At the 2026 AI Impact Summit, everyone—from tech companies and industry lobbies to policymakers and researchers—spoke about building equitable AI systems and a future where AI is a public good. What was missing, however, was evidence, specifics, and communities themselves.
AI regulation falls into the larger arc of India’s approach towards IT and digital industries. For the BehanBox Talkies series, our Executive Director, Anita Gurumurthy, and Deputy Director, Nandini Chami, put into context the emerging debates around AI. How is India trying to govern AI technologies? What economic and political thinking influenced this? Where are gender and caste in these conversations? They spoke about how India’s ‘market-first’ and ‘light touch’ approach has allowed tech companies to continue building their surveillance empires without safeguards.
While the focus seems to be on privacy, protection, and sovereignty, we fail to ask fundamental questions, they commented in the article. “We need to press the delete button on the halo around AI and the myth of ungovernability—AI is firmly and squarely an issue for public reason,” they said.
Read the full interview here.