The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) India

Context:

• India at forefront of age defined by tech evolution: WEF report

News:

• In an era defined by technological evolution, India stands at the forefront as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies and a global hub for startups and digital innovation, the World Economic Forum said.

More info:

• The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) India, liaison office of World Economic Forum (WEF) in India, launched its 6-year impact journey report on the inaugural day of the WEF Annual meeting 2025.
• The WEF said its partnership with India dates back more than 40 years.
• Over the past four decades, this relationship has developed into a strong, multifaceted and meaningful collaboration with the national government, several State governments, business leaders across key industries and other important stakeholders, including civil society and leading experts, resulting in several impactful initiatives that have advanced shared priorities.
• India’s advocacy for and pursuit of developmental templates where technology serves as a bridge rather than a barrier are highly relevant and the Forum is proud to act as its partner in shaping a more human-centric, planet-friendly and resilient future, the foreword of the report said.
• The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) India was launched in 2018 as a statement of the country’s commitment to harnessing emerging technologies responsibly and inclusively for societal good.
• Today, C4IR India is not just a hub for innovation; it is a flagship centre of the World Economic Forum, exemplifying a vision for technology-driven development with impactful, on-the-ground results, the Forum said.
• As C4IR India enters the next phase of its journey, the new report highlighted key milestones and emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration in scaling technologies to address complex developmental challenges.
• C4IR India said its accomplishments include AI-driven agricultural programs that boost farmers’ incomes, healthcare solutions that provide access to life-saving services, and sustainable urban development frameworks that improve the quality of life in cities.
• These initiatives have been made possible through strong partnerships across the public and private sectors, academia, and civil society, with a focus on creating practical solutions grounded in responsible governance, it added.
• Over the past six years, C4IR India has emerged as a key hub for multistakeholder collaboration and has improved the lives of 1.25 million citizens through enhanced livelihoods and better access to healthcare.
• The centre has driven Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies across agriculture, health and aviation, setting a benchmark for transformative progress.
• As C4IR India continues to expand, it is now focusing on cutting-edge areas such as AI, climate tech, and space tech, with exciting potential for creating lasting value for society.
• Secretary of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said, Our partnership with the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution India focuses on developing a multistakeholder community to leverage Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies for critical challenges on health, education, smart cities and agriculture.
• AI for India 2030 is an important initiative in partnership with MeitY, enabling stakeholders across industry and startups to partner with government to realise the potential of AI.
• As India continues its rapid economic growth and strengthens its position as a global hub for digital innovation, C4IR India aims to reach 10 million citizens by scaling its flagship initiatives and upcoming projects.
• These include the AI for India 2030 initiative, which seeks to unlock AI’s potential for societal benefit, the Space Economy initiative, aimed at positioning India as a leader in space technologies, and the Climate Technology programme, which will focus on developing climate-smart urban centres.
• Additionally, the AVIATE (Aviation – Innovation Autonomy and Technology for Everyone) India initiative will explore the future of aerial mobility to reduce urban congestion and improve rural connectivity.

 Satellite projects aims to head off future wildfires

Context:

• As Los Angeles firefighters battle remaining hotspots more than a week into deadly blazes, scientists and engineers hope growing availability of satellite data will help in the future.

More info:

• Tech-focused groups are launching new orbiters as space launches get cheaper, while machine learning techniques will sift the torrent of information, fitting it into a wider picture of fire risk in a changing environment.
• Satellites can detect from space areas that are dry and prone to wildfire outbreaks…. actively flaming and smouldering fires, as well as burnt areas and smoke and trace gas emissions.
• Different satellites have different roles depending on their orbit and sensor payload.
• Low Earth Orbit (LEO) is generally less than 1,000 kilometres above the surface, compared with up to 14 km for an airliner.
• Satellites here offer high-resolution ground images, but see any given point only briefly as they sweep around the planet.
• Geostationary satellites orbit at around 36,000 km, remaining over the same area on the earth’s surface, allowing for continuous observation but usually at much lower resolution.
• As climate change brings growing numbers of wildfires encroaching on human-inhabited areas, that resolution can be crucial.
• In Los Angeles, there are satellite observations, but it’s very hard to determine.
• That’s where this idea (that) we need more observations available comes from.

‘More fire than we know’:

• Director of Colorado-based nonprofit Earth Fire Alliance (EFA), plans a new low-orbit satellite “constellation” to complement existing resources.
• It will sport a sensor with a resolution of five metres (16 feet), much finer than ESA’s current Sentinel-2 satellites that can see objects only 10 metres wide.
• This means “we’re going to learn very quickly that there is more fire on the Earth than we know about today, we’re going to find very small fires.
• EFA aims to launch four satellites by the end of 2026, the first in just a few weeks, at a total cost of $53 million.
• That figure is a “drop in the bucket” against the property damage and lives lost to wildfires.
• It would take the whole planned swarm of 55, costing a total $400 million, to reach imaging every point on Earth at least once every 20 minutes.
• Dozens of satellites in orbit could both detect and track fires… at a cadence that allows decisions to be made on the ground.
• Less grandiose efforts include Germany-based OroraTech, which launched the first of at least 14 shoebox-sized FOREST-3 nanosatellites.
• The system will deliver ultra-fast wildfire alerts and high-quality thermal data.
• The Moore foundation is also backing a geostationary satellite project dubbed FUEGO.

‘Last mile’:

• Additional data from all these new satellites would be “fantastic”, but the large volume of information can prove problematic.
• ESA’s Sentinel-2 alone sends down one terabyte of data – the storage capacity of a modern high-end laptop – every single day.
• Finding fire signs in such reams of data is an excellent machine learning, artificial intelligence problem… the ‘needle in the haystack’.
• The data could ultimately help both predict new fire outbreaks and their progression.

Conclusion:

• Looking ahead, there was no “silver bullet” technology for wildfires.
• “It’s all of them working together” that will help emergency responders and slash risk from fire.
• Beyond high-tech detection and tracking, the Moore Foundation’s wildfire programme also focuses on making communities more resilient and managing fire-prone ecosystems – which can include “increasing ecologically beneficial fire while decreasing detrimental fire”.

Mount Ibu

Context:

• A volcano in eastern Indonesia (Mount Ibu) has erupted at least a thousand times this month

More info:

• Mount Ibu, on the remote island of Halmahera, sent a column of smoke up to 4 km into the sky in an eruption on January 15.
• It was one of 1,079 eruptions by the volcano recorded since January 1 by Indonesia’s Geological Agency, sending columns of ash reaching between 0.3 km and 4 km above its peak.
• The ash was grey, with moderate to thick intensity, drifting southwest.
• A loud rumbling sound was heard all the way to Mount Ibu Observation Post.

Figure:

• Indonesian active volcanoes. The distribution of the 126 active volcanoes across the archipelago of Indonesia, including 120 aerial and six known submarine edifices (not shown on the map). 77 are classified as Type-A (red triangles), 29 as type-B (yellow squares) and 20 as type-C (green circles).

The annual Edelman Trust Barometer

Context:

• India slips to 3rd place on trust barometer; low-income group less trusting than richer counterparts

News:

• India has slipped one place to third slot when it comes to people’s trust in the government, businesses, media and NGOs, while the low-income population is far less trusting than their richer counterparts, a study showed.
• In most countries, including India, the low income population was far less trusting than the high income group.
• Within the high income group, India was ranked fourth after Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and China, while the low income population made India the third most trusted nation after China and Indonesia.
• However, the percentage of the low income population reposing faith in Indian institutions stood far less at 65%, as against 80% in case of high income people.

World Economic Forum Annual Meeting:

• The annual Edelman Trust Barometer, now in its 25th year, released before the start of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, also showed that India ranks low at 13th place when it comes to trust of people in other countries, in companies with Indian headquarters.
• Canada topped this list of foreign-headquartered companies, followed by Japan, Germany, the UK, France and the US, while those ranked higher than India also included Mexico, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, China and Brazil.
• The overall list for trust of the general population in the government, businesses, media and NGOs was again topped by China, while Indonesia replaced India for the second spot by virtue of an increased score despite the Indian score remaining unchanged.
• The survey of 28 countries saw Japan replacing the UK at the bottom.

Violence and misinformation:

• Globally, the survey also threw out some disturbing trends with violence and spread of disinformation now being seen as legitimate tools for change.
• The survey showed little impact of elections or change of governments in most countries.
• Global communications firm Edelman, which surveyed more than 33,000 respondents across 28 countries, said the barometer revealed that economic fears have metastasized into grievance, with six in 10 respondents reporting moderate to high sense of grievance.
• This is defined by a belief that government and business harm them and serve narrow interests, and ultimately the wealthy benefit while regular people struggle, it said.
• Fear of experiencing discrimination has surged 10 points to a record high of 63%, spanning the majority across all genders, ages, and income levels.
• The largest jump (14 points) was seen among whites in the US, the barometer showed.
• “Over the last decade, society has devolved from fears to polarization to grievance,” Edelman CEO said.

Lack of faith in institutional leaders:

• The survey also flagged a global unprecedented lack of faith in institutional leaders – an average of 69% of respondents worry that government officials, business leaders and journalists deliberately mislead them.
• It also underlined confusion over credible information – 63% said it’s becoming harder to tell if news was produced by a respectable source or from attempted deception.

Lack of trust in top economies:

• Other key findings included a lack of trust in top economies.
• Five of the largest 10 global economies were among the least trusting nations on the Trust Index: Japan (the least trusting at 37%), Germany (41%), the UK (43%), the US (47%) and France (48%).
• Developing nations turned out to be more trusting – China (77%), Indonesia (76%), India (75%) and the UAE (72%) once again were on top of the Trust Index.
• Despite a 3-point drop to 75% trust among employees, ‘my employer’ remained the most trusted institution globally.
• The survey also found that the wealthy are seen as the problem with a majority of people believing that the rich avoid paying their fair share of taxes (67%), and 65% blamed their selfishness for many of the general people’s problems.