IIMB’s Supply Chain Management Centre hosts talk on ‘Strategic Trade Controls’ in the high-technology sector
Dr. V Siddhartha, Former Secretary, Science Advisory Council to the PM, discussed imperatives surrounding India’s participation in high-tech trade regimes
31 July, 2025, Bengaluru: The Supply Chain Management Centre (SCMC) at IIM Bangalore hosted a guest lecture by Dr. V Siddhartha, Former Secretary, Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, on the theme ‘High-Technology, Secure Trading Chains and India’s Strategic Trade Controls’. The talk brought into focus the evolving policy architecture and imperatives surrounding India’s participation in high-technology trade regimes, especially in the context of national security and foreign policy.
How must regulation evolve in tandem with both technological advancement and geopolitical complexity? The lecture examined the layered architecture of India’s Strategic Trade Control (STC) laws in the context of global export control regimes.
Drawing on decades of policy experience, Dr. Siddhartha deconstructed an often-misunderstood notion of "high technology”, situating it within the global regulatory landscape governing military and dual-use goods. India’s legislation, he noted, departs from global counterparts in one crucial respect. It places importance on the governance of ‘technology as information’, rather than focusing solely on physical transmission or hardware. As a result, technology being governed as information makes “intangibles” such as know-how and design data equally subject to control. He added, saying “Laws such as the Atomic Energy (Amendment) Act 2015, the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act, and the WMD Act 2005 are built on this guiding logic, and align with the country’s obligations under international non-proliferation regimes including the NSG, MTCR, Wassenaar Arrangement, and Australia Group”.
“Domestic manufacturing has become increasingly integrated into global high-tech value chains. Indian firms must proactively institutionalize Internal Compliance Programmes (ICPs) that track material and informational flows”, said Dr. Siddhartha on the role of supply-chain security and end-use integrity compliance in the corporate governance of high-technology.
He also pointed to a paradox in foreign investment in sensitive technologies wherein capital tends to flow not to regulatory vacuums, but to jurisdictions where the rules are clear and strictly enforced. In this context, India’s aspiration to become a trusted partner in high-technology manufacturing must rest on its capacity, rather than its recognized capability, to establish verifiable compliance across both public and private sectors.
“Corporate leaders that are part of industry groups like SIATI (Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies and Industries) and CII-SIDM (Confederation of Indian Industry – Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers) will need to learn and internalize new aspects of how to implement the principle of ‘Trust but Verify’”, stressed Dr. Siddhartha, implying that apart from adopting new systems of accountability that allow the government to trust them, provisions to verify that trust through transparent processes will also have to be established. This implementation would need to occur at the intersection of Strategic Trade Control (STC) laws and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), he added.
Prof. Rajeev R. Tripathi, faculty of Production & Operations Management (POM) and Chairperson of the Supply Chain Management Centre, delivered the vote of thanks saying, “In our 18 years of existence, SCMC has engaged with various functions including logistics management, network design, modeling and optimization, information technology, SC logistics, and e-commerce, but high-tech is not an industry we have a deep understanding of. I am really thankful to Dr. Siddhartha for engaging us in a conversation that serves as a great jumping off point”.
IIMB’s Supply Chain Management Centre hosts talk on ‘Strategic Trade Controls’ in the high-technology sector
Dr. V Siddhartha, Former Secretary, Science Advisory Council to the PM, discussed imperatives surrounding India’s participation in high-tech trade regimes
31 July, 2025, Bengaluru: The Supply Chain Management Centre (SCMC) at IIM Bangalore hosted a guest lecture by Dr. V Siddhartha, Former Secretary, Science Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, on the theme ‘High-Technology, Secure Trading Chains and India’s Strategic Trade Controls’. The talk brought into focus the evolving policy architecture and imperatives surrounding India’s participation in high-technology trade regimes, especially in the context of national security and foreign policy.
How must regulation evolve in tandem with both technological advancement and geopolitical complexity? The lecture examined the layered architecture of India’s Strategic Trade Control (STC) laws in the context of global export control regimes.
Drawing on decades of policy experience, Dr. Siddhartha deconstructed an often-misunderstood notion of "high technology”, situating it within the global regulatory landscape governing military and dual-use goods. India’s legislation, he noted, departs from global counterparts in one crucial respect. It places importance on the governance of ‘technology as information’, rather than focusing solely on physical transmission or hardware. As a result, technology being governed as information makes “intangibles” such as know-how and design data equally subject to control. He added, saying “Laws such as the Atomic Energy (Amendment) Act 2015, the Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation) Act, and the WMD Act 2005 are built on this guiding logic, and align with the country’s obligations under international non-proliferation regimes including the NSG, MTCR, Wassenaar Arrangement, and Australia Group”.
“Domestic manufacturing has become increasingly integrated into global high-tech value chains. Indian firms must proactively institutionalize Internal Compliance Programmes (ICPs) that track material and informational flows”, said Dr. Siddhartha on the role of supply-chain security and end-use integrity compliance in the corporate governance of high-technology.
He also pointed to a paradox in foreign investment in sensitive technologies wherein capital tends to flow not to regulatory vacuums, but to jurisdictions where the rules are clear and strictly enforced. In this context, India’s aspiration to become a trusted partner in high-technology manufacturing must rest on its capacity, rather than its recognized capability, to establish verifiable compliance across both public and private sectors.
“Corporate leaders that are part of industry groups like SIATI (Society of Indian Aerospace Technologies and Industries) and CII-SIDM (Confederation of Indian Industry – Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers) will need to learn and internalize new aspects of how to implement the principle of ‘Trust but Verify’”, stressed Dr. Siddhartha, implying that apart from adopting new systems of accountability that allow the government to trust them, provisions to verify that trust through transparent processes will also have to be established. This implementation would need to occur at the intersection of Strategic Trade Control (STC) laws and Public-Private Partnerships (PPP), he added.
Prof. Rajeev R. Tripathi, faculty of Production & Operations Management (POM) and Chairperson of the Supply Chain Management Centre, delivered the vote of thanks saying, “In our 18 years of existence, SCMC has engaged with various functions including logistics management, network design, modeling and optimization, information technology, SC logistics, and e-commerce, but high-tech is not an industry we have a deep understanding of. I am really thankful to Dr. Siddhartha for engaging us in a conversation that serves as a great jumping off point”.