offers incentives between 4% to 1% on net incremental sales of domestically manufactured goods, for a period of four (4) years. The proposed scheme is launched to encourage investment in this prod-uct segment and to strengthen the value chain. The total outlay under this scheme is Rs. 7,350 Crore over a period of four years.

Salient Features & Benefits:

• Over the next 4 years, the Scheme

is expected to lead to total pro-duction of upto INR 3,26,000 crore (INR 3.26 lakh crore).

• Out of the total production in the next 4 years, more than 75% is ex-pected to be from exports of the order of INR 2,45,000 crore.

• Domestic value addition for IT Hardware is expected to rise to 20% - 25% by 2025 from the cur-rent 5% - 10% due to the impetus provided by the Scheme.

• Increase in both domestic manu-facturing and domestic value ad-dition will help significantly reduce the large foreign exchange outgo that India will have to otherwise bear.

Currently, the laptop and tablet de-mand in India is largely met through imports valued at USD 4.21 billion and at USD 0.41 billion respectively. The market for IT Hardware is dom-inated by 6-7 companies globally which account for about 70% of the world’s market share. It is imperative that these companies expand their operations in India and make it a ma-jor manufacturing and exporting des-

tination for IT Hardware products. Further details regarding Investment thresholds, Manufacturing Targets etc. will be announced in the Gazette Notification which is expected to be notified in near future.(https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx-?PRID=1700425)

PLI scheme for Telecom Sector announcedPursuant to the extraordinary incen-tive of PLI being provided by Govern-ment of India in various sectors, the Cabinet has approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Telecom and Networking Products. This approval comes in wake of very encouraging success of PLI related to Mobile and component manufac-turing, which was announced in April 2020 during the height of Covid pan-demic. In spite of 31st July 2020 being the last date for applying, it received a resounding response. All major mobile component manufacturers of world are expanding their powerful footprints in India by making invest-ments, starting exports and giving jobs to thousands of Indians.

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Cabinet decision addresses another component of Atmanirbhar Bharat to make India a global hub of manufac-turing telecom equipment including core transmission equipment, 4G/5G Next Generation Radio Access Net-work and Wireless Equipment, Access & Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), Internet of Things (IoT) Access Devices, Other Wireless Equipment and Enterprise equipment like Switch-es, Routers etc. The scheme was fi-nalized after widespread consultation with stakeholders like manufacturers, industry leaders and associations. The core component of this scheme is to offset the huge import of telecom equipment worth more than Rs. 50 thousand crores and reinforce it with “Made in India” products both for do-mestic markets and exports.

The main features of this scheme are, as following:

• The scheme outlay is Rs. 12,195 Crores over five years.

• The eligibility for the scheme will be subject to achievement of a mini-mum threshold of cumulative incre-mental investment and incremental sales of manufactured goods net of taxes.

• Financial Year 2019-20 shall be treated as the Base Year for com-putation of cumulative incremental sales of manufactured goods net of taxes.

(https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx-?PRID=1698664)

Telecom Gear Manufacturing to Get a Major Push as Government Approves Over Rs. 12,000-Crore PLI SchemeThe government on Wednesday ap-proved a Rs. 12,195 crore produc-tion-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for telecom gear manufacturing in India, a move that will position the nation as a global powerhouse for production of such equipment ahead of 5G roll-outs. The PLI scheme for telecom gear manufacturing, will be operational from April 1, 2021. It will lead to incremental production of

around Rs 2.4 lakh crores with ex-ports of around Rs. 2 lakh crores over five years. The scheme is expected to bring investment of over Rs 3,000 crore and generate huge direct and indirect employment and taxes both, an official release said. “Cabinet has approved PLI for telecom sector...to ensure further progress of Make-in-India in telecom equipment space.5G equipment will also come...so it was important to give incentives. We held widespread consultation with stake-holders,” Prasad said adding that the scheme also aims to promote MSMEs in “Aatmanirbhar Bharat’’.

The scheme is expected to offset huge imports of telecom equipment worth more than Rs 50,000 crores and reinforce it with “Made in India” products both for domestic markets and exports, the release said. The new scheme has an outlay of Rs. 12,195 crores over five years, and its eligibil-ity will be subject to achievement of a minimum threshold of cumulative in-cremental investment and incremen-tal sales of manufactured goods.

The incentive structure ranges be-tween 4 and 7 per cent for different categories and years. Financial Year 2019-20 will be treated as the base year for computation of cumulative incremental sales of manufactured goods net of taxes, the release added. Minimum investment threshold for MSMEs has been kept at Rs. 10 crores and for others at Rs. 100 crores. “Once qualified, the investor will be incen-tivised up to 20 times of minimum investment threshold enabling them to utilise their unused capacity,” the release said. Prasad said that gov-ernment will soon come up with PLI scheme to encourage production of laptops and tablet PCs.(https://gadgets.ndtv.com/apps/news/telecom-gear-equipment-manufacturing-pli-rs-12195-crore-scheme-india-ravi-shankar-prasad-5g-2372563)

Government examines OTT regulations in foreign countries A growing number of instances of on-line content on social media and Over the Top (OTT) platforms running foul

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The Indian government

approved a Rs. 12,195 crore production-

linked incentive (PLI) scheme for

telecom gear manufacturing,

a move that will position the

nation as a global powerhouse for

production of such equipment ahead of 5G roll-

outs.

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of public and political sentiments has prompted the government to examine regulatory mechanisms for OTT in other countries that suggest the need for a regulatory framework. The review of OTT-related regula-tion has been prompted by several complaints that range from adult and objectionable content to regu-lar run-ins between BJP supporters and party members and producer and platforms over alleged “misrep-resentation” of religious, cultural and social issues and themes. With India emerging at one of the largest con-sumers of OTT content and fastest growing market in 2020, an analysis being studied by the government underlines that regulation of digital media, including OTT platforms and intermediaries is a global trend. In India, in particular, the need for regu-lation, is prompted by the need for a level playing field for content across platforms, an idea also considered by the Shashi Tharoor-led parliamenta-ry panel on information technology.

The committee also considered sim-ilar issues with members pointing to regulations in other countries.(ET, Jan 21, 2021)

Govt formulating new action plan, Chinese telecom giants could be out of gameChinese telecom giants Huawei and ZTE could be potentially out of the game in India with the government set to begin formulating an action plan on the implementation of ‘Na-tional Security Directive on Telecom-munication Sector’ on Thursday. With an aim to protect India’s es-sential national security interests, a committee headed by the Deputy Na-tional Security Advisor (Dy NSA) will soon clear all equipment and gad-gets, including 5G mobile networks and supply chains. Top sources in the government told IANS that “a meeting of nodal officials of key min-istries was called (on January 21) to formulate a strategy to secure India’s

paramount interest in the field of cy-ber and telecom security”. Key offi-cials of the Telecom Ministry, Com-merce Ministry and the DRDO, along with cyber security experts were called in the all-important meeting, sources said, adding that “a meeting was called by the National Security Council Secretariat, but it was all too confidential. Nothing can be revealed further”.The security action plan aims to classify telecom products/equipment and their suppliers under the trusted and non-trusted catego-ries. In simpler words, companies or suppliers not trusted by the experts committee would not be allowed to do business with Indian telecom ser-vice providers. Once implemented, the action plan would make it very difficult for Chinese telecom equip-ment suppliers like Huawei or ZTE to procure supply orders from the Indi-an telecom players such as Jio, Airtel or Vodafone Idea.(ET, Jan 21, 2021)

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Key Budget 2021-22 announcements reg. Electronics Sector

S.No. Electronic Items BCD announcements

Vide Effective date of implementation

1. Inputs, parts or sub-parts for manufacture of specified parts of mobile phones, including: PCBA, Camera module, Connectors, wired headset, USB Cable, microphone and receiver etc.

2.5% 3/2011-Customs 1.04.2021

2. PCBA &Moulded Plastic, for manufacture of charger or adapter

15% 3/2021 1.04.2021

3. Inputs and parts [other than PCBA and moulded plastic] of mobile charger

10% 3/2021 1.04.2021

4. Inputs, Parts and Sub-parts [other than PCBA and Li- ion Cell] for manufacture of Lithium-ion battery and battery pack

2.5% 3/2021 1.04.2021

5. Compressor of Refrigerator/Air Conditioner

15% Clause 95 (i) of the Finance Bill, 2021

1.02.2021

6. Specific parts of transformer such as Bobbins, brackets, wires, etc.

7.5% 4/2021 1.02.2021

7. Inputs and parts of LED lights or fixtures including LED Lamps

10% Clause 95 (i) of Finance Bill, 2021

1.02.2021

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S.No. Electronic Items BCD announcements

Vide Effective date of implementation

8. Solar Inverters 20% 03/2021-Customs 1.02.2021

9. Solar lanterns or solar lamps 15% 1.02.2021

10. All goods under HSC 7325, 7326, 7307, 7308, 7310, other than SIM socket/other mechanical items (Metal) for cellular mobile phone

10% 1/2011-Customs 1.02.2021

11. Apparatus, control gear and transmission equipment and auxiliary equipment (including those required for testing and quality control) and components, required for the initial setting up of a solar power generation project

Applicable as per Custom Tariff

1/2011-Customs 1.02.2021

12. All parts for use in the manufacture of LED lights, fixtures including LED lamps, LED drivers and MCPCB of LED lights

10 2/2021

13. All goods falling under heading 8544 (except USB Cable and goods falling under tariff item 8544 30 00 and sub-heading 8544 70) will attract 10% BCD

10 3/2021 1.04.2021

14. Mobile Phone Parts, such as: Battery cover, Front Cover, Front Cover (with Zinc Casting), Middle cover, Side Key, Screw, Microphone rubber case, Sensor rubber case/sealing gasket including sealing gaskets/cases from rubbers like SBR, EPDM, CR, CS, Silicon and all other individual rubbers or combination/combination of rubbers, PU case/ sealing gasket, Articles of polyurethane foam like sealing gaskets/case, sealing gaskets/cases from PE, PP, EPS, PC and all other individual polymers or combinations of polymers, SIM sockets/Other Mechanical items (Metal), SIM sockets/Other Mechanical items (Plastic), Back Cover, Conductive cloth, Heat Dissipation sticker Battery cover, Sticker battery slot, Protective Film for main lens, LCD Conductive Foam, LCD Foam, BT Foam, Key Pad

Applicable as per Custom Tariff

3/2021 1.04.2021

15. All Goods used for the manufacture of Base Stations for Mobile communication Infrastructure

2.5% 3/2021 1.04.2021

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Amendments in procedure of filing the Bill of Entry for ImportsCBIC has issued Circular No.08 /2021-Customs dated 29th March, 2021 clarifying the legislative changes in Section 46 (related to Bill of Entry) of Customs Act, 1962.

• Accordingly, with a view to facilitate the importers, Board has amended the Bill of Entry (Electronic Integrated Dec-laration) Regulations, 2018 vide Notification No.34/2021-Customs (N.T.), dated 29.03.2021 thereby prescribing dif-ferent time-limits for filing BE in respect of goods imported by various modes of transport. Amendments have also been carried out in the Bill of Entry (Forms) Regulations, 1976 vide Notification No.35/2021-Customs (N.T.) dated 29.03.2021 in case of manual filing of BEs.

• The clarification mandates that a BoE may be presented upto 30 days prior to the expected arrival of the aircraft/vessel/vehicle carrying the imported goods and maybe presented upto the end of day preceding the day of such arrival. In case of Sea Freight import consignments from Bangladesh, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan &Srilanka, the BoE may be filed on the day of import.

The following Table clarifies the provisions of Cust. Notifications 34/2021 and 35/2021

S. No.

Customs Station Bill of Entry is required to be Filed latest by end of the Day of Arrival

Bill of Entry is required to be Filed latest by the end of Day preceding the Day of Arrival

1 Sea Port Imports consigned from following countries viz. 1) Bangladesh 2) Maldives 3) Myanmar 4) Pakistan 5) Sri Lanka

Imports consigned from all countries other than those mentioned in column (3)

2 Airport All imports None

3 Land Customs Station (LCS)

All imports None

4 Inland Container Depot (ICD)

None All imports

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Provisions of Amendment in Bill of Entry filed in Advance, under section 46 of Customs Act,(1962 Amended vide Finance Act 2021)With reference to the recent amend-ment regarding filing of Advance Bill of Entry under section 46 of Customs Act,(1962 Amended vide Finance Act 2021) and difficulties arising out of it, the “Directorate General of Systems and Data Management” has issued Advisory No. 10/2021. Accordingly, the Air Cargo Complex (Sahar) has issued Public Notice No. 19/2021 dated 7th April, 2021 and JNCH had issued Public Notice No. 30/2021 dated 29th March, 2021.This adviso-ry clarifies the modalities and proce-dure regarding Advance Filing of Bill of Entries and also the procedure to amend the BoE, in case of difference between BoE and arrival manifest.

Salient Features:

• The amended section requires the importers to file Bills of Entry before the end of the day (includ-ing holidays) preceding the day of arrival at a Customs port/sta-tion at which such goods are to be cleared for home consumption or warehousing. Accordingly, the changes have been enabled in the Customs EDI System and the late filing fee will be imposed by the System as per the new provisions and in consonance with the afore-said timelines listed in the Board’s Circular.

• It has also been decided to do away with the requirement of Master Bill of Lading(MBL)during the filing of advance Bill of Entry. Only the reference to House Bill of Lading (HBL) would be sufficient if the MBL details are not available at the time of filing the B/E in ad-vance as per the above provisions. The said provision has been en-abled in the System.

• Accordingly, while filing B/E dec-laration in the system where MBL is not available, MAWB/BL No. shall be declared as NOMAWB (in

case of air), as the case may be. However, in such cases, the HBL details will necessarily have to be declared during the B/E filing.

• To ease the regularization with Arrival Manifest, Importer would have the option to update the Master Bill of Lading in the Bill of Entry at any point in time later to regularize/link the BE with Arrival Manifest through a simple online amendment process. For this, im-porter/customs broker can file a BE amendment of the IGM details with amend code as A_PBEIGM.

• The said amendment would be auto approved in the Customs au-tomated system without the need for approval of a Customs officer and would not be subject to levy of any late fees.

MCA mandates use of Accounting software with Audit trail from 2021-22Ministry of Corporate Affairs, GoI, vide its notification no. G.S.R. 205(E), dated 24.03.2021 has mandated that every company which uses ac-counting software for maintaining its books of accounts, must have a fea-ture of recording audit trail of every

transaction and an edit log for any changes made, and also ensure that the same cannot be disabled. This comes into force from FY 2021-22. These rules are called the Compa-nies (Accounts) Amendment Rules, 2021. The Notification also specifies that Board Report should contain the following additional information.

1. the details of application made or any proceeding pending under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (31 of 2016) during the year along with their status as it is at the end of the financial year.

2. the details of difference between amount of the valuation done at the time of one time settlement and the valuation done while tak-ing loan from the Banks or Finan-cial Institutions along with the reasons thereof.”

(https://www.mca.gov.in/Ministry/pdf/Ac-countsAmendmentRules_24032021.pdf)

Foreign Trade Policy 2015-20 extended upto 30th September 2021The FTP 2015-20 which was appli-cable till 31st March 2021, has been

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extended till 30th September 2021. All clauses/conditions regarding duty exemptions and Export Import proce-dures will remain applicable till 30th Sep. 2021.

CBIC waives penalty payable for non-compliance of provisions of Notification No. 14/2020 dated 21st March 2020 CBIC has issued Notification No. 6/2021-Central Tax Dt. 30th March, 2021 thereby waiving penalty provi-sions for non-compliance of provi-sions of Notification No. 14/2020 dat-ed 21st March 2020.

“IGST & Compensation Cess exemption on Imports by Export Oriented Units (EoU’s)” extended till 1st April 2022“IGST & Compensation Cess exemp-tion on Imports by Export Oriented Units (EoU’s)” has been extended for another one year, till 1st April 2022 vide Customs Notif. 19/2021 dt 30th March 2021. Earlier this exemption was ap-plicable till 31st March 2021 only. (https://www.cbic.gov.in/resources//htdocs-cbec/customs/cs-act/notifications/notfns-2021/cs-tarr2021/cs19-2021.pdf.)

Product Linked Incentive Scheme for White Goods & LED Lighting: Department for Promotion of Indus-try & Internal Trade (DPIIT) has an-nounced the Production Linked In-centive (PLI) Scheme for White Goods with the objective of incentivizing the complete value chain of Air Condi-tioners and LED Lights. There is spe-cific mention of components and key sub-assemblies which are required for manufacturing these two products and simple assembly of AC’s or LED Lights will not be eligible for benefit under this Scheme. This is a special feature of this PLI Scheme and would boost component manufacturing in the country.

A PLI of 4% to 6% on incremental sales (net of taxes) over the base year of

goods manufactured in India (2019-20) and covered under target seg-ments, to eligible companies, for a pe-riod of five (5) years subsequent to the base year plus one year of gestation period (2021-22) for completing initial investment and commencing Produc-tion and Sales from 2022-23 onwards for 5 years, ie. Upto 2026-27.

The Target product segments as de-tailed in the Scheme Notification are as follows:

Air Conditioner:

1. Air Conditioners (Components- High value Intermediates or Low Value Intermediates or sub-as-semblies or a combination there-of.

2. High Value Intermediates (Copper Tubes, Aluminium Foil and Com-pressors).

3. Low Value Intermediates (PCB assembly for controllers, BLDC motors, Service Valves and Cross Flow fans for AC and other com-ponents)

LED Lighting:

1. LED Lighting Products (Core Com-ponents like LED Chip Packaging, Resisters, ICs, Fuses and large-scale investments in other compo-nents etc.)

2. Components of LED Lighting Prod-ucts (like LED Chips, LED Drivers, LED Engines, Mechanicals, Pack-aging, Modules, Wire Wound In-ductors and other components)

The eligibility for availing incentives shall be subject to annual thresh-olds of cumulative incremental in-vestments and incremental sales of manufactured goods over the base year (2019-20) which is detailed in the Scheme document. The scheme categorises investments into two categories viz. Large and Normal In-vestments, the details are provided in the Scheme Notification. The total outlay under this scheme is Rs. 6238 Crore over a period of five years. The Scheme Guidelines and application procedure are still awaited till the pub-lication of this EEO.

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BUSINESS UPDATEELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

Forthcoming EVENTS

Opportunities & Events

OVERSEAS SHOWS

JPCA Show 2021Organiser: Japan Electronics Packaging and Circuits Association (JPCA)26 May 2021 to 28 May 2021Venue & City: Aomi Exhibition Hall, Tokyo Big Sight, Tokyo Japanwww.jpcashow.com

International Electronic Circuits (Shanghai) Exhibition (CPCA Show 2021)Organiser: China Printed Circuit Association (CPCA)7 July 2021 to 9 July 2021Venue & City: National Exhibition & Convention Center (Shanghai), Chinawww.cpcashow.com

Taipei International Electronics Show (TAITRONICS)Organiser: TAITRA/ TEEMA20 October 2021 to 22 Ocotber 2021Venue & City: Nangang Exhibition Center, Taipei, Taiwanhttps://www.taitronics.tw/

electronica MunichOrganiser: MesseMunchen8 November 2021 to 11 November 2021Venue & City: Munich, Germany https://electronica.de/en/

DOMESTIC SHOWS

electronica India 2021 Organiser: MMI22 September 2021 to 24 September 2021Venue & City: BIEC, Bengaluruhttps://electronica-india.com/en/

Note: Since this information is subject to change, especially in view of the spread of the coronavirus, all those interested are advised to ascertain the details from the organisers before making any commitment.

BUSINESS UPDATE

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Electronic Circulars 20 February 2021 Webinar on "RoDTEP & Changes in IGCR Rule â€“ Background, Eligibility and Implementation" -

23rd Feb. 2021

24 February 2021 Fortnightly e-Newsletter of ELCINA dated 15th February, 2021

26 February 2021 Union Cabinet approves PLI Scheme for IT Hardware

03 March 2021 Fortnightly e-Newsletter of ELCINA dated 28th February, 2021

05 March 2021 Webinar on "SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING WIDE-BAND GAP / MEMS SEMICONDUCTOR" -25March, 2021

08 March 2021 Invitation to participate in "ELCINA Western Region Member Meet" - 10-March, 2021 (Online)

12 March 2021 Production Linked Incentive for Electronic Components

13 March 2021 Production Linked Incentive for IT and Hardware

15 March 2021 Opportunity to avail benefits under PLI scheme till 31st March 2021

15 March 2021 Invitation to participate in "Oppo India - Supply Chain Meet" - 17th March, 2021

19 March 2021 Fortnightly e-Newsletter of ELCINA dated 15th March, 2021

20 March 2021 Invitation to participate in "ELCINA Southern Region Member Meet" - 23 March, 2021 (Online)

25 March 2021 MCA mandates the use of Accounting software with Audit trail of each Transaction

30 March 2021 ELCINA DIRECTORY OF INDIAN ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY 2021

31 March 2021 Webinar on "Enabling Printable Electronics Manufacturing in India-Part 2" - 9th April, 2021

31 March 2021 PLI for IT Hardware â€“ Extension of timeline for filing applications till 30.04.2021

01 April 2021 Policy Announcements as on 31st March 2021

01 April 2021 Amendments in procedure of filing the Bill of Entry for Imports

05 April 2021 Trial of Chip Import Monitoring System

07 April 2021 Fortnightly e-Newsletter of ELCINA dated 31st March, 2021

19 April 2021 Production Linked Incentive Scheme (PLI) for White Goods (Air conditioners & LED's)

20 April 2021 Invitation for ELCINA-MAIT Session during "Electronic and Telecom Manufacturing Summit - ETMS-2021" - 22nd April, 2021

47

ELCINA ACTIVITY UPDATEELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

Update onELCINA Activities

The Executive Committee of ELCINA has decided to establish a Micro & Small Industries Forum (MSIF) with the objective to focus on strengthen-ing and growing our Micro and Small industries to the next level.

The Electronic Systems Design & Man-ufacturing (ESDM) Sector is growing very rapidly and policy support is be-ing provided by Government to attract large investments. At the same time numerous Micro, Small and even Me-dium scale electronics units have shut down due to viability issues as a con-sequence of reduced and zero tariffs

under ITA-1 and trade barriers which have rendered them unprofitable. MSIF is being established to enable small units to avail these benefits and become competitive.

The current government policies for supporting this vulnerable segment have been found inadequate and there benefits do not percolate down to the Small units. Since implementation of ITA-1 in April 2005, a very large num-ber of MSME’s have fallen by the way-side as they just could not cope with the cut throat competition they faced from imports, especially from China and some South East Asian countries.

Objectives of the Forum• Organise MSI’s under one group/fo-

rum to understand and address the issues faced by them

• Identify and add new members to make this a large group with critical mass to have clout to be heard by government

• Provide information and updates with respect to policies for Micro & Small Units. This may be done through the following:

� Study and provide details of Schemes under MSME Ministry

� Create a section for MSIF in ELCI-NA Publications

ELCINA launches “ELCINA Micro & Small Industries Forum (EMSIF)” to support Micro & Small Industries

Exclusive Membership offer for new Members to join EMSIF.For more details about the Forum please contact:

Rajesh RawatManager – Events & CKMCell: +91 9911445890Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

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� Search and share a list of op-portunities in every edition of e-news and EEO

• Disseminate information on op-portunities which may be in the form of:

� Business through industries re-served for Small units or Prefer-ence Purchase by government

� B2B opportunity from Large, Medium Buyers, PSU’s

� Organise once a quarter (3 months) event for MSIF’s

• Connect with MSI’s all over the country through Small Industry as-sociations, sign MoU’s with them for cooperation and deliverables for mutual benefit of our members.

• Represent issues faced by ELCINA MSIF’s to government, specially policy issues and infrastructure, finance, Technical issues (Testing & Certification), Export facilitation.

• Support in sourcing of materials and services at preferred lower prices.

Members of Steering Committee for ELCINA MSIF

Mrs. Shobhana Prakash, MD, RMC Electronics Private Limited (Southern Region)

Mrs. Sujata Sopark-ar, MD, Integrated Electronics Technol-ogy Pvt. Ltd (Western Region)

Mr. Stanley Dubier, MD, Stanesh Semi-conductor Pvt. Ltd. (Western Region)

Mr. B S Randhawa, MD, Speedofer Com-ponents (Northern Region)

Mr. Mitesh Lokwani, MD, HLBS Tech Pvt. Ltd. (Central Region)

Membership Benefits of ELCINA Micro & Small Industries Forum (EMSIF)1. ELCINA Membership Benefits

• EMSIF members will get benefits of all ELCINA services with special focus on requirements of Small and Micro Enterprises.

• Regular industry, policy and mar-ket updates through ELCINA Pub-lications- e-fortnightly, EEO and Annual Directory.

• ELCINA Research Reports (as and when published) with special rates for members.

• Participation in B2B Forums and exhibitions such as Source India, Strategic Electronics Summit, net-working with foreign associations and companies subject to the op-portunity available and capacity of the member.

• Support for Central and State Govt. policies and Schemes.

• Support for Special Schemes of MeitY subject to eligibility of the MSI units.

• Training & Skill Development Workshops.

• ELCINA Electronics Portal- Under Development- All ELCINA mem-bers, including MSI Forum will have free access to this portal which will be a large marketplace providing a platform for reaching domestic and global customers.

2. MARKETING & PROMOTE YOUR BUSINESS –Domestic & Interna-tional

• Marketing as a Cluster.

• Approach big companies / PSUs.

• Internal Match Making within ELCINA Members.

• Vendor Development Meet for EMSIF Members (including regu-lar ELCINA events as mentioned above).

• Promotion, exhibition and partner-ship Support for New markets.

3. GOVERNMENT INITIATIVES, SCHEMES & FUNDING

• Approach & coordination with MSME Dept. / NSIC.

• Support for Access to Finance & Govt. Schemes (*subject to eligi-bility & selection process).

• Collateral Free Loan.

• Facilitation and support for do-mestic & international trade fairs –Under MSME Schemes.

4. FACILITATION FOR GOVERN-MENT PROCUREMENT / APPROV-ALS

• Support in Govt. procurements / Incentives / Approvals etc.

• Representation for oversight / common sectoral issues and en-abling eligibility of domestic MSI units.

5. JOINT VENTURES & COLLABORA-TIONS

• Support and Facilitation for Inter-national JVs, Partnerships, Tech-nology Transfers.

6. RECOGNITION THROUGH AWARDS

• Annual ELCINA awards to include MSIF units.

7. NETWORKING & MENTORING

• Regular networking opportunities through Seminars, Webinars, Con-ferences and B2B forums.

• MSIF Cluster approach to facili-tate mentoring through interac-tion with subject experts among ELCINA members as well as Con-sultants/Research firms.

• MOUs with MSMEs Association.

ELCINA ACTIVITY UPDATE

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Interactive Session for ELCINA MSMEs Members

For Collateral Free Loans under CGTMSE Scheme26th February, 2021 (online)

Availability of bank credit without the hassles of collaterals / third

party guarantees would be a major source of support to the Micro and Small Enterprise (MSE). Keeping this objective in view, Govt. of India launched Credit Guarantee Scheme (CGS) to strengthen credit delivery system and facilitate flow of credit to the MSE sector. To operationalize the scheme, Govt. of India and SID-

BI have set up the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small En-terprises (CGTMSE).

With the above background, EMSIF with the support of Alliance of In-dian MSMEs (AIM) and M/s. Artha Capital Management had organized an interactive session for Collateral Free Loans under CGTMSE Scheme for ELCINA MSMEs Members (Tam-il Nadu & Karnataka region) on 26th February, 2021.

Total 20 Organisations registered for the Session. Canara Bank has par-ticipated in the session and briefed the participants about the MSME Schemes and how Canara Bank can help the Industry to avail the benefit of those schemes.

HDFC Bank’s MSME book grows 30% to cross Rs 2 trillion-mark

The bank offers a range of services to MSMEs, ranging from conven-tional working capital/term loans, structured cash flow management and financing solutions, trade fi-nancing solutions, forex services, individual banking needs of promot-ers and family, salary accounts plus advisory on investment banking.(March 19, 2021)

Vayana Network, CRIF India launch Good Business Score to manage business health of MSMEs

Supply chain financing platform Vaya-na Network, in partnership with CRIF Solutions, on Monday introduced the Good Business Score (GBS), a tech based tool to help India’s MSMEs measure and manage their business health effectively. GBS is aimed to help MSMEs signal their worth to prospective business partners, stand apart from competition, and improve by understanding their own strengths and weaknesses.(https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/vayana-network-crif-india-launch-good-business-score-to-manage-busi-ness-health-of-msmes/articleshow/81509806.cms, March 15, 2021)

Govt committed to promote renew-able energy, especially in MSME sector: Nitin Gadkari

The government is committed to promote renewable energy resourc-es in the country, especially in mi-cro, small & medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector, Union minister Ni-tin Gadkari has said.(https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/govt-committed-to-promote-re-newable-energy-especially-in-msme-sector-ni-tin-gadkari/articleshow/81484239.cms, March 13, 2021)

Reliance Jio to aggressively gain MSME subscribers

By offering a bundled connectivity plan at 1/10th the existing price (Rs 15-20K/month) in the market, Jio is looking to expand the addressable market in the MSME segment.

As per a report by BofA Securities, Jio is looking to replicate mobile traction on MSME front. “Amongst the 50 million MSME, we consider 15-20 million to be the addressable market for this offering currently. Over time with rising GDP/capital and recent focus on the govern-ment’s “Make in India” initiative we expect room for the addressable

market to expand,” the report said.(https://www.indiatvnews.com/busi-ness/news-reliance-jio-to-aggressive-ly-gain-msme-subscribers-689994, March 10, 2021)

MSME Udyam registration simpli-fied: GSTIN not mandatory, PAN card can be used

The requirement for registering on the Udyam Registration Portal has been further simplified.

The Modi government’s paperless portal to ease MSME registration was launched on July 1, 2020. The objective of the portal is to provide a single-page registration, consume less time and simplify processes of registering any enterprise under MSME.(https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/msme-udyam-registration-simpli-fied-gstin-not-mandatory-pan-card-can-be-used-11615215135967.html, March 8, 2021)

EMSIF MSME NEWS

50


SPECIAL ARTICLE

Clinical Digital ThermometersMonitoring of body temperature has been an effective tool to diagnose the health condition since prehistoric pe-riod. With the advancements in mod-ern medicine, measurement and con-trol of body temperature has become a vital aspect in health management. The most commonly used tempera-ture measuring device in health sec-tor, till the last decade, was mercury thermometers. However, there has been a gradual increase in the adop-tion of mercury-free temperature monitoring devices worldwide over the past few years. Efforts of many organisations in spreading aware-ness about the harmful effects of mercury in the environment through various initiatives have fuelled the higher adoption of mercury-free tem-perature monitoring devices and hence clinical digital thermometers have taken up a unique spot in the thermometer market.

The market growth of clinical digital thermometer has been accelerat-ed by various factors such as rising prevalence of infectious diseases, in-creasing geriatric and pediatric pop-ulation, increasing number of surgi-cal procedures, growing number of blood transfusion procedures, rising awareness about continuous tem-perature monitoring, and increasing demand for advanced temperature monitoring devices. The digital ther-mometer market is anticipated to outgrow the mercury-based devices in the coming decade.

Considering the market potential and the specific requirements of the country to have indigenous technol-ogy for clinical digital thermometers, C-MET has developed a technology for Digital thermometers for medi-cal applications. The thermal sensor probes used are based on an indig-enous thermal sensor technology developed by C-MET for various ap-plications.

In our country, digital thermome-ters for clinical applications are still largely imported. From the recent ex-perience of containing pandemic dis-eases, our country has realized the need for an indigenous technology for digital thermometers to cater to our needs both in quality and quanti-ty. Hence this technology has been a need of the hour for our health man-agement system.

The developed clinical digital ther-mometers are quite handy and can be used to instantly monitor any abnormalities in body temperature. These can find applications in med-ical clinics, hospitals, and also at homes. Apart from being safer than mercury thermometer, the digital thermometer is provided with a larg-er digital display than normal, which makes it convenient to instantly monitor the temperature values with better readability.

Some of the general characteristics of this thermometer are given below.

• Default reading is in Fahrenheit. Can be toggled between degree Fahrenheit and degree Celsius by pressing the switch one time.

• The temperature range of the digi-tal thermometer is 31oC to 43oC. If the temperature is above 43oC it shows 43oC along with “max” in-dication and if the temperature is below 31oC , it will be 31o C along with “min’’ indication

• The resolution of the thermometer is 0.1 oC and accuracy is 0.2 oC as per Class II of BIS standard

• Once the value goes in hold, “H” Symbol will be shown in the dis-play along with a beep sound

• After every Hold the thermometer goes to sleep automatically in 1 minute 15 seconds.

• “Lo” Indication on display means the battery voltage is low and it is the time to replace the battery

• Large Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) has been provided. The best visi-bility angle for LCD is 270o or 6’O clock view

The design of the clinical digital thermometer is protected by fil-ing design registration with In-dian Patent Office (Design No. 335773-001)

The clinical digital thermometer developed at C-MET has qualified all the tests as per IS 15113:2002 standard for Medical Laboratory instruments – Clinical Electrical Thermometer with Maximum de-vice, conducted by an NABL ac-credited laboratory.

The technology is now offered by C-MET for commercialization (EoI invited). For more details, please connect with: Dr. A. See-ma, Scientist, Centre for Materi-als for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Athani P.O, M.G. Kavu, Thrissur, Kerala- 680581, India, T +91 487 2201156, E [email protected]

In RemembranceWg Cdr Suresh Khanna, VSM (Retd)Oct 16, 1943 – April 10, 2021

We share with profound grief the sad news of the passing away of Wg Cdr Suresh Khanna, known so well to the electronics fraternity for the long years he served the industry. An electronics engineer from BITS, Pilani from the 1967 batch, he started his career in the IAF as an electron-ics engineer and served for 24 years, when he took voluntary retirement from the position of Wing Commander in Elec-tronics Engineering branch. He was awarded Distinguished Service Medal for his services by President of India, while working in Indian Air Force.

He was involved intimately with the Industry for about two decades since 1992 and served with Salora International and Calcom looking after their materials function and cor-porate communication and strategy. He had an excellent understanding of the electronic Industry, specially Con-sumer Electronics, and maintained close links with industry players. He played a key role in policy advocacy interacting closely with the Ministry of Electronics and other depart-ments. He served very successfully as the Secretary Gen-eral of Consumer Electronics & Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA), an all India Industry chamber for an extended duration of almost 20 years. ELCINA cherishes the opportunities we had to interact and work closely with Khanna ji deriving the benefits of his experience and advise.

The industry will always remember him with respect for his dedicated service and cooperative nature willing to help and motivate all his colleagues.

Mr. Stanley R ChellappaJuly 30, 1939 – Apr 19, 2021

We are sorry to inform the electronics com-munity about the passing away of Mr. Stan-ley R Chellappa who was closely associated

with the PCB Industry for over 37 years.

A Postgraduate in Chemistry from University of Kerala Mr Chellappa served the Indian Telephone Industries from 1977 to 1997 when he was the Asst General Manager. He was in-charge of PCB production and Quality testing facility for more than twenty years and a well recognized expert in this domain.

Subsequently he worked as Secretary General at Indian Printed Circuit Association (IPCA) Bangalore from 1997 to 2013, practically establishing the association from scratch. He was instrumental in bringing PCB Fraternity and associ-ation together. Being a positive and energetic personality, he was well known among all in the PCB Community and could bring divergent views to one common point.

ELCINA cherishes the opportunities we had to interact and work closely with Mr Chellappa and shared our common goals for promoting PCB manufacturing in the country. The industry will always remember him with respect for his ded-icated service to the PCB industry.

52

MEMBERS’ SECTIONELCINA Electronics Outlook March-April 2021

AT&S India, the country’s first manu-facturer of High Frequency and High Density Interconnect printed circuit boards, which is essential for the true realization of Digital India and AtmaN-irbhar Bharat, announced today that it will provide Covid-19 vaccinations to all its employees free of cost. The ini-tiative aims to ensure the health and wellbeing of all its employees at the company’s plant in Nanjangud near Mysuru.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG, the worlds leading manufacturers of high value PCBs and IC substrates, AT&S India would like to demonstrate its appreciation of the dedication with which its employees have worked de-spite corona-induced odds in recent times.

Mr. RS Simha, Managing Director and CFO, AT & S India Pvt. Ltd. ex-plained that, “AT&S India is commit-ted to keeping its employees safe and healthy and above everything else. Our workers have shown exemplary commitment and dedication by re-porting for duty even during the initial lockdown last year when our plant in Nanjangud had to operate as an Emer-gency Service Provider to support the Government of Karnataka’s program for the vital production of ventilators. It is now our turn to repay their efforts and hard work. They upheld our repu-tation as India’s foremost exporter of high end printed circuit boards.”

Mr. Robert Grobbauer, Director and Chief Operating Officer, AT & S India Pvt. Ltd., added, that “at Nanjangud, we always strive to truly live the AT&S AG group corporate mission - We care about people! We regularly undertake programs that have touched the lives of thousands of people in a positive way and offering all of our employees here a free vaccination is yet another milestone. We would like to express our gratitude to all our 1400 employ-

ees in no uncertain terms and urge them all to get vaccinated.”

AT&S India will reimburse the cost of the two mandated vaccine shots for all its employees when it becomes available.

The company has always upheld its outstanding reputation in Karnataka in the production and export of high-end printed circuit boards. AT&S India supports key global electronic trends in automotive, industrial and medical applications. This includes miniaturi-sation, machine-to-machine commu-nication for wearables, networking of vehicles, and the Internet of Things. The company employs close to 1400 people, more than 98% of whom are from the state of Karnataka. Since 1999, it Makes In India for premium customers in Europe, USA and Asia Pacific regions.

About AT & S IndiaAT&S India Pvt. Ltd is country’s first manufacturer of High Frequency and High Density Interconnect printed circuit boards, an essential for the true realization of Digital India and AtmaNirbhar Bharat. A wholly owned subsidiary of Austria Technologie & Systemtechnik AG, world’s leading manufacturers of high value PCBs and IC substrates, AT&S India sup-ports key global electronic trends in automotive, industrial and medical ap-plications, including miniaturisation, machine-to-machine communication for wearables, networking of vehicles, and Internet of Things.

AT&S India operates from an environ-mentally friendly advanced facility in Nanjangud near Mysore in Karnata-ka with an employee base of around 1400. Since 1999, the company offers high-end PCB solutions for premium customers across the world including Europe, USA and Asia Pacific regions.

ELCINA is delighted to share the following Press Release from it’s eminent member…

AT & S India to bear cost of Covid-19 vaccination for all its employees

Editor’s NoteAT & S Austria Technologie &

Systemtechnik AG - First choice for advanced applications

AT&S is the European market leader and one of the global-ly leading manufacturers of

high-value printed circuit boards and IC substrates. AT&S industri-alises leading-edge technologies

for its core business segments Mobile Devices, Automotive,

Industrial, Medical and Ad-vanced Packaging. AT&S has a

global presence, with production facilities in Austria (Leoben and

Fehring) and plants in India (Nanjangud), China (Shanghai, Chongqing) and Korea (Ansan,

near Seoul). The company employed an average of about 10,000 people in the financial

year 2018/19. For more informa-tion: www.ats.net

Contact Details:T Unnayan

Manager, Corporate Affairs and Communications

Email: [email protected]

Since 1953 In the Service of the Nation

The Institution of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers (IETE)Call for Nominations for IETE Awards-2021

The IETE Awards have been established to recognize excellent scientific and technological achievements in the scientific fieldscovered by the Institution. Most of these IETE Awards are presented at the Annual IETE Convention (AIC) of IETE.

THE CALL FOR NOMINATIONS IS NOW OPEN FOR THE YEAR 2021.

Nomination Submission Deadline for IETE Main Awards and IETE Corporate Awards: May 31, 2021.

IETE Main Awards under consideration are presented to the nominee(s) who has made major scientific contributions in the field(s) as per the specification of the award. These awards consist of a plaque /medal, or/and honorarium, or/and travel supportto an IETE regional meeting, where a lecture is be presented by the awardee.

IETE Corporate Awards under consideration are presented to Large Enterprises (LEs) and Micro/Small/Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) for recognizing performance excellence of the Corporate Sector (establishment /organization/service entrepreneur/industry). These awards carry citations and mementos.

Details and description of each award can be found at http://www.iete.org/Call%20for%20Nomination%20Main%20Awards%20for%20website.pdf

IETE AWARDS

IETE MAIN AWARDS (in the fields as stated)

IETE-Ram Lal Wadhwa Award - (Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering) IETE-Hari Ramji Toshniwal Award- (Development & production of Electronic Instruments and related Systems) IETE-Bimal Bose Award- (Power Electronics) IETE-Lal C Verman Award- (Standardization, Quality Control and Precision Measurements) IETE- IRSI (83) Main Award & IETE - IRSI (83) Young Scientist Award- (Radar Science & Technologies) IETE-Flt Lt Tanmaya Singh Dandass Memorial Award - (Avionics) IETE-Prof K Sreenivasan Memorial Award -(Teaching Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering) IETE-Prof SVC Aiya Memorial Award – (Guidance in Electronics and Telecommunication Research work) IETE-Prof S N Mitra Memorial Award - (Radio Broadcast Science and Technology) IETE-Bapuseetharam Award (Biennial)- (R&D and / or production of Electronic Components) IETE- B V Baliga Memorial- (Electronics and Telecommunication with emphasis on R&D and Industrial Development) IETE- N V Gadadhar Memorial Award- (Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering with emphasis on Mobile Radio Communication) IETE- B R Batra Memorial Award - (for selfless service to the cause of the IETE) IETE- R S Khandpur Award- (Medical Instrumentation) IETE-Brig M L Anand Award- (Applications of Networking and Internet with its usage in everyday life & commerce) IETE-Biman Behari Sen Memorial Award-(emerging areas of Electronics and Telecommunications with emphasis on R&D and Industrial Development)

IETE- Life Time Achievement Award-(Electronics, Telecommunication & allied fields) IETE- Smt Manorama Rathore Memorial Award - (Electronics and / or Communication) IETE- Smt Ranjana Pal Memorial Award-(RF Communications, Electromagnetic, Antennas, Microwaves Circuits, Devices etc) IETE- Smt Triveni Devi Gupta Memorial Award- (Electronics, Telecommunications, Medical Electronics, Broadcasting, IT, ICT, E-Governance, Computer Technology, RF, e-Education, Electrical Technology). IETE- Technomedia Award for Young Women in Engineering- (Electronics,Telecommunication, Computer Science and Information Technology Engineering) IETE-Shri Devi Singh Tyagi Memorial Award- (Avionics and Defence Electronics) IETE-Shri P P Malhotra Memorial Award-(Electronics Industry /Academia) only for IETE Organizational Members IETE-Dr Sudhakar Rao Award- (Advanced Antenna System for Space, Air or Ground Communications)- -(New Award instituted from this year)

IETE CORPORATE AWARDS In the categories of Large Enterprises (LEs), and Micro/Small/ Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in each of the following areas:

Electronic Components Computer and Telecommunication Systems Development of Software Electronic Instruments and Instrumentation

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