Latest news with #SamirSaran
New Indian Express
04-05-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Decoding the power of pixels
In GeoTechnoGraphy: Mapping Power and Identity in the Digital Age, Samir Saran and Anirban Sarma critically examine how digital platforms have reshaped human interactions, disrupted traditional institutions, and redefined global power structures. Through rigorous analysis, the authors introduce the concept of geotechnography, a collision of technology and geography, as a framework to understand contemporary geopolitical and social transformations. As nations struggle to assert control over digital domains, the book brings democracy, sovereignty, and international norms into a compelling framework—making its insights especially engaging in an age dominated by Big Tech. The book opens by challenging the idea that geography has lost relevance in the digital age. While digital platforms create cloud societies that transcend borders, physical geography continues to shape political conflicts, national identity, and governance. The early chapters trace geography's enduring influence on politics, governance, and development—offering a sharp, counterintuitive take that challenges the common belief in the digital age's borderless reality. A key theme in the book is how digitalisation has upended established notions of community and identity. The authors highlight the rise of mediated selves, where individuals construct online personas that diverge from their real-world identities and can sometimes lack authenticity—'Digital life has transformed our sense of self and our relationships with others. Not only do we live mediated lives ourselves; our relationships—romantic, familial, collegial and others—are all mediated as well.' Social media has amplified parasocial relationships, allowing prominent public figures to shape global narratives beyond their physical locations. However, this also produces the risk of algorithm-driven interactions reinforcing echo chambers and distorting historical memory.
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Business Standard
28-04-2025
- Politics
- Business Standard
Raisina Chronicles: A public square for global dialogue and debate
In their editors' note to Raisina Chronicles: India's Global Public Square, S Jaishankar and Samir Saran write: 'The imperative of dialogue in polarised times is self-evident. And it has gained salience precisely because the promise of globalisation has been visibly broken.' The publication of the book celebrates the tenth anniversary of the Raisina Dialogue, an international conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics that has been convened in Delhi since 2016. This platform, which brings together heads of state, government officials, policymakers, diplomats and leaders of intergovernmental organisations, along with business leaders, media persons, experts from the development sector and members of civil society, is a collaboration between the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and the Government of India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). Therefore, it is fitting that the volume is edited by Rajya Sabha member Mr Jaishankar, who has been India's External Affairs Minister since May 2019, and ORF President Mr Saran, who is the Curator of the Raisina Dialogue. The book is valuable for readers interested in international relations and public policy as fields of study and practice. The language used here seems accessible enough for seasoned and early-career professionals, as well as students. Moreover, it is a useful resource for people who watch television shows like Barbara Hall's Madam Secretary, David Guggenheim's Designated Survivor and Deborah Kahn's The Diplomat for the high-octane drama and are curious about how politicians and diplomats build alliances and resolve conflicts in real life. It is divided into seven sections: (1) Changing Realities: Shifts in the World Order; (2) Shared Visions: Unbreakable Bilateral Ties; (3) New Opportunities: European Future in the Indo-Pacific; (4) Guards of Honour: Forging a More Secure World; (5) Viral World: Outbreaks, Outliers and Out of Control; (6) Unblurred Vision: Development with a Difference; and (7) At the Helm of Power: India, Raisina and the New Way Forward. Each section features reflections by speakers from various countries who have participated in the Raisina Dialogue and have rich insights to offer about key priorities in specific geographies and across the world. Rosa Balfour (Director, Carnegie Europe) and Zakaria Al Shmaly (Research Analyst, Carnegie Europe) acknowledge the European Union's 'blind spots', particularly its limited engagement with the 'Global South', and the need to understand critiques of its migration and asylum policy that treats white Christian and brown Muslim refugees differently. Kwame Owino (CEO, Institute of Economic Affairs) and Jackline Kagume (constitution, law and economy programme head at the Institute of Economic Affairs, Kenya) point out that Sub-Saharan Africa is 'the least embedded in global economic affairs and commerce' and advocate for 'access to regional and global markets' to ensure prosperity for countries represented by the African Union. The book addresses subjects such as democracy, climate finance, maritime security, gender equality, soft power, vaccine equity, public-private partnerships, and terrorism. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, for instance, calls terrorism 'a cancer that needs to be faced through wide international cooperation'. With Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announcing his readiness for a neutral investigation into the Pahalgam terror attack, it remains to be seen how this international cooperation pans out, and whether it amounts to more than lip service. Mohammed Soliman (director, strategic technologies and cyber security program at the Middle East Institute, Washington, DC) compliments 'India's growing voice in world affairs' for making the Raisina Dialogue 'a critical pathway for conflicting parties to utilise'. He writes, 'Not many global capitals have the diplomatic pull to host Israel, Iran, the Palestinians, and the Arab states under one roof to debate the most contentious regional and global issues'. Amrita Narlikar (president and professor, German Institute for Global and Area Studies) points out that the Raisina Dialogue 'is more inclusive and more diverse' than the Munich Security Conference and the World Economic Forum. What makes it stand out is not only 'its location in a democratic nation in the Global South' but also the decision to 'enable the participation of the interested public' rather than having closed-door meetings. This congratulatory tone pervades the book. While it reinforces the significance and impact of the Raisina Dialogue for multiple stakeholders, there is hardly any reflection on challenges encountered over the last 10 years and areas of improvement that have been identified either by the organisers or the participants. Introspection and feedback are crucial for growth. The other contributors to the volume range from United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen J Harper, Former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director David Petraeus, and Mexican Minister of Economy Marcelo Ebrard. The absence of voices from India's own neighbourhood — Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Myanmar, Afghanistan, China, and the Maldives — is quite conspicuous. Since the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has failed to help members settle disputes, the Raisina Dialogue could serve as a forum to have some of those conversations.
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First Post
21-04-2025
- Science
- First Post
Death of distance and rise of tribalism: Inside the disruptive world of ‘GeoTechnoGraphy'
Authored by Samir Saran and Anirban Sarma, 'GeoTechnoGraphy' is a pertinent and thought-provoking book that explores how digital technology has become both a catalyst for progress and a cause of intense societal disruptions read more Change is the only constant. We are often reminded about this age-old adage. But with each passing decade, year, month, day and even moment, one is facing an accelerated rate of change. Alvin Toffler wrote more than five decades ago in his milestone book, Future Shock, 'If the last 50,000 years of man's existence were divided into lifetimes of approximately sixty-two years each, there have been about 800 such lifetimes. Of these 800, fully 650 were spent in caves.' He decoded this accelerated rate of transformation further when he wrote how 'only during the last six lifetimes did masses of men ever see a printed word. Only during the last four has it been possible to measure time with any precision. Only in the last two has anyone anywhere used an electric motor. And the overwhelming majority of all the material goods we use in daily life today have been developed within the present, the 800th, lifetime.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD When Toffler wrote his seminal book, the digital revolution, as we see it today, was still a few decades away. And if the changes in the 1950s and '60s made him believe that 'most people are grotesquely unprepared to cope with it', one wonders what he would have said today when a seismic technological change, led by the digital revolution, is underway. The digital revolution has created new cloud-based communities that transcend national and geographical barriers, providing new opportunities as well as opening up new challenges. So, while the Internet is seen to be blurring, and often challenging too, geographical distances and national boundaries, one equally witnesses intense battles being fought for land, territories and so-called homelands. What makes the era both interesting and enigmatic is the two tendencies getting stronger at the one and the same time. To map these new changes, a new book, GeoTechnoGraphy, written by Samir Saran and Anirban Sarma, has come out, exploring how digital technology has as much become the catalyst for progress as much as a cause of intense societal disruptions. Geotechnography: Mapping Power and Identity in the Digital Age (Hardcover) – 31 March 2025. Image: The authors write, 'Our rootedness in land is now contending and conflicting – with a new sense of self built by engaging with social media and other global digital platforms. The agendas and aspirations of citizens, governments and tech businesses aren't necessarily congruent though. The friction between them is the greatest defining phenomenon of our time.' The 'death of geography' has led to the 'mushrooming' of 'new sites for agreement and discord'. Saran and Sarma write, 'Throughout our book, we use the terms 'clouds' or 'cloud societies' to refer to virtual communities that are anchored in particular geographies but use the Internet and social media to share views, exchange opinions, band together with like-minded peers or interest groups or engage in online political action. Cloud societies influence land-based debates and often assault offline consensuses. On the other hand, they amplify real-world movements, and the momentum they generate online could cross back into the offline realm in the form of new campaigns.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Interestingly, the 'death of geography', led primarily by the massive spread of cyberspace, has resulted in a borderless world, but at the same time one is witnessing the rise of 'new tribalism', wherein 'walls could spring up between those who fall foul of code or community guidelines and suffer a form of digital excommunication and those who don't'. The authors also highlight how 'a wedge is also driven between inhabitants of the world's various splinternets'. Giving the example of Chinese citizens being 'exposed only to online news and views curated by the Chinese Communist Party will form a vastly different worldview from Indians who experience an open, broad-based Internet'. This way 'alternate ideas' become 'invisible' (to Chinese), and 'one-sided perspectives become our universe'. Thus emerges what the authors call 'a new tribalism'. What further makes the situation dicey, difficult and also dangerous is the mushrooming of fake news outlets in the digital space. This phenomenon is worrying because for most people across the globe, social media has become the primary source of news—what makes this even deadlier is the fact that fake news travels faster than the truth! STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The book also looks at the growing malaise of cyber-attacks and cybercrime. The global cost of financial cybercrime is expected to skyrocket from $9.22 trillion in 2024 to $13.83 trillion in 2028. And by the end of 2024, cyber-attacks may cost the global economy more than $10.5 trillion. The number is only going to spread. Today, 65 per cent of the world's population use the internet, which was first introduced among the masses just three decades ago—and as the number of internet users further increases, especially in the Global South, the cases of cyber-attacks and cybercrime would go up too. Then there is the big issue of artificial intelligence, whose development and usage have divided humanity, with many projecting and predicting a doomsday-kind of scenario for human beings. The authors find four fundamental design flaws underlying today's geotechnographical landscape. One, the ideologies of Silicon Valley—the production centres of these technologies—are 'being made to force-fit local markets with a wholly different provenance'. Two, the contract between citizens and the state is 'increasingly mediated by private players' such as Microsoft, Google and Amazon. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Often these companies care little about local laws, as was witnessed in 2023 when the Government of India called out Twitter for repeatedly violating national laws. The third flaw is the dichotomy between sites of innovation and those of regulation. The fourth flaw is the 'capabilities asymmetry' between geographies that impacts their response to technology and shapes trajectories of tech adoption. The last chapter, 'Rebooting History: A Rules-Based Order for the Digital Age', is the high point of the book, as it seeks to find a way out of the digital morass the world finds itself in. In the end, the authors come up with their verdict: 'Technology has been left for too long now to market forces. The speed at which technological breakthroughs are occurring has no historical precedent. They have disrupted almost every industry in every country, and the changes they introduce are already transforming existing systems of management and governance. The tail is wagging the dog. We elect governments, and digital tribes then try to dictate what the elected government should do.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD It is, therefore, not surprising that trust in technology is declining and 'techlash' is becoming obvious. 'The digital age, with its dizzying ascent and all-encompassing impact on societies, may be on thinner ice than it knows. The disruption of truth and reality, the interference with borders both political and cultural, the weaponisation of technology, and the greed for global supremacy could make the fourth industrial revolution the shortest of all tech revolutions,' write the two authors as they ask governments and tech giants to pause and look for answers: 'How do we reboot the present to ensure that the future doesn't repeat the errors of the past? And if we don't, will the history of our digital societies be all too brief?' GeoTechnoGraphy is a pertinent, thought-provoking book. Given the time we live in, the book remains essential reading for all Indians. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
