When Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in a specially organised function on January 16, 2016 unveiled the Start-up India programme of his government and announced a series of tax holidays, dedicated funds and other incentives for start-up companies in India, the atmosphere at the venue of Vigyan Bhavan, the Government’s convention centre in New Delhi, was quite different from any routine government functions. Reporting the event next morning, one of the newspapers even went to the extent of equating it with a rock concert, and wrote: “On the day, the venue could have easily been mistaken for a rock concert venue; except that unlike a few hours of raw energy that one experiences in a high-octane gig, this event sustained the energy for almost 12 hours.”
Way to New India
Hundreds of start-up founders, investors and aspiring entrepreneurs from all over the country reached the venue early in the morning itself, braving the morning chill the capital city is known for, in January. Despite stringent security checks and long queues, the crowd was undeterred. When they went in and stayed put, the 1,300-capacity auditorium was jam-packed with mostly young faces reflecting great energy and enthusiasm. They had come to become a part of what promised to be a landmark day for start-ups. Never before had the Government rolled out an initiative like this to engage with entrepreneurs on this scale. The slogans plastered all over the place summed up the spirit behind start-ups and deservedly grabbed attention.
While some posters proclaimed “Way to New India”, others pronounced:
“Seed Today,
Tree Tomorrow”,
“Disrupters Wanted” and “Creating Creators-”.
The speakers’ podium had a meaningful play of words to boast: “We Unobstacle”. A galaxy of tech executives from 22-year-old founder of Oyo Rooms to the Chairman and CEO of the SoftBank to the CEO of Uber, all were gathered under one roof.
Inspiring Young Minds
On the other hand, more than a dozen policy-makers, including Central Government officers, at least nine of them of Secretary rank, particularly from the Ministries and Departments related to economy, finance, company and business affairs, were present there to address each and every query raised by young and wannabe entrepreneurs and assure them that here was a government which believes in creating a favourable atmosphere for doing business in India, instead of creating hurdles in the path of innovative and disruptive ideas. Moreover, the programme was being telecast live to 350 districts and top universities. The purpose of the whole exercise was to give a spur to entrepreneurship and innovation and related business activities in the country, make people, particularly youngsters, aware of changing face of businesses today, create new job opportunities in various fields, make it easy for young entrepreneurs to innovate and do business and at the same time, inspire millions of young minds who will soon come out of universities and other institutes of higher education to become job-givers instead of seeking jobs for themselves.
19-point Action Plan
In the evening, PM Mr. Modi took the podium to unveil an elaborate action plan to help boost the start-up eco-system. The 19-point action plan was announced with the promise that the Government would only play the role of a facilitator and do its best to unburden entrepreneurs with complicated compliance requirements. Accordingly, he announced a threeryear income tax holiday for start-up companies incorporated between April’ 2016 and March 2019 and a self-certification-based compliance regime in which they will be allowed to self-certify the compliance of 9 labour and environment laws through a Start-up mobile app for the first three years without any inspection. He also announced creation of a~Rs.l0,000-crore corpus for startups that will of course not invest directly into start-ups, but will participate in SEBI- registered venture funds. In addition, a Rs. 2,500-crore Credit Guarantee Fund will also be created to help flow of venture debt from banking system to the startup companies.
Mobile App to Register The Government will soon make available a mobile app which will have a small application form to be filled easily to register a start-up within a single day and will also facilitate interaction with Government and regulatory agencies for all business needs and information exchange among various stakeholders. And what requires for a company to qualify as a start-up? To begin with, any entity which has been around for less than five years and has a turnover of less than Rs. 25 crore qualifies to be defined as a start-up, provided it is working towards innovation, deployment or commercialisation of new products, process or services that are driven by technology or intellectual property.
Million Problems : Billions Minds
Mr. Modi’s words addressing the gathering echoed the spirit behind the entire exercise. “Many people think that everything happens only when the Government does something. But the fact is that so much will happen if the Government does not do anything. We have done a lot for the last 70 years and see where we have reached. You all have been invited here to let us know what not to do. Once we decide not to do anything, these young entrepreneurs will take our nation to places in 10 years’ span of time,” he said. Many one-liners laced in his 45-minute speech were equally inspiring to his youthful audience: “There are ways to close doors to new ideas, we want to open them”; “Failures shouldn’t stop you forever, one who runs away from water cannot learn to swim”; “We have a million problems, but at the same time, we have over a billion minds”; “We are lacking in IP (intellectual property), but we have a lot of YP (youth property) and we have to bring both of them on a single plane”; “When I was listening to Ritesh (Aggarwal), the founder of Oyo Rooms, I wondered why a ‘chaiwala’ did not think of starting a hotel chain”; “Our youngsters will have to change their thinking; they must become job-givers instead of job¬seekers” and “In order to change the world for better, we have to have ideas”.
More Than Jobs
There is absolutely no doubt that India needs to create extraordinarily big number of jobs to take full advantage of its demographic dividends. And for this very purpose, the Indeed, there cannot be a better partner for India’s development than the country that was the first non-western society to modernise and emerge as a world power, spearheading Asia’s industrial and technology advances since the 19th century.
Japan’s heavy-manufacturing base and India’s services-led growth—as well as their contrasting age structures—make their economies complementary, opening the path to generating strong synergies. India’s human capital and Japan’s financial and technological power can be a good match to help drive India’s infrastructure development and great- power aspirations, and catalyse Japan’s revival as a world power.
Japan and India, as energy-poor countries heavily reliant on oil imports from the unstable Persian Gulf region, are seriously concerned over mercantilist efforts to assert control over energy supplies and the transport routes for them. So the maintenance of a peaceful and lawful maritime domain, including unimpeded freedom of navigation, is critical to their security and economic well¬being.
India—the world’s largest arms importer that desperately needs to develop an indigenous arms-production capability—is forging closer defence ties with Japan, including co-developing weapon systems and working together on missile defence.
Going ahead
First andforemost, the India-Japan Global and Strategic Partnership, which hitherto was largely confined to Japanese assistance in infrastructure projects in India, is now set for a push in the political aspects of the bilateral relationship with security and strategic overtones. This has been institutionalised by a mechanism of regular consultations between the two sides’ national security advisors.
Secondly, the two countries also reaffirmed their commitment to cooperate in the rare earths sector and shared “the strong resolution” that the commencement of commercial production of rare earths by Indian and Japanese enterprises should take place at the earliest. India and Japan also agreed on paving way for civil nuclear agreement giving boost to India’s ambitious nuclear powerjarogramme.
Thirdly, the two countries decided to put a deeper emphasis on military-to- military exchanges, joint exercises and prepared an ambitious road map in this regard. Consequently, Indian Navy (IN) and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) are engaged in regular bilateral exercises.
Fourthly, the two countries are in the process of finalising defence deals. India’s navy is also reportedly interested in Japanese patrol vessels and electronic warfare equipment. The deal is significant for a variety of reasons. On the surface, it is another indicator of burgeoning cooperation between India and Japan on security matters. The deal is doubly significant in the context of India’s relations with Japan, because once India clinches the deal, it will become the first country to purchase defence equipment from Japan since the latter’s self-imposed ban on defence exports began in 1967.
Fifthly, in the regional context, India has invited Japan to participate in infrastructure development programmes of the country’s northeast States, an area where China is sensitive to even Indian actions given its contested territorial claims in the State of Arunachal Pradesh. India is hoping that a new economic and transport corridor involving India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and possibly even Thailand would take shape in the future.
Sixthly, on the recent Chinese policy of declaring an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ), the two countries jointly underscored the importance of freedom of overflight and civil aviation safety in accordance with the recognised principles of international law and the relevant standards and recommended practices of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). With this, India has finally sided with Japan at the expense of China on the ADIZ controversy.
Recent agreements post-Shinzo Abe’s visit to India in December, ,2015
The biggest surprise was a breakthrough on a nuclear cooperation agreement under negotiation since 2010. A breakthrough was seen on nuclear energy cooperation that paves the way for companies such as Westinghouse Electric Co. and General Electric Co. to sell equipment to India.
The deals are bringing India, whicf formally avoids security alliances, further into the US military orbit. Japan woulc join India and the US as a regular member in the biannual Malabar nava. exercises to “help create stronger capabilities to deal with maritime challenges in the Indo-Pacific region,’ the two leaders said in a joint statement. Next year, India and Japan will hold a second round of trilateral diplomatic talks with Australia, another US ally.
Both signed pacts to share classified intelligence and paved the way for a long-pending deal to export japan’s US-2 amphibious aircraft to India.
Japan agreed to help finance infrastructure projects in India, including roads in its northeastern States, one of which is the disputed area of Arunachal Pradesh. In recent months, India has pushed ahead with plans to build a $6-billion highway and populate the remote region it has neglected since fighting a war over it with China five decades ago.
A $15-billion deal for Japan to help build India’s first high-speed rail link and $12.4 billion in Japanese financing and export insurance to spur investment in India were also finalised.
CONCLUSION
Indo-Japan relations have gone from strength to strength in recent years. In fact, Japan is the only country in India’s foreign policy outreach in the past one decade with which India’s relations have constandy been on an upswing.
India has been speciallv chosen for an imperial visit to signal Japan’s commitment to forge closer ties. Japan is already doing more for India than any other economic partner of this country: it is the largest source of aid, and is playing a key role in helping India to improve its poor infrastructure.
India’s relations with japan have begun to take the flavour of India’s relations with Russia and the US where the two sides are cooperating on virtually everything under the sun—defence, energy, nuclear, trade, investment, science and technology, infrastructure, health, people-to-people contacts, railways, cyber security and tourism, apart from political and strategic issues.
These are just one sign of a shift from emphasising shared values to seeking to protect common interests. This camaraderie is poised for growth and acceleration in near future.