IMPRI Desk

IMPRI Desk

  • Joined: August 6, 2023
  • Articles: 2253

China’s Manufacturing Resilience: Insights from Industrial Robots and AI

Many analysts would appear to be in a hurry to write off China as the world’s leading manufacturing powerhouse, based on the US desire to diversify supply chains away from China or, at least, adopt a China plus One strategy, the onset of population decline in China, the sharp rises in Chinese wages and the troubles that have, of late, pulled down China’s growth rate. It would be wise to hasten slowly, going by insights from the International Federation of Robotics’ World Robotics Report 2023, particularly, its volume devoted to industrial robots, and the global trend of arming robots with artificial intelligence of assorted kinds.

The Evolving Concerns in India’s Relationship with Bhutan

The new phase of cordial diplomatic relations between Bhutan and China call for the establishment of fresh redlines between India and its Himalayan neighbour.

In October, Tandi Dorji became Bhutan’s first foreign minister to visit China. Dr Dorji’s visit has garnered significant attention across the world for two reasons: First, by concluding the 25th round of border negotiations, Bhutan and China are drawing close to ending the decades-old territorial dispute. During this visit, both countries even signed a “cooperation agreement” that outlines the responsibilities and functions of a joint technical team (JTT) tasked with delimiting and demarcating the disputed boundaries.

Empowering Shudra-OBC Communities: Recognizing their Strength in Numbers

“Under the system of Chaturvarnya, the Shudra is not only placed at the bottom of the gradation but he is subjected to innumerable ignominies and disabilities so as to prevent him from rising above the condition fixed for him by law. Indeed until the fifth Varna of the Untouchables came into being, the Shudras were in the eyes of the Hindus the lowest of the low. This shows the nature of what might be called the problem of the Shudras. If people have no idea of the magnitude of the problem it is because they have not cared to know what the population of the Shudras is. Unfortunately, the census does not show their population separately. But there is no doubt that excluding the Untouchables the Shudras form about 75 to 80 per cent of the population of Hindus.” 

Thus writes Dr B.R. Ambedkar in his seminal work, Who Were the Shudras: How They Came to be the Fourth Varna in the Indo-Aryan Society (1946), where he situates the degraded socio-cultural position of the Shudras (almost all the individual caste groups known as Other Backward Classes (OBC) in constitutional parlance today as well as some others belong to this historical-social category mentioned in both historical and literary texts).

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