Editorial

Discussion
19-March-2024
19-March-2024

Violence,
homelessness,
and women’s
mental health

Agni-5 MIRV
missile
The MIRV leap that
fires up India’s
nuclear deterrence
• GS PAPER III
• Indigenization of
technology and
developing new
technology

HARSH V. PANT,
KARTIK BOMMAKANTI
The MIRV leap that fires up India’s nuclear deterrence

● The Agni-5 ballistic missile test dubbed the

“Divyastra”, that was conducted by the Defence
Research and Development Organisation (DRDO),
is strategically consequential.
● With a range of over 5,000 kilometres, the Agni-5
is the longest-range missile India has tested so far.
● But it is not simply its range but, equally, its
potency which represents a watershed moment for
India’s nuclear deterrent.
● The potency of India’s nuclear deterrent is
enhanced because this variant is integrated with
Multiple Independently Targetable Re-entry
Vehicles (MIRVs).
A comparison with China

● Though MIRV technology is not new, it is to

India.
● The five designated nuclear weapons states
— the United States, Russia, the People’s
Republic of China, France and the United
Kingdom — already possess MIRV capable
projectiles which are integrated into their
respective nuclear arsenals.
● India has joined a very select group of
countries to develop an MIRV ballistic
missile.
A comparison with China

● MIRV-tipped missiles are a necessity simply

because they strike multiple targets
simultaneously and help evade ballistic missiles
defences.
● China is building ballistic missile defences such as
the Hongqi (HQ-19) ground-based ballistic missile
interceptors, which have been tested, but their
capacity to intercept Intermediate Range Ballistic
Missiles (IRBMS) such as the Agni-5 is still suspect.
● It is, nevertheless, progressing steadily.
● The HQ-19s would eventually have the range to
intercept the earlier variants of the Agni IRBM,
especially when configured to carry only a single
warhead.
A comparison with China

● Ballistic missile defences paired to a growing Chinese

nuclear arsenal would have significantly eroded
India’s nuclear striking power as it would bequeath to
China a strong damage limitation capability,
especially if the Chinese were to carry out a nuclear
first strike against India.
● Now that India has integrated the Agni-5 with
multiple warheads, greater balance has been restored
in the Sino-Indian nuclear deterrent relationship.
● To be sure, more testing of the MIRV-capable Agni-5
will be required to render the Indian nuclear ballistic
missile arsenal more credible as the end-user – the
Indian armed services are unlikely to be satisfied with
a single test.
Demanding requirements

● Building MIRV-capable ballistic missiles is not

easy.
● This is because it requires meeting some very
demanding technical criteria, such as nuclear
warhead miniaturisation, ensuring that the
receptacle that carries the warhead or re-entry
vehicle is of low weight or mass before its release
from the Post Boost Vehicle (PBV), and also
having the re-entry vehicles configured precisely
to fit into the missile as well their separation from
the PBV, which has to be manoeuvrable.
● Guidance and accuracy are a necessity as re-entry
vehicles have to be spin stabilised during
atmospheric re-entry.
Demanding requirements

● A MIRV-based missile can only strike multiple

targets that are within its ambit or geographic
footprint.
● With the recent Agni-5 test, India has met these
demanding technical requirements.
● In India’s case, this MIRV development is all the
more significant and impressive because it has
come against considerable odds stacked against
the country’s missile and nuclear engineers.
Demanding requirements

● First, inadequate nuclear testing by New Delhi

compromised the extent to which it could
miniaturise warheads and MIRV them to strike
multiple targets.
● Second, the lack of sufficient testing also
undermined the extent to which the re-entry
vehicles could be designed to carry the warheads.
● The DRDO and all its key associate agencies such
as the Terminal Ballistics Research Laboratory
(TBRL) responsible for integrating warheads with
missiles and the Advanced Systems Limited (ASL)
as this test of the Agni-5 visibly demonstrated,
have overcome these challenges.
Demanding requirements

● The opacity surrounding this MIRV missile is

about the number of warheads it can carry,
which in all likelihood would remain classified.
● Going by speculation, it is improbable that it
can carry more than three warheads.
● Further, the yield of the nuclear warheads is
likely to be limited due to the small number of
atomic tests India has conducted.
● In addition, it is unclear whether the Agni-5 can
carry decoys and chaff, especially during the
boost and intermediate phase of the missile’s
flight.
● Agni-5 will in all probability be launched from
a road mobile platform.
Other projects ahead

● Chinese missile defence interceptors will likely

subject the Agni-5 to mid-course interception.
● Nevertheless, the Atomic Energy Commission
of India, especially the Bhabha Atomic
Research Centre (BARC), which is directly
responsible for core Research and
Development (R&D) with respect to nuclear
devices, have done a good job in designing
sufficiently compact nuclear warheads for
MIRV capability.
● This is a China-specific missile.
Other projects ahead

● There could be more to come from the DRDO and AEC

with India adding more punch to its nuclear arsenal
when it tests a long-range Submarine Launched
Ballistic Missile (SLBM), which India’s nuclear ballistic
missile submarines can launch.
● The Agni-5 with MIRV capability bolsters India’s
nuclear capabilities vis-à-vis China.
● It puts China on notice — that India is preparing itself
to counter the advances Beijing has made with its
missile and missile defence programmes.
● With the successful test of the Agni-5 MIRV missile,
India has crossed a key benchmark in its march to
become a highly credible nuclear and missile power.
Violence, homelessness,
and women’s mental
health

• GS PAPER II
• Mechanisms, laws, institutions
and Bodies constituted for the
protection and betterment of
these vulnerable sections

VANDANA GOPIKUMAR,
LAKSHMI NARASIMHAN
Violence, homelessness, and women’s mental health

● The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) presents a

sobering picture of the pervasive violence against women
in India.
● Almost 30% of women between the ages of 18-49 years
have experienced physical violence beginning at age 15;
6% reported sexual violence.
● Evidence indicates that violence and mental health
conditions have a reciprocal, cause-and-effect
relationship, and both factors significantly heighten the
risk of homelessness.
● In the three decades of working with homeless women
with mental health conditions at The Banyan, we have
witnessed this recursive interaction between violence
against women, homelessness, and mental health almost
universally.
Findings of relevance

● A survey of 346 women accessing outpatient

services at The Banyan found that relational
disruptions, often in the background of violence,
predicted homelessness, even when women had
accessed care for their mental health — a finding
that is mirrored in other studies globally.
● Another qualitative research that examined user
accounts of trauma drawn from women with
histories of homelessness showed that descriptions
of experiences relating to violence in social
relationships, experience of alienation and
shame, and poverty did not entirely match with
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders conceptualisations of trauma.
Findings of relevance

● Qualitative interviews with several women

living with mental health conditions detail
their journeys into homelessness, not merely
as a deficit in access to care but also as an
escape and possible liberation from repeated
cycles of unremitting violence — whether it
was from a predatory father, a husband who
controlled all aspects of life or an aunt who
issued threats to sell into slavery to pay for
meals.
● A recurrent theme that emerged was the
impact of child sexual abuse and intimate
partner violence on individual mental health
and homelessness.
Findings of relevance

● At age 5, Leela began understanding what

it meant to be a (child of a) homeless
woman living with mental illness.
● Her mother, Jaya, fled an abusive family
home with only Leela, leaving her older
siblings behind.
● Desperate and hearing voices, Jaya
contemplated ending their suffering by
jumping from a train but was dissuaded by
Leela, who did not fully understand her
mother’s motives but was consumed by an
ominous feeling of desperation and
crippling fear.
Findings of relevance

● Throughout their homelessness, the duo

faced the arduous task of survival, finding
food and safe spaces to rest every day.
Jaya’s deformed hand is a reminder of the
violence they experienced on the streets.

● Within a multifactorial matrix of structural

barriers such as poverty and caste, violence
and associated feelings of loss of agency
feature prominently amongst reasons that
precipitate an exit from typical relational
bonds and conventional notions of home
assumed to provide safety, a sense of
community, and belongingness.
Findings of relevance

● Ellen Corrin’s work offers a nuanced perspective

on the phenomenon of social withdrawal in the
context of schizophrenia that challenges
reductionist views around the construction of
negative symptoms.
● Instead of an overt focus on alignment with the
social environment, her work shifts the emphasis
to considering meanings and personal experiences
behind behaviours often labelled as symptoms of
the disorder, and situating mental illness and
related symptoms within ‘a life frame’.
● The same lens can be used to approach
intersecting issues of women’s mental health,
homelessness, and violence.
An umbrella-like label

● Historically, the label of madness has been used to discredit,

subjugate, and silence women who are seen as demonstrating
undesirable traits — intellectual curiosity, assertiveness, and
autonomy.
● From the witch trials in the Middle Ages to the incarceration of
women in asylums, resistance to oppression and refusal to comply
with expected norms were labelled as missteps due to a deranged
imagination.
● In contemporary patriarchal society, the social construct of
womanhood continues to be carefully curated and enforced,
confining women and their value within reproductive roles and
docile submission to various forms of violence, routinely normalised
and justified.
An umbrella-like label

● Madness in this context then becomes not an

individuated pathology but a response to the
continued violence against women.

● Some women describe their madness as

resistance, as a defiant embrace of what is
taboo for women, an opportunity to break free
from coerced identities and assume new
personas that transcend patriarchal norms.
● Others describe their madness as a solace in
beliefs such as being the mother of 100 male
children or transforming into a goddess with
special powers by performing a complex ritual.
An umbrella-like label

● In the process, some lay claim to an elevated

sense of purpose and accruing cultural capital
that society places significant value on and
associates with improved status.
● While others may find escape in an idea or
imagination to battle the shame, fear and
devaluation.
● And, yet, some other women experience their
madness as a journey inward, where voice
hearing and altered perceptions become portals
to alternate realities where they can engage in
a spiritual interrogation of who they are
without social constraints.
An umbrella-like label

● In contrast to these multifaceted descriptions of madness in the

context of violence, the mainstream discourse on women’s mental
health is dominated by a narrow focus on higher prevalence rates
of depression, anxiety or eating disorders, or mental health needs
associated with the prescribed reproductive role such as
postpartum depression.
● All these deserve attention but not in a manner that isolates these
experiences from the larger narrative.
● Women’s experiences of distress are often viewed through a
reductionist biomedicine-dominated lens, neglecting the insidious
impact of violence that women endure and absolving society of its
complicity.
An umbrella-like label

● Navigating mental health and social care

systems that mirror these biases, in the
background of poverty and caste-based
marginalisation, takes a profound toll,
elevating risks of homelessness.
● In our experience, women often encounter
health systems that dismiss their lived
experience, focusing largely on symptoms and
diagnoses that are to be treated and
eliminated.
● In contrast, our experience suggests that many
of the manifestations of mental ill-health are
embedded in the reality of adverse life events.
An umbrella-like label

● In this context, investments cannot be confined

to increasing proximal access to mental health
care without collective action that can
substantively address deep-rooted violence.
An umbrella-like label

● There is an urgent need, therefore, to develop

comprehensive solutions based on a systematic
unpacking of multiple factors and their
interactions that perpetrate violence against
women.
● Recognising and compensating women for their
unpaid labour in household roles and creating the
space for women to find supportive networks and
alternate family structures outside of typical
heteronormative relationships may offer security
and refuge.
● Ensuring access to basic income, housing, and land
ownership may offer economic independence and
reduce vulnerability to homelessness.
An umbrella-like label

● Embedding in the education environment, a

curriculum that helps growing adolescents
interrogate and challenge harmful gendered
norms may help foster a generation that values
egalitarian norms and rejects all forms of
violence against women.
An umbrella-like label

● Biological scientist Robert Sapolsky contends

that our inclinations, actions, and choices are
not products of an autonomous, conscious
process of free will but rather shaped by
biological factors such as our genes, neural
circuitry, and brain chemistry.
● His work emphasises the role of childhood
adversity — abuse, neglect, and poverty — and
the profound effects these have on the
developing brain, underscoring the need for
policies and interventions that reduce violence
beginning in the formative years.
Robert Sapolsky
Adopt a multifacted approach

● While the two-way relationship between

homelessness and mental illness is recognised
globally, we need to scrutinise the nuances
more closely.
● Violence against women is one factor that
may not receive enough attention in this
context.
● Instead of addressing root causes rhetorically,
we should examine the complex strands
surrounding mental health.
● This journey requires opening up to new
avenues, involving diverse professionals,
innovative research, and meaningful
involvement of those with lived experiences.
Adopt a multifacted approach

● Prioritising a range of robust responses can

better address the plurality of needs,
especially for high-priority groups such as
homeless women.
● No single narrative makes for a complete
response.
● Greater exploration of phenomena and their
influence on mental health, the role of
intersectionality, power asymmetries, and the
use of feminist standpoint theory in
advancing science and ways of knowing are
needed.
● The absence of such a multifaceted approach
represents the greatest lacuna.
Introduction

In 2022, US President Joe Biden was asked if the

USA would intervene if China attacked Taiwan.
Biden gave a clear "yes," departing from the USA's
traditional policy of strategic ambiguity.
This change in stance was largely due to the
global realization of the importance of
semiconductor chips during the 2020 lockdown.
The Im p o rtance o f Taiwan in the
S em ico nd ucto r Ind ustry
The USA's Global Dominance of G eo p o litical
Dependence on TSMC of Taiwanese Chips "C hip W ar"
TS M C 60% of the world's
The US A 's S ilicon V alley semiconductor chips and
C hina aim s to control
heavily d ep end s on and 90% of advanced chips
Taiwan, while the US A
Taiwan S em icond uctor chips come from Taiwan.
wants to p rotect it,
M anufacturing C om p any
to the "C hip W ar".
(TS M C ) for m icrochip s.
The Significance of Semiconductor Chips
C hip s
• Semiconductor chips are crucial for various products, including consumer
consumer electronics and military equipment
• If China gains control over Taiwan, it could threaten the security of both the USA an
• India is 100% dependent on imports for its chip requirements, mostly from Taiwan
India's Semiconductor Dream
D ream
Ind ia aim s to b eco m e a g lo b al p o wer in the
sem icond uctor chip sector to fulfill its o wn
and p ro vid e chip s to the wo rld .

S em ico nd ucto r chip s are m ad e fro m m aterials

co nd uctivity b etween co nd ucto rs and insulato rs,
the m anufacturing p lants are called fab ricatio n
units.

O nly a few co m p anies wo rld wid e, such as TS M C ,

A M D , and S am sung , can m anufacture chip s.
India's Historical Efforts in the
Semiconductor Industry
1 India's Semiconductor Industry Since the 1980s

India has been trying to establish a semiconductor industry since the 1980s but has not
but has not given it enough importance.

2 Launch of India's First Semiconductor Policy in 2007

In 2007, Ind ia launched its first sem ico nd ucto r p o licy, b ut it was to o rig id ,
co m p anies like Intel and A M D d eclined to invest d ue to a lack o f financial

3 Expert Opinion on India's Semiconductor Industry

Exp erts b elieve that Ind ia is no w 10 to 20 years b ehind in the sem ico nd ucto r ind ustry.
C halleng es fo r Ind ia's S em ico nd ucto r
Ind ustry
India's Raw Material Shortage Po wer S up p ly and W ater S carcity
India lacks sufficient raw India's erratic power supply
raw materials, such as rare supply and water scarcity
rare earth minerals like scarcity pose challenges, as
silica, germanium, and challenges, as
gallium, which are essential semiconductor plants are
essential for chip are heavily dependent on
manufacturing. on 24/7 electricity and
intensive water usage.
India's Efforts to Correct Historical
Historical Mistakes
In 2021, India launched the Several companies have shown
India Semiconductor shown interest, with Foxconn
offering subsidies of Foxconn and Vedanta
crore rupees through the announcing a joint venture to
Production Linked to invest $19 billion in a fab
(PLI) scheme fab unit in Gujarat

The schem e p rovid es for 50% cost

b earing for com p anies setting up
units in Ind ia and assures the
of all infrastructure req uirem ents
collab oration with states
R ecent D evelo p m ents and C halleng es
Micron is investing $2.75 billion in a plant in
Sanand, Gujarat, and Tata is collaboratingwith
with Taiwan's PSMC to produce 28-nanometer
nanometer chips by 2026

However, experts consider India's plan to

a global semiconductor chip hub unrealistic
several factors:

• The plants being built in India are for

for design, assembly, packaging, and
and testing, not the main fabrication

• fabrication
The chips units
being produced in India
nanometers or above, which are
considered obsolete compared to
advanced 1-3 nanometer chips
developed by companies like IBM
used in the latest iPhones

• Major semiconductor companies like

like TSMC, AMD, and Intel are hesitant to
hesitant to invest in India and are
focusingon the USA and Europe, which
which have introduced attractive
incentives through their respective Chips
Chips Acts
India's Potential in the Global
Semiconductor Market
With the increasing demand for semiconductor chips worldwide, India has the
position itself as a key player in the global semiconductor market.

This card will explore India's potential in terms of:

1 Research and Development 2 Talent and Skilled Workforce

India's focus on R&D and
W o rkfo rce
drive semiconductor The availability of skilled
and initiatives to bridge the skill

3 G o vernm ent S up p o rt
The measures taken by the Indian government to promote the semiconductor
India's Advantages and Way Forward

Semiconductor ISRO's Chip 28-nanometer Global

Research Production Chips Integration
20% of Ind ia's IS RO The 28- nanom eter Ind ia can integ rate
research its own chip s at the chip s p ro d uced in itself into the
are Ind ian, S C L in M ohali, Ind ia have the sem icond uctor
contrib uting to enhancing d em and and chain, even starting
ad vancem ents in technolog ical skills sig nificantly with assem b ly or
ind ustry. am ong Ind ia's to the revenue o f testing .
co m p anies like
C o nclusio n
The global semiconductor chip war has highlighted the
highlighted the importance of the semiconductor
semiconductor industry and its geopolitical implications.
implications.
India has ambitions to become a global player in
semiconductor sector, but faces several
including lack of raw materials, infrastructure,
skilled manpower.
Despite these challenges, India has some
and can work towards integrating itself into the
semiconductor supply chain by attracting
and skilling its workforce.
With the right policies and initiatives, India can take
take steps towards realizing its semiconductor dream,
dream, even if it may take time to catch up with the
the global leaders in the industry.
● Examine the multifaceted relationship between violence, homelessness, and women's
mental health in the context of India. Discuss how these interlinked issues contribute to
the cycle of poverty and marginalization. Suggest comprehensive strategies that could be
adopted to address these challenges

● Analyse the strategic importance of developing a self-reliant semiconductor industry in

India in light of its growing technological demands, national security concerns, and the
imperative for innovation. Discuss a comprehensive strategy that the Indian government
should adopt to bolster its semiconductor manufacturing capabilities.