India is one of the largest and fastest-growing markets for digital consumers. India’s data governance is guided by two philosophies: ‘data sovereignty’, which posits that the Indian government has sovereignty over the data generated by its citizens within its borders, and ‘data colonialism’, which claims that big foreign platforms seek to extract data from developing county citizens and use it to control the internet.

However, India is just beginning to govern data. While the Indian parliament is still weighing its proposed data protection law, India’s approach to data governance is evolving. For instance, while India has refused to negotiate digital trade at the WTO, India recently agreed to its first digital trade agreement with the UAE which includes provisions encouraging the free flow of data among the two nations with clear exceptions. Our two speakers will provide us with broader insights into these developments.

Speaker:

Anita Gurumurthy is a founder and Executive Director at IT for Change.

Arindrajit Basu is the Research Lead at the Centre for Internet in Society.

Moderator:

Research Professor Susan Aaronson, Director of the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub, GWU