Indian Public Policy Review

Biotechnology is increasingly relevant to national security and defence preparedness, yet its most important military effects are likely to arise through resilience-building rather than overtly offensive use. This paper examines how emerging biotechnologies may strengthen military capability across three levels of operations: individual soldier performance, unit-level resilience, and theatre-level preparedness. It argues that advances in vaccines, diagnostics, biosensors, regenerative medicine, neurotechnology, and distributed biomanufacturing can improve force health outcomes, accelerate recovery, reduce logistical dependence, and enhance early warning against environmental and biological threats. Because much of this innovation is driven by civilian research ecosystems, defence institutions face a dual challenge: they must absorb useful technologies while also managing the governance risks associated with dual-use research. The paper proposes an analytical framework based on technology readiness, military adoptability, and strategic impact to help prioritise monitoring, investment, and transition. It concludes with policy implications for India, including the need to strengthen indigenous biotechnology capabilities, deepen defence–academia collaboration, and build integrated biodefence infrastructure. The paper contends that biotechnology should be treated as a strategic enabler whose near-term contribution to defence will lie primarily in improving resilience, preparedness, and operational endurance.

Contemporary policy theory recognises that governance operates under uncertainty, yet still organises institutional action as if outcomes can be stabilised through design, incentives, and constraint. Complexity theory and interpretive critiques have unsettled the promise of control, but have paid less attention to a related shift: the erosion of responsibility within systems that cannot be fully predicted yet remain normatively accountable. This article develops the concept of Governance Without Guarantees (GWG) to describe environments in which institutional action unfolds without stable causal expectations while continuing to generate consequences that demand accountability over time. The central challenge in such settings is not uncertainty itself, but whether institutions can remain answerable as action becomes mediated through rules, metrics, and digital infrastructures. The article introduces Responsibility Retention Capacity (RRC) as a diagnostic framework for assessing whether governance arrangements keep responsibility traceable, contestable, and revisable. Drawing on digital public infrastructure cases, like identity systems and automated welfare platforms in India and the United States, it shows how embedded technical systems redistribute accountability and obscure harm. The article contributes to policy theory by reframing governance under uncertainty through GWG, offering RRC as an analytical lens, and demonstrating how digital infrastructures intensify the displacement of responsibility.

This paper examines how the principles of Doughnut Economics resonate with the Kerala Model of Decentralisation, how they diverge, and how their synthesis could inform sustainable policy pathways for future. The first part of the paper offers comparative perspectives on People’s Planning in Kerala and Doughnut Economics. The second part looks into the integration of a Doughnut Economics framework into the local development planning exercise and the People’s Plan Campaign (PPC). The third part critically analyses the deficits in the People’s Plan Campaign and the relevance of Doughnut Economics in Kerala context. The fourth part looks into the limitations of Doughnut Economics, followed by conclusions. The PPC in Kerala has completed around 30 years, and it has been a journey that involved a learning and relearning process. While the Campaign still exists, the fervour and zeal for genuine decentralisation are missing. This paper suggests ways to revive the ‘stagnated People’s Planning Campaign’ through the lens of a Doughnut Economics framework. This paper does not in any way undermine the rich legacy of Kerala’s PPC, but intends only to strengthen this unique people-centric participatory democratic framework.

India’s middle expenditure group (MEG) is large and plays a critical role in determining overall inequality in per capita expenditures. This study focusses on measuring inequality within the MEG separately for rural and urban areas in India. The study utilizes per capita expenditure data for different expenditure groups provided by the NSSO 2011-12, 2022-23 and 2023-24 surveys. For this purpose, we use a framework in which absolute and relative aspects of inequality are captured together. We find that urban inequality is higher than rural inequality in all the three reference years and both have fallen over time. A decomposition of the Gini coefficient of MEG inequality highlights the relatively larger role of between group inequality as compared to within group inequality.

This article reviews Patrick McGee’s account of Apple integrating its production in China over the years, leveraging Chinese manufacturing capabilities and consequently heightening its dependence. It underscores the emerging challenges for Apple due to escalating geopolitical tensions between China and the US, emphasizing the need for corporations to evaluate the risks associated with geographically concentrated supply chains. Lastly, the article critiques the lack of insights on Chinese policies that resulted in Apple’s ‘red supply chain’.