A walk down the memory lane of India's decade of innovation

Rajan Sarma, Online Content Writer | Friday, 19 February 2021, 16:20 IST

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Since antiquity, India has been a land that has bred innovations right from the Indus Valley Civilization to the invention of zero. Historically, India has consistently given birth to great thinkers and innovators. The last decade has been no less than a roller coaster ride for India’s innovation ecosystem. The foundations of which were first laid down with the establishment of the National Innovation Council. In India’s 12th Five Year Plan, and the Science Technology and Innovation (STI) Policy 2013 that followed outlined major policy initiatives to strengthen India’s innovation ecosystem and boost innovation-led entrepreneurship. 
 
The innovation ecosystem was further boosted with the set-up of the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), National Innovation Foundation, CSIR Innovation Complexes, and Technology Business Incubators. By 2014, India’s innovation ecosystem underwent major pragmatic changes. The Atal Innovation Mission of 2016 focused on fostering innovation in school education through hands-on experience in emerging technologies. In addition to that, initiatives like AGNIi (Accelerating Growth of New India’s Innovations) to bolster tech commercialization; and also‘Startup India’ to handhold startups and ‘Stand Up India’ to finance entrepreneurs from vulnerable groups contributed immensely.
 
These proactive programmes and policy interventions with a consistent focus on innovation reaped rewards with significant improvements in the global rankings. For instance, in the global innovation index (GII), India climbed from 81st position in 2015 to an impressive 48 in 2020 and continues to be the most innovative economy in the central and the southern Asia region. The ease of doing business also scaled up from 134 in 2015 to 63 in 2019. And finally, India holds the 9th rank globally for Resident Patent Filing activity. 
 
The impressive growth trajectory is backed by trained human resource and robust R&D infrastructure through several national institutes and laboratories that scaled up its engagements in cutting-edge research across sectors. Furthermore, policies such as insolvency and bankruptcy code and liberalized FDI, labour code, and import-export regimes, paved the way for increased R&D expenditure, innovations, patents, FDI, startups, and most importantly tremendous rise in the number of unicorns.
 
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