A new report has found an increase in AI tools being used to create digitally manipulated images or videos of women in India. A new report has found an increase in AI tools being used to create digitally manipulated images or videos of women in India. 'The chilling effect': how fear of'nudify' apps and AI deepfakes is keeping Indian women off the internet G aatha Sarvaiya would like to post on social media and share her work online. An Indian law graduate in her early 20s, she is in the earliest stages of her career and trying to build a public profile. The problem is, with AI-powered deepfakes on the rise, there is no longer any guarantee that the images she posts will not be distorted into something violating or grotesque.

Muskan Sharma stood up to men who tried to bully her over her clothes - and went on to win hearts and a beauty pageant. The 23-year-old, who was crowned Miss Rishikesh 2025 last week in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, told the BBC that even though it was a small local pageant, it made me feel like Miss Universe. Sharma's win has made headlines in India as it came after a viral video that showed her spiritedly arguing with a man who barged into their rehearsals just a day before the 4 October contest. Sharma, who wanted to be a model and participate in a pageant since I was in school, said the intruders came in just as they broke for lunch. We were sitting around, chilling, having a laugh when they walked in, she said.

Babydoll Archi was not an unfamiliar name for the police. Ms Agarwal says they had also seen media reports and comments speculating that she was AI generated, but there had been no suggestion that it was based on a real person. Once they received the complaint, police wrote to Instagram asking for the details of the account's creator. "Once we received information from Instagram, we asked Sanchi if she knew any Pratim Bora. Once she confirmed, we traced his address in the neighbouring district of Tinsukia. We arrested him on the evening of 12 July."

Our research investigates the impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) models, specifically text-to-image generators (T2Is), on the representation of non-Western cultures, with a focus on Indian contexts. Despite the transformative potential of T2Is in content creation, concerns have arisen regarding biases that may lead to misrepresentations and marginalizations. Through a community-centered approach and grounded theory analysis of 5 focus groups from diverse Indian subcultures, we explore how T2I outputs to English prompts depict Indian culture and its subcultures, uncovering novel representational harms such as exoticism and cultural misappropriation. These findings highlight the urgent need for inclusive and culturally sensitive T2I systems. We propose design guidelines informed by a sociotechnical perspective, aiming to address these issues and contribute to the development of more equitable and representative GAI technologies globally. Our work also underscores the necessity of adopting a community-centered approach to comprehend the sociotechnical dynamics of these models, complementing existing work in this space while identifying and addressing the potential negative repercussions and harms that may arise when these models are deployed on a global scale.

Meta's Oversight Board is once again taking on the social network's rules for AI-generated content. The board has accepted two cases that deal with AI-made explicit images of public figures. While Meta's rules already prohibit nudity on Facebook and Instagram, the board said in a statement that it wants to address whether "Meta's policies and its enforcement practices are effective at addressing explicit AI-generated imagery." Sometimes referred to as "deepfake porn," AI-generated images of female celebrities, politicians and other public figures has become an increasingly prominent form of online harassment and has drawn a wave of proposed regulation. With the two cases, the Oversight Board could push Meta to adopt new rules to address such harassment on its platform.

As claimed by an international study, with regards to women's progress in the workforce, India is at odds due to various reasons. This study also unveiled that, while the employment of Indian women in the workforce is only 26 per cent, Indian Women contribute to about 22% in Artificial Inetelligence expertise. Gauri Padmanabhan, Partner, Heidrick & Struggles says – "Thanks to the growing involvement of leaders committed to creating a more inclusive work environment, we are seeing a growing trend of more women becoming equipped with the latest technology skill sets. This indicates an increasing number of women in India are entering a space which was commonly seen as a male-dominated domain." Geetha Manjunath and Nidhi Mathur began Niramai, a health-tech that utilizes AI to detect breast cancer.

According to a global study, in terms of women's advancements in the workforce, India is inconsistent due to various reasons. The study also revealed that while the participation of Indian women in the workforce is only 27 percent, they have a higher-than-average share in artificial intelligence skill set. The global provider of executive search, leadership assessment, and development, Heidrick and Struggles discovered that the country has an inconsistent history of the advancement of women due to cultural norms that fundamentally male-dominant and strongly favor males from birth. The gender inequality in India is hard to tackle which subsequently leads to a low 27 percent participation of women in the workforce. The report also revealed that the low participation rate is due to various cultural factors, as well as challenges faced by women in the workplace, including healthcare access, gender bias, and lack of flexible working opportunities.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is the fastest-growing field of employment in the world, and also one of the largest fastest growing sectors. Traditionally, STEM sector industries have been male-dominated, but in recent years, there has been a rising interest in hiring women for these jobs. One of the underlying reasons for the opening up of the technologically advanced employment sectors for women is the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies. The evolution of AI-based automation has made technology capable of performing an ever-increasing number of applications. We are not only witnessing enhanced automation, but also superior ease of usage.

Yet like a handful of local dating apps in this traditionally conservative country, Tinder's biggest challenge appears to be getting enough women to sign on. In many parts of India, arranged marriages--as opposed to what Indians call "love marriages"--remain the norm, and dating in any form still carries a stigma, particularly for women. Indian women who have dabbled with dating apps complain they get overwhelmed by all the attention that comes with the surplus of men. "The barrage of messages that hits your inbox is like a swarm of locusts," said Anushree Majumdar, age 33, in Mumbai. She uses dating apps only occasionally, she said, and can understand why women are intimidated by them.

In a world with limited doctors, emerging diseases and superbugs, and sharply rising costs, how can we successfully tackle health care problems at scale? This is just one of the critical challenges India's explosive startup community hopes to solve by implementing AI to serve the needs of the country's 1,324 billion citizens. The result of this effort will have huge implications for the U.S. and other health care ecosystems around the globe. To understand how dire the situation is, it's worth considering India's health paradox. The country's deep demographic dividend -- which occurs when the majority of a country's population consists of working-age individuals -- is driving rapid and unprecedented growth, but it is also a ticking time bomb.