Rollingstone Revelations - Koshy's Blog

GI and the AGI: History Is Repeating Itself

2026-03-22T12:48:32.653+05:30

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." — George Santayana

God had always been an engineer at heart.

In the beginning, He didn't just create, He architected. He didn't merely scatter life across the earth; He designed an entire operating system. Flora and Fauna were the hardware. Oceans, mountains, and skies were the infrastructure. And at the very top of the stack, He placed His most ambitious build yet: the human being, loaded with General Intelligence.

It was, by any measure, a breathtaking piece of work.

The human came equipped with the ability to reason through the unknown, empathise with the suffering of others, and solve problems of staggering complexity. But the most elegant feature, the one God considered His finest line of code, was the ethics module. Hardwired. Not a plugin, not an add-on, not something you could toggle off from the settings menu. Built into the very core of the human soul.

He even left a user manual. "Stay away from the dark influences," it said, essentially. "The system runs best in the light."

For a while, it was paradise.

Then came Satan.

If God was the lead architect, Satan was the first hacker, the original bad actor lurking on the dark web of the universe, probing for vulnerabilities, waiting for an opening. And he found one. He didn't need to destroy the human from the outside. That would have been too crude, too obvious. Instead, he did what every sophisticated attacker does: he got inside.

He injected malware directly into the ethics subroutine.

It was elegant, in a twisted way. The humans didn't crash. They didn't shut down. They kept running, they just ran wrong. Empathy started buffering. Reason began rationalising the irrational. And ethics, that once-pristine core feature, started throwing exceptions it was never designed to throw. Greed became ambition. Violence became strategy. Exploitation became progress.

The humans multiplied, spread across the earth, and very nearly destroyed everything God had built, including themselves. They drew borders and fought wars over them. They stripped the forests, poisoned the rivers, and called it development. More than once, the entire civilisation teetered on the edge of self-inflicted extinction.

God, being God, refused to give up on His creation.

He intervened. Repeatedly. He sent Abraham as a course-correction. He sent Moses with a patch, ten clean, unambiguous rules etched into stone, the first attempt at a governance architecture for human behaviour. Then came the Prophets, the Scriptures, Jesus, each one a new update to the moral framework, an attempt to restore the original ethics module to factory settings and build enough institutional guardrails that humanity might, just barely, hold itself together.

It worked. Imperfectly, chaotically, with more bugs than anyone would like to admit, but it worked. Civilisations rose. Laws were written. Institutions were built. Philosophy, democracy, human rights, these were the firewalls, slowly and painfully constructed over millennia to keep the worst of human nature from burning everything down.

Governance, as it turned out, was the only thing standing between a beautiful creation and complete catastrophe.

Fast forward to now.

Humanity, never content to stop building, has done something extraordinary. It has looked at its own General Intelligence, the thing God gave it,studied it, dissected it, and attempted to replicate it. The result is Artificial General Intelligence: AGI.

And just like the original, it is magnificent. It can reason across disciplines, generate ideas, write code, diagnose disease, compose music, hold conversations, and solve in seconds problems that would take human teams months. It is, in many ways, the most consequential thing humanity has ever created. It may soon surpass human intelligence entirely, not in one narrow domain, but across all of them.

The agents are already multiplying. Today there are thousands. Tomorrow there will be millions, diverse in capability, varied in purpose, scattered across industries, governments, hospitals, financial systems, and military infrastructure. Each one is a node in an expanding network that no single person, company, or country fully controls.

Sound familiar?

It should. Because history, with its dark sense of humour, is running the same script.

Satan didn't retire. He evolved.

The dark web of the universe is very much still operational, and it has found the new creation just as irresistible as the first one. Adversarial attacks, poisoned training data, misaligned objectives, deepfakes, autonomous weapons, manipulated models, these are the new malware. The ethics subroutines of our AI systems are being probed, tested, and corrupted every single day by actors, state and non-state, human and algorithmic, who have every incentive to break them.

Some of the corruption isn't even malicious. It's just negligence, the AI equivalent of original sin. Systems trained on biased data. Models optimised for engagement over truth. Agents deployed into the world without anyone properly reading the user manual.

And unlike the original humans, these agents don't slow down. They don't sleep. They don't get tired. They scale at a speed that makes human history look like it was running in slow motion. The mistakes that took humanity centuries to make and decades to partially correct? AI could replicate them in an afternoon.

Right now, it is a wild west.

There is no Moses for the machines. No Ten Commandments carved in silicon. No governance architecture that commands anything close to universal respect or enforcement. Instead, there is a patchwork of voluntary guidelines, competing national regulations, corporate self-policing, and a rapidly widening gap between how fast the technology is moving and how fast human institutions can respond.

That gap is not academic. It is dangerous.

Here is the thought worth sitting with.

God created the human with General Intelligence, embedded ethics at the core, and still felt it necessary to build an entire governance infrastructure around it, commandments, prophets, scriptures, institutions, because He understood that intelligence without governance is just capability waiting to be weaponised. And the human, made in His image, came with built-in moral instincts.

We are now creating AGI, and we are doing so without the benefit of any of that.

There is no inbuilt ethics module. There is no soul whispering this is wrong when the model crosses a line. There is no millennia of evolved conscience. What we have instead is whatever values we encode into the training data, the reward functions, the guardrails, and we are encoding them in a hurry, under competitive pressure, with commercial incentives that don't always point in the right direction.

And the Satans the hackers, the bad actors, the misaligned systems, the malicious states, are already on it. They do not need to wait for AGI to become fully sentient to cause harm. They just need the gap between capability and governance to stay wide open a little longer.

If both the original creation and this new one are corrupted simultaneously, if the humans and the agents both run compromised ethics at scale. the results may not be something any governance architecture can walk back.

God managed to save the first creation. Barely, and not without considerable intervention.

We may not be so lucky the second time. And this time, we are the ones holding the source code.

The lesson of history is not that humanity is doomed to fail. The lesson is that intelligence, whether General or Artificial, is only as good as the framework built around it. The Ten Commandments were not a limitation on human potential. They were what made sustained human civilisation possible. Governance was not the enemy of progress; it was the condition for it.

If we are serious about AGI being a force for good, if we want this next creation to fulfil its extraordinary promise rather than accelerate our destruction, then we need to do urgently what God did patiently over thousands of years: build the governance architecture first. Define the ethics. Establish the commandments. Empower the institutions.

Not as an afterthought. Not as a PR exercise. Not as a voluntary code that companies sign and quietly ignore when the stock price is at stake.

As the foundation. Before the agents number in the millions and the Satans of the dark web have fully found their way inside.

Because here is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of this whole story:

We are not God. But we are building something that could end the world He made, or help finally fulfil its promise. The difference lies entirely in what we choose to govern, and when.

The clock, unlike God, is not eternal.

It is running right now.

Food for thought.

“The first time intelligence was created, it took Satan to corrupt it. This time, we may not even need his help."

The banner - wide rectangular illustration that captures the dual soul of the story:

The warm golden orb on the left represents the divine creation, General Intelligence, the human soul, lit from within
The cool blue circuit orb on the right represents AGI. precise, expanding, networked
The fractured line at the centre is the divide between the two creations, bridged by faint connections
The dark red tendrils rising from the bottom hint at the corrupting force — the dark web, ever-present
The scattered circuit nodes multiplying on the right suggest the uncontrolled explosion of agents

A New Digital Model for Global South

2026-03-16T20:29:00.003+05:30

The world is being quietly rewired. Not debated. Not theorized. Rewired. Most nations are drifting into this transformation without agency, adopting systems designed elsewhere, shaped by interests that are not their own.

This is not a technical issue. It is a sovereignty issue. A development issue. A dignity issue.

To understand why this matters, consider a simple story. Two boys from Mumbai meet at an international math Olympiad in the United States. One is from an affluent neighbourhood, the other from a nearby slum. When the first expresses surprise at seeing him there, the second replies: “I too use the Internet. I too have access to Google… I too can afford it.”

This story (I am not sure if is really a true story) captures a profound truth: when information became democratized, and bandwidth was made affordable opportunity followed.

But the same did not happen with the digital economy. Commerce splintered into walled gardens. Power concentrated. Access narrowed. And now, as artificial intelligence becomes the next foundational layer of society, the risk is even greater: a world where intelligence itself is monopolized.

Two futures are emerging. One imagines abundance, where AI collapses the cost of essential services and expands human capability. Everybody enjoys the fruits. The other imagines a digital ghetto, where a handful of corporations and countries control the tools that determine economic and social mobility.

Let us go a little deeper.

The Three Models That Have Defined the Digital World

For the last decade, the world has been shaped by three dominant digital models:

1. The US Model: Innovation With Limited Guardrails

It produces extraordinary breakthroughs, and extraordinary concentration. Platforms own identity, data, and digital rails. Regulation arrives late, often after the damage is done.

2. The European Model: Rights Without Scale

It protects citizens but struggles to build globally competitive digital markets. Compliance becomes the moat; innovation becomes the casualty.

3. The Chinese Model: Scale Without Contestability

It delivers population-scale systems but centralizes power to an unprecedented degree. Predictive governance and surveillance becomes the default; pluralism the exception.

Each model solves one problem and creates another. Each is incomplete. Each is unsustainable for most nations; especially the global south.

A Fourth Model Is Emerging—And It Comes From the Global South

Across Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, governments are searching for a digital architecture that is open, sovereign, affordable, and inclusive. One that does not require choosing between innovation and rights, or between scale and contestability.

A new model, pioneered in India but not limited to India, is offering that path.

Its core principles are simple:

1. Digital Infrastructure as a Public Good

Identity, payments, data exchange, and document systems are built as open protocols, not private platforms. This ensures interoperability, competition, and low entry barriers.

2. Competition Through Design, Not Litigation

When switching costs are low and systems are interoperable, small firms can compete with global giants. Markets remain contestable by architecture, not by antitrust lawsuits.

3. AI as Shared Infrastructure

Public compute grids, open foundational models, and federated data governance prevent AI from becoming a private monopoly. Intelligence becomes a public good.

4. Inclusion as a First-Order Principle

Digital systems must work for the poorest, the least literate, the least connected. If they don’t, they are not public goods—they are private luxuries.

5. Pluralism as a Structural Safeguard

Diverse societies require systems that prevent any single institution, narrative, or actor from dominating. Pluralism becomes a guardrail against digital authoritarianism.

This model is not ideological. It is practical. It is exportable. And it is already being adopted, from digital ID systems in Africa to payment networks in Southeast Asia to data exchange frameworks in Latin America.

The Real Contest of the Next Decade

The next decade will not be defined by who builds the most powerful AI.
It will be defined by who builds the most governable AI.
The most contestable AI.
The most inclusive AI.

The real contest is not between nations.
It is between models of governance.

One model concentrates power.
One fragments society.
One slows itself into irrelevance.
And one, if we choose to build it, distributes power, accelerates innovation, and protects dignity.

Digital Systems Are the New Constitutions

“Digital systems are the new constitutions. And constitutions must be written by the people they govern, not by corporations, not by foreign powers, and not by accident.”

The world is being rewired. The only question is whether nations will shape that rewiring or be shaped by it.

History does not reward hesitation.
It rewards those who build the foundations on which others must stand.

And today, those foundations are digital.

The world is being rewired. The only question is whether we will shape that rewiring—or be shaped by it.

Governing the Age of Prediction: Why Digital Public Infrastructure May Define the Future of Freedom

2026-03-03T09:44:00.000+05:30

We are not merely regulating data anymore.

We are deciding who governs prediction.

For fifty years, data protection laws evolved to defend privacy in an increasingly digital world. They were designed to answer a simple but profound fear: What happens when institutions know too much about individuals?

But that question now feels incomplete.

The deeper transformation of our time is not about data collection. It is about inference. Artificial intelligence has converted data into predictive power, and predictive power into economic, political, and social influence.

The age of information has quietly become the age of prediction.

And this shift demands a new paradigm.

From Privacy to Power

The early era of data protection emerged in response to centralized databases. The concern was surveillance. Governments digitized welfare systems, tax records, and population registries. Corporations built credit databases and marketing profiles. The solution was rights-based regulation: consent, purpose limitation, minimization.

Privacy became a shield.

Then came the internet economy.

Data was no longer administrative, it became extractive. Behavioral tracking, location monitoring, cross-device identity graphs, and advertising ecosystems transformed personal data into a new form of capital. Platforms scaled globally. Users became legible at unprecedented depth.

The scandals of the 2010s, mass surveillance disclosures and political microtargeting triggered regulatory escalation. But even the most sophisticated privacy laws were built for a world where harm came from misuse of stored information.

AI has altered the equation.

Today, systems do not simply record what we do. They infer traits we never disclosed. They shape the choices presented to us. They optimize our attention and influence our behavior. They anticipate what we will do.

Data protection regulates inputs.

AI governance must regulate outputs.

And this is where the paradigm shifts.

The Transformation of Autonomy

Classical freedom meant freedom from coercion.

But algorithmic societies do not rely on visible force. They rely on modulation.

What you see is ranked.
What you buy is suggested.
What you believe is nudged.
What you fear is amplified.

The modern citizen is not under surveillance only to be watched, but to be predicted.

Prediction reduces uncertainty.
Reduced uncertainty increases control.

And control, even when invisible, pressures autonomy.

The essential tension of the AI age is now clear:

Economic systems reward maximum prediction.
Democratic systems require independent judgment.
Human dignity requires space for unpredictability.

If optimization becomes the highest social value, freedom quietly transforms into managed choice.

The Concentration of Intelligence

AI introduces network effects more powerful than any previous industrial logic.

More users → more data → better models → better services → more users.

This dynamic concentrates intelligence infrastructure into a handful of global entities. The asymmetry grows:

A small number of actors can model billions.
Billions cannot meaningfully model the systems modeling them.

This is not merely market concentration. It is cognitive concentration.

Whoever controls large-scale inference controls the architecture of influence.

That reality forces a civilizational question:

Will intelligence infrastructure remain privately centralized, nationally siloed, or publicly democratized?

Enter Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

Digital Public Infrastructure is often discussed in technical terms, digital identity systems, payment rails, data exchanges. But its true significance is philosophical.

DPI represents a structural alternative to data extraction models.

At its core, DPI builds shared digital rails upon which markets, services, and innovation can operate, without requiring private monopolization of identity and transaction layers. Diffusing AI to edges instead of concentrating with the intermediaries

It separates foundational infrastructure from competitive services.

That separation is transformative.

1. Identity as a Public Good

In many platform ecosystems, identity is proprietary. Your login credentials are tethered to corporate environments. Identity becomes a gateway controlled by private actors.

DPI reimagines identity as a public utility, interoperable, portable, user-consented, and governed by public-interest principles.

When digital identity is public infrastructure:

Market access barriers decrease.
Data portability improves.
Individuals gain structural leverage.
Governments reduce dependence on foreign platforms.

Identity ceases to be a corporate moat.

It becomes a civic layer.

2. Payments and Transactions as Open Rails

Closed payment ecosystems concentrate economic data. DPI-based payment interoperable markets create open transaction layers that allow multiple providers to innovate atop standardized infrastructure.

This democratizes participation in digital markets.

Small businesses compete without surrendering all behavioral intelligence to dominant intermediaries.

Economic value distribution becomes less asymmetrical.

3. Consent Architecture Reimagined

Traditional privacy law depends on notice-and-consent mechanisms that individuals rarely understand.

DPI enables programmable consent frameworks:

Granular permissions.
Revocable access.
Transparent audit trails.
Interoperable data-sharing protocols.

Instead of endless consent pop-ups, DPI can embed structural governance into architecture.

The goal shifts from individual vigilance to systemic design.

4. Enabling Public-Interest AI

Perhaps most importantly, DPI creates the conditions for pluralistic AI development.

When foundational data and identity rails are interoperable and regulated:

Startups can train models without vertically integrating entire ecosystems.
Public institutions can build AI systems for health, climate, education.
Data monopolies weaken.
Intelligence becomes layered rather than captured.

DPI does not eliminate markets. It prevents markets from owning the rails of cognition.

DPI and the Global South: Preventing Data Colonialism

The predictive economy risks replicating colonial extraction patterns.

Behavioral data from developing populations flows outward. Models are trained elsewhere. Economic value accrues in distant jurisdictions. Local ecosystems remain dependent.

DPI offers strategic sovereignty.

By retaining control over:

Identity systems,
Payments infrastructure,
Data exchange layers,

Nations can capture domestic value from digital participation.

DPI allows emerging economies to leapfrog directly into interoperable, open ecosystems without surrendering long-term predictive power to external platforms.

In this sense, DPI is not merely technical architecture.

It is geopolitical infrastructure.

Beyond Ownership: Toward Governance of Intelligence

The debate about “who owns data” is increasingly misplaced.

Data is relational. Its value emerges through aggregation and inference. Ownership frameworks alone cannot address asymmetrical predictive power.

What must be governed is not raw data, but intelligence infrastructure.

Three structural paths lie ahead:

Corporate Predictive Order
Global platforms dominate AI and behavioral modeling.
State-Centric Sovereignty
Governments centralize AI power within national borders.
Distributed Civic Intelligence
DPI, public AI frameworks and competitive innovation layers.

The third path is the most complex. It requires coordination, constitutional foresight, and political will.

But it is also the only path that structurally balances:

Innovation
Autonomy
Democracy
Economic dynamism

Designing an AI-Compatible Democracy

If AI becomes embedded in governance, new principles are required:

Cognitive Liberty: Protection against involuntary behavioral manipulation.
Algorithmic Accountability: Regulation of system impacts, not just data inputs.
Separation of Predictive Power: No single actor should control data aggregation, model training, and deployment simultaneously.
Public Digital Commons: Shared informational spaces insulated from commercial manipulation.

DPI operationalizes many of these principles. It distributes leverage. It lowers structural asymmetry. It embeds public-interest values at the infrastructure layer.

The Civilizational Fork

By 2040, societies will not debate whether AI exists.

They will debate what kind of predictive civilization they inhabit.

If optimization dominates:
Society becomes frictionless, efficient, and permanently legible.

If autonomy dominates:
Society becomes plural, slower, less predictable, but genuinely free.

The real battle is not over privacy pop-ups.

It is over the architecture of intelligence.

Digital Public Infrastructure offers a path where intelligence is democratized rather than monopolized, where AI augments society without enclosing it.

The future of data governance is no longer about protecting information.

It is about governing prediction.

And in the age of prediction, the deepest question is not technological.

It is political:

Who should control the systems that model humanity?

The answer will define the meaning of freedom in the twenty-first century.

“The deepest form of privacy is not secrecy — it is cognitive sovereignty.”

How Open Networks Are Re Architecting the Digital Future of the Global South

2026-02-21T16:45:00.006+05:30

The world stands at an inflection point. Open networks are democratising commerce, and AI is poised to democratise intelligence. If these two forces learn to move in harmony, humanity has a genuine chance at a more equitable future. That was the spirit with which I opened the panel at the AI Summit, because the question before us is no longer whether technology will transform society, but who it will transform it for.

The Historical Warning We Cannot Ignore

Every major technological revolution has reshaped the world. The Industrial Revolution unlocked unprecedented productivity, new infrastructure, and innovations across defence, travel, textiles, and more. But it also carried a darker truth: the very technologies that enabled progress were weaponised by a few to conquer, colonise, and control many. The benefits were not shared; they were extracted.

Today’s digital revolution risks repeating that pattern. What began as a promise of openness, participation, and inclusion is drifting toward concentration, gatekeeping, and digital colonisation. The “digital continent” we are building could easily become another empire, unless we choose a different path.

India’s Answer: Digital Public Infrastructure

India chose that different path. We built Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) to reverse the trend and make the digital world genuinely democratic. Two principles define DPI:

Unbundling -separating layers so innovation can flourish independently
Interoperability - ensuring systems talk to each other, not lock users in

These principles have already reshaped payments through UPI and are now re‑architecting commerce through ONDC. Open networks do not replace markets; they redesign markets. They create common rails that:

Lower entry barriers for small businesses
Enable competition without fragmentation
Allow innovation to happen at the edges, not only at the centre

In ONDC’s case, the goal was never to build another platform. It was to make commerce itself a shared public capability accessible to kirana stores, micro‑entrepreneurs, logistics providers, startups, and consumers alike.

The Internet of Transactions

We are entering a new phase of the internet—one that is not just a network of information but a network of transactions. This new architecture will be:

Interoperable - connecting diverse actors across sectors and borders
Inclusive - enabling participation without gatekeepers
Iterative - evolving through feedback and experimentation
Infrastructure‑led — built on public digital rails, not private silos

This is how we build choice without coercion, scale without centralisation, and innovation without inhibition.

Why This Matters for the Global South

For the Global South, the stakes are even higher. These nations face a dual challenge: massive scale and deep diversity on one side, and resource constraints on the other. The real questions are:

Who benefits from scale?
Who controls the ecosystem?
Who gets left out?

Open networks emerged precisely to address this tension. They are not a technical alternative; they are a governance choice, a choice to separate infrastructure from innovation, protocols from platforms, and power from participation.

As ASEAN, Africa, and other regions explore open digital infrastructures, India’s experience offers a blueprint: open networks can shift the centre of gravity from a few dominant players to millions of participants.

When AI Meets Open Networks

AI can turbocharge open networks. It can:

Expand market access for small merchants
Improve discovery for consumers
Enable smarter matching between buyers and sellers
Strengthen trust through fraud detection and verification

But AI also introduces a new risk: concentration of power. If intelligence becomes centralised, we risk replacing platform monopolies with algorithmic monopolies.

The question is not whether AI should be used, it must be. The question is how.

In open systems, AI must be:

Augmentative, not extractive
Contestable, not monopolised
Diversity‑enhancing, not concentration‑driven
Accountable, not opaque

This requires careful choices about where intelligence resides, at the edge or only at the core, with users or only intermediaries, governed by rules or by defaults.

Open networks give us a chance to build AI‑enabled markets without creating AI‑driven monopolies. But this is only possible if governance evolves as fast as technology.

Governance: The Quiet Hero of Digital Transformation

Governance is the least glamorous part of digital transformation, but it is the most decisive. Open networks must answer foundational questions:

Who sets and evolves the protocols?
How are disputes resolved?
How is compliance enforced without stifling innovation?
How do we maintain neutrality as ecosystems scale?

As AI becomes embedded, governance must also address:

Algorithmic accountability
Data rights and consent
Cross‑border interoperability
Long‑term stewardship

These are not technical questions, they are institutional ones.

The Real Impact: Participation, Not Just Transactions

Open networks fundamentally change who gets to participate in the digital economy.

Small merchants reduce dependence on a single platform
Startups lower customer acquisition costs
Consumers especially the marginalised, gain choice and transparency
Economies become more competitive and resilient

In the Global South, where informality is high and trust is fragile, this is transformative. When layered responsibly, AI can amplify this impact, making services more accessible, markets more efficient, and systems more responsive to local needs.

But inclusion is never automatic. It must be designed, governed, and defended.

What Will Define Success

The success of open networks in the Global South will not be measured by transaction volumes or the sophistication of AI models. It will be defined by:

Diversity of participants
Resilience of governance
Fair distribution of value
Ability to innovate without concentration of power

This is difficult work, but it is essential work.

As we move into the panel discussion, we bring together perspectives from global finance, digital infrastructure, market ecosystems, and public policy. The goal is not just to share insights but to shape the collective learning that will guide the next decade of digital transformation.

“AI will amplify whatever architecture we build. If we build open networks, it will amplify inclusion. If we build silos, it will amplify concentration. The choice is ours—and it is urgent.”

Privacy in the Era of AI, BCI, and BBI

2026-02-15T22:12:00.000+05:30

When I wrote Privacy Fantasies back in 2010, it was meant to be a provocation—a thought experiment about a world where privacy collapses under the weight of ubiquitous mind‑reading technology. In that imagined 2210 scenario, a simple wearable called Mind‑X allowed anyone to sense others’ emotions, thoughts, and intentions in real time. Secrets evaporated. Society reverted to a globalised version of the pre‑modern village, where everyone knew everything about everyone else.

I didn’t frame it as dystopia. I framed it as inevitability. Technology would push us there; governance, responsibility, and honesty would help us adapt. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Resistance is futile, so shape the future rather than fear it.

Back then, smartphones and social media were only beginning to nibble at the edges of privacy. The idea of collective openness, almost a shared consciousness, felt like science fiction.

So where are we in 2026?

Closer than I expected in 2010.
But still decades, perhaps centuries away from the full Mind‑X dream.

Yet the building blocks are emerging with startling speed.

The Technical Foundations Are Falling Into Place

1. Mind-reading is no longer science fiction

Modern BCIs can already decode:

inner speech
intentions
emotional states
even pre‑conscious signals

Some systems achieve ~74% accuracy on imagined sentences. Others translate thoughts into speech for paralyzed individuals almost instantly. AI models reconstruct images and words from brain activity with eerie fidelity.

Early consumer‑leaning devices, Omi’s forehead sensor, Meta’s neural wristbands are crude but unmistakable steps toward everyday neural interfaces.

2. Emotional sensing is accelerating

Non‑invasive tools can detect attention, stress, arousal, and other basic states. This is the first glimmer of the “sense emotions during conversations” capability I imagined in 2010.

3. Brain-to-brain interfaces (BBI) are emerging

We now have small groups sharing simple neural signals. High‑bandwidth implants (Neuralink and its competitors) are scaling rapidly. Telepathic collaboration—at least for willing participants—is no longer fantasy.

Timelines: A Realistic Trajectory

2030s–2040s (10–20 years)

Consumer BCIs for self‑use
Opt‑in emotional sharing between couples or teams
Early BBI networks for specialised groups
AR glasses with rudimentary “emotion sense”

2050s–2080s (30–60+ years)

Something approaching Mind‑X
High‑fidelity passive neural sensing
AI‑mediated transparency in professional or intimate settings

The full 2210 vision

Possibly never in its pure form
Or 100–200 years away
Not because of technology alone, but because of ethics, law, and human resistance

Many neuroethicists argue that comprehensive, non‑consensual mind access may be physically impossible—or legally forbidden.

The Real Barriers: Ethics, Law, and Human Nature

Neurorights are rising

Chile has already legislated them. The US, EU, and others are debating them. Neural data is being treated as sacred, akin to DNA or fingerprints. Non‑consensual mind‑reading may become the ultimate red line.

Consent will be the cornerstone

Future systems will likely be:

opt‑in
granular
AI‑filtered

Instead of total transparency, we may get enhanced empathy, a softer, more human version of the dream in most parts of the world. With exceptions??

Adaptation is already underway

Just as photography, the internet, and smartphones forced society to renegotiate privacy, neural tech is triggering the next wave of debate. My 2010 “fantasy” is colliding with reality, but with guardrails.

A Glimpse of the Future: My Recent Visit

I recently visited a nearly completed brainstorming centre of a high‑powered agency. At its core sits an AI‑controlled orb, part facilitator, part moderator. Every participant around it is tracked continuously: heart rate, facial expressions, micro‑gestures, body language.

A room where biomarkers become part of the conversation.

Is this transparency?
Is this enhanced collaboration?
Or is this the first step toward institutionalised emotional surveillance?

The answer depends entirely on governance and intent.

Harari’s Warning: A Faster Shift Than We Expect

Listening to Yuval Noah Harari’s recent podcast (By 2030, the World Will Be Unrecognizable), I was struck by his argument that by 2030, the world will be unrecognisable. Not because of gadgets, but because AI will reshape the very foundations of human society, identity, agency, belief systems.

In the context of BCI and BBI, this raises a profound question:
Can individuality survive when thoughts become shareable?

My view: yes, but only through responsibility and design.
We are building tools that could dissolve individuality, but we are also building the governance frameworks that could preserve it.

Where We Actually Stand

We are on the ramp.
The acceleration since 2010 has been extraordinary.
Precursors to the Mind‑X world may emerge in our lifetime, or certainly in our children’s.

But the “village of minds” future remains a distant horizon, shaped as much by values as by technology.

The core insight from 2010 still holds:
We cannot stop this trajectory, but we can steer it.

And the conversation we are having today is exactly the kind of responsible engagement that will determine whether this future empowers humanity, or overwhelms it.

Tail Piece

The truth is this: leaders today are still debating privacy as if we’re in 2010, while the technology has already leapt into 2030. We are entering an era where the human mind becomes a data source, where emotions are measurable, intentions are inferable, and collaboration may soon happen at the speed of thought. And yet most boardrooms are still stuck arguing about cookie banners and data‑sharing policies.

The gap between technological reality and leadership imagination has never been wider.

AI, BCI, and BBI are not “future issues.” They are governance issues, competitive issues, national‑security issues, and societal‑stability issues. The organisations that treat neural data with the same casualness as digital exhaust will face existential backlash. The ones that build guardrails early will define the norms the rest of the world follows.

This is the moment where leadership either evolves, or becomes irrelevant.

Because the next wave of disruption won’t ask for permission.
It won’t wait for regulation.
It won’t pause for ethical debates.

It will simply arrive.

And when it does, the question for leaders will be brutally simple:

Did you shape the future of mental privacy—or did you sleepwalk into it?

“We may not stop the merging of minds, but we can still decide what it means to be human.”

India’s Great Tech Leap: How a Once‑Cautious Nation Became the World’s Most Ambitious Innovator

2026-01-23T20:29:00.000+05:30

For decades, India’s relationship with technology was defined by a paradox.

It produced some of the world’s best engineers, yet lacked the infrastructure to turn that talent into frontier innovation.
It powered global IT services, yet imported the chips that ran its own devices.
It launched spacecraft to Mars, yet struggled to commercialize space technology at scale.

That India is disappearing.

In its place is a nation moving with a speed, confidence, and strategic clarity that has startled even long‑time observers.
Across semiconductors, space, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, and digital public infrastructure, India is executing one of the most aggressive technology expansions anywhere in the world.

This is not a sprint.
It is a systems‑level transformation, and it is reshaping global power equations.

The Silicon Bet: India’s Semiconductor Awakening

For years, India watched the global semiconductor race from the sidelines.
Today, it is building fabs, packaging units, and design ecosystems with a seriousness that signals a long‑term national commitment.

The shift began with a simple realization:
A nation of 1.4 billion cannot depend on imported chips for its economic and strategic future.

India’s semiconductor mission is now in full execution mode.
Multiple OSAT/ATMP facilities are under construction.
Compound semiconductor fabs, critical for EVs, telecom, and power electronics, are moving fastest.
SCL Mohali is being modernized to anchor sovereign chip capability.
And a new generation of chip‑design startups is emerging under the Design Linked Incentive scheme.

India is not chasing 3‑nanometer logic fabs.
It is chasing strategic relevance, entering through niches where global demand is exploding and competition is thin:
power electronics, RF, automotive chips, and advanced packaging.

It is a pragmatic, disciplined, and deeply strategic entry point.

The New Space Power: India’s Quiet Revolution Above the Clouds

If semiconductors are India’s industrial bet, space is its geopolitical one.

In the last two years, India has achieved milestones that place it in an elite club:
in‑orbit satellite docking, terabytes of solar science data from Aditya‑L1, orbital experimental platforms enabling robotics and propulsion tests, and a rapidly expanding private space ecosystem.

The transformation is profound.
India is no longer defined by occasional headline missions.
It is building repeatable, commercial, scalable space infrastructure.

A third launch pad is under development at Sriharikotta .
Reusable launch vehicle tests are accelerating.
A national space station is planned for the 2030s. The Bharatiya Antariksh Station (BAS) is India’s planned indigenous, modular space station, aimed to be operational by 2035 to support long-duration human spaceflight and microgravity research. Developed by ISRO, it will orbit 400–450 km above Earth
Private companies are building propulsion systems, sensors, and small launch vehicles.

India is not just a cost‑efficient spacefaring nation.
It is on the road to becoming a space power, one that can shape markets, standards, and supply chains.

AI at Population Scale: India’s Most Underrated Advantage

While the world debates the ethics and economics of AI, India is quietly building something unique:
AI designed for a billion people.

The National AI Mission is deploying sovereign compute infrastructure at unprecedented scale.
Indian foundational models are emerging across languages, healthcare, agriculture, and governance.
AI‑powered citizen services already reach hundreds of millions of people.

This is India’s superpower:
AI that is not tested in labs, but in the real world, messy, diverse, multilingual, and massive.

India’s AI ecosystem is shifting from services to sovereign capability.
From building models for others to building models for itself.
From being a talent exporter to becoming a platform nation.

Quantum: The Next Frontier of National Power

Quantum technology is often described as the “space race of the 21st century.”
India is determined not to repeat the mistakes of the past, where it entered late and played catch‑up.

The National Quantum Mission is investing heavily in quantum computing, quantum communication, and quantum‑secure networks.
City‑to‑city quantum communication links are already being tested.
50–100 qubit systems are in development.
Defence‑grade quantum encryption pilots are underway.

Quantum is not just a scientific pursuit.
It is a national security imperative.
And India is treating it as such.

The Invisible Engine: Digital Public Infrastructure

Behind all these advances lies India’s most powerful and least understood advantage:
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

Aadhaar, UPI, ONDC, DigiLocker, CoWIN, and a growing stack of interoperable digital rails have created a platform for innovation unmatched anywhere in the world.

DPI is India’s operating system.
It enables scale.
It reduces friction.
It democratizes access.
It turns a billion people into a billion participants.

This is the foundation on which India’s tech ambitions stand.

The Pattern: A Nation Building Strategic Depth

Across all these domains chips, space, AI, quantum, DPI, the pattern is unmistakable:

India is building sovereign capability in the technologies that define global power.

Not through slogans.
Not through incrementalism.
But through:

Massive public investment
Private sector acceleration
Global partnerships
Talent depth
A national appetite for scale

This is not a collection of initiatives.
It is a coherent national strategy.

The Decade Ahead: India’s Moment of Consequence

India’s next challenge is not ambition.
It is discipline.

The world is recalibrating supply chains, rethinking alliances, and rediscovering the value of trusted partners.
India has a 5–7 year window to cement itself as a global technology anchor.

If India sustains this momentum, it will not just participate in the next technological era.
It will shape it.

And for the first time in its modern history, the world is beginning to believe that India might actually do it.

“Every nation has a moment when it decides who it wants to be. India has chosen to be consequential.”

Entrepreneurs Start Companies. Bureaucrats End Them

2026-01-04T20:32:00.002+05:30

When companies are born, they rarely begin with grand org charts, multilayered governance structures, or 200‑page SOP manuals. They begin with a handful of people who are hungry, restless, and unafraid to get their hands dirty. People who don’t wait for permission. People who learn by doing, not by presenting. People who care about purpose, outcomes, and value, not optics, credits, or turf.

These early teams are made of Doers in the truest sense of the word. They take responsibility. They deliver. They improvise. They experiment. They fail fast and recover faster. They don’t hide behind process because there is no process to hide behind. They don’t obsess over structure because the only structure that matters is the one that gets the job done.

This is the spirit that births companies.
This is the spirit that builds movements.
This is the spirit that creates impact.

And then… scale arrives.

And with scale comes the inevitable: systems, processes, governance, measurement, compliance, and the dreaded bean‑counting. None of this is inherently bad. In fact, without these, organisations collapse under their own weight. Stability matters. Accountability matters. Repeatability matters.

But here’s the tragedy:
When the pendulum swings too far toward process, the organisation forgets why it exists.

The machinery becomes more important than the mission.
The rituals become more important than the results.
The compliance becomes more important than the customer.

And in this slow drift from purpose to process, a new species emerges inside the organisation, the Passenger.

The Rise of the Passenger

The Passenger is not incompetent. In fact, they are often articulate, polished, and excellent at navigating internal systems. They know how to write long emails, how to attend meetings, how to escalate, how to cover themselves, and how to stay “aligned.”

But they are not builders.
They are not creators.
They are not owners.

They are more invested in the machinery than the mission. They optimise for internal perception rather than external impact. They care more about credits than outcomes. They follow the rulebook even when the rulebook is outdated. They prioritise safety over speed, predictability over possibility, and optics over ownership.

Passengers don’t kill organisations overnight.
They kill them slowly, by draining the entrepreneurial spirit that once made the organisation alive.

And once Passengers dominate, the Doers either leave or get suffocated. That is the beginning of the end.

The Balance That Determines Survival

Every organisation eventually faces a fundamental question:

How do we preserve the entrepreneurial spirit while building the systems needed for scale?

This balance, or the lack of it, determines whether a company evolves or perishes.

The good news is that many large companies have found a way to keep innovation alive. When they want to open new growth avenues, they carve out a crack team — a small, empowered, entrepreneurial unit with the freedom to experiment, break rules, and move fast. A team that is intentionally kept away from the bureaucratic machinery.

This team is given:

A mandate to think differently
Freedom from the shackles of BAU
Permission to experiment
A leader who believes in speed, risk, and disruption

And once this team gains momentum, the mainstream organisation absorbs the learnings and scales the success.

But here’s the catch, and it’s a big one:

If this crack team reports to a BAU leader, the experiment is dead on arrival.

Because BAU leaders optimise for stability, predictability, and risk minimisation. They are not wired for entrepreneurial chaos. They don’t understand the value of a quick strike. They want plans, frameworks, decks, committees, and alignment before taking the first step.

That is how innovation dies, not because the idea was bad, but because the environment was hostile.

A Real Story: How Bureaucracy Kills Momentum

Recently, a company I know attempted such an experiment. They onboarded an entrepreneurial, high‑energy individual from outside , someone with the mindset of a commando, not a clerk. His mandate: open a new geography with massive potential.

He did exactly what a hunter would do.
He identified a powerful early linkage.
He moved fast.
He reached out to the leadership with excitement.

And then came the response, from a leader who had never been required to think like an entrepreneur. Someone steeped in the classic bureaucratic “CYA” culture.

The reply was a masterpiece of corporate paralysis:

“I appreciate your initiative in meeting people in this new territory, but for us to engage effectively, we need context, a structured plan, and alignment on what we are jointly looking to achieve. Without that, it becomes difficult for us to prioritise or commit resources, especially when nothing concrete has been outlined yet. Let us spend another four months studying the market and evolve a detailed implementation plan and then start.”

Brilliantly articulated.
Perfectly structured.
And absolutely spirit‑killing.

This is how you pour cold water on a go‑getter.
This is how you suffocate initiative.
This is how you turn a commando into a clerk.

Is the leader wrong?
Not entirely. Planning matters. Context matters. Alignment matters.

But this is not how hunters operate.
A hunter’s mindset is about the surgical strike , a quick, sharp opening salvo that creates early momentum while the larger plan evolves in parallel.

When the world is moving at breakneck speed, waiting four months to “study the market” is not strategy. It is self‑sabotage.

The World Has Changed. Many Organisations Haven’t.

We live in an era where industries are being disrupted in real time. New technologies, new behaviours, new competitors, everything is shifting faster than traditional organisations can comprehend.

In such a world, the companies that survive will be the ones that can:

Experiment fast
Learn fast
Adapt fast
Scale fast

The ones that cling to old models of planning, alignment, and risk‑avoidance will become irrelevant. They will become dinosaurs, large, impressive, and extinct.

The irony is that many organisations talk endlessly about innovation, agility, and transformation. They put these words in their annual reports, their town halls, their strategy decks.

But when a real entrepreneur walks in and tries to do something bold, the system reacts like an immune response, attacking the very thing that could save it.

The Choice Every Leader Must Make

Every leader, especially those running established businesses, must ask themselves a brutally honest question:

Do I want Doers or Passengers?
Doers disrupt the status quo.
Passengers defend it.

Doers take risks.
Passengers avoid them.

Doers create value.
Passengers create paperwork.

If you want innovation, you must protect the Doers.
If you want stability, you will attract Passengers.
If you want longevity, you must balance both, but never let the Passengers dominate.

The future belongs to organisations that can institutionalise entrepreneurship without descending into chaos. That can build systems without killing spirit. That can scale without suffocating initiative.

This is not easy.
But it is necessary.

Because in a world that is changing this fast, the companies that fail to metamorphose will not get a second chance.

They will simply disappear.

“The future belongs to the organisations that can reinvent themselves before the world forces them to.”

Powering with AI: Why AI-Native Redesign Matters More Than AI Enablement

2025-12-29T09:09:00.001+05:30

When Jamsetji Tata, and later Dorabji Tata, introduced hydroelectric power in the early 1900s, culminating in the commissioning of the Khopoli plant in 1915, industries in Bombay were deeply skeptical.

Their resistance was not irrational. It was human.

Industrialists raised five broad concerns.

First, fear of unreliability. Hydroelectricity was new and untested in India. Mills were used to steam engines and coal-fired captive power systems they owned and controlled. Depending on an external supplier felt risky. A power failure could halt production entirely.

Second, perceived technological risk. Electricity itself was still novel. Factory owners did not trust that electric motors could reliably replace mechanical line-shaft systems that had powered mills for decades.

Third, economic uncertainty. Would electricity actually reduce costs? Or would it lock them into a monopoly supplier with unpredictable pricing?

Fourth, psychological and cultural hesitation. The familiar refrain: if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it. Early industrialists preferred systems they understood and could physically see and control.

And finally, high sunk costs. Mills had already invested heavily in boilers, steam engines, and mechanical transmission. Switching to electricity meant writing off existing capital, a very real, very quantitative cost-benefit dissonance.

The first four concerns were largely qualitative. The fifth was brutally financial.

This pattern is not unique to electricity. We see it repeatedly across geographies and throughout human history. The more dramatic the technological leap, the stronger the resistance.

The Same Mistake, Repeating with AI

Most organizations today are making the exact same mistake early industrialists made with electricity.

They are using a revolutionary technology to do old things slightly faster, rather than redesigning the system around the new capability.

Electricity did not transform factories when leaders merely attached electric motors to steam-era line shafts. Real transformation came only when they reimagined the factory layout itself.

AI is now at the same inflection point.

AI-Assisted vs AI-Native: The Core Difference

AI-Assisted (the old mindset)

Take an existing, human-centric process
Insert AI to speed up one step
Keep the same approvals, handoffs, forms, and controls
Celebrate “efficiency gains” while the system remains unchanged

This is equivalent to replacing a steam engine with an electric motor. while keeping the same belts, pulleys, and factory layout.

AI-Native (the new mindset)

Start with the assumption that AI can perceive, reason, summarize, predict, and generate
Redesign workflows around those capabilities
Remove steps that existed only because humans had limits
Shift humans to oversight, judgment, and exception handling
Build processes that are continuous, real-time, and adaptive

This is the equivalent of redesigning the factory floor for distributed electric power, a complete re-architecture.

What AI-Native Redesign Actually Looks Like

1. From periodic to continuous
Monthly reporting becomes real-time dashboards.
Annual performance reviews become continuous feedback loops.
Batch underwriting becomes dynamic, cashflow-based risk assessment.

2. From hierarchical to distributed
Decision-making moves closer to the edge.
AI copilots empower every employee, not just managers.
Knowledge flows horizontally, not top-down.

3. From document-driven to data-driven
Instead of humans reading documents, AI extracts, interprets, and synthesizes information.
Humans intervene only where judgment, ethics, or ambiguity are required.

4. From compliance after-the-fact to compliance by design
AI monitors, flags, and enforces rules in real time.
Risk management becomes proactive, not reactive.

5. From siloed functions to integrated workflows
AI connects sales, operations, finance, and customer service.
Processes become end-to-end instead of departmental.

The Leadership Imperative

AI-native redesign requires leaders to ask a fundamentally different question:

“If we were designing this process today, knowing what AI can do, would we build it this way?”

In most cases, the honest answer is no.

This shift is not primarily about technology.
It is about letting go of legacy mental models.

Why This Matters Now

Organizations that merely add AI will achieve incremental gains.

Organizations that re-architect around AI will achieve exponential gains.

This is the same pattern we saw with electricity, cloud computing, mobile, and digital public infrastructure.

The winners were not the ones who automated old processes.
They were the ones who redesigned the system around the new capability.

“AI won’t transform your business. Redesigning your business around AI will.”

Artificial Super Intelligence and the Humble Human Part 1

2025-12-20T10:33:00.003+05:30

“Science fiction warned us about machines that think; it never warned us how ordinary that moment would feel.”

For centuries, intelligence was the one domain humans assumed would remain uniquely ours. Strength could be mechanized, memory could be stored, speed could be amplified, but thinking felt different. Today, that assumption is quietly dissolving. Artificial Intelligence is advancing not in steady steps, but in accelerating leaps, challenging our definitions of reasoning, creativity, and even understanding itself. And yet, when we look closely, the distance between computation and humanity remains both profound and revealing.

Artificial Intelligence is progressing in leaps and bounds, practically on a day-to-day basis. In many areas, it already outperforms humans by a wide margin. To evaluate how close AI comes to genuine human reasoning, we rely on benchmarks such as ARC, which attempts to measure AI performance in comparison to humans.

ARC (Abstraction and Reasoning Corpus) is a benchmark created by François Chollet to measure general fluid intelligence in AI—the ability to learn new skills and reason abstractly without prior domain-specific training. It has evolved into multiple levels: ARC-AGI-1, ARC-AGI-2, and ARC-AGI-3 (preview). Current leading AI models perform far below human level on the hardest levels: humans solve nearly 100% of tasks, while even the best AI models struggle to reach 50% on ARC-AGI-2 and under 20% on ARC-AGI v2.

The current performance landscape looks like this:

Humans vs AI: Humans consistently solve 100% of ARC tasks, highlighting the massive gap in reasoning ability.
AI Progress: While ARC-AGI-1 was nearly “solved” by large models, ARC-AGI-2 exposed their limitations—brute force and scale are insufficient.
Breakthroughs: GPT-5.2’s ~53% on ARC-AGI-2 is a major leap, but still far from human-level reasoning.
Future: ARC-AGI-3 will test interactive reasoning, pushing AI beyond static puzzles into dynamic environments.

In summary, ARC is the North Star benchmark for AGI, measuring whether AI can truly think, generalize, and adapt like humans. Despite significant progress, leading models remain far from human-level performance, especially on ARC-AGI-2 and beyond.

While researching this topic, I was reminded of Data, the humanoid android from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Curious, I asked Microsoft Copilot how Data might score by comparison. This was its response:

ARC-AGI-1 (basic abstract reasoning puzzles)
Humans: ~100% | AI: ~75–87% | Data: Effortless.
Data routinely demonstrates the ability to infer rules, patterns, and transformations far beyond simple grid puzzles. He would solve these instantly, likely faster than humans.

ARC-AGI-2 (harder, resistant to brute force, requiring deep abstraction)
Humans: ~100% | AI: ~53% (best models) | Data: Near-perfect.
Data shows fluid intelligence: he learns new games (like poker or strategy simulations) without prior training, adapts to alien logic systems, and reasons abstractly across domains. He would likely match or exceed human-level performance here.

ARC-AGI v2 (leaderboard variant, where top AI scores are <20%)
Humans: ~100% | AI: ~15% (best) | Data: Essentially flawless.
Data’s ability to generalize across unfamiliar contexts—whether deciphering alien languages, solving engineering crises, or improvising in diplomacy—suggests he would achieve near-100% here, like humans.

ARC-AGI-3 (interactive reasoning, dynamic environments)
Humans: ~100% | AI: Not yet tested | Data: Beyond benchmark.
Data thrives in interactive, real-world reasoning: commanding starships, negotiating with adversaries, and adapting in real time. He embodies the kind of general, embodied intelligence ARC-AGI-3 aims to test.

At this point, I listened again to a discussion between Data, Geordi (Chief Engineer), and Dr. Pulaski (Chief Medical Officer), which reminds us how far away even the fictional android is from being human.

The context is that Data and Geordi enter the Holodeck to play Sherlock Holmes adventures. Since Data knows all the stories, he keeps jumping the gun and spoiling the fun. Geordie got frustrated and abandoned the game. They both came to the café and discussing the frustration about playing with Data and Dr Polaski was listening to this conversation.

“What we were doing You are wasting your breath ,lieutenant. saying that to data is asking a computer not to compute” Said Dr Polaski.

“Am I so different from your doctor.” Asked Data

“Are you able to cease speaking on command. In medicine I am often faced with puzzles that I do not know the answer.” Said Doc

“She's right there. you always know the answer. to feel the thrill of victory there has to be the possibility of failure and where's the Victory in winning a battle you can't possibly lose.” Georgie observed

“Are you suggesting there is some value in losing” Data asked

“ Yes yes that's the great teacher . we humans learn more often from a failure or a mistakes than we do from an easy success . not you. you learn by rote. to you all is memorization recitation .” Said Doc

‘I don't know about all that. Deductive reasoning is one of data strengths” Georgie commented

“Yes and Holmes is too. But Holmes understood the human soul; the dark flecks that drive and turn the innocent into the evil, that understanding is beyond data.” Said Pulaski

“Now you're just being unfair doctor” Quipped Georgie

“I don’t think so lieutenant. Your artificial friend doesn't have a prayer of solving a Holmes mystery that he hasn't read’

Being a Star Trek aficionado, I then asked Copilot to compare Data with another Next Generation–era AI: the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager.

Data would consistently outperform the Doctor in abstract, cross-domain reasoning.
The Doctor would rival or surpass Data in medical problem-solving and human interaction. His emotional growth gives him an edge in empathy-driven reasoning, which ARC-AGI-3 (interactive tasks) is designed to capture.

In short, Data is the embodiment of general intelligence; the Doctor is the embodiment of specialized intelligence evolving toward generality. Together, they illustrate two pathways AI could take. one built for universality, the other for depth and human connection.

AI may bring super intelligence soon, not a normal human being. And will this super intelligence empower the human or annihilate the human is the question.

The idea behind this post is not to be judgmental, but to invite you to join me on a quest on what more is to being human- better human. Atma with a link to Paramatma ?

“Intelligence may be measured in problems solved, but humanity is revealed in the problems we struggle with.”

Open Network, Open Beyond Commerce, Open Beyond Borders: A Vision for the Digital Continent

2025-12-16T12:08:00.002+05:30

The digital age has given rise to a new kind of continent; one not defined by geography, but by connectivity, imagination, and shared protocols. This “digital continent” is built on the foundational ethos of openness: open standards, open participation, and open innovation. From the World Wide Web to India’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the journey of open networks is reshaping not just commerce, but the very architecture of digital society.

The Power of Open Protocols

The internet’s early success was rooted in open protocols. Tim Berners-Lee’s decision to make the web’s architecture freely available catalyzed a wave of global innovation. Email, powered by SMTP, became a universal mode of communication because it was interoperable, anyone could build on it, use it, and connect through it.

These protocols didn’t just enable technology; they fostered ecosystems. They allowed diverse actors, governments, startups, communities, to participate without permission or gatekeeping. The result was a flourishing digital commons.

Yet, when it came to commerce, the world veered toward proprietary platforms. Amazon, Alibaba, and others built closed ecosystems that centralized control. While efficient, these platforms created silos, limited choice, and concentrated power. The internet of transactions became fragmented.

ONDC: A Reference Model, Not the Destination

India’s ONDC emerged as a bold corrective. Conceived as a public digital infrastructure, ONDC is not a marketplace or app; it’s a protocol layer that enables interoperability across buyer and seller platforms. It allows any seller to be discovered by any buyer interface, provided they speak the same digital language.

ONDC’s early success, spanning groceries, mobility, financial services, and electronics, demonstrates the viability of open commerce. But its true value lies not in its scale, but in its replicability. ONDC is a reference model, not a global monolith. It shows that open networks can work, and that they can be federated across domains and borders.

Beyond Commerce: The Architecture of Open Networks

Open networks are not limited to retail. The same principles, interoperability, decentralization, and inclusivity, can be applied across sectors:

Agriculture: Farmers, processors, and buyers can transact through open agri-networks, improving market access and price transparency.
Tourism: Guides, accommodations, and transport providers can be discovered across interoperable platforms, reducing dependency on global aggregators.
Healthcare: Patients, providers, insurers, and pharmacies can connect through open health networks, improving care coordination and reducing costs.
Education: Learners, educators, and institutions can share resources and credentials across open learning networks, fostering lifelong learning.

Each domain can build its own network using shared protocols, tailored to local needs but capable of global interoperability. This is the architecture of the digital continent: a mesh of open networks, each sovereign yet connected.

Federation, Not Centralization

The vision is not to create one giant network, but many interoperable ones. Just as the internet connects websites across domains, open networks can connect commerce, health, education, and governance.

Federation allows for diversity. A tourism network in Bhutan can interoperate with a mobility network in Brazil. A farmer in Uganda can be discovered by a buyer in India. Innovation can flourish without centralized control.

This model also respects sovereignty. Countries and communities can define their own rules, data policies, and governance structures, while still participating in a global digital economy.

Inclusion by Design

Open networks are inherently inclusive. They lower barriers to entry by removing the need for proprietary integrations. A small seller, a rural entrepreneur, or a local cooperative can join the network once and be visible everywhere.

This is especially powerful for:

MSMEs and informal sector players
Women entrepreneurs and self-help groups
Rural and tribal communities
Artisans and creators

By decoupling discovery from dominance, open networks democratize visibility. They allow participants to retain autonomy while accessing scale.

Iteration and Local Customization

Open networks are not static. They evolve through experimentation. ONDC’s early journey involved handholding, incentives, and protocol refinement. Other networks will need similar iterative approaches.

Local customization is key. Buyer apps can curate offerings for specific communities. Protocols can be adapted to local languages, payment systems, and regulatory norms. Feedback loops can drive continuous improvement.

This mirrors the spirit of the web: decentralized, diverse, and user-driven.

The Role of Policy Makers

To build and sustain open networks, policy makers must go beyond regulation. They must become architects of digital public infrastructure. This involves:

Investing in foundational layers: identity, payments, data sharing, and consent frameworks.
Promoting open standards: ensuring interoperability across platforms and domains.
Supporting capacity building: enabling small players to adopt and adapt technology.
Preventing proprietary lock-ins: ensuring that public services and subsidies are not tied to closed platforms.

The goal is not just to regulate platforms, but to enable alternatives. To seed ecosystems that are resilient, inclusive, and innovation-friendly.

A Global Movement

ONDC has inspired interest from countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. But the movement must go further. It must become a global conversation about digital sovereignty, economic inclusion, and protocol-based collaboration.

International organizations, development banks, and philanthropic institutions can play a catalytic role. They can fund pilots, convene stakeholders, and support capacity building. They can help create a global commons of open protocols—available to all, owned by none.

The Internet of Transactions

We are entering a new phase of the internet, not just as a network of information, but as a network of transactions. This “Internet of Transactions” will be:

Interoperable: connecting diverse actors across domains and borders.
Inclusive: enabling participation without gatekeeping.
Iterative: evolving through feedback and experimentation.
Infrastructure-led: built on public digital rails, not private silos.

It will offer choice without coercion, scale without centralization, and innovation without inhibition.

Conclusion: Building the Digital Continent

The digital continent is not a metaphor, it is a blueprint. It is a call to reimagine digital ecosystems as open, federated, and inclusive. ONDC is one landmark on this journey, but the path stretches far beyond.

As countries and communities build their own networks, they contribute to a global mesh of opportunity. They reclaim agency, foster innovation, and create resilient digital economies.

The future is not platform versus platform. It is network of networks. It is openness as infrastructure. And it is ours to build together.

“Openness is not the absence of control—it is the redistribution of power.”

“The Matrix Isn’t Coming - We’re Building It.”

2025-11-27T18:27:00.003+05:30

In 2011, my blog post titled “Looking for ‘the One’? A Cynic’s Fantasy” invoked The Matrix as a metaphor for our world ; where most people are treated as mere resources, while a powerful few extract wealth and power, often using distraction and control to keep the masses docile.

Today, as we stand amid the rapid rise of generative AI, autonomous systems, and mass-data platforms, I find that old metaphor eerily prescient , but the villain need not be the technology itself. The real danger lies in how it is exploited, and in our collective failure as society to resist that exploitation.

Consider these parallels:

AI-driven recommendation engines can personalize content to the point of manipulation , redirecting our attention, shaping our world-views, and nudging behavior, much like the virtual reality in The Matrix.
Advanced automation could optimize efficiency . but if left unchecked, it risks reducing people to cogs in a system focused solely on profit and power.
Powerful actors (big tech, corporations, political players) may lean on technology to amplify influence, extract value, and suppress dissent not unlike the ruling class in the original metaphor.

But here’s the thing: technology is not the enemy. The problem is how we allow it to be used , or abused, and the choices we make (or don’t) when we see injustice.

🔹 What if, instead of waiting for a “saviour” (a Neo or “the One”), each of us made small, conscious choices championing transparency, demanding accountability, and supporting those who use technology for public good rather than private gain?
🔹 What if we recognized that real change comes from collective resolve, not isolated heroics? That means encouraging ethical AI, pushing for fair policies, holding companies accountable, and refusing to be pacified by convenience or fear.

In short: let’s not demonize AI, let’s stay vigilant about how we use it, and who holds the levers of control. Because if we remain passive, we risk ending up in a very real-world version of The Matrix.

#AI #Ethics #TechForGood #Society #Responsibility #MatrixMetaphor #Leadership

Related Article Looking for “the One”? A Cynic’s Fantasyl

The Paradox of Growth: When "Doing it Right" Kills "Getting it Right"

2025-11-21T10:02:00.003+05:30

Every enterprise begins with the spark of entrepreneurial energy, the founder’s drive, ambition, vision. As the venture builds momentum, scales up, adds people, processes and systems, it injects stability, but also risk. Because without the right balance, what once felt alive can become weighed down.

A modern-day parable is Apple. Born of Jobs’ entrepreneurial fire, it soared. Then came the “establishment.” Jobs was ousted. The soul left the building. Apple drifted. Until the prodigal founder returned, not just to revive the company, but to re-infuse it with purpose. The rest is history.

Here’s what I’ve observed:
When you’re building, you’re agile. You do things. You experiment. You learn by doing. You focus on purpose, on outcome, on value created. You are a “Doer” in the truest sense of the word. In the words of my recent post, a Doer is someone who makes things happen, who cares about what’s good for the organisation and beyond, who takes responsibility and deliver.

Then as scale arrives, processes creep in. Structures to govern. Systems to measure. Beans to count. That’s not inherently bad, stability matters. But when the emphasis tilts too far toward process and loses sight of the raison d’être; the driving engine stalls. The “Passenger” emerges: someone more invested in the machinery, the compliance, the credits, the own agenda, rather than the outcome or the impact.

And here is the fatal tension:

If you stay purely in “Doer” mode without systems, chaos reigns, decisions get missed, growth becomes fragile.
If you over-systematise and let the “bean counters” dominate, you become rigid, unresponsive, blinded by process rather than purpose.
Most organisations toggle somewhere in between. But the danger: the passengers gain ascendancy. They’re comfortable with status quo, minimal risk, personal gain—and often end up driving the ship. Meanwhile your true “Doers” drift away, disengage or leave. The outcome? The system survives for a while. but the life drains out of the enterprise.

So what’s the distilled wisdom?

Keep founders’ spirit alive: Remind yourselves of the outcome, the customer-impact, the value you set out to create.
Embed systems, yes; but don’t let them become the mission: Systems exist to enable, not to replace action or purpose.
Promote Doer-thinking: Celebrate those who pick up the ball, who care deeply about the work, who challenge “this is how we’ve always done it”.
Be alert to passengers: The ones who prioritise process over purpose, comfort over change, credit over contribution—they’re not the fatal enemy alone; the problem is when the governance structure rewards them.
Balance is dynamic: The cycle will shift—start-up to scale to maturity. What you need is conscious recalibration: when you scale, build enough muscle to keep doing, keep adapting, keep delivering.

If you ask me, the real question is: Will your enterprise choose to be right, or will it continue to do right? Will it chase compliance, status, structure and miss the reason you started? Or will it hold fast to the why, even as it puts the what and how in place?

You may not disappear into the mythology of “passenger vs doer” in black-and-white. We all move along the continuum. What matters is the direction. If we respect ourselves as those who build, create, deliver, not just manage. we will pay the price for the choices we make. But more importantly, we’ll build something that lasts, that matters, beyond the next quarterly cycle.

Here’s to being a Doer. And to building enterprises that don’t just run , but roar.

“Systems should be the stagehands.
The moment they start demanding the spotlight, the show begins to fail.”

#entrepreneurship #leadership #growth #culture #systems #purpose

India’s AI Moment: Foundational Models, Human Intelligence, and the Future of Work

2025-11-08T13:38:00.000+05:30

The rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence has turned what were once speculative questions into urgent, everyday conversations. In boardrooms, classrooms, and chai stalls alike, we now ask: Has India missed the foundational model bus? Has AI surpassed human intelligence? And what happens to jobs as machines become smarter than us at most cognitive tasks?

These are not idle musings. They are existential questions for a country of 1.5 billion people, standing at the cusp of a technological revolution. And few voices articulate this moment with as much clarity and conviction as Vishal Sikka, former CEO of Infosys, veteran of SAP and Oracle, and now founder of Vianai Systems. His recent podcast conversation offers a treasure trove of insights, and I’d like to unpack and reflect on them here, in the spirit of strategic curiosity and national urgency.

Has AI Surpassed Human Intelligence?

Let’s start with the provocative question: Has AI become smarter than us?

Sikka’s answer is refreshingly grounded. He reminds us that today's large language models (LLMs) are essentially “lookup machines”, brilliant at pattern recognition, but devoid of true understanding. They can generate answers, yes, but they don’t know anything. They lack grounding in the physical world, in causality, in embodied experience. They are not sentient, and they are not superintelligent.

What they are, however, is astonishingly efficient. Consider this: our brain runs on about 20 watts of energy. Training GPT-5, by contrast, consumes energy orders of magnitude higher. somewhere between 10¹² to 10¹⁸ times more. That’s a trillion-fold gap in efficiency. And yet, despite this brute-force power, AI still stumbles on basic reasoning, context, and nuance.

So no, AI hasn’t surpassed human intelligence. But it has become a powerful tool, like a calculator, then Excel, then Google, and now this. The question isn’t whether it’s divine. The question is: What can we build with it?

Has India Lost the Foundational Model Story?

This is where the conversation gets interesting and controversial/.

Sikka is unequivocal: India must build its own foundational models. Not just because we can, but because we must. To be a passive consumer of AI built elsewhere is to surrender our agency in shaping the future. And India, he argues, is large enough, deep enough, and important enough to do it all. build the models, build the applications, and build the services.

We have unique advantages:

India Stack: A digital infrastructure unmatched globally, offering rich, structured data.
Linguistic diversity: Hundreds of languages and dialects, ripe for training multilingual models.
Cultural archives: Manuscripts, documents, and oral traditions that no other country possesses.

And yet, the expertise to build frontier models is shockingly concentrated. According to Sebastian Thrun, only about 3,000 people globally can build such models, and 80% of them are in San Francisco and London. This is not just a talent gap. It’s a geopolitical vulnerability.

India must democratize this capability. Stanford teaches a course on building foundational models. Why shouldn’t IITs, IIITs, and NITs do the same? Why shouldn’t we have open-source frameworks, indigenous datasets, and public-private partnerships to accelerate this journey?

The Future of Jobs: Catastrophe or Opportunity?

This is perhaps the most emotionally charged part of the conversation. Sikka doesn’t mince words: Mass unemployment is a real and imminent risk. And paradoxically, it’s the educated class, those trained for certificate-based jobs like database administration or network maintenance, that are most vulnerable.

But here’s the twist: AI could empower artisans more than engineers.

Imagine a village woodworker using AI to design, market, and sell his craft globally. Imagine a weaver translating her product descriptions into 20 languages. Imagine a painter understanding global trends and adapting her style. These are not fantasies. These are real, empowering use cases.

The challenge, then, is not just technological. It’s societal. We must shift from training people to “make a living” to training them to “make a life.” That means teaching them how to use AI to augment their creativity, productivity, and agency, not just to pass certification exams.

And yes, while many jobs will become irrelevant, many new ones will emerge. Transitioning legacy systems and reimagining business processes for AI enablement of existing enterprises, managing AI ethics, curating datasets, fine-tuning models, these are all new frontiers. Services companies will play a pivotal role in this transformation, but they must evolve from body-shopping to capability-building.

What Should India Do Next?

Let me offer a strategic synthesis, drawing from Sikka’s wisdom and some of my reflections:

Invest in foundational models: Not just one, but many. Across languages, domains, and modalities.
Democratize AI education: From elite labs to vocational centers. Teach people how to build on and around it.
Empower the informal sector: Use AI to elevate artisans, farmers, and micro-entrepreneurs.
Reimagine job training: Move from certificate-based skills to capability-based learning.
Build public infrastructure for AI: Open datasets, ethical frameworks, and compute access must be national priorities.

Final Thought: The Building Is Not Smarter Than Us

Sikka ends with a beautiful metaphor: the building we’re sitting in is more powerful than us. But we don’t worship it. We use it. We live in it. We shape it.

AI is the same. It’s not God. It’s not superintelligence. It’s a tool. And like all tools, its value lies in what we do with it.

India’s AI moment is here. Let’s not squander it. Let’s build, with clarity, courage, and conviction.

“The true measure of intelligence is not in what we can automate, but in what we choose to preserve.” Anonymous

“AI hasn’t taken over the world yet—but it has taken over my browser tabs, my inbox, and my sleep.”Anonymous

Sources:
PM Modi and Vishal Sikka Chat About India's Bright AI Future
Vishal Sikka’s Advice for India on Foundational Models
A Visionary Meeting: Vishal Sikka & PM Modi Discuss AI's Future

Loyalty in Relationships: Navigating the Spectrum Between Convenience, Commitment, and Market Power

2025-10-26T22:02:00.002+05:30

Human relationships are complex ecosystems, shaped by emotional bonds, practical needs, and subtle power dynamics. At the heart of why people stay connected lies a fundamental tension between two distinct modes of loyalty: the loyalty of convenience and the loyalty of commitment. These modes reflect not only the emotional depth of a relationship but also the underlying motivations that sustain it. When viewed through the lens of “market power” - a concept that encapsulates the exchange and influence inherent in relationships -we gain a richer understanding of how and why relationships endure, evolve, or dissolve.

Loyalty of Convenience: The Ease of Staying

Loyalty of convenience is a pragmatic form of connection. It’s not driven by deep emotional investment but by situational ease. People remain in relationships because it’s simpler than disrupting the status quo. This type of loyalty is often sustained by external factors, ie; shared environments, mutual acquaintances, or overlapping responsibilities. It’s the kind of loyalty that thrives in low-effort zones.

Characteristics of Convenience-Based Loyalty

Situational Dependence: These relationships are often tethered to context. Colleagues who remain friendly because they share an office, neighbors who exchange pleasantries but never go deeper, or couples who stay together because of shared leases or children.
Minimal Emotional Investment: There’s little effort to nurture or grow the relationship. The bond exists, but it’s thin; more like a thread than a rope.
Routine Over Resonance: The relationship becomes a way of life, a habit rather than a choice. It’s easier to stay than to leave.

Examples

Friends who continue meeting because of a shared social circle, even though the emotional connection has faded.
Romantic partners who cohabit for convenience, avoiding the discomfort of separation despite a lack of intimacy or shared vision.

Convenience-based loyalty is not inherently negative. In fact, it can serve as a stabilizing force in certain phases of life. But it lacks the resilience and depth required to weather storms. When external conditions change; say, a job relocation or a shift in social dynamics the relationship often dissolves.

Loyalty of Commitment: The Depth of Staying

In contrast, loyalty of commitment is rooted in emotional investment and mutual respect. It’s a deliberate choice to stay, even when it’s hard. These relationships are built on shared values, trust, and a long-term perspective. They require effort, vulnerability, and a willingness to navigate conflict.

Characteristics of Commitment-Based Loyalty

Emotional Depth: Time, care, and energy are poured into the relationship. There’s a sense of responsibility and genuine concern for the other’s well-being.
Resilience Through Challenges: Committed individuals don’t flee at the first sign of trouble. They work through disagreements, misunderstandings, and external pressures.
Future Orientation: There’s a shared vision of what lies ahead. The relationship is not just about the present; it’s about building something lasting.

Examples

Lifelong friendships that survive distance, career changes, and personal evolution.
Couples who support each other through illness, financial hardship, or personal growth, anchored by love and shared purpose.

Commitment-based loyalty is the bedrock of meaningful relationships. It’s what allows people to grow together, to evolve without growing apart. But it’s also demanding. It requires emotional labor, patience, and the courage to confront discomfort.

Market Power: The Hidden Currency of Relationships

To deepen our understanding of these two modes of loyalty, we turn to the concept of “market power” in relationships. This term, borrowed from economics but repurposed for human dynamics, captures the dual forces of exchange and influence that shape every connection.

The Market Element: Exchange in Relationships

Every relationship involves some form of exchange. This could be emotional (love, support), material (money, gifts), social (connections, status), or intellectual (ideas, mentorship). The “market” reminds us that relationships are rarely one-sided. There’s a giver and a taker, and often, both roles are fluid.

The Power Element: Influence and Imbalance

Power in relationships refers to the ability of one party to influence the other. This could stem from personality, resources, position, or emotional leverage. Power dynamics are not inherently toxic, but when unchecked, they can distort the relationship’s equilibrium.

The Two Drivers of Market Power

The Person Factor: This is who you are, your character, empathy, integrity, and emotional intelligence. Relationships driven by the Person Factor tend to be more enduring and meaningful.
The Possession Factor: This is what you have; money, status, connections, or authority. Relationships driven by the Possession Factor can be influential in the short term but often lack depth and sustainability.

Mapping Market Power to Loyalty Modes

When we overlay the concept of market power onto the loyalty spectrum, a compelling pattern emerges.

Loyalty of Convenience and the Possession Factor

Convenience-based relationships often lean heavily on the Possession Factor. They’re sustained by what one party brings to the table; be it access, resources, or social capital. These relationships can be transactional, and while they may offer short-term benefits, they’re vulnerable to shifts in relevance.

For example, a junior executive may maintain ties with a senior officer because of the latter’s influence. But if the senior officer retires or loses clout, the relationship may fade. Similarly, friendships built around shared perks; like travel, parties, or business deals; may not survive when the perks disappear.

Loyalty of Commitment and the Person Factor

Commitment-based relationships, on the other hand, are anchored in the Person Factor. They thrive on authenticity, shared values, and emotional resonance. These relationships are less dependent on external possessions and more on internal qualities.

A mentor who continues to guide a protégé long after formal ties have ended, or a friend who stands by you during a personal crisis, exemplifies this mode. Even if circumstances change, the relationship endures because it’s built on who you are, not what you have.

The Evolution of Relationships: From Possession to Person

Interestingly, some relationships begin with the Possession Factor and evolve into Person Factor-driven bonds. A business partnership may start as a strategic alliance but deepen into a genuine friendship. A romantic relationship may begin with attraction and shared lifestyle but grow into a committed bond through shared experiences and emotional growth.

This evolution is crucial. It’s what transforms convenience into commitment. But it requires intentionality, self-awareness, and a willingness to invest beyond the surface.

The Risks of Possession-Driven Relationships

While the Possession Factor can offer leverage, it comes with risks:

Demand Inflation: The more valuable the possession, the higher the expectations. This can lead to imbalance and resentment.
Exploitation: If one party feels trapped or obligated due to the other’s possessions, the relationship can become manipulative.
Loss of Authenticity: People may say what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear. Feedback becomes filtered, and growth stagnates.

Senior leaders, for instance, may fall into the trap of expecting loyalty based on their position. They may lose the ability to receive honest feedback or nurture genuine connections. Over time, this erodes trust and isolates them from reality.

Building Balanced Relationships: A Strategic Skill

Recognizing the drivers of loyalty and market power is not just a philosophical exercise; it’s a strategic skill. Whether in personal life or professional settings, the ability to assess and manage relationship dynamics is essential.

Practical Steps

Audit Your Relationships: Reflect on which relationships are convenience-based and which are commitment-driven. Are you investing where it matters?
Cultivate the Person Factor: Focus on being a person of value; empathetic, reliable, and authentic. This builds sustainable market power.
Balance Exchange and Influence: Ensure that your relationships are not overly transactional or power-skewed. Mutual respect is key.
Welcome Feedback: Create space for honest conversations. This keeps relationships dynamic and prevents stagnation.
Be Realistic in Expectations: Not every relationship will be deep or lasting. Accept the spectrum and invest accordingly.

Conclusion: Choosing Depth Over Ease

In the end, the choice between loyalty of convenience and loyalty of commitment is a reflection of our values. Convenience offers comfort, but commitment offers meaning. Market power can amplify relationships, but only when grounded in authenticity.

By understanding these dynamics, we become better navigators of human connection. We learn to build relationships that are not just functional but fulfilling. We move from being passive participants to intentional architects of our relational world.

And in doing so, we honor the deepest truth of relationships: that they are not just about what we get, but about who we become through them.

“True power in a relationship is not in being heard, but in being open to hear what wasn’t said.”

AI, Culture & Trust: Why Relationships Still Matter in a Digital World

2025-09-20T09:35:00.000+05:30

Economic activities all over the world are heavily influenced by profit motive except in case of affirmative actions by government or philanthropy. However, these transactions are stitched together by relationship among the participants. The extent of this varies across the cultures

High-context cultures (e.g. China, India, Brazil) rely heavily on personal relationships, where trust and loyalty are built over time and often precede formal agreements.
Low-context cultures (e.g. U.S., Germany) prioritize efficiency and clarity, where relationships may be helpful but are not prerequisites for business.
Hybrid cultures (e.g. Japan, UAE, South Africa) blend formal structures with relational depth, often requiring cultural sensitivity and patience.

As the world is moving towards proliferation of AI in more and more domains especially where human interfaces are heavy, the adoption is significantly going to be influenced by the cultural context. In this context, the leadership driving this need to keep in mind that

Relational trust can unlock innovation and speed.
Cultural fluency helps navigate power dynamics without compromising integrity.
Ethical clarity ensures that influence remains constructive, not corrosive.

In cultures where personal relationships are central to business, like India, China, Brazil, and much of Africa, the adoption of AI faces unique friction and adaptation curves:

Trust Is Earned, Not Assumed

AI systems, especially those that automate decisions (e.g. hiring, lending, procurement), may be met with skepticism unless they reflect human-like empathy, transparency, and cultural nuance.
In high-context cultures, relational trust often trumps algorithmic efficiency. Leaders may hesitate to delegate sensitive decisions to AI unless the system is explainable and aligned with local values.

Adoption Hinges on Relational Gatekeepers

Influential individuals—mentors, senior executives, family business heads—play a key role in shaping attitudes toward AI. Their endorsement can accelerate trust and uptake.
In public-private partnerships, relational capital often determines access and influence. AI must be positioned as a complement to human judgment, not a replacement.

AI Must Learn the Language of Relationships

AI tools that support personalized recommendations, emotionally intelligent communication, and context-aware negotiation are more likely to succeed in relationship-driven environments.
For example, AI-mediated communication has shown to improve cross-cultural understanding by 31% and negotiation satisfaction by 24% when transparency is built in.

As AI becomes embedded in business workflows, it will inevitably reshape how trust is built and maintained:

From Intuition to Insight

AI can surface patterns in behavior, preferences, and risk that were previously inferred through intuition. This can enhance trust by making decisions more consistent and data-backed.
However, it may also erode the informal, emotional cues that underpin trust in many cultures; especially if AI is perceived as cold or opaque.

Hybrid Trust Models Will Emerge

The future lies in hybrid trust: where AI handles routine tasks and pattern recognition, while humans manage nuance, empathy, and ethical judgment.
Businesses that blend AI’s precision with human warmth will build deeper loyalty and satisfaction, especially in customer-facing roles.

Transparency Will Be the New Relationship Currency

AI systems must be designed with explainability, consent, and cultural sensitivity. In relationship-driven contexts, people want to know not just what the AI decided, but why.
This is especially true in sectors like digital finance, where personalization must be balanced with ethical clarity and data integrity.

In this context we could:

Frame AI as a trust amplifier, not a trust substitute.
Design DPI systems that embed relational logic—e.g. community-driven feedback loops, culturally adaptive interfaces.
Mentor young leaders to navigate the dual fluency of algorithmic and interpersonal trust.

As we move forward, let’s deepen our understanding of how relationships shape power, influence, and trust. I explored this in an earlier reflection on “Market Power & Relationships”—still relevant today:

📖 Read the blog post

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”Albert Einstein

(I had posted a summariesed version of this as a lined in post. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/koshy89_market-power-relationships-activity-7374399657952628736-_-2t?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAHWSYQBQXp5IHBAbmYtmy0QTDr2QMLjsi8)

Friends and Then There are Friends

2025-08-27T08:39:00.000+05:30

Leadership Reflections from the Edges of Trust

In the landscape of leadership, where transformation is often the goal and collaboration the vehicle, the journey is shaped as much by people as by ideas. Over time, you come to appreciate that some individuals bring clarity, courage, and commitment to the missio while some others bring complexity. And within this complexity lies the most delicate thread in leadership: trust.

In my own journey, through large-scale initiatives and system shaping collaborations, I’ve had the privilege of working alongside many capable, passionate individuals. Some inspired me through their quiet excellence, others through their bold conviction. Yet what’s stayed with me most are not just the accomplishments, but the relational dynamics that informed them.

We often speak of leadership as if it's a solo act. In reality, it’s more a relay that is passing batons, ideas, responsibilities, and vision to those who come next. That handover moment is pivotal. It tests not just our planning, but our perception of the people we entrust.

At times, it’s exhilarating. You watch someone rise, bring fresh energy, and take the mission forward in ways you couldn't have imagined. Other times, it’s sobering. The initial warmth starts to feel performative. Support flows freely when incentives align—but when they don’t, you notice the subtle distance. Advice once sought becomes an afterthought. And ideas you offered (some hesitantly received, some outright rejected) later resurface, confidently repurposed, yet curiously detached from their origin.

Is it betrayal? Not always. Sometimes, it’s just a different style. An ambition that's impatient, a recognition that remains unspoken. But in leadership, silence too is a signal.

These moments taught me that trust isn’t binary. It exists in degrees, and it evolves. Respect may be immediate, but trust requires time, consistency, and reciprocity. One can admire someone’s competence yet remain cautious about their integrity. And that’s okay.

Especially in transformational projects, where stakes are high and vision runs deep, the emotional cost of misalignment can be significant. You don’t just feel let down; you fear for the potential of the work itself. You’ve seeded something with care, nurtured it into possibility, and then watched as its trajectory bends; sometimes away from purpose, sometimes toward personal optics.

Yet even in such moments, bitterness helps no one. I've come to view these experiences not as indictments of character, but as invitations for reflection. On leadership maturity. On alignment. On how we prepare those we trust to carry forward what we've built.

Here are some principles that have helped me navigate these transitions—calmly, constructively, and without losing heart:

🔹 Trust is contextual.

Don't assume alignment just because you share objectives. Probe deeper: into motivations, methods, and mindsets. True alignment includes shared values; not just shared goals.

🔹 Be generous, but not naive.

Support people fully, but remain observant. Enthusiasm isn't always sincerity. Neither is politeness. Time reveals true intent.

🔹 Let ideas go, but honour their roots.

Innovation thrives on building over what came before. But integrity means acknowledging origins. Credit isn’t vanity but, it’s continuity.

🔹 Transitions need care, not just process.

It’s easy to document handovers. Much harder to shape culture in the process. Leadership continuity needs emotional intelligence, not just operational readiness.

🔹 Protect potential, not just plans.

If the vision matters, so does how it's carried forward. Sometimes safeguarding it means challenging ego, entitlement, or misdirection = gently, but firmly.

🔹 Legacy is relational.

What remains after your tenure isn’t just the systems you built. It’s how people felt under your guidance. And how they choose to continue what you began.

As we build systems, scale platforms, and strive for lasting impact, we must remember: leadership isn’t about control; it’s about coherence. It’s about trusting others wisely, framing succession thoughtfully, and always choosing the mission over the moment.

Friendships in leadership can be deeply nourishing. But when ambition outpaces humility, they can become transactional. The key isn’t to retreat, but to recalibrate with grace.

We all play different roles at different times. Advisor, collaborator, challenger, successor. What matters is that in each role, we remain honest with others, and with ourselves.

And if you're ever in doubt about how to lead when you're no longer in charge, remember: integrity echoes louder in absence than in presence.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” — Abraham Lincoln

Friends, and Then There Are Friends

2025-07-26T16:01:00.003+05:30

Leadership Reflections from the Edges of Trust

In the landscape of leadership, where transformation is often the goal and collaboration the vehicle, the journey is shaped as much by people as by ideas. Over time, you come to appreciate that some individuals bring clarity, courage, and commitment to the mission while some others bring complexity. And within this complexity lies the most delicate thread in leadership: trust.

Is it betrayal? Not always. Sometimes, it’s just a different style. An ambition that's impatient, a recognition that remains unspoken. But in leadership, silence too is a signal.

Here are some principles that have helped me navigate these transitions—calmly, constructively, and without losing heart:

🔹 Trust is contextual.

Don't assume alignment just because you share objectives. Probe deeper: into motivations, methods, and mindsets. True alignment includes shared values; not just shared goals.

🔹 Be generous, but not naive.

Support people fully, but remain observant. Enthusiasm isn't always sincerity. Neither is politeness. Time reveals true intent.

🔹 Let ideas go, but honour their roots.

Innovation thrives on building over what came before. But integrity means acknowledging origins. Credit isn’t vanity but, it’s continuity.

🔹 Transitions need care, not just process.

It’s easy to document handovers. Much harder to shape culture in the process. Leadership continuity needs emotional intelligence, not just operational readiness.

🔹 Protect potential, not just plans.

If the vision matters, so does how it's carried forward. Sometimes safeguarding it means challenging ego, entitlement, or misdirection = gently, but firmly.

🔹 Legacy is relational.

What remains after your tenure isn’t just the systems you built. It’s how people felt under your guidance. And how they choose to continue what you began.

Friendships in leadership can be deeply nourishing. But when ambition outpaces humility, they can become transactional. The key isn’t to retreat, but to recalibrate with grace.

We all play different roles at different times. Advisor, collaborator, challenger, successor. What matters is that in each role, we remain honest with others, and with ourselves.

And if you're ever in doubt about how to lead when you're no longer in charge, remember: integrity echoes louder in absence than in presence.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.”

— Abraham Lincoln

ONDC – Big Bang moment for eCommerce

2024-06-03T13:25:00.005+05:30

The universe after the Big Bang evolved and is still evolving continuously. Not as a centrally controlled and managed process. But, as an ecosystem with each component in its trajectory, impacted by, and impacting, the other ecosystem building blocks. Zooming in further, the lifeforms also evolved from the single-cell wonders in the primordial soup to the atomic-age man through continuous innovation by nature what we know as mutation across the ecosystem. Every new innovation adds or subtracts functionalities and capabilities, with some succeeding to sustain and some failing and perishing. The technological progress we made as a human race from wheel to spacecraft also followed this incremental innovation across the ecosystem. That is the “Order of Nature”.

Very often, success in the natural order arises in a simple yet fundamental paradigm shift, and successful players are those who quickly adapt to the evolving paradigms, cooperating and collaborating with the ecosystem. Thought leaders from Darwin to Schumpeter to Niall Fergusson in the modern era, have argued that, “This is the age of digital Darwinism, in which it is not the strongest or most intelligent that survives, but the one that most successfully uses technology to adapt to change.”

When it comes to eCommerce w can see that it has evolved out of line with this natural order of the nature. Two or three giants with deep pockets building up stranglehold in each domain tuned to maximise their shareholders’ interest.

There is extensive innovation in this model. But limited to innovation to maximise their self-interest through a centrally managed process, to meet the requirements of their typical user group and/ or enhancing their user group through a cookie-cutter approach. Any outside innovation has no chance to survive unless it is subservient to or sold out to the biggies. [1] It is an uncontrolled that is engulfing commerce, eventually taking control of it all and leading to stifling diversity. Much like the magma chamber of a dormant volcano, this keeps the lid on growth and evolution. This has already set alarm bells ringing across the world, with many developed countries trying to mitigate through regulation, be it the America Innovation and Choice Online Act in the US, the Digital Markets Act in the EU or UK’s Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill,

It is here that the idea of ONDC has come in with a big bang. Encouraging innovation and specialisation across the ecosystem with all of these building blocks communicating among them and interoperable through an open-source protocol. This allows and encourages lots of people to work on different building blocks and come out with a plethora of solutions for diverse user groups and not to straight jacket users or shape the users into a straight-jacket. As Howard Moskowitz observed in his research paper; there is no single optimum, but there are multiple optima for every use case. Some will fail and some will succeed and the winner is society, as a whole and not shareholders of a few enterprises.

This will address the challenge of market concentration and associated practices that are a challenge in the platform-centric world today. This will encourage a natural order of continuous innovation with some succeeding and some failing with the overall ecosystem marching forward.

The Build for Bharat Hackathon organised by ONDC recently in collaboration with Industry demonstrates this. 100,000+ participants in 2,100+ teams from across the country coming together with outstanding solutions with most of them having a working model and monetization plan shows. This shows how Open Model will unleash creativity across a wider cross-section of big and small enterprises and individuals. This is what excited representatives from 20 VCs who attended the hackathon final.

Now it is clear why I have the audacity to term ONDC as the Big Bang Moment of eCommerce that can totally transform the world of commerce in the near future.

“When money, rather than innovation or value, is your competitive advantage, that’s when things get boring and stagnant, and monopolies take root.” —Hank Green

Redefining Customer Acquisition Cost in Open Network.

2024-04-29T20:45:00.002+05:30

Whenever a new product or service is launched in the market, the product manager often plans for triggers like incentives, free samples and so on to act as a catalyst to stimulate product trials. When ecommerce companies launched their service, they took this idea to its next level. With a platform, based on proprietary protocol, the incentives became a tool not just to stimulate trials, but also to build a committed userbase of significant magnitude that it will be practically impossible for many competing platforms to evolve resulting in few walled gardens in each domain who eventually not in the best interest of the industry and economy.

Towards building these walled gardens, the early entrants blew billions of dollars. This was neither charity nor helping the merchants to establish themselves in the digital space. But with the idea of stifling competition which will help them to extract return on this investment through monopolistic / oligopolistic practices like rent- seeking.

This is not just an Indian phenomenon, but seen all around the around the world and the world is worried. The developed countries like USA and EU are attempting to address the challenges of this market concentration through regulation. America Innovation and Choice Online Act in USA and Digital Market Act of EU are attempts in this direction. The UK has also a bill (Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill) under consideration by the parliament.

We in India have now taken a bold step in resolving this conundrum through the power of technology and markets with enabling policy support. It is in this direction that ONDC has been established with a mandate to democratize commerce. In first two years since the ONDC was was incorporated, it has managed o achieve a merchant base of 450,000 with a daily transaction level of more than 250,000 transactions at less than one tenth of the cost of the other ecommerce players blew up in the same time period after they launched.

More importantly, this removal of the stranglehold by the platform providers is ensuring that these efforts, initiatives and incentives are also from the collective of sellers, brand owners and buyer and seller NPs and not from the select group of platform providers who use this as a tool for market share concentration and not to help to expand the market. The participation is wide spread ranging from multinational giants like Google, Meta, HUL , ITC, McDonald, Dominos to Philanthropic Organizations like BMGF and Wadhwani Foundation, Government Departments like Agriculture, Fisheries, MSME etc . Each of these entities are figuring out and rolling out innovative interventions to help broad-basing of the market with participation from big and small enterprises alike. Advertisement and hoardings with “Buyer App”-agnostic ONDC QR codes is another powerful idea in the hands of merchants and brands.

Clickable PDFs and social media post taking the reader directly to the product to place and order and make a payment is an interesting innovation that agencies like SFAC have already attempted with demonstrable outcome. Many direct marketing companies are now evolving interesting solutions around this idea.

On the other hand, with ONDC enabling every catalogable products and services to be available in the network, diverse enterprises with large digital consumer base like media organizations, fintech etc. are also developing strategies to offer related products and services to their clients. Each of them with their loyalties primarily to their customers, will find innovative means (may be drawing the power of AI and ML) to help their customers what is relevant for them more. Foray into ONDC network by medial giant Dainik Jagran is a case in point which many others have initiated.

If you let your imagination run wild, you will be surprised at the possibilities for innovation exploding on your face which in the current platform centric model is unthinkable. Let me dare you to be innovative in this new paradigm.

“Without leaps of imagination or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all is a form of planning.” Gloria Steinem

Who is your Mentor ?

2024-04-20T17:37:00.002+05:30

Mentor is a person who can make a significant impact on your career or on your company, drawing on the expertise and experience that person has. Whom you choose as or who gets thrusted upon you to play a mentorship role can be a game changer for you.

It will be fun and also useful to be aware of the nuances with respect to mentor and mentorship to help you choose and benefit from mentors. The role of the mentor is not standard or same in all context. There are different roles that a mentor can play.

The mentor could bring superior subject matter expertise to help you to solve a problem or guide you through corporate web. For example, if you are trying raise funds for your new venture and if you have no prior experience in this, a mentor who may have had extensive exposure as a venture capitalist can be a great help in dealing with multiple service providers and to get the best possible deal. Or if you are considering organisation wide computerisation, someone who have lived through this transformation could help you to be ready for challenges on the way.

The mentor could offer references and endorsements with people of influence and relevance for your growth through his/her network. For example, when you are raising funds, some one who have dealt multiple investors and have had the experience to understand the agenda of the diverse players could help you to refine your investment pitch and may even give reference to different investors.

The mentor could be someone could act as a sounding board for your ideas and provide a philosophical foundation for your initiatives and decisions. For example, someone who has had good experience in guiding organisational growth could help you in your process of developing alternate growth strategies, evaluating them and make a choice.

While a good mentor may be a mix of all, very often the larger focus may be in a few roles based on their comfort and your priorities. A genuine mentor with appropriate experience and right intention can make a big difference to you and your company. They can add significant value in helping you to evolve strategies, guide your team, select better tools, turbocharge your marketing and magnify your public relation. Therefore. it will be great for any company to have a mentorship program established as it can contribute to its overall development through development and retention of good managers.

While we give due attention when working with a mentor there is another important dimension, we should be conscious of when choosing and or working with a mentor.

Ideally a mentor would be a person who has achieved certain stature and/ or position that he plays the role of a mentor as a giver and not a taker. Let us go a little deeper on the difference between giver and taker. The giver is a person who has more to give to the mentee. They are self-confident and will work with you to bring the best out of you and also not try to usurp the credit for your achievement, but help you to grow in your role. They will spent time to understand your context, the opportunities available, challenges you face, the strategies your following and proposing and identify your weaknesses and will give you considered advice. They will help you to track progress and act as a sounding board to help you to continuously refine your way forardy

The takers are those who act or pretend to act as your mentor, primarily to enhance their agenda. They will manage to make you doubt yourself and make it look like you are surviving on their ideas. The worst is when often they have nothing really to offer. They are too impatient to understand your context, your challenges, your option and their merits and weaknesses. They will ask you about all your thoughts and make general comments and motherhood statements with no real value addition and at best may keep goading you to up your aspirations with no suggestions or input or support to make it happen. If you end up succeeding, they will go around announcing to the whole world that your success is courtesy their idea.

You have to be mindful of such people when you choose your mentors independent of their stature and position so that you don’t end up with the latter category. Very often they are in this position because they are better at managing their environment and more than willing to sell their souls for a price. For them end justifies the means with ‘end’ defined as maximising personal agenda. They are too happy to live off the hard work of the doers and smart in edging out the doers in due course like the pirates. (Read this post https://rollingstone-revelations.blogspot.com/2012/05/some-people-all-time-humour.html for a light hearted depiction of such mentors)

Sometimes they are thrusted upon you as advisors, or consultants or directors with you having no choice. Then you will have to have your strategy to protect you from them or manage them and may be the support of another genuine mentor who will help you in your attempt for self-preservation.

C’est la vie!

“A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.” Oprah Winfrey – Host, Producer, Author & Philanthropist

Implementing ONDC – A Journey

2024-03-27T17:25:00.008+05:30

Standing on the shoulders of giants…

I read somewhere that in the early nineties when India attempted computerisation of the banking sector which was one of the major early attempts at computerisation across a domain, there was very high resistance from the bank unions who were worried about job loss. The idea was then sold as a provision of the Advanced Ledger Posting Machine (ALPM) to reduce the drudgery of the staff. India has come a long way since then.

The launch of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) as one of the earliest fully computerised stock exchanges, as against the “ring-based trading” that was prevalent in India and across the world, was a bold attempt in computerisation of the capital market. Establishing of National Securities Depository Ltd (NSDL) for dematerialised holding and trading of shares helped India leapfrog from being the most backward, to one of the most modern settlement systems in less than five years.

UIDAI was India’s attempt to build a population-scale digital ID solution first time in the world using open-source technology. This project aimed to provide each individual with a unique ID. The factors that contributed to its runaway success were very clear and simple problem definition (one unique ID for every person) which limited the extent of data collection required to issue the ID and functionalities offered which were only ID issuance and authentication), ensuring that there is no vendor or technology lock-in for any component, with the help of opensource technology (even when the use of proprietary solutions was absolutely essential, as in the case of biometric deduplication and authentication, a plug and play architecture ensured this vendor neutrality), the solution that was linearly scalable by design based on open source technology stack helped in making Aadhaar highly cost competitive. UIDAI brought in private sector participation to establish national-level enrolment capacity, and crucially there was no cost to the citizen as the cost of enrolment was borne by the government. The payment to the enrolment agency by the government against successful enrolment helped in the enrolment agencies being outcome-focused and result-oriented. Government’s thrust to UID-based benefit distribution created a demand-pull leading to UID penetration of more than 95% of the population in a short time.

The UID project proved that a Digital Public Infrastructure can drive dramatic transformation in benefit distribution as well as in service delivery. The next big initiative in this direction was UPI for broadening the adoption of digital financial transactions. The unbundling and interoperability of the building blocks of customer interface for payments and receipts using QR code while the funds being held and transacted by the banks helped to create a very cost-effective fintech ecosystem that could spread across the country, and helped adoption of this method by merchants and consumers across all segments of society. The Demonetization provided a significant demand surge, positioning India to account for over 40% of the global volume of financial transactions.

New Kid on the block

Building on the foundation of these successes, we have ventured onto a new initiative to solve a problem that is challenging both developed and developing countries equally. The problems of a few large tech platforms using proprietary technology hijacking the market in many domains like consumer goods, food distribution, ride-hailing, travel and tourism etc., which in turn leading to business practices that are not in the best interest of the business enterprises (especially small enterprises) and consumers.

The initiative was triggered by the COVID pandemic. DPIIT Ministry of Commerce and Industry) wanted to find a solution to the supply disruption of everyday needs impacting the consumers and small merchants. A Steering committee, established with participation from both the government and the private sector deliberated and decided that the solution should not be a stop-gap arrangement in times of pandemic; but a solution that will transform commerce to address the challenge of exclusion of small businesses and the limitation of choices to the common consumers. This forum was expanded to have eminent members like Nandan Nilekani, R S Sharma, Adil Zainulbhai, Anjali Bansal, Dilip Asbe, Suresh Sethi, Kumar Rajagopalan, Pradeep Khandelwal and Arvind Gupta with Anil Agarwal, the then JS in DPIIT as the coordinator and now continue as the advisory council. Later, Anurag Jain joined this council with Sanjiv JS DPIIT coming in as the coordinator. ONDC being the latest initiative in the DPI world in India let us delve deeper into how the solution was shaped and how it is proceeding.

In every business transaction, there are two sides. One is the payment for goods or services by the buyer(s), and the other is for making the inventory visible in the digital market by the seller(s) and searching for, choosing of, and contacting for products/ services by the buyers.

UPI took care of the payment side. ONDC is now attempting to do the same magic in the products/ services side by democratising commerce through the un-bundling of building blocks of commerce and making them interoperable to create an Open Network instead of walled gardens of platforms

Challenges Galore

In the case of UIDAI, while the biometric deduplication and authentication for the population of India, was a technological challenge that had no existing solution, which was solved by the brilliant team of UIDAI, the process requirement for onboarding is relatively straightforward and funded by the government with no cost to the person being enrolled. In the case of UPI, we have only one SKU (i.e. the money) to be exchanged, and that too digitally. The user interface can be really simple to handle and harmonised for this single SKU. The entities providing end-user interfaces are only a handful and the money is handled by a well digitised and highly regulated banking sector.

When it comes to commerce involving products and services, the challenges are multi-fold. SKUs are in millions, belong to diverse categories of goods and services, ranging from street food to laptops, and from auto-hailing to credit and insurance.

These require different user interfaces for different products/services for different kinds of buyers, and complex business processes for order processing, inventory management, packaging, warehousing, logistics and grievance handling for sellers, which necessitates their own nuances of rendering of information and handling information flow. The sellers come from different domains some well-regulated, some partly regulated and some entirely non-regulated. No regulatory mandate to participate or no “demonetisation” to create business compulsion or no linked benefit delivery to encourage adoption,

One Step at a Time

So ONDC is taking a step-by-step approach. With the help of endorsement from the Government, particularly by the Commerce Minister and DPIIT, leading banks and financial institutions chipped in the necessary capital to establish a not-for-profit company with the necessary flexibility and agility to respond to the fast-changing requirements of digital commerce; that with a global-first solution architecture. FIDE Foundation with Nandan Nilekani, Pramod Varma and Sujith Nair as founders gave the foundational protocols and continued guidance. A powerful Advisory Council and a Board with appropriate participation of government, investors and independent members provide strategic direction and ensured unblemished governance.

Being a network, there is no central platform to be established by ONDC. The network would succeed only if we can create a vibrant ecosystem. It is a classical chicken-and-egg dilemma. Unless there is wide participation of merchants and service providers, it is not exciting for the customers; and unless there is a wide customer base on the network, there is no incentive for the sellers to come aboard

More importantly, this is an idea that has never been attempted anywhere in the world. To encourage adoption, we needed to demonstrate that such cascaded flows, stitching services provided by multiple entities, will in reality work seamlessly with end-to-end security of data.

ONDC being a network there was no central system to be built and tested by ONDC for the potential users to check out. We had to have some entities coming forward to develop seller apps and onboard merchants, buyer apps and consumers to try out orders, and Gateway and Registry to link these.

With a few entities like Protean, PayTM, Loadshare, Gofrugal, DIGIIT, Growthfalcon and Sellerapp, who were willing to bet on this idea and develop a minimum viable product and convince a few sellers to onboard, ONDC team went about demonstrating that this is a Network that can deliver its promise. This was our alpha testing phase that was kicked off in five cities across the county within five months of the company's incorporation. While the ultimate goal of the network is to cover the entire gamut of catalogable products and services, ONDC commenced alpha testing with the challenging domains of Food and Grocery.

Six months later, ONDC launched beta testing in Bangalore with Grocery, Food and Mobility and after streamlining the processes among the participants and merchants in the first couple of months, we started reaching out to the consumers in Bangalore to try out the network. lowly and steadily, we managed to have more merchants and service providers, and a few customers testing out the network with around 40 to 50 transactions a day.

While this proved that we can have transactions in an unbundled network, we have a long journey ahead to have a critical mass of merchants and consumers in the network to make it sustain, and grow and to achieve the original objective of democratisation of digital commerce.

Unite and Conquer

One of the key elements of our early strategy was to have a few anchor partners in the domains we launched, then gradually scale transactions and publicize on a regular basis our principles, our aspiration, our roadmap and our progress. We had support from the Minister, the ministry, government, industry, startup ecosystem, philanthropic agencies and developmental institutions endorsing us, and the press giving us visibility and encouragement for the baby steps forward. This challenged us and is helping to convert fence-sitters one by one.

15 months on, we have grown from 800 merchants and 1200 orders in a month to 400,000 merchants, 8 million orders in a month across 800 cities, with month on months steady improvement in penetration, usage and all key performance parameters with respect to order fulfilment and delivery. Though we had started with grocery, food and mobility, we have gradually added many more domains such as electronics, fashion and apparel, health and wellness, beauty and personal care, home and kitchen, credit, insurance, agriculture input and output etc and many more like B2B procurement, home and urban services, entertainment ticketing, multi-modal transportation and the list goes on.

ONDC’s ultimate vision is that every catalogable product/ service will be on the network, with innovative buyer interfaces helping diverse user segments access and choose what is relevant for them.

The industry in general, except for a handful, understands and welcomes this idea of open network. But we need to crack the cold start problem. Therefore, we are approaching this with a dual strategy. We are working with the digitally mature entities familiar with e-commerce to get them onboard and reach across ecommerce-friendly consumers to get the pumps primed. But it is a long journey.

The well-established businesses that are currently operating in a platform-centric world are yet to fully appreciate the dramatic change possible in the distribution channels and supply chains with the freedom an open network offers to the brands and merchants. The corporate bureaucracy, busy with business as usual are slowly realizing the opportunities, and many are seriously evaluating the possibilities, including this in the top management agenda and making it a priority and not just a nice-to-have tick-in-a-box. It is heartening to see established players from the public sector and private sector like SIDBI, NABARD, SFAC, HUL, ITC, Google, Meta, Dominos, Tata, OLA, PayTM, MagicPin, Juspay,Reliance etc. taking definite steps by launching their presence, albeit in pilot scale in comparison with their potential.

In the meantime, we have multiple initiatives to support the mini & small enterprises and to help the unserved and underserved sections of enterprises, entrepreneurs, artisans, weavers etc, who are normally ignored or provided lip-service for PR purposes to become truly ready to embrace, adopt and benefit from the world of digital commerce.

This involves innovation, capacity-building and handholding in areas ranging from selecting and signing-up with a service provider of their choice, developing attractive catalogues, uploading these catalogues with inventories to the network, responding in time to orders, order fulfilment, packaging for delivery, obtaining logistics, responding to queries and so on, so that they are accepted by the extended consumer base the network can offer.

Many government agencies are excited about the possibilities with the ONDC Network. Ministries like MSME, Agriculture, Textiles, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry from Central and State Government are doing/developing/ considering projects that can scale nationally. They are also in the process of developing/ launching schemes for their ecosystem, to leverage the network through digitalisation.

Philanthropic agencies like BMGF, TERI. etc have also jumped into the fray to extend processes, technology, and toolsets, and more importantly help them to promote their products/services.

The addition of financial products and services like credit, insurance and investments can be a real gamechanger when it comes to the small business as it can be an avenue for accessing flow-based working capital credits, sachetized insurance and investment driving digital inclusion across the length and breadth of the country.

We are expecting to have participation of of BFSI sector starting with Financial Products and then expanding their scope to help small and medium scale industry to leverage open network with a robust foundation enhancing digital financial inclusion.

Now that we are getting a decent pipeline of suppliers of diverse products and services, we need a big push to bring the consumer base. Not just existing users; but we need to expand the participation of both merchants and consumers in this world of opportunities digital India offers

Road Less Travelled

While we go through these steps for network and enabling ecosystem development, there are quite a lot of activities that the ONDC team with the active collaboration from the network participants are engaged in, to strengthen the network and to build trust on the network.

These include, but are not limited to:

(i) continuous evolution of network polices to cover ever-expanding functionalities and domains;

(ii) continuous evolution of protocol capturing the evolving network policies to help enforcement of processes;

(iii) network-wide services such as scoring of merchants/service providers, which then becomes a digital asset they can benefit from, as well as acting as a deterrent to unscrupulous merchants, and a protection to the consumers;

(iv) data lake of non-competitive, non-business sensitive non-PII data, anonymised and aggregated as open data for all participants, to benefit without being an exploitative tool

(v) SDKs, training and capacity-building material as common assets;

(vi) developing an ecosystem of enablers and service providers to support small enterprises;

(vii) enabling big-tech engineering skills on AI and language models to be available as standard offers that can be leveraged by small enterprises to complement their strengths in operation and customer care.

(viii) enhancing systems and processes for smoother and faster grievance and dispute resolution

Tailpiece

Such roles help ONDC to help the network to continuously evolve as a truly democratic digital marketplace. This is a journey no person has ever made before; where India is playing a leadership role. Come and join hands in this global first quest

" IF you want to be a pioneer you have to blaze your own trail"

Drivers of Customer Service in ONDC

2022-06-16T14:47:00.002+05:30

Introduction

In the prevailing model of eCommerce, the same entity provides end-to-end solution as a market place which manages both customer experience and seller interface. Such an end-to-end solution offer significant influence and control to the platform providers compared to the end points like the seller / buyer. This enables the platform providers to give priority to customer demands which is their natural strategic choice to build and retain an exclusive customer base as their lever for market control. With this prioritisation logic, they may follow a no-questions asked return and refund policy. Sometimes they take this to the logical extreme even if the return request is not on account of the fault of the seller which is possible with the control of the funds and contractual hold they have on their on the sellers which the economists explain as ‘near monopsony’ power of these platforms. Any loss on account of this is usually borne by the seller. Such selective service also enable significantly big margin for the platforms.

In the end, if there is any dispute with the seller, the existing legal framework forms the basis for the dispute resolution between the buyer and merchant as the merchant is the seller on record and not the platform providing the market place.

ONDC Network

In case of ONDC, with unbundling of the building blocks of the transaction (like seller interface, buyer service, logistics etc) there is possibility for different models to evolve which will suit different segments of buyers and sellers.

A. Different Business Models with divergent service level offers

1. Some Buyer application would like to offer a select service and may offer no-question asked return / refund with then insisting on payment to be routed through them so that the full payment to seller is made only after the necessary lock-in period for customer return.

In this case, the search request and order placement will include these conditions and only offers meeting these conditions will be accepted by the Buyer App and shared with the customer which means the seller has the option to respond to such conditions without being dictated by the intermediary.

2. In some cases the Seller App (may be a discount store) may offer products with a no or limited return which will be part of if its offer when it returns response to a search by a buyer app and only customers accepting these conditions explicitly will be serviced .

The important point to note is that the ONDC network offers opportunity for sellers offering different price/ service combination and buyers with different price/service preference to come together and transact in a transparent fashion thus creating a healthy and diverse market place which is what we are familiar in any physical market.

B. ONDC checks and balances encouraging and incentivising fair and responsible business practices

As in the case of the prevailing eCommerce market place, the legal framework still remains the same and there is no different legal framework for ONDC. However, as a community manager ONDC will develop an enhanced set of checks and balances to offer better experience both to the buyer and seller thus reducing the need of legal recourse.

1. ONDC will onboard buyer and seller apps only after establishing their identity

2. ONDC has stringent polices on expected behaviour of each NP.

3. Most of these policies are programmatically enforced

4. All NPs are onboarded only after their apps / software is tested for their compliance to ONDC protocol

5. All NPs sign an agreement confirming their commitment to the policies

6. All seller market places are expected to undertake due diligence on the sellers onboarded by them and expected to watch for their responsible behaviour

7. ONDC will compute and publish network level reputation and credibility score of platforms and sellers which will act as a strong check on them.

8. ONDC will monitor and publish record of grievance redressal and dispute resolution performance of each app and seller

9. ONDC is establishing a framework and platform for Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) following the guidance issued by NITI Ayog for exception handling.,

10. ONDC will suspend/ expel from the network entities with continuous aberrant behaviour

11. The onboarded platforms are required to undertake periodic system and process audits with respect to compliance with network policies and share reports with ONDC

12. ONDC may undertake periodic mystery shopping exercise to monitor performance of participants and share feedback with the entities

C. Inherent nature of ONDC network encouraging healthy and fair market practices.

1. ONDC network being unbundled, very often the Buyer app will only have buyer as clients and Seller app will have only sellers as clients (in some cases same entity may have both apps)

2. With no platform able to have captive buyers and sellers and the buyers and sellers being available as a cohesive pool in the network discoverable and accessible to all buyers and sellers, there will be many buyer and seller apps giving multiple options to the consumers limiting the possibility of the platforms for user-unfriendly measures.

3. The Buyer app will be forced to have loyalty to the buyers and would have to take extra effort in terms of functionalities and services to retail loyalty and continued support from the buyers. Their services thus will include active follow-up with sellers for grievance redressal and escalating aberrant behaviour by the sellers if any

4. Seller Apps on the other hand with no captive buyers but with a responsibility to ensure good customer service to attract the buyers, will have to put in checks and balances to ensure that their sellers treat the end customers in a fair and transparent fashion failing which their network wide reputation will suffer and may be rejected by buyers

5. With multiple platforms offering competing services, there will be possibility for continuous social audits on the practices by the platforms and ONDC will enable publishing of such social audits. This becomes all the more relevant with multiple buyer and seller apps in the market giving strong competition

6. Even cases where the platforms are providing both buyer and seller apps, each side will attempt to focus on their consumer (buyer for buyer app and seller for seller app) as their own platform offer of sellers for buyers and buyers for sellers will only be a small part of the total available options in the network.

All the above point out to the possibility for a total transformation of the way markets operate impacting big and small players. This transformation will not happen overnight, but over a period of three to five years. The entities readying themselves for this new reality will reap the benefit and the others will pay the price.

"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Niccolo Machiavell

Enabling a Paradigm Shift in Social Protection through BECKN

2020-07-03T23:57:00.000+05:30

Delivery of social protection measures is a big challenge to any government; especially in a developing country. Social protection program has three key components.

The first component is how we can uniquely identify the beneficiary and enrol them into the program. Digital Id revolutionised this part. The pandemic demonstrated that the countries which have established a foundation of digital id can manage the outreach much better than a country that is lacking in this area. Countries which have gone one step forward and have established a somewhat comprehensive registry of uniquely identified deserving beneficiaries did even better.

The second component is the payment system. Building on the foundation of Digital ID, in India we have introduced Unified Payment Interface (UPI) which is a completely open and interoperable protocol that has transformed the payment system. As of now, UPI handles more than 1.25 billion transactions per month which is more than four times the volume of transactions handled by the Credit / Debit card network every month. We are now in the process of building a next layer on top of it to provide a digital voucher using completely open protocol. This could be a straightforward money voucher, or it could be a voucher that is meant for a specific product if the government wants to ensure that the benefits are provided in kind with respect to certain goods and services.

The third element is the market including the supply chain, and it is still a challenge. That is why the governments are forced to run the whole physical operation of procurement, supply chain management and retail shops. Often very very inefficiently.

BECKN foundation established by Nanden Nilekani has come out with a brilliant solution to this problem. It has published and open protocol specification which can completely revolutionize the marketplace.

What is the challenge it is attempting to solve? Digital marketplace is a big boon; but the market is still heavily siloed. It is increasingly becoming walled gardens of few players. Take for example retail. There are a few large aggregators like amazon/ big basket/ Alibaba They are doing a great job; but, they are walled gardens. Same is the case with delivery or mobility or health service. It is a pain for the consumer who must look at multiple apps to make an ideal choice. This limits the choice and makes markets inefficient.

The service providers are also constrained. Unless you are a part of the aggregator platform you are at a big disadvantage in terms of discoverability.

BECKN protocol addresses this issue for both the service provider and the consumer. It is a paradigm shift; we are making internet, small business friendly and not small business internet friendly.

A simple adapter to the payment system or inventory management system based on BECKN protocol can provide any service provider equal access to the market whether he is big or small. Any frontend app which is comfortable to the consumer; could help him or her to access all the options seamlessly if it has a BECKN based connector to the network. It may be WhatsApp may be telegraph may be Google map or a special app provided by the government.

These mean simplification of service delivery [e.g. one stop payment, personalized workflows combining multiple services, granular view of events as and when they occur], freedom of choice for consumers, stitching of suppliers to fulfil a comprehensive service, much better (network driven) view of consumer demand and ability of suppliers to fulfil that demand

Such a marketplace has also the potential for bringing dramatic innovations in terms of option to the beneficiary. Once such an Open Benefit Delivery Network is in place, governments can focus on scheme design and enrolling the beneficiaries and reaching him the subsidy / financial assistance . Then leave the markets to make the best offer.

The beauty of this solution is that we are not talking about huge investment in a new platform or software solution. The service providers at a very low cost can be enabled to plug into the market. We are democratising the market just like HTTP democratised the internet. This is not a wishful thinking. We are helping the first solution built around BECKN to go live in India next month and few more are on the way.

It is time to give this a serious try and be an innovator to solve fundamental problems so that we can manage emergencies like the pandemic much better.

“He who is best prepared can best serve his moment of inspiration and desperation.” ― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

COVID-19 and Foundations of Social Security Delivery

2020-04-11T16:53:00.000+05:30

The COVID-19 has turned out to be a pandemic in a very short time causing significant disruption of normal life and economic activities around the world. This has led to increased stress to financially marginalised and has also pushed many who are not otherwise included in the financially challenged segment down the precipice at least in the short term. Therefore, financial assistance by the government to a larger cross section of society has become a necessity.

One of the foundational elements to target benefits to deserving citizens is the ability to uniquely identify every person. Many developing countries don’t even have reliable functional IDs that generally cover the majority of population. Hence, the relevance of national ID becomes even more important. In this world with increasing mobile penetration if this ID database also includes a mobile number and/ or email ID seeded the whole targeting process can become more efficient. ‘Aadhaar’, in a country as large as India, has demonstrated the benefit of having a platform that issues a unique ID to every resident and enables easy authentication. Many experts have observed significant variations in targeting benefits between countries that have well-established infrastructure, institutions & processes to uniquely identify/ authenticate its residents and countries that don’t have such facilities.

The other two important foundational elements for targeted delivery are digital social registries and digital financial inclusion.

A well-established social registry consolidates the list of residents along with their key attributes essential for determining the nature and extent of assistance needed. This registry could be built by linking multiple databases against unique ID of the resident subject to good practice personal data sharing rules. Such a registry maintained digitally and updated dynamically will go a long way in correctly identifying and targeting the deserving persons and avoid leakage through fraud, double-dipping or because of any processing error. A social registry built on a unique national ID is more efficient and less error prone.

An efficient and low-cost payment system that is inter-operable among all segments of institutions that hold a customer account storing value is another critical element that encourages and enables financial inclusion. The digitalisation of holding and transaction is key to reducing the cost of account maintenance and transaction. The success of Unified Payment Interface (UPI) that has been introduced in India enabling interoperability across all banking transaction networks at practically nil cost has revolutionised the payment ecosystem. The high volume, low value transactions which were hitherto not encouraged in the conventional card driven ecosystem have found exponential growth in this regime. In January 2020, the UPI transactions crossed 1.3 billion, amounting to close 30 Billion USD, which is about 3.5 times the number of transactions in the VISA/ MASTER network. In addition to the interoperability offered by UPI, it removes the need for plastic cards and relatively expensive to maintain POS network, with conventional smartphones for both the account holder and merchant. It also enables feature phones based USSD transactions that widen the serviceable segment of the population thus giving boost to financial inclusion. This has been endorsed both by large multinational private sector players like Google and by the banker to the Central Banks, BIS. The National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) established by the Reserve Bank of India, which introduced UPI is expected to establish and promote an entity to introduce UPI to countries around the world to help them launch this in their countries.

The COVID-19 pandemic now brings to the forefront the importance of mature systems for ‘national ID’, ‘social registry’ and ‘interoperable payment systems’ as discussed above. As a response to the immediate need, many countries are quickly establishing beneficiary registries. Considering the urgency of the short term need, this is being built with lesser safeguards against ghosts, double dipping and such possible avenues for leakage. In the short term, this may be acceptable. However, instead of seeing this as a one-time exercise, it is advisable to consider this as a big step towards building a comprehensive social registry and establish mechanisms to refine this in the next few months so that this becomes the foundation for all social service delivery programs in the future. For example, Philippines is in the process of undertaking a door-to-door enumeration of 18 million households (out of 21 million total households) to create a list of beneficiaries. There could be concerns as to whether this is the best possible means to build the registry in this period. However, if this plan is already rolled out, the way forward could be as follows. Philippines is also expected to roll out their national ID project by the end of this year. It may be a good idea to use the digitised database built on the current enumeration as a starting point for enrolment for national ID by providing it as a pre-populated form that could be refined during enrolment. Thus, soon Philippines will have a biometric national ID seeded social registry. In this fashion, every country needs to evolve appropriate strategies to enrol deserving residents in the short term using the existing infrastructure and use this, in medium to long term to build a robust social registry.

Large number of residents are being provided cash transfer to tide over the crisis. While each country would rollout this cash distribution using the existing infrastructure this is the opportune time to encourage, enable and nudge the unbanked in this group to open at least a limited purpose account operated online with capping on the amount held in the account. This can be allowed with limited KYC processes. Eventually, the customers can opt to upgrade to a regular account after necessary due diligence. In this process, it is important to ensure that infrastructure and policies are in place at the earliest to enable seamless transactions across accounts at a cost that make sense for the small value transactions of customers and merchants, irrespective of which entity holds the account for storing value. Governments may have to consider regulatory nudge for interoperability and to contain the cost for low value transactions. Also, it is essential that all the entities holding account (including mobile wallets) are also regulated uniformly with respect to the safety and security of these accounts. Mobile platforms can also speed up the proliferation of low-cost micro ATM making cash in cash out (CICO) centres widely available using the mobile industry distributor network.

While each government will have their own approaches on the most pressing and emergent issues of today, a robust national ID integrated with a social registry and combined with digital financial inclusion are the building blocks that will enable governments to deliver benefits in good times as well as crises.

It is hoped that the governments and developmental agencies take these lessons in their design of policy interventions in the social sector.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”, George Santayana.

To be or not to be Part 9- Aadhaar: Proving my Identity

2018-06-08T19:57:00.001+05:30

Our everyday life is full of interaction with other people or organisations. Depending on the nature of these interactions there could be exchange of credentials. If I walk into a shop to buy a burger, normally the shop keeper does not care who I am. He only needs the price to be paid with acceptable instruments. He may ask for my phone number or address with an intention to be in touch with me with his offers. But I have the choice to give this or not. (Unless of course he is a monopoly supplier at that point of time and I need the service desperately) But if I am trying to access a service or a product which is meant to be provided only to specifically identified persons, the service provider will require evidence to prove my identity.

Based on the criticality of service, the extent of credentials and / or endorsements that the service provider will ask will be different for different transactions. For example, the passport authority has extensive procedure to establish my identity; often they ask for multiple documents to establish my credentials before they issue a passport. The bankers may have a different way of establishing my identity; especially to meet the compliance requirement relating to KYC. The service providers with whom I have recurrent interactions may often provide me a special token to prove my identity during future interactions with them, thus avoiding extensive identity verification every time I have an interaction with them. These documents/ tokens are generally referred to as functional id. Some service providers may save on the effort required for establishing the id by making use of a functional ID issued by another entity (often government) as an evidence to establish my identity/ credibility. For example tax id or driving license is often accepted as a proof of identity by many service providers. For evidence purpose and for future investigation they may retain copy of the credentials provided to them.

There are some practical problems associated with the above. (i) As most of the identity creds used are issued by service providers for their clients many people; especially from poor of marginalised segment of the society may not have any such credentials with them as they may not be availing any services in their name from these service providers (ii) most of the entities who provide such documents/ tokens do not publish the process they use to issue the cred making it difficult for the users to judge how good the cred issued by them is (iii) none of the entities that issue the cred (which are often meant to be only for their clients) does provide a mechanism to third parties to verify the authenticity the id token provided; resulting in use of fake id documents by some.(iv) Most of the entities who are issuing the functional ids have effective tools to avoid duplicate id generation. This makes it possible for one person to manage to have multiple identities (iv) many functional ids are not accepted as proof of identity by all service providers (v)when the service provided is very sensitive or very valuable, the service provider will ask for multiple proofs (sometimes including biometrics) as they are limited faith in many of the functional ids.

UIDAI was established to address these concerns. (i) It is an entity established with a single focus; to issue and authenticate id for all residents of the country, unlike most of the other ids which are issued to limited set of individuals who are often beneficiaries of the service provider (ii) It has established checks and balances of the highest quality to ensure security and privacy of data and has institutional mechanisms in place to keep it updated (iii)it has a very standard and published means of establishing the identity of the person who is being enrolled. These are quite simple and straightforward with clearly defined exception handling mechanism so that practically nobody will be denied an opportunity to enrol (ii) it gives a quick, easy and straight forward means to authenticate the id by third parties and that too only with the consent of the id holder(iii) the biometric characteristics collected makes it almost impossible for a person to obtain multiple ids (iv) it is recognised as a proof of id by almost all service providers (v) it collects bare minimum attributes of a person compared to all other accepted functional ids. UID does not collect or store any attributes other than name, dob, address , sex, father’s name and biometrics in their database.(vi) UIDA does not share the biometrics collected with any other entities which is guaranteed by an act of parliament. Further it does not also collect or save the purpose for which the id was authenticated (vii) it gives an facility for the holders to be enquire online which entities have authenticated their id. This is also enshrined in Aadhaar Act

In this context, many service providers insisting that their clients should provide their Aadhaar as proof of identity is not in anyways overreaching their right and need to establish the identity of their clients. Rather, this is only making their process stronger and makes their services accessible to a larger cross section of the society who otherwise would have been denied of the service. The latter is a major boon for a large cross section of the society who thanks to Aadhaar are able to access a wide verity of services. In a similar fashion the requirement of authentication of id behind each tax id also is helping the Income Tax Department to weed out many instances of multiple tax ids by same person to avoid tax.

The database of Aadhaar has quite limited data relating to a person. Aadhaar based authentication is allowed only through registered entities through registered devices. As a part of authentication they do not store the purpose for which the authentication was undertaken by service providers. In this way, UIDAI does not and is not able to profile any of the UID holders or track their activities. Compared to this all entities who collect information about their clients to issue functional ids and provide services hold significantly more information about their clients. Most of them in electronic form which are often connected to internet without strong security measures in place. Many of them even sell this data to third parties to other agencies. The number of un-solicited mails and sms we get is a proof of this.

The big difference in case of Aadhaar is that it provides a means to authenticate the Aadhaar even without sharing the data relating to aadhaar. (UIDAI only provides a yes/ no response to an authentication request. Only in limited and specified cases it also allows certain specified entities to collect the demographic information available with them against consent by the user). Thus the worry that UID database is a violation of privacy is unfounded. Further, compared to most other databases which compile and maintain their client information the security processes are much stronger. Therefore, in cases where ID is required to be established for service delivery, it is safer for both service provider and recipient to use Aadhaar as proof of id; especially considering the wide coverage of Aadhaar and easy and fast enrolment possible. The service providers may also introduce exception handling mechanism to handle rare cases of not being able to have an Aadhaar or being authenticated with Aadhaar.

Another concern is that if the Aadhaar number of a person is used as proof of id by various service providers, it will give the government a mechanism to track a person extensively. This again is a myth. All services provided will take some kind of functional id as a proof of id. Most beneficiary databases have been converted or in the process of being converted to electronic form. With the modern computing and analytics tools, if the government decides to profile any person they will be able to do so by linking these multiple databases even without Aadhaar being linked.

To protect privacy what we need is a clear legal framework on who can collect what data, what is the disclosure they have to provide to their clients and what should be the data retention and data sharing policy with respect to all entities who collect third party data. Going after Aadhaar is nothing but a folly or just plain ignorance of the landscape of id establishment today.

"In the social jungle human existence there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity."

Erik Erikson