The man who made India digital isn't done yet Nandan Nilekani can't stop trying to push India into the future. He started nearly 30 years ago, masterminding an ongoing experiment in technological state capacity that started with Aadhaar--the world's largest digital identity system. Using Aadhaar as the bedrock, Nilekani and people working with him went on to build a sprawling collection of free, interoperating online tools that add up to nothing less than a digital infrastructure for society, covering government services, banking, and health care. They offer convenience and access that would be eye-popping in wealthy countries a tenth of India's size. At 70 years old, Nilekani should be retired. But he has a few more ideas.

The collection of vast amounts of data is necessary to the functioning of AI and machine learning based systems. Where that data is personal data, the idea of consent, informed consent, and the redundancy of consent have become a part of debates on technology and rights. Governments across the world are looking to the potential of AI to open new markets and drive economic growth. In 2018, the Government of India, through Niti Aayog (formerly the Planning Commission), released a discussion paper titled'National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.' This document stated that "for accelerated adoption of a highly collaborative technology like AI, the government has to play the critical role of a catalyst in supporting partnerships, providing access to infrastructure, fostering innovation through research and creating the demand by seeking solutions for addressing various governmental needs."

India's digital footprint marks its biggest strength for AI development, and established platforms like Aadhaar, UPI along with massive digital infrastructure create a "unique opportunity" for this futuristic technology to be leveraged to enhance transparency and improve governance, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Friday. Speaking at the closing session of RAISE 2020 Summit, Kant said India optimally leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve its developmental challenges will not only lead to a societal transformation within, but will also benefit other nations in the world, who face similar issues. "Data lies at the core of development of AI technologies. India's digital footprint is its biggest strength for AI development," he said. Noting India's digital prowess - humongous amounts of data generated at "cheapest possible cost", rising smartphone penetration and rapid adoption of digital modes of payment -- Kant said, "India's digitisation efforts through platforms such as Aadhaar, UPI, GST, public finance management system and digital infrastructure has created a unique opportunity for AI to be leveraged to increase transparency and improve governance".

India is shifting quickly to become digital on the backdrop of a robust foundation of IT industry and swiftly moving on the cusp of a data revolution. An average Indian today consumes approximately 8.3 GB data per month, a 92 per cent increase compared to the data consumption four years ago, and by 2022 the per capita data consumption is expected to touch 14 GB. By 2022, the next half billion Indians will come online for the first time through their mobile phones. The immense digital presence of Indians in terms of 1.25 billion Aadhaar, 1.2 billion mobile phones and 1 billion bank accounts requires colossal digital infrastructure for storage and processing of data. This massive amount of data appetite of a digital-first nation has opened magnificent avenues for businesses and government alike.

NEW DELHI – As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts warn of the risks to privacy from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in "modernizing the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification," according to India's national crime bureau. Likely to be among the world's biggest facial recognition systems, the government contract was due to be awarded Friday. But there is little information on where it will be deployed, what the data will be used for and how data storage will be regulated, said Apar Gupta, executive director of the nonprofit Internet Freedom Foundation. "It is a mass surveillance system that gathers data in public places without there being an underlying cause to do so," he said.

NEW DELHI – As India prepares to install a nationwide facial recognition system in an effort to catch criminals and find missing children, human rights and technology experts on Thursday warned of the risks to privacy from increased surveillance. Use of the camera technology is an effort in "modernizing the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification," according to India's national crime bureau. Likely to be among the world's biggest facial recognition systems, the government contract is due to be awarded Friday. But there is little information on where it will be deployed, what the data will be used for and how data storage will be regulated, said Apar Gupta, executive director of non-profit Internet Freedom Foundation. "It is a mass surveillance system that gathers data in public places without there being an underlying cause to do so," he said.

We attempt to make two arguments in this essay. First, through a case study of a mobile phone based voice-media service we have been running in rural central India for more than six years, we describe several implementation complexities we had to navigate towards realizing our intended vision of bringing social development through technology. Most of these complexities arose in the interface of our technology with society, and we argue that even other technology providers can create similar processes to manage this socio-technological interface and ensure intended outcomes from their technology use. We then build our second argument about how to ensure that the organizations behind both market driven technologies and those technologies that are adopted by the state, pay due attention towards responsibly managing the socio-technological interface of their innovations. We advocate for the technology engineers and researchers who work within these organizations, to take up the responsibility and ensure that their labour leads to making the world a better place especially for the poor and marginalized. We outline possible governance structures that can give more voice to the technology developers to push their organizations towards ensuring that responsible outcomes emerge from their technology. We note that the examples we use to build our arguments are limited to contemporary information and communication technology (ICT) platforms used directly by end-users to share content with one another, and hence our argument may not generalize to other ICTs in a straightforward manner.

The Indian government plans to decongest its airports by introducing facial recognition technology next year - a proposal that may once again raise privacy concerns in the South Asian country. India's ministry of civil aviation on Thursday said passengers on domestic flights will be able to choose to use their biometric authentication system and go paperless. "Security will benefit from the ability of the technology to verify the passenger at every checkpoint in a non-intrusive way," ministry secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said in a statement. The proposal says passengers would be verified by being photographed at every stage of the check-in process - from entering the airport to proceeding through security and boarding the plane. The India government statement said the biometric technology will be introduced first at Bengaluru and Hyderabad airports by February next year, followed by Kolkata, Varanasi, Pune and Vijayawada by April.

Revolutions do not always follow a linear timeline. They can be sporadic and unpredictable. NITI Aayog's roadmap for national Artificial Intelligence programme hopes to bring one such revolution. The allocated Rs 3,073 crore will spearhead work on fifth generation technology startups like Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning (ML), Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing and Blockchain. The magnanimity of effort can be gauged by the near doubling of the fund for the programme. Atal Innovation Mission can give Rs 10 crore to start-ups that fit the criteria.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has finally caught the Indian government's attention. On Feb. 01, delivering his budget speech, finance minister Arun Jaitley told parliament that the government think-tank, Niti Aayog, will spearhead a national programme on AI, including research and development. The intent showed in the numbers: Budget allocation for Digital India, the government's umbrella initiative to promote AI, machine learning, 3D printing, and other technologies, was almost doubled to Rs3,073 crore ($477 million) this year. "It's extremely encouraging to see the government recognise the need for research in cutting-edge technologies," Subrat Kar, CEO and co-founder of Noida-based video intelligence platform Vidooly, told Quartz. Niti Aayog's support will "allow us to indigenously develop technologies on par with our Silicon Valley counterparts, and reduce dependency on them," Kar said. Niti Aayog, led by CEO Amitabh Kant, has been a key promoter of various digital campaigns in the country, including the massive biometric programme, Aadhaar, and the India chain project, which is creating blockchain infrastructure to support IndiaStack, a set of codes developed around Aadhaar.