11 January 2026 Current Affairs for UPSC

A deep-tech startup commercialises frontier science and engineering rather than a new business model. Its products are built on hard technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum, biotech, space, semiconductors or advanced materials. These ventures are defined by long gestation periods, high upfront R&D cost and heavy reliance on patents and proprietary intellectual property, which makes them harder to fund than consumer or services startups.

The National Deep Tech Startup Policy (NDTSP) is a framework, first proposed by a working group under the office of the Principal Scientific Adviser, to support hard-technology ventures. It focuses on the bottlenecks unique to deep tech — patient long-horizon capital, shared R&D infrastructure, faster intellectual-property facilitation and stronger academia-industry linkages — and seeks to align the many existing startup and research schemes into one ecosystem.

A normal startup usually innovates on the business model — how a service is delivered or priced — and can reach the market quickly. Deep tech innovates on the underlying science and engineering, so its products take years to mature, demand expensive R&D infrastructure and depend on defensible patents. This profile creates a funding gap because ordinary venture capital prefers faster, lighter returns.

Patient capital is long-horizon, risk-tolerant funding that accepts delayed returns while a technology matures. Deep-tech ventures may earn no revenue for years as the science is proven and prototypes are built. Without patient capital they cannot survive that gap, so the deep-tech policy push tries to engineer such funding through dedicated funds, fund-of-funds support and blended finance that crowds in private money.

Startup India and DPIIT provide the recognition, tax and ease-of-business base for all startups. The Anusandhan National Research Foundation, created in 2023, is the apex body for funding and coordinating research and subsumed the earlier Science and Engineering Research Board. The deep-tech policy tries to integrate these with sectoral missions in AI, quantum and semiconductors so funding, research and demand reinforce one another.

India’s gross expenditure on research and development is about 0.65% of GDP, far below peers such as China, South Korea, Israel and the United States. A large share is public, with the private sector contributing less than in those economies, where firms drive most spending. This low R&D intensity is a core reason deep-tech ventures struggle for funding and why patient capital and shared infrastructure are seen as ways to de-risk private investment.

It is a Memorandum of Understanding between India and Fiji for cooperation in agriculture, focused on capacity building, crop diversification and farm mechanisation. In January 2026 the two countries agreed to extend this existing MoU for a further five years. The arrangement lets India share low-cost, replicable agricultural technology and training suited to Fiji’s small-island farming, deepening a partnership built on development cooperation rather than aid.

FIPIC is the Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation, launched in 2014 at Suva, Fiji, during Prime Minister Modi’s visit. It brings together India and 14 Pacific Island countries for collective cooperation on development, climate resilience, health, renewable energy and capacity building. FIPIC is the main platform through which India engages the Pacific region as a whole, complementing bilateral ties like the one with Fiji and supporting India’s Act East Policy.

The Indo-Fijian community descends from indentured labourers, known as Girmitiyas, brought from India to Fiji under British rule from 1879 to work on sugarcane plantations. They form a large share of Fiji’s population and have shaped its economy and culture. This shared history creates deep linguistic, cultural and family ties that give India enduring soft power and a human anchor for the bilateral relationship.

India frames its engagement as partnership rather than aid — demand-driven, capacity-first and respectful of each state’s sovereignty. It favours low-cost, replicable technology and human-resource development in fields like agriculture, health and digital tools over large debt-financed infrastructure. This South-South cooperation model contrasts with debt-heavy external financing that can strain the small economies of the Pacific island states.

Fiji is a Melanesian archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, with capital Suva and main islands Viti Levu and Vanua Levu. It is the most populous and connected Pacific Island state and hosts the Pacific Islands Forum secretariat. The Pacific lies within India’s Indo-Pacific theatre, where freedom of navigation and a rules-based order matter, and each island state carries an equal UN vote, raising the stakes of even modest cooperation.

No. A Memorandum of Understanding is a non-binding instrument that records a shared intent to cooperate, unlike a treaty, which creates binding legal obligations. Its value lies in signalling commitment and framing joint work. That is why the renewal’s real test is delivery — monitored projects, lasting local institutions and follow-through that turn the stated intent into actual gains in Fiji’s agriculture.