Newspaper Summary 260226

 India’s solar manufacturers unfazed by US’ 126% tariff

SUNNY OUTLOOK. Firms are confident of domestic demand, supply chain diversification

M Ramesh, Chennai

The US Department of Commerce has announced a steep 125.8 per cent countervailing duty on solar cells and modules imported from India, Indonesia, and Laos as a preliminary measure pending a final determination. Indian manufacturers have, however, shrugged off the move, broadly stating they have other business options.

Market Reaction and Allegations Despite the manufacturers' confidence, the US move sent shock waves through renewable energy stocks, with shares of Waaree Energies and Premier Energies dropping sharply. The US action followed a petition by the Alliance for American Solar Manufacturing and Trade, which alleged “unfair” market-distorting subsidies were provided to Indian manufacturers. A final determination on the matter is expected on July 6.

The Alliance stated its petition aimed to halt “ongoing pattern of market-distorting and anti-competitive practices”. It further alleged that after South-East Asian dumping was addressed, some Chinese-backed firms shifted operations to Laos and Indonesia, with companies in India joining in to undercut American producers.

Strategic Alternatives The National Solar Energy Federation of India remains optimistic, noting that a trade deal with the US is being fine-tuned and could supersede these duties. Federation CEO Subrahmanyam Pulipaka highlighted that the government has already initiated a process allowing solar units in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) to sell products in the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA), calling it a “robust alternative”.

Individual firms have also expressed resilience:

• Vikram Solar: Chairman Gyanesh Chaudhary stated the company can sell in the US from other geographies thanks to a diversified supply chain, while its growth strategy remains “firmly anchored in India”.
• Premier Energies: The company reported “no material impact” because it had already reduced its exports to “almost nil”.
• Emmvee Photovoltaics: Stated the duties would have “no impact” as its business is primarily aligned with domestic demand.

Vinay Rustagi, Chief Business Officer, noted that manufacturers have had a long time to refine their sales strategies since the US investigation began in August 2025.

Import Data According to the US Department of Commerce, solar imports from India reached 2.3 GW in 2024, valued at $792.64 million. This is a significant increase from 2022, when imports from India were valued at just $84 million. Overall, the US imported 56 GW of modules and 13.8 GW of cells in 2024, with a total import value of $15.2 billion.

No plan to extend deadline on SIM-binding rules, says Scindia

ADHERENCE TO RULING. On AGR issues raised by Airtel, Minister said the government is abiding by SC’s verdict

S Ronendra Singh, New Delhi

The government on Wednesday asserted that there would be no extension of the deadline for implementing SIM-binding norms for over-the-top (OTT) communication platforms such as WhatsApp, Sharechat, Jiochat, Signal, Meta, and Telegram.

Security Measures Telecom Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia stated, “On national security issues, there can be no compromise. On revenue implication issues, I am very clear in terms of the mandate and where our responsibility lies... Users will have to log out in six hours”.

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) mandated in November 2025 that OTT platforms must implement continuous SIM-binding, requiring apps to remain strictly linked to an active, physical SIM card in the device. Furthermore, web and desktop versions must automatically log users out every six hours to force fresh re-authentication. The government maintains these steps are essential to prevent remote account hijacking and “digital arrest” scams.

Satellite and Telecom Dues Regarding the allocation of satellite spectrum to Starlink, Scindia noted the government is eager to begin services but emphasized that companies must first comply with security regulations and the government must finalize spectrum assignment pricing.

On the issue of Bharti Airtel's request for relief on adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues, the Minister ruled out executive intervention. He suggested the carrier pursue legal recourse, stating, “We are operating under a verdict of the Supreme Court. As far as AGR is concerned, it is based on that verdict that we have taken whatever action”.

Background on Repayment The Cabinet had previously approved Vodafone Idea’s AGR dues at ₹87,695 crore on December 31, 2025, featuring a staggered 10-year repayment plan from FY32 to FY41. The DoT has also initiated a reassessment of that company's liabilities for the FY07-FY19 period following Supreme Court rulings that allowed for recalculation.

Outward remittances under LRS dip for 2nd straight year in FY26

DATA FOCUS. Consumption-linked flows register broad-based decline, while asset allocation abroad sees a surge

Yashaswani Chauhan, New Delhi

Outward remittances under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) have declined for the second consecutive year. In FY26 (April to December), they fell by 4.1 per cent to $21.37 billion from $22.28 billion a year ago. This follows a sharper 10.1 per cent contraction in FY25, after remittances had peaked at $24.8 billion in FY24.

Economists attribute this moderation to a combination of cyclical pressures and structural shifts in flow composition after a strong post-pandemic surge. Anil Sood of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Complex Choices (IASCC) noted that stagnant returns in Indian financial markets and high net-worth individuals moving to low-tax jurisdictions are driving structural shifts toward overseas property and financial assets.

Decisive Tilt Toward Assets While overall flows declined, there was a significant shift toward asset allocation abroad:

• Immovable Property: Remittances surged 77.2 per cent to $0.38 billion.
• Equity and Debt: Investment rose 58.6 per cent to $1.77 billion.
• Deposits: Increased by 11.6 per cent.

In contrast, consumption-linked categories saw broad declines. Travel, the largest component, fell 5.5 per cent to $12.38 billion. Maintenance of close relatives dropped by 5 per cent, gifts by 13.5 per cent, and medical treatment by 34.3 per cent.

Education and Discretionary Spending Remittances for studies abroad fell sharply by 22.3 per cent to $1.72 billion. Sood described this as a likely cyclical decline fueled by rupee depreciation, changes in international immigration policies, and employment uncertainties. However, he suggested immigration regimes might become more supportive as demand for skilled talent clarifies over the next few years.

The drop in travel and discretionary spending reflects wider uncertainty regarding professional employment in high-paying sectors.

Future Outlook Analysts expect investment-related remittances to remain resilient, while growth in consumption-related flows may remain stagnant. Future trajectories could be influenced by policy; the RBI and the government may discourage outward remittances if the rupee remains under pressure or trade performance fails to improve.

The changing face of the factory

What distinguishes advanced factories is process discipline, continuous improvement, digital connectivity and data-driven intelligence

INDUSTRY PUSH. India’s aim to raise manufacturing’s share to 25% of GDP will depend on the design of factories and the people who run them

VIPIN SONDHI G SUNDARARAMAN

For decades, manufacturing in India has struggled with a perception problem; one that affects career choices, productivity growth, export competitiveness and long-term economic resilience. For many young people and often their parents, it still evokes images of repetitive shop-floor work and limited mobility. That perception, shaped by legacy experience and the rise of services, no longer reflects operational reality.

Across the world and increasingly in India, factories are evolving into technology-rich environments where decisions are data-driven, problems are addressed systematically and value is created through design, intelligence and operational leadership at scale. The shift is less about technological spectacle and more about raising productivity through disciplined systems and execution. Factories of the future are not about robots replacing people but about amplifying human capability through technology. This is an evolution visible to anyone who has watched a modern plant floor shift from manual supervision to data-led decision-making.

The recently concluded AI Summit underscored a shift in India’s technology discourse; from experimentation with artificial intelligence to its application in core economic sectors. While attention often gravitates toward consumer-facing AI tools, its more durable impact may lie in manufacturing, where data-driven systems can enhance reliability, optimise processes and raise productivity at scale. The real measure of AI’s promise may not be novelty, but whether it strengthens the competitiveness of India’s industrial base.

FUTURE FACTORIES Factories of the future are often labelled ‘smart factories’, a phrase that reduces them to automation and artificial intelligence. Technology is central, but not the defining feature. What distinguishes advanced factories is process discipline, continuous improvement, digital connectivity and data-driven intelligence. Technology enables performance, while organisational culture and execution discipline sustain it. Those who have led plants through disruption will recognise how quickly sophisticated equipment can underperform without operating rigour.

Plants that layer automation onto weak foundations rarely achieve durable gains, while those with strong operating systems compound advantage when technology is introduced. In this sense, factories of the future are organisational systems as much as technical ones. Modern manufacturing spans products, plant design and supply chains. Mechanical products increasingly integrate electronics and software, making design-for-manufacture inseparable from digital simulation and validation. Factories are designed virtually before capital is deployed, using digital twins to optimise layouts, throughput and energy use.

Artificial intelligence is embedded in these systems powering predictive maintenance, dynamic quality control and real-time process optimisation. In production environments, AI translates data into measurable productivity gains rather than abstract insight. It is less a standalone technology than an enabler of ‘learning factories’, systems that adapt and improve with each production cycle. Supply chains, once treated as support functions, are now strategic assets shaped by real-time visibility and predictive planning, particularly amid geopolitical volatility. On the shop floor, computer vision, predictive maintenance and digital dashboards are replacing manual inspection and reporting. The objective is not output alone, but simultaneous improvement in yield, reliability and responsiveness.

CHANGING LEADERSHIP As factories evolve, so do roles. Operators and engineers increasingly use structured problem-solving tools and digital systems. Supervisors rely on live performance metrics rather than retrospective reports. Leadership requires balancing cost, quality, delivery, safety and sustainability under constraint. Systems thinking and cross-functional coordination become core managerial capabilities.

India’s ambition to raise manufacturing’s share of GDP from around 15-16 per cent to 25 per cent reflects an economic and strategic imperative. It is central to employment creation, economic resilience and India’s negotiating leverage in a fragmented global economy. Achieving this shift will depend less on capacity alone and more on how factories are designed, run and continuously improved; and that makes young people central to the effort.

Manufacturing today accounts for roughly one-sixth of India’s output, compared with over 25 per cent in several East Asian export-led economies. The debate is often framed as manufacturing versus services. The more relevant distinction is between economies that build high-productivity systems and those that assemble capacity without institutional depth. In a capital-scarce environment, the return on manufacturing investment will matter as much as the scale of new capacity. Policy initiatives from PLIs across electronics, automotive and pharmaceuticals to renewed emphasis on defence manufacturing seek to strengthen domestic capability while integrating India more deeply into global value chains. The objective is to become more atmanirbhar while remaining globally connected and competitive.

Beyond automobiles and electronics, several other sectors in India are quietly becoming laboratories for factories of the future. Aerospace and defence manufacturing are advancing in precision machining, digital quality systems and secure supply chains. Pharmaceuticals and medical devices are integrating automation and data integrity to meet global regulatory standards. Renewable energy equipment demands tightly controlled processes and rapid scale-up. India’s growing export orientation will reinforce this shift.

This transition will however not be frictionless. Many firms, particularly MSMEs, face constraints in capital, digital capability and managerial bandwidth. Raising manufacturing’s share of GDP will therefore require investments in skilling, supplier development and institutional strengthening. Productivity gains will ultimately depend on managerial and technical depth within firms.

Manufacturing offers immediate feedback from reality, something every plant leader encounters sooner or later. Production shortfalls, quality defects and safety incidents demand resolution. This makes factories powerful leadership training grounds, requiring individuals to translate strategy into execution and manage trade-offs in high-stakes environments. Factories of the future reinforce this through decentralised problem-solving and disciplined continuous improvement. Leadership emerges from the ability to learn, influence and deliver results.

The factories of the past demanded compliance. The factories of the future will demand creativity, systems thinking and leadership. In building globally competitive factories, India will strengthen not only industrial output but also its economic resilience and bargaining power. As it did for the West, sustained industrial capability will ultimately underwrite our national confidence and strategic voice as we march to 2047.

Sondhi is former MD & CEO of Ashok Leyland and JCB India; Sundararaman is Chief Scientist and Head of Wipro Research. Views are personal.

Seeding farms with tech

AGRISTACK. Provides farmers with an integrated digital profile

AgriStack is re-coding the future of farming in India

Omprakash Subbarao

Indian agriculture is going through a critical and transformative period. Traditionally, farmers made decisions on how to farm based on their past experiences and the changing seasons. This way of farming has been replaced by an increase in precision, electronically-based, and data-driven farming decisions. The new technology available to farmers is AgriStack, which will allow for better delivery of services, money and knowledge by creating a new type of Digital Public Infrastructure that focuses on farmers so they can improve the way they do things in rural India.

DIGITAL PROFILE

AgriStack provides farmers with an integrated and trustworthy digital profile, which alleviates the historically disorganised nature of land and beneficiary data. By creating this trusted base of data, AgriStack provides farmers with easy access to subsidies, credit, crop insurance, and advisory services. As a result, over 8.4 crore farmers are accessing money directly from their digital accounts, reducing corruption and increasing transparency. Therefore, not only does AgriStack improve administrative efficiencies, but also creates enhanced financial inclusion and greater trust in institutions.

Productivity, not welfare delivery, will be the defining change. Farmers adopt farm management practices based on artificial intelligence, satellite-based remote sensing, and precise geolocation soil analysis. These help reduce input expenses, protect and retain the quality of soil, conserve water, grow more food per acre, and preserve resources in an environment of increased climate variability.

The management of both pests and diseases is changing — from reactive to being proactive. Through the use of AI-based diagnostic tools, farmers can utilise mobile devices to identify the early signs of pest or nutrient stress. Additionally, alerts provide farmers with timely information to help them provide precise treatment to their crops to minimise damage and use fewer chemicals than otherwise necessary.

Smallholder farmers experience decreased financial risk as a result of these changes and will be more resilient due to the improved management of their crops.

Also key in terms of innovative development is its decentralisation. New innovation hubs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 areas are creating locally appropriate, affordable technologies that are tailored to both small landholdings as well as to many diverse agro-climatic zones. The bottom-up model of innovation development helps ensure digital transformation is both inclusive and adaptable rather than uniform and from the top down.

Research organisations are linking cutting edge science with agricultural realities. Examples like the GRAMA project by IISc or the Agri Vaahan platform show that AI can help farmers by assisting with crop decision-making, price forecasting, and creating market access. Making these tools available to Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) and researchers allows the decentralised collaborative intelligence ecosystem to develop through the use of data to help the whole group grow. A growing number of predictive models are being developed by combining genomic research, soil health records and weather data so that seeds can be developed to withstand changing conditions and crop strategies can be adapted for long-term sustainability.

Training rural youth in areas such as drone operation, data analytics, and climate-smart agronomy will produce a new class of agri-entrepreneurs that can support and grow the use of digital agriculture within their communities.

The AgriStack framework is based on the concept of consent-based data governance. The protection of farmers’ sovereign control over their data will enable agricultural innovation that will guide India’s transition to a more resilient and equitable rural economy.

The writer is Chief Executive, FSID CORE, IISc

Housing Price Index up 1.2% driven by major cities

Our Bureau, Mumbai

The All India House Price Index (HPI) rose to 115.6 in Q3 (October-December) FY26, up from 114.2 in the previous quarter, reflecting a growth of 1.2 per cent. According to a statement from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), this increase was driven by a rise in housing prices across major cities such as Jaipur, Kanpur, and Chennai.

The HPI is compiled based on transaction-level data obtained from registration authorities in 18 cities.

Year-on-Year Growth On a year-on-year basis, the All India HPI grew by 3.6 per cent in Q3 FY26. This represents a moderation compared to the 6.9 per cent growth recorded in the same quarter of the previous year. The RBI noted that cities such as Nagpur, Chandigarh, and Jaipur were primary drivers of this year-on-year growth.

Index Expansion In the first quarter, the index was expanded to include eight additional cities: Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Pune, Ghaziabad, Thane, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Chandigarh, and Nagpur. This new series uses 2022-23 as the base year.