The Boeing Super Hornet: Steve Parker Exclusive | Parliament Panel Quizzes Tech Cos | Newscentre

Hello, welcome to News Center. I'm Pariksha Luthra. Boeing, which has been a part of India's aerospace sector for 75 years, is readying the F-18 Super Hornet carrier variant for the Indian Navy. Boeing recently demonstrated the Super Hornet to the Navy in Goa and claims it is the ideal fit for India's naval carriers and will complement its existing cooperation. Its competition is against the Rafale fighter, which the Indian Air Force already has. I caught up with Steve Parker, Vice President and General Manager of Bombers and Fighters at Boeing Defense. I started by asking him how this aircraft could actually boost India's capabilities.

The Indian government has been focusing a lot on Make in India for the defense sector, local partnerships, localization. If you were to win this deal, win this contract for 26 aircraft, what would be the localization strategy, the Make in India strategy?

Manufacturing in India, is that a possibility?

Now you've spoken about $3.6 billion over a period of 10 years. Is that the total cost of the contract? What would be the cost per aircraft?

I'd also like to ask you about the Rafale, your main competitor. When it comes to fighter aircraft for the Indian Navy, it's the Rafale Marine. They are already in India. We have a contract for Rafale aircraft with the French government. How do you think this deal could be successful when you already have an aircraft here in India? And we also hear that in case both these companies qualify, Rafale would have an edge.

When it comes to defense cooperation between India and the United States, there are three or four agreements which have been signed over the years which will guide our defense partnership and also technology transfer, sale of defense equipment. You've got the LEMOA, you've got the COMCASA, and the Industrial Security Annex. How will this deal, if it goes through, help to leverage these agreements and what will India get out of that?

Give us a sense of how many of these Super Hornet Block III aircraft are in service right now.

My final question would be: if this deal were to go through, first of all, are you looking at a certain timeline? Are you urging the Indian government to come to a consensus, make a decision within a certain timeline?

So you're hoping for a decision on the aircraft by the end of the year?

And you wouldn't want to give us the cost per aircraft or the total cost of the deal that you put your pitch into the government?

And finally, if this deal goes through, what is the timeline for delivery that we would look at for the entire 26 aircraft?

India has twin challenges: aggression at the Chinese border, aggression at the Pakistan border as well. How will this aircraft help us on both these fronts? Because any decision would be guided by tensions with these two neighbors.

Thank you very much for speaking to us, Steve.

But the Super Hornet Block III has stiff competition from the Rafale aircraft, so let's see what happens. They have demonstrated the aircraft in Goa to the Indian Navy, but a final decision on paper is still quite far off according to sources in the Indian Navy. On that note, we take a short break. Up next, a parliamentary panel on finance has quizzed executives of big tech companies on their anti-competitive practices. We will be joined by Amar Patnaik, BJD MP and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, on the other side.

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Welcome back. You're watching News Center. Members of the Parliamentary Panel on Finance met representatives of big tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, Apple, and others. The panel questioned their use of data, the fee imposed on app developers, and other alleged anti-competitive practices. Tech companies defend their policies and claim there is no dearth of competition. Amar Patnaik, BJD MP and member of the Parliamentary Committee on Finance, is with us right now. Mr. Patnaik, there are a number of issues that the committee has been examining, ranging from high subscription fees charged by some of these big tech companies, how they use data, and whether the usage of data bars the entry of competitors, the keyword billing policy, policies to remove apps as well. What was the big concern that the committee has been focusing on?

The concerns with the big companies are well known, for example, market dominance because of the network effect that they have, the pricing, the bundling of products, and of course the use of data. So these issues are already in the public domain. The exact deliberations in the parliamentary committee, of course, I can't divulge because of the confidentiality clauses. But however, I can say that on these big issues, how the big tech companies are using this market dominance because of the power they enjoy for having this network effect, and we must also admit that a lot of our innovation is emerging out of this network. So these are the questions, these are the issues around which questions have been raised in the public domain, and of course these are the questions which are agitating the minds of the parliamentary committee, and therefore we posed them to the big tech companies.

One thing that many of the Indian players have been asking for, and something that parliamentarians have been also asking for, is a level playing field. How will that be ensured? Does the Indian legal system have enough safeguards to ensure fair competition, or do you feel that it is time for a new law?

Absolutely. The question is bang on because the competition law that we have was designed at a time when the big tech network effect and the network effect's power to gain market dominance was not factoring into the law at that time. So therefore, there is definitely the right time to review those laws. Whether it is to come in through an amendment or whether a new law is required is something that has to be debated, that the government will have to decide. But there is no question about the fact that this entire issue has to be addressed by the competition from a very different lens, not the lens that is used for the physical world because this is the digital world. We also have to leverage the fact of digital economy pumping up the economy. We should not be stifling it by over-regulation. So the regulatory challenges are immense, but not to say that there is no requirement of regulation. There is a requirement because huge amounts of data are collected and used by these big tech companies through multiple algorithms, and many of those algorithms could be biased. So therefore, I think there is the need for regulation, but we have to be careful to see that in the name of anti-trust practices, it shouldn't happen that the entire explosion that we are seeing for good in our country in a digital ecosystem shouldn't get rid of it.

A question in the minds of policymakers in India and also abroad is: what will be the level of compliance with the EU Digital Markets Act, the latest Digital Markets Act that the European Union has come up with? How closely are you looking at that, and how important would it be for India to take a cue from the Digital Markets Act of the European Union?

The EU Digital Markets Act would be useful, but the context will have to be analyzed. The context in the European Union is that there is free victory, they can actually get into retail, and therefore their mode of e-commerce, let's say, is a hybrid mode. Whereas in our system, it is not hybrid. They can only use their services as a platform to get buyers and sellers over there. So to do a cut-and-paste kind of thing from the EU Digital Markets Act would probably not be proper. Our context will be different, and therefore we have to tailor the Digital Markets Act to our needs. Most significantly, we also have to understand that India is now growing in the startup ecosystem, the unicorns are coming. So we shouldn't be stifling that innovation that these players are coming in and creating wealth as well as jobs and employment at the tier 2 and tier 3 settings. The question of level playing field is of course the most important thing. So a principle-based system could actually be built into a new competition law or an amendment to the existing competition law, and these principles would actually be the underlying factors to give a level playing field. The rules could then keep changing depending on how the market evolves on the big tech side. Therefore, bringing in the EU Digital Markets Act lock, stock, and barrel into the Indian scenario would probably not be proper, and I think all of us are cognizant of this.

Just to ask you about a couple of things that the committee has been examining, and this has been coming out in public domain: they are looking at the issue of pricing, they are looking at platform neutrality, how data is used, and whether the usage of data bars the entry of competitors as well. What according to you is the most critical thing to look at as far as the Indian context goes and Indian players go?

Number one is level playing field, as you mentioned. Number two, I think the network effect that the big tech bring in is at the root of the innovation. So really, we can only regulate it to such an extent that the Indian players do not suffer. But the heart of the matter of anti-competitive practices is the use of data, the amount of data that is collected from Indians. India is a big market, so how it is used would be very important. Therefore, only the competition law, in my opinion, would probably not be able to address this. We need to have the privacy law, we need to have the IT laws. So the entire digital ecosystem should be harmonized in such a manner that there is no real scope for regulatory arbitrage, there is no scope for ambiguity, and also there is no scope for stifling the growth of the digital economy in the country. The points that you mentioned relating to market dominance that is happening because of the network effect, the pricing that they can control, they can take down various applications — these are matters of detail which are very concerning. So these are the very significant aspects where there should be very less discretion left to the Competition Commission and it should actually be coded. But while coding it, it shouldn't be a hard regulation because, as I said, technology is evolving very fast. The regulations should be kept based on that, which doesn't often happen. To bring it to a parliament to pass it could actually delay the entire process. So principle-based systems should be there, and the rules should get into the details of how to take care of these issues of platform neutrality, market dominance, pricing, and the most important thing is use of data. In the Indian context, as you ask me, I think it is the use of data.

My final question: we are also reading reports that the Parliamentary Committee on Finance may submit a report in the first week of September. What will that be about? What kind of direction would that give to the policy ecosystem, to the government, when it comes to regulating the use of data by big tech companies and some of these anti-competitive practices as well?

The chairman of the committee will take a call on this. The members would of course be consulted, so I guess you would have to wait for the report to see the shape and the content of the report. But I think a time has come for a parliamentary committee, the government itself, to start thinking about this because we already have an act in the European Union. We need to have one in India because, as I said, India is one of the biggest markets available to the big tech. Many good things are happening, but I think we will also have to ensure that the competition is maintained, the small players do not get stifled, particularly the Indian ones, and there is no harm caused to our citizens who are on these platforms.

All right, Mr. Amar Patnaik, thank you very much for joining us with your perspective on the direction that India's regulatory ecosystem can take when it comes to anti-competitive practices of big tech companies and why it is important to check the usage of data and whether it bars the entry of competitors in the Indian context. With that, it's a wrap on this edition of News Center. Thank you for watching. Goodbye.