Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project: The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project is a global network of investigative journalists with staff on six continents. Founded in 2006, it specializes in organized crime and corruption. It publishes its stories through local media and in English and Russian through its website. The entity was involved in the coverage of Pegasus spyware as well as Panama Papers leak.
Production Linked Incentive scheme for IT Hardware: It was first announced in February 2021 over a period of four years. Domestic players investing Rs 20 crore and clocking sales of Rs 50 crore in the 1st year, Rs 100 crore in the 2nd, Rs 200 crore in the 3rd, and Rs 300 crore in the final year, would pocket incentives of 1-4% on incremental sales over 2019-20.The first version of the scheme was a laggard with only two companies – Dell and Bhagwati – managing to meet first year’s (FY22) targets, and the industry calling for a renewed scheme with an increased budgetary outlay. As a result, the Union Cabinet cleared a revised PLI scheme for IT hardware (in May, 2023).The PLI 2.0 could attract big global IT hardware manufacturers to shift their production base to India and give a boost to local production of laptops, servers, personal computers, etc. The average incentive over six years will be about 5% compared with the 2% over four years offered earlier. As the IT hardware industry is targeted to reach a production of $24 billion by 2025-26 (and exports ~$12-17 billion), this scheme will play a key role in achieving the $1 trillion digital economy goal, including $300 billion of electronics manufacturing by 2025-26.
PRIP Scheme: The Union Cabinet recently approved the Promotion of Research & Innovation in Pharma-MedTech sector (PRIP) scheme for five years. The objective is to transform the Indian Pharma MedTech sector from cost-based competitiveness to innovation-based growth by strengthening the research infrastructure in the country. The aim of the scheme is to promote industry-academia linkage for R&D in priority areas to inculcate a culture of quality research and nurture our pool of scientist. The six focus areas of the scheme are:Â new chemical entities, including biological and phytopharmaceuticals; complex generics and biosimilars; precision medicines such as gene therapy and stem cells; medical devices using artificial intelligence and machine learning; orphan drugs; anti-microbial resistance.
GREAT Scheme: Grant for Research and Entrepreneurship across Aspiring Innovators in Technical Textiles (GREAT) Scheme focuses on supporting individuals and companies to translate prototypes to technologies & products, including commercialisation. The aim is to provide much-needed impetus for the development of the technical textiles startup ecosystem in India, especially in niche sub-segments such as bio-degradable and sustainable textiles, high-performance and speciality fibres, and smart textiles. Under this scheme, a grant-in-aid of up to Rs 50 lakh for up to a period of 18 months will be provided. The textile ministry will additionally provide 10 per cent of the total grant-in-aid to incubators. Only a minimum of 10 per cent contribution has to be made by the incubate. All of this is being done by incubators like IITs, NITs, Textiles Research Associations, and Centres of Excellence. The scheme will be commensurate with the National Technical Textiles Mission.
