Latest news with #AjitBalakrishnan
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Business Standard
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: Crashes, voter rolls, and fear of digital control
From aviation safety to electoral scrutiny, and from digital identity to market regulation, today's editorials and columns reflect a country and a world, grappling with systems that seem increasingly opaque and overburdened. A premature accident probe raises more questions than answers. The Election Commission's voter verification drive invites scrutiny over its methods. India's digital infrastructure is lauded even as concerns over data privacy grow. Let's dive in. The preliminary report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) on the Air India Dreamliner crash that killed 260 people last month has been met with criticism for being vague and speculative. The June 12 crash, which occurred just 30 seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad, led to a deadly collision with a doctors' hostel. The AAIB suggests a fuel-control switch may have moved from 'run' to 'cut-off,' shutting down the engine, but fails to explain whether this was pilot error or a technical flaw. One pilot is heard questioning the other about the switch, but voices remain unidentified. Experts say the report's timeline is murky and that referencing a 2018 FAA alert without new technical data only fuels unverified theories. Despite international oversight and ministerial caution, the report raises more questions than it answers, notes our first editorial. Meanwhile, the Election Commission of India is considering taking its Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls, currently under way in Bihar, to other states. This follows the Supreme Court's initial approval of the SIR as constitutionally valid. But civil society groups have warned that its execution may exclude marginalised voters. The ECI claims to have identified many individuals of foreign origin, but critics question how booth-level officers are making such determinations. The requirement of up to 11 documents for verification is a challenge in a state with high migration and low literacy, highlights our second editorial. The ECI says it has already covered 80 per cent of voters, but doubts persist over inclusivity. The top court will hear further petitions on July 28. Ajit Balakrishnan reflects on India's digital journey, praising Aadhaar and UPI but also questioning their implications in light of Rahul Bhatia's The Identity Project. While Aadhaar and UPI revolutionised access, critics warn they also enable surveillance. Globally, consent norms are tightening as seen in Google's $314 million fine in California. The column asks whether India should move towards stricter data ownership and opt-in systems. Meanwhile, Debashis Basu critiques Sebi's crackdown on Jane Street, linking it to deeper flaws in India's derivatives market. He argues the current system benefits governments, exchanges, and even regulators more than investors, while 90 per cent of retail traders lose money. The piece questions the legitimacy of India's oversized derivatives market. Finally, Sam Adler-Bell reviews, a book chronicling Biden's failed re-election bid and Trump's resurgent campaign. The book recounts internal dysfunction, missed warnings, and the slow unraveling of Democratic strategy, even as Kamala Harris tried to pick up the pieces. Stay tuned!
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Business Standard
13-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Explicit consent: Online's new era may shift power from apps to users
For years, the tech industry has operated on a model of "implied consent" Ajit Balakrishnan Mumbai Listen to This Article I feel energised when, during my daily evening exercise walk in Colaba, I see fisherfolk from the nearby Sassoon docks whip out their mobile phones, point at the QR code at a pavement fruit shop, and pay for their mangoes. I feel immensely proud of our Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and Aadhaar card systems, which are helpful for all levels of Indian society. However, my nationalist pride in India's digitisation was shaken last week, when I began reading Rahul Bhatia's well-written book The Identity Project: The Unmaking of a Democracy. It argues that Aadhaar, which I (like most Indians) love
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Business Standard
02-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Best of BS Opinion: India must heed the warning signs from without
Hello and welcome to BS Views, our daily wrap of the newspaper's opinion page. India's economy and technological prowess are on a steady path, but it faces external challenges in the form of both policies and nations, something that needs serious consideration. The final quarter of the financial year ended March 2025 saw a burst of economic activity, pushing GDP growth to 7.4 per cent for the quarter, and 6.5 per cent for the full fiscal. Private consumption also saw an uptick, and the central bank is expected to cut rates this cycle by 50-100 basis points, given a good monsoon and already-benign inflation. However, our lead editorial cautions, the main risk to the India story lies in the external environment, given global trade and economic uncertainties unleashed by US President Donald Trump. How the country navigates this and implements reforms to improve the business climate will shape its medium-term growth arc. India's indigenous Bharat Forecast System is a step forward in modernizing its capabilities, notes our second editorial. Given the country's diverse geography, such a system will help governments handle multiple challenges in the face of changing weather patterns and the rise of extreme weather events. More than that, accurate forecasts can radically improve the country's disaster preparedness and agricultural planning, helping farmers to make better planting and harvesting decisions. But first, the government must ensure timely dissemination of forecasts, community awareness, and last-mile connectivity, besides strengthening local institutions to act on them. Our lead columnist Ajit Balakrishnan looks back at the evolution of revolutions, and wonders if this is the time to think about a new model of technological or industrial change, one that puts the human condition front and centre, instead of pushing humans into poverty and starvation for the sake or profit. He invokes Mahatma Gandhi's exhortation at the time of the second industrial revolution, and recalls that the technological part of it was minor compared to the dehumanization of vast swathes of people, both in India, and the black slaves in north America. In short, he calls for revisiting history so that the next industrial revolution is more humane and equitable. Our columnist Debashis Basu writes on the rise and rise of China as a global power in its own right. In fact, it is no longer a prediction but a reality, thanks to sustained state ambition, disciplined execution, and a vast mobilisation of resources. In many sectors, in fact, it is already a global leader, but its technological and economic might poses challenges for India. Online, too, China is winning a propaganda war, projecting itself as a beacon of social order and techno-competence. India has the ingredients to grow like China, but lacks serious intent and goal-orientation. Perhaps India could take a page out of Xi's book, and start with a crackdown on corruption. Sanjeev Ahluwalia reviews David C. Engerman's book 'Apostles of Development: Six Economists and the World They Made', a close look at six eminent South Asian economists, all of whom graduated from Cambridge University, and shaped the region as per their own academic and political proclivities. The term 'apostles' is a riff on a 19th century secret society - the Cambridge Apostles. Lal Jayawardene of Sri Lanka, Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati and Manmohan Singh from India, Mahbub Ul Haq of Pakistan, and Sobhan Rehman of Bangladesh all find a place in the book, and how they helped shape outlooks towards economics and finance in their home countries.
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Business Standard
01-06-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
The next tech revolution must revise history, put humans before greed
Maybe it is time to revisit what Mahatma Gandhi said during the Swaraj movement Ajit Balakrishnan Listen to This Article One of the enduring mysteries in my life has been trying to understand why the Industrial Revolution, which started in England in the mid-18th century and introduced spinning and weaving machines, did not first happen in India. After all, India was producing most of the world's cotton thread and cloth at that time. Whenever I ask this, I get the answer: 'Indian labour costs were so low that nobody needed to invent machines to spin or weave.' The term 'Industrial Revolution' was popularised by the English economic historian Arnold Toynbee in an 1882 lecture at Oxford University to describe how
