• NITI Aayog will release the third edition of the India Innovation Index on the 21st of July, 2022
• The release of the third edition of the index - the first and second editions were launched in October, 2019 and January, 2021, respectively - corroborates the Government's continuous commitment towards transforming the nation into an innovation-driven economy.

• The India Innovation Index 2021, which examines innovation capacities and ecosystems at the sub-national level, highlights the recent factors and catalysts for promoting such crisis-driven innovation.
• The third edition strengthens the scope of innovation analysis in the country by drawing on the framework of the Global Innovation Index (GII).
• The new framework presents a more nuanced and comprehensive outlook for measuring innovation performance in India, with the introduction of 66 unique indicators, as compared to the 36 indicators used in the preceding edition (viz. India Innovation Index 2020).
• Through this comprehensive framework, the index evaluates the innovation performance of all the states and union territories in India.
• The states and the union territories have been divided into 17 ‘Major States', 10 ‘North-East and Hill States', and 9 ‘Union Territories and City States', for effectively comparing their performance.

• The Global Innovation Index is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation.
• It was started in 2007 by INSEAD and World Business, a British magazine.
• The GII is published by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in partnership with the Portulans Institute, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry (CNI), Ecopetrol (Colombia) and the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TÄ°M).
• It is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.
• India ranks 46th among the 132 economies featured in the GII 2021. The Global Innovation Index (GII) ranks world economies according to their innovation capabilities.

Economy
NITI Aayog Releases Report on Digital Banks; Proposes a Licensing and Regulatory Regime for India

What's the NEWS

• NITI Aayog's report makes a case and offers a template and roadmap for a licensing and regulatory regime for digital banks.
• This report studies the prevailing gaps, the niches that remain underserved, and the global regulatory best practices in licensing digital banks

• The Niti Aayog suggested a roadmap for the setting up of full-stack digital business/consumer banks to deepen the access to financial services in the country.

1. In the first phase, a restricted digital bank licence should be given to an applicant with restrictions in terms of volume/value of customers serviced and the like.
2. In the second stage, the licensee will be put in a regulatory sandbox framework by the RBI.
3. Issue of a ‘full-scale' digital bank licence (contingent on satisfactory performance of the licensee in the regulatory sandbox, including salient, prudential and technological risk management).

• The methodology for the licensing and regulatory template offered by the report is based on an equally weighted ‘digital bank regulatory index'.
• This comprises four factors-(i) entry barriers; (ii) competition; (iii) business restrictions; and (iv) technological neutrality.
• The elements of these four factors are then mapped against the five benchmark jurisdictions of Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom, Malaysia, Australia and South Korea.

• A regulatory sandbox is a framework set up by a regulator that allows FinTech startups and other innovators to conduct live experiments in a controlled environment under a regulator's supervision.
• It refers to live testing of new products or services in a controlled/test regulatory environment

Digital bank

• A digital bank would be a bank defined in the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, and shall have its own balance sheet and legal existence.
• Such a bank would be different from the 75 Digital Banking Units (DBUs), which was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Union Budget 2022-23.
• These entities will issue deposits, make loans and offer the full suite of services that the Act empowers them to.
• As the name suggests, DBs will principally rely on the internet and other proximate channels to offer their services and not physical branches.

Space Awareness
New Space India Ltd (NSIL)

What's the NEWS

• 10 (Ten) in-orbit operational communication satellites have been transferred from Government of India to M/s. New Space India Ltd (NSIL), a CPSE under Department of Space.
• Communication satellites viz. GSAT-8, GSAT-10, GSAT-12R (CMS-01), GSAT-14, GSAT-15, GSAT-16, GSAT-17, GSAT-18, GSAT-30 and GSAT-31 have been transferred to NSIL
• The transfer of operational satellites is part of the Space Sector reforms, aimed at strengthening the role of NSIL in order to enhance the nation's share in global space economy.

• The Indian National Space Promotion & Authorization Centre [IN-SPACe] has been created as a single window agency to promote, handhold and authorize the activities of NGEs in the sector, thus providing them with a level playing field.
• As a part of these reforms, NSIL has been mandated to task the building of launch vehicle through Indian Industry and launch as per satellite customer requirements.

Know! about NSIL

• NewSpace India Limited is a Public Sector Undertaking of Government of India and commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organisation.
• It was established on 6 March 2019 under the administrative control of Department of Space and the Company Act 2013.
• The main objective of NSIL is to scale up industry participation in Indian space programmes.
• NewSpace India Limited (NSIL) will be nodal agency for carrying out PSLV production through Indian Industry under consortium route.

Prelims Factoids
DAK KARMAYOGI

What's the NEWS

• The Dak Karmayogi e-Learning portal aims at competency building of Departmental employees and GraminDak Sewaks of Department of Posts.
• This portal facilitates online as well as onsite training in blended learning mode at departmental training units.
• The Dak Karmayogi portal is aligned to Hon'ble Prime Minister's Mission Karmayogi and has been developed with a view to bring efficiency in the work force of Department of Posts.
• This portal enables the Departmental employees and Gramin Dak Sewaks to access the uniform standardized training content online as well as in blended learning mode at Departmental training units with main theme as moving from 'rule' to 'role'.
• This portal envisages to be a repository of training contents related to work procedures as well as soft skills requirements of Departmental employees and Gramin Dak Sewaks so as to enable them to learn relevant subjects anytime, anywhere as per their convenience.
• Increased competencies of the Departmental employees and Gramin Dak Sewaks aims in improvement of the Rural and Urban postal service.

Defence
‘Swavlamban' - Indian Navy's Maiden Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Seminar

What's the NEWS

• ‘Swavlamban', the maiden seminar of the Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO), was held at New Delhi
• The Chief Guest was escorted around the exhibition put up by the industry and shown a demo of ‘Varuna' Personal Air vehicle - an autonomous multi-copter drone capable of carrying a passenger.

 

• The highlight of the seminar was the release of the iDEX DISC7 (SPRINT) challenges by the Prime Minister.
• SPRINT (Supporting Pole-vaulting in R&D through iDEX, NIIO and TDAC) is a collaborative project between the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) and NIIO aimed at developing atleast 75 indigenous technologies / products as a part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
• The challenges span across a wide range of niche technology fields including Artificial Intelligence (AI), autonomous and unmanned systems and Information Technology.
• Challenges will be considered under both DISC (Defence India Startup Challenge) and Prime categories of iDEX which have provisions for grants upto Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 10 crore respectively.

• Ministry of Defence aims to create an ecosystem which fosters innovation and encourages technology development in Defence by engaging R&D institutes, academia, industries, start- ups and even individual innovators.
• iDEX will be funded and managed by a "Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO)‟ formed as a "not for profit‟ company as per Section 8 of the Companies Act 2013 for this purpose.
• The modalities of implementation of DIF will be managed by a specialized team known as the Innovation for Defence Excellence (iDEX) within the DIO.
• DIO will provide high level policy guidance to iDEX.
• iDEX will have functional autonomy.
• CEO of iDEX would also be CEO of DIO thereby providing the linkage between the high level policy guidance given by DIO and its implementation in a professional manner through iDEX.

DEFENCE INDIA STARTUP CHALLENGES

• Taking the iDEX initiative further, Defence India Startup Challenge "has been launched by Ministry of Defence in partnership with Atal Innovation Mission, aimed at supporting Startups/MSMEs/Innovators to create prototypes and/or commercialize products/solutions in the area of National Defence and Security.

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