National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) launches 600 million dollar India Japan Fund (IJF) (GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) has entered into a collaboration with the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to launch a $600 million India-Japan Fund (IJF) with JBIC and Government of India (GoI) as anchor investors.
- This joint initiative signals a key dimension of collaboration between the two countries in an area that is a shared priority viz. climate and environment.
Key Highlights:
- The announcement marks NIIF’s first bi-lateral fund, with the GoI contributing 49% of the target corpus and the remaining 51% contributed by JBIC.
- The Fund will be managed by NIIF Limited (NIIFL) and JBIC IG (a subsidiary of JBIC) will support NIIFL in promoting Japanese investments in India.
- India Japan Fund will focus on investing in environmental sustainability and low carbon emission strategies and aims to play the role of being a ‘partner of choice’ to further enhance Japanese investments into India.
Way Forward:
- The setting up of India Japan Fund represents a key milestone in the strategic and economic partnership between the Government of Japan and Government of India.
New defence indigenisation list has futuristic weapons, systems
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Why in news?
- Defence Minister recently released the fifth Positive Indigenisation List of 98 items to be procured by the three Services from domestic sources in a staggered manner on specified timelines.
- He also released the Navy’s updated indigenisation road map, “Swavlamban 2.0”.
Swavlamban 2.0:
- At the plenary session of “Swavlamban 2.0”, the two-day seminar of the Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO), he launched 76 challenges for the industry under the “10th Defence India Start-up Challenges (DISC-10) and DISC 10 PRIME of Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) and five problem statements under iDEX for Fauji”.
- In addition, two INDUS X challenges under “INDUS-X Mutual Promotion of Advanced Collaborative Technologies” (IMPACT) challenges jointly finalised by iDEX and the U.S. Department of Defence were launched.
Indigenization list:
- The items on the indigenisation list include futuristic infantry combat vehicle, articulated all-terrain vehicles, several types of unmanned aerial vehicles, medium-range precision kill system for artillery, test equipment for guided weapon system for T-90 S/SK tanks, radars, armour plates for cabin nose section for Mi-17 helicopter, automated mobile test system for OSA-AK-M air defence system, gravity rollers for Mi-17V5 helicopter and flares of P-8I and MiG 29-K aircraft.
- The department had earlier promulgated four such lists of 411 military items. This is in addition to the four lists for defence public sector undertakings.
Way Forward:
- It lays special focus on import substitution of components of major systems, besides important platforms, weapon systems, sensors and munitions which are being developed and likely to translate into firm orders in the next five to 10 years.
