Fourth industrial revolution: ‘4IR critical for India’

Fourth industrial revolution: ‘4IR critical for India’

Fourth Industrial Revolution:

• The Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in India (C4IR) was established in October 2018 to focus on the role of emerging technologies across different sectors and to plug the challenges that will emanate as we go through this journey.
• Three pillars that the centre work on is:

1. The first is the 4IR technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, blockchain and others.
2. The second focus is on public-private cooperation. India recently announced drone services.
3. The third pillar is a multi-stakeholder partnership with the government, industries, start-ups, civil society, and consumers, for inclusiveness.

About the Inustrial revolutions:

1. The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production.
2. The Second used electric power to create mass production.
3. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production.
4. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century.

• It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres. Example:  artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, genetic engineering, quantum computing, and other technologies.

4IR in India:

In India, the Industrial Revolution 4.0 is based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The fourth revolution is expected to affect the Indian sectors inside out from villages to big industries.

• It will help provide better and affordable health care through AI-driven diagnostics, personalized treatment, etc.
• It can enhance the farmer’s income by introducing technologies for crop improvement, better yield, real-time advisory, advanced detection of pest attacks, and prediction of crop prices to inform sowing practices.
• It will help strengthen infrastructure and improve connectivity from villages to cities- bridging the urban divide.
• The ease of living and ease of doing business will improve by the use of smart technologies.
• The smart city mission, drone policies, Gati Shakti scheme, etc, are the evidence of the revolution influencing the policy-making in the country.

Challenges include:

• New form of inequality i.e. Digital inequality.
• Rising unemployment
• Digital divide and digital inaccessability
• Breach of personal information and threat to privacy
• Policymaking is a challange
• Security threat