Indo-US defence, education pacts in limbo

Bilateral pacts are a significant outcome of meetings between heads of states and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ongoing visit to the US is likely to add to the list of Indo-US agreements. Tangible results of ground-level execution, however, are more difficult to gauge than the excitement that accompanies signatures.

Upon analysis, a few key bilateral pacts signed between the two countries in the last decade in defence and education look to be in varying stages of stagnation and planning.

For instance, the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) proposed in 2012 has not translated to much in substance. Intended to help build indigenous defence manufacturing capabilities through technology transfers and guidance by the US, red tape seems to have stymied the evolution of a coherent partnership from a patron-client arrangement.

Secretary Chuck Hagel presented a dozen proposals approved by Washington during his India visit last month. It remains to be seen how many will be put into action even after India has relaxed its foreign direct investments norms in Defence manufacturing.

Further, the Indo-US Defence Policy Group, supposed to meet annually, will meet next month in Washington for the first time since February 2012.

“US companies face critical issues such as unfeasible delays and extensions on letters of offer and acceptance, delays in approvals for subsequent acquisitions such as for the follow-on orders, lack of post-delivery risk allocation and limitations of liability,” said Nidhi Goyal, Director, Deloitte.

Importantly, the New Framework Agreement, signed in 2005 is set to expire next June and reports point out that Washington, while unsatisfied with New Delhi’s approach is willing to renew it.

Education:

Modi is likely to push for unique bilateral initiatives such as SWAYAM and GIAN. But, existing Indo-US pacts in education have had mixed results. The Barack Obama-Manmohan Singh 21st-Century Knowledge Initiative, forged in 2009, was established to foster partnerships between US and Indian institutions of higher education. T

The 16 identified institutions – eight each from the US and India – were picked in 2012 and 2013 to receive funding for collaborative research. However, according to reports, the declaration of selected institutions for 2014, supposed to be done in July, has been held back due to the new Indian administration nursing a grouse over the nomenclature of the pact.

Further, the MoU between the AICTE and the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) inked in June 2013 has not taken off with the status of the 200 colleges that were to be established still in the planning phase.

“Lack of a dedicated help desk to guide collaborations between the two countries compounded with no clear roadmap for effective implementation of activities defined under the MOUs are some of the challenges which need to be addressed,” said Rohin Kapoor, Senior Manager, Deloitte.

The silver lining comes in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) for which a MoU had also been signed last June between IIT-Bombay and edX, an MOOC platform co-created by Harvard and MIT.

About 15 per cent of dX’s 1.9 million users were from India as of this March and IIT-B offered two of courses for online learning. Anant Agarwal, the President of edX, had told Business Line (March 11, 2014) that the potential for growth of the platform was sizeable with numbers increasing rapidly with more member institutions signing up.

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