MERGER fever seems to be spreading, this time in aerospace which has witnessed continuous merger and acquisitions (M&A) activity for over several decades as technologies have advanced, R&D and production costs have gone through the roof and even large firms have found it difficult to compete with the bigger players, especially if their main work is in broadly the same market segment.

THE New York Times recent report that the US Cyber Command has planted “malware” – read cyber bombs – deep into the Russian grid, should worry not just the Russian people, but all of us.  Taking down a country’s grid leads to blackouts, and disrupts a country’s vital infrastructure: communication networks such as metros, railways, airports, hospitals, telecommunications including cell phones; it can lead to failure of hydroelectric plants and dams causing devastating floods, nuclear plants outages and possible meltdown.

THE US sanctions on Huawei has transformed what started as a trade war between the US and China into a full blown tech war. The US has followed the additional tariffs of 10-25 per cent on $250 billion Chinese goods by putting Huawei, the Chinese telecom and mobile manufacturing giant, on the “entities list”, effectively a sanctions list. This forbids all companies having US content from selling to it.

THE latest round of US measures targeting telecommunications giant Huawei is an escalation of its war against China in the field of technology. Huawei has been the subject of US measures earlier too. While those steps were aimed at restricting the company’s entry into 5G networks in various countries, this round of sanctions is an attempt to deny vital equipment and software updates to the company, effectively crippling its core business.

OFFENSIVE ON TWO FRONTS

THE PepsiCo case against nine potato farmers in Gujarat for violating its Intellectual Property Rights under Protection of Plant Variety and Farmers Protection Rights (PPV&FR) has brought out the threat that the US multinationals pose to Indian farmers. PepsiCo is claiming damages of Rs 1.05 crore from each farmer. It follows an earlier case in May last year in Delhi High Court where Monsanto has claimed patent rights over its Bt Cotton seed and sued a Telangana seed company.