Editorials, Opinions & Explained2 Items

Core TopicImportantConcise

Opinions & IdeasGS Paper III

01India’s Innovation Ecosystem — Three Emerging Strands02Deep-Sea Mining — Capability and Ecological Restraint

Opinions & IdeasGeneral Studies Paper III · Science, Technology & Environment

01

A homegrown innovation ecosystem is taking root: the evidence, and the gap between filings and value

Core TopicOpinionGS-III · Science & Technology, Indigenisation, IPRPrelims + MainsThe Hindu · Op-Ed · Mukundan Chakrapani & Gaurav Jain · 19 September 2026

The argument is structural rather than celebratory. Three institutional foundations of an innovation economy — public research, corporate R&D and deep-tech entrepreneurship — are advancing at the same time for the first time. The authors hold that the architecture is now visible, while the transformation remains incomplete.

◈ Preliminary distinctions: what a patent statistic does and does not measure

Much of this article turns on a distinction that is frequently collapsed in public discussion. Three different quantities are often reported as though they were one.

• Filings — applications submitted. A filing is an intention to claim, not a right.
• Grants — applications that survive examination. India’s patents are examined substantively for novelty, inventive step and industrial applicability under the Patents Act, 1970.
• Patents in force — granted patents on which renewal fees continue to be paid. This is the only one of the three that reflects patents their owners judge worth maintaining, and it is therefore the closest available proxy for commercial value.
• Why the gap opens: a filing may be abandoned, rejected, or allowed to lapse for non-payment of renewal fees. A wide gap between filings and patents in force indicates low grant rates, high abandonment, or both.
• A related instrument: the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), allows a single international application to preserve filing rights across member states. India has been a party since 1998. PCT rankings are therefore a measure of international ambition, not of domestic activity.

▤ The quantitative picture presented

• Filings: from just over 1,10,000 in 2024-25 to more than 1,43,000 in 2025-26 — an increase of 30.2%. Domestic applicants now account for nearly seven in ten filings, a reversal of the historical pattern in which foreign applicants dominated the Indian register.
• Patents in force: just over 2,40,000 in India (2025), against 5.7 million in China, 3.5 million in the United States and 2.1 million in Japan (2024 data).
• Research intensity: India spends just under 1% of GDP on research and development, against about 2.4% in China and 3.5% in the United States.
• A structural shift: private R&D spending exceeded the combined spending of all levels of government for the first time in 2024, and is expected to account for about 55% through 2025-26.

Figure 1 — Patents in force: the scale of the gap

5.7 mnChina (2024)3.5 mnUnited States (2024)2.1 mnJapan (2024)0.24 mnIndia (2025)PATENTS IN FORCE — NOT FILINGSIndia files at scale but maintains comparatively few patents. The contrast between a 30.2% rise in filings and a stock of 2.4 lakhpatents in force is the central empirical observation of the article.Research intensity for the same countries: India just under 1% of GDP; China about 2.4%; the United States about 3.5%.

Filings measure activity; patents in force measure what owners consider worth paying to keep.

Strand one: long-gestation public research, and the gallium nitride case

• The breakthrough. In March 2023, DRDO scientists at the Solid State Physics Laboratory (SSPL), Delhi and the Gallium Arsenide Enabling Technology Centre (GAETEC), Hyderabad announced the fabrication of gallium nitride (GaN) monolithic microwave integrated circuits (MMICs).
• The strategic context. By widely reported accounts, the know-how for these circuits was refused to India under the offset provisions of the Rafale acquisition from France. GaN is a tightly export-controlled technology.
• Why GaN matters technically. It is a wide-bandgap semiconductor: it tolerates higher voltages, frequencies and temperatures than silicon, which makes it indispensable for active electronically scanned array radar, satellite communication, electronic warfare and high-efficiency power conversion.
• Diffusion into the civilian economy. The DRDO is transferring GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) MMIC technology for use in 5G/6G wireless infrastructure, on-board chargers for electric vehicles and renewable energy inverters.
• The membership claim. India is described as one of seven countries to have mastered the technology, alongside China, France, Germany, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
• The commercial handoff. AGNIT Semiconductors, a spin-off from the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) at the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, is translating the technology into commercial applications.

Figure 2 — The innovation pipeline, as illustrated by the GaN case

Public laboratoryDRDO — SSPL, Delhi andGAETEC, Hyderabadfoundational capabilityAcademic institutionCeNSE, Indian Instituteof Science, Bengalurutalent and research baseSpin-off enterpriseAGNIT Semiconductorscommercial translationApplicationsRadar and space systems;5G/6G; EV chargers;solar invertersA DENIED TECHNOLOGY, DEVELOPED DOMESTICALLY AND THEN CIVILIANISEDThe sequence is the article’s model of how an innovation ecosystem should function: the State absorbs the risk of long-gestation research, theuniversity supplies the trained researchers, and a spin-off carries the technology to a paying customer. Each handoff is a point at which thepipeline can break — which is why the authors call for standardised technology-transfer terms for publicly funded intellectual property.

The same three-stage sequence recurs in the biomedical examples discussed below.

Strand two: corporate R&D and the shift from implementer to standard-setter

• The Bharat 6G Alliance (B6GA) has stated the objective of contributing 10% of global 6G patents by 2030.
• Per a review by the Union Minister for Communications, B6GA members have made more than 7,700 patent filings across 5G and 6G technologies, including over 4,400 foreign filings.
• The authors’ own qualification is worth reproducing: these are applications, not grants, and not declared standard-essential patents; their eventual impact remains to be established.
• Nearly 3,000 technical contributions were made to 3GPP last year — a fifteen-fold increase over 2020.
• In WIPO’s 2025 PCT rankings, Jio Platforms Limited entered the top 20 international filers for the first time, rising more than 300 places to 19th.
• The analytical point. Participation in standards bodies and ownership of intellectual property determine who captures value from future communication networks. The claim is that India is moving from standard-implementer to standard-setter.

◈ Background: why standards bodies matter more than patent counts

• 3GPP — the Third Generation Partnership Project, the body in which mobile communication standards from 3G to 6G are negotiated. Technical contributions are the currency of influence there.
• A standard-essential patent (SEP) is a patent that cannot be avoided by anyone implementing the standard. SEP holders license on FRAND terms — fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory — and earn royalties from every device built to that standard.
• The consequence: a country that implements standards pays royalties; a country that sets them receives them. This is the value-capture asymmetry the article identifies.

Strand three: deep-tech entrepreneurship

• Capital: government commitment to Research, Development and Innovation (RDI), alongside more than USD 2.5 billion in deep-tech commitments from members of the India Deep Tech Alliance (IDTA).
• Space — earth observation: Pixxel Space, founded by two BITS Pilani alumni, works in hyperspectral imaging, with six satellites in orbit and a planned constellation of 18 to 24.
• Space — launch: Skyroot Aerospace’s Vikram-1 low earth orbit launch, and Agnikul Cosmos, nurtured at IIT Madras, working towards fully reusable launch vehicles.
• Biomedical: ImmunoACT, incubated at IIT Bombay in partnership with the Tata Memorial Centre, developed NexCAR19 — India’s first indigenous CAR-T cell therapy — delivering treatment at about a tenth of typical costs.
• Medical devices: Bengaluru-based Remidio Innovative Solutions, supported early by BIRAC, uses smartphone-enabled retinal imaging with AI against preventable blindness from diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma.
• On CAR-T, for context: chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy involves extracting a patient’s own T-cells, genetically engineering them to recognise a tumour antigen, and reinfusing them. Cost has been the principal barrier to access worldwide, which is why the price differential is the salient claim.

The authors’ assessment of what remains undone

• Standardising technology-transfer terms for publicly funded intellectual property — at present these are negotiated case by case, which raises transaction costs for spin-offs.
• Expanding examiner capacity at the patent office — directly relevant to the filings-to-grants gap identified earlier.
• Funding the translational gap between a granted patent and a first paying customer — the stage at which most publicly funded inventions stall.
• The measured conclusion: these examples do not by themselves make India an innovation superpower. What they demonstrate is that three strands are converging. The journey is unfinished; the contours are forming.

✎ Mains Practice Question

Rising patent filings are frequently cited as evidence of India’s growing innovative capacity. Critically examine the limitations of this indicator, and discuss the institutional reforms required to convert research output into commercially sustained intellectual property. 15 marks · 250 words

02

Deep-sea discovery and environmental responsibility: should everything technologically possible be exploited?

Core TopicOpinionGS-III · Environment & S&T · GS-II · International GovernancePrelims + MainsThe Hindu · Op-Ed · P. Ragavan · 19 September 2026

The author poses a question of principle rather than of capability. As India acquires the means to reach and mine the deep seabed, he argues that the relevant question is not how much can be extracted, but whether capability should be treated as permission.

◈ Background: the legal geography of the seabed

Deep-sea mining is governed by a legal architecture distinct from that applying to a country’s own waters, and the distinction is essential to the argument.

• Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, a coastal state has sovereign rights over resources in its Exclusive Economic Zone, extending 200 nautical miles from the baseline, and over its continental shelf.
• The seabed beyond national jurisdiction is termed ‘the Area’. Under Part XI of UNCLOS it is the common heritage of mankind — it cannot be appropriated by any state, and its resources are to be administered for the benefit of humanity as a whole.
• The International Seabed Authority (ISA), headquartered at Kingston, Jamaica, administers the Area and issues exploration contracts. India’s activity discussed here lies in the Area, not in Indian waters.
• Exploration is not exploitation. An exploration contract permits survey, sampling and technology testing. Commercial extraction requires a separate exploitation contract, and the ISA’s Mining Code governing exploitation remains under negotiation.
• Three resource types are distinguished in the Area: polymetallic nodules (potato-sized concretions lying on abyssal plains), polymetallic sulphides (at hydrothermal vents) and cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts (on seamount flanks).

▤ India’s deep-sea position, as set out in the article

• Three ISA exploration contracts covering approximately 95,000 square kilometres, across the Central Indian Ocean Basin, the Central Indian Ridge and the Carlsberg Ridge.
• Resource estimate: about 366 million tonnes of polymetallic nodules, containing nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.
• Technology: under the Deep Ocean Mission, India is developing deep-sea mining technology, underwater robotics and the MATSYA-6000 human submersible.
• Demonstrated capability: the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) has tested a mining machine at a depth of about 5,270 metres.
• Biological work: biodiversity surveys across 19 seamounts have studied around 1,300 deep-sea organisms, of which nearly 23 species are reported as new to science.
• Context worth adding: the Deep Ocean Mission is run by the Ministry of Earth Sciences; MATSYA-6000, the submersible of the Samudrayaan programme, is designed to carry three persons to 6,000 metres. India was the first country to be designated a Pioneer Investor by the UN, in 1987.

Figure 3 — Where the activity takes place: a schematic of the ocean column

NATIONAL JURISDICTIONTerritorial sea, EEZ up to 200 nm,continental shelfcoastal State has sovereign rights‘THE AREA’ — BEYOND NATIONAL JURISDICTIONCommon heritage of mankind under Part XI, UNCLOS;administered by the International Seabed Authority, KingstonIndia holds three exploration contracts, about 95,000 sq km200 nmPolymetallic nodules on the abyssal plainDEPTHS DEMONSTRATED5,270 m — NIOT mining machine tested6,000 m — MATSYA-6000 design depthEXPLORATION IN THE AREA — A LEGAL AND PHYSICAL SCHEMATIC, NOT TO SCALEBiodiversity surveys across 19 seamounts have examined about 1,300 organisms, of which nearly 23 are reported as new to science —the empirical basis for the argument that the ecosystem remains insufficiently understood.

The diagram is schematic and not drawn to scale; it is intended only to locate the jurisdictional and physical setting.

The structure of the argument

• The premise questioned. Technological progress can generate the assumption that what can be exploited should be. The author holds that the deep ocean tests this reasoning, because the ecosystem is complex and poorly understood.
• The epistemic point. India’s own biodiversity research continues to identify unknown organisms. The consequences of large-scale seabed disturbance therefore cannot be predicted with confidence. This is presented explicitly as an argument for more science before intervention, not against science.
• On strategic necessity. Deep-sea minerals may carry genuine strategic importance for renewable energy, electric mobility and advanced manufacturing. But, in the author’s formulation, strategic importance cannot automatically become ecological permission.
• The test proposed before extraction: whether the minerals are genuinely necessary at the proposed scale; whether alternatives exist; and whether demand can be reduced through recycling, efficiency, substitution and a circular economy. Necessity must be demonstrated, not presumed.
• On the limits of adaptive management. Exploration advances knowledge without disturbing the seabed; mining physically disturbs it. Adaptive management — adjusting practice as evidence accumulates — cannot by itself guarantee protection where the effects may be irreversible.
• The reframing. The question should shift from “How can we mine with minimum damage?” to “Do we need to mine at all?” Since India’s activity remains at the exploration stage, the author regards this as the appropriate moment to set a high ecological threshold for any future decision.
• The wider claim. Investment in deep-ocean science need not imply a commitment to commercial mining; India could lead in deep-sea ecological governance as well as in deep-sea technology, treating the deep ocean as an ecological asset whose value may exceed its mineral wealth.

◈ The principles the argument draws upon

• The precautionary principle — Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration, 1992: where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective preventive measures. Indian courts have read this principle into environmental jurisprudence.
• Mission LiFE — Lifestyle for Environment, which locates environmental responsibility in demand-side behaviour rather than supply expansion alone.
• Circular economy — reducing primary extraction through reuse, recycling and substitution, so that material need is met without proportionate mining.
• Nature-based Solutions and the Sustainable Development Goals — particularly SDG 14, Life Below Water, and SDG 12 on responsible consumption and production.
• Related instruments for context: the BBNJ Agreement (2023) on marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction, and India’s domestic interest in critical minerals through the National Critical Mineral Mission — the demand pressure against which this argument is directed.

Considerations on the other side, for a balanced answer

• Substitution has limits. Recycling supplies a share of demand but cannot meet growth in a rapidly expanding battery and grid-storage sector; some primary extraction is likely to remain necessary.
• The comparative footprint question. Terrestrial mining of the same metals carries its own well-documented costs — deforestation, tailings, displacement and, in the case of cobalt, serious labour concerns. A full assessment compares seabed extraction with the alternative, not with no extraction at all.
• Strategic dependence. Supply of several of these metals is concentrated in a few jurisdictions, and import dependence is itself a risk that governments weigh against ecological cost.
• Abstention is not neutral. If India refrains while others proceed, the seabed may be disturbed regardless, with India holding neither the resource nor influence over the standards adopted — an argument for engagement in the ISA rather than withdrawal from it.
• The common ground: both positions accept that the exploitation regime is not yet settled and that environmental baselines must be established first. The disagreement concerns where the burden of proof should lie.

✎ Mains Practice Question

“Strategic importance cannot automatically become ecological permission.” In the context of India’s Deep Ocean Mission and its exploration contracts with the International Seabed Authority, critically examine the case for establishing a high ecological threshold before any decision to permit commercial seabed mining. 15 marks · 250 words