Government think-tank, NITI Aayog recently released the second edition of the India Innovation Index 2020.
Q. What is India Innovation Index?
The release of the second edition of the index—the first was launched in October 2019—demonstrates the Government’s continued commitment towards transforming the country into an innovation-driven economy.
The index attempts to create an extensive framework for the continual evaluation of the innovation environment of 29 states and seven UTs in India.
Q. Which all are the functions that, it will perform?
It intends to perform the following three functions-
Ranking of states and UTs based on their index scores
Recognizing opportunities and challenges, and
Assisting in tailoring governmental policies to foster innovation
The India Innovation Index 2019 is calculated as the average of the scores of its two dimensions – Enablers and Performance.
The states have been bifurcated into three categories: major states, north-east and hill states, and union territories/city-states/small states.
Q. What is the significance of Indian innovation index?
The study examines the innovation ecosystem of Indian states and union territories.
The aim is to create a holistic tool which can be used by policymakers across the country to identify the challenges to be addressed and strengths to build on when designing policies.
Q. What are its findings?
Top States: Karnataka topped with a score of 42.5 for the second year running.
The state’s success has been attributed to a high number of venture capital deals, registeredGIs and ICT exports, and high FDI inflow.
Four southern states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala —occupy the top positions on the index, apart from Maharashtra which ranked second.
Bottom States: Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar scored the lowest on the index, which put them at the bottom in the “major States” category.
Bihar raked last with 14.5 points.
Hill and North-East States:
Himachal Pradesh topped the rankings of hill and North-East states, followed by Uttarakhand, Manipur and Sikkim.
Union territories/Small States:
Delhi has scored the highest on the index in the country with a score of 46.6, while Lakshadweep has the lowest score at 11.7.
Delhi recorded the highest number of trademark and patent applications, along with the establishment of new start-ups and companies in the last financial year.
