Topics Covered:
- Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
India Innovation Index 2019
What to study?
For Prelims: Highlights of the index.
For Mains: Significance, performance of states, gaps existing and ways to address them.
Context: NITI Aayog with Institute for Competitiveness as the knowledge partner has released the India Innovation Index (III) 2019.
Key findings:
- Karnataka is the most innovative major state in India.
- Others in top 10: Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana, Haryana, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Andhra Pradesh.
- The top ten major states are majorly concentrated in southern and western India.
- Sikkim and Delhi take the top spots among the north- eastern & hill states, and union territories/city states/small states respectively.
- Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh are the most efficient states in translating inputs into output.
About the index:
The index attempts to create an extensive framework for the continual evaluation of the innovation environment of 29 states and seven union territories in India and intends to perform the following three functions:
- Ranking of states and UTs based on their index scores.
- Recognizing opportunities and challenges.
- Assisting in tailoring governmental policies to foster innovation.
The Index is calculated as the average of the scores of its two dimensions – Enablers and Performance.
- The Enablers are the factors that underpin innovative capacities, grouped in five pillars: (1) Human Capital, (2) Investment, (3) Knowledge Workers, (4) Business Environment, and (5) Safety and Legal Environment.
- The Performance dimension captures benefits that a nation derives from the inputs, divided in two pillars: (6) Knowledge Output and (7) Knowledge Diffusion.
Significance of the index:
India has a unique opportunity among its myriad challenges to become the innovation leader in the world. Cluster-based innovation should be leveraged upon as the focal point of competitiveness.
The index is a great beginning to improve the environment of innovation in the country as it focuses on both the input and output components of the idea.
The index is a good effort to benchmark the performance of the state with each other and promote competitive federalism.
Sources: pib.
