Directions: Read the passage carefully and answer the questions that follow.

The Japanese government has selected eight Indian and Australian projects that will be implemented in the sphere of data, IT, medical, and cold chain marketplace, among others, as part of an arrangement to counter China’s dominance in the supply chain in the Indo-Pacific region. Six of the eight projects are from India and were selected by Japan on April 25 for the "Program for the Supply Chain Resilience in the Indo-Pacific Region." The remaining two projects will be conducted in Australia. These projects will be implemented by March 2023. “These projects will initially conduct a demonstration program to help Japanese companies visualize their supply chains, upgrade logistics, facilitate trade procedures and diversify their production bases,” the Japanese Embassy said in a statement.

The development comes a year after India entered into a trilateral Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) arrangement with Australia and Japan to enhance the resilience of supply chains in the Indo-Pacific Region and develop dependable sources of supply and explore other countries who could join in the initiative. It also aims to provide opportunities to stakeholders for capacity building and promotion of domestic manufacturing. One of these projects aims to establish a master database of manufacturing components, which will enable access to information across manufacturing processes to digitize the drone manufacturing process. Apart from that, other projects will reduce the usage of chemical fertilizer, thereby reducing carbon emissions in farmland with satellite data and artificial intelligence.

Japan and India have been worked together to strengthen supply chain resilience and India's industrial competitiveness. These projects can be instrumental in promoting such policy objectives between India and Japan,” the statement said.