Episode 3: Digital Swarajya

The past year has seen vigorous activity on the domestic cyber policy front in India. On key issues, including intermediary liability, data localization and e-commerce, the government has rolled out a patchwork of regulatory policies, resulting in battle lines being drawn by governments, industry and civil society actors, both in India, and abroad. Among emerging economies, India is uniquely positioned to exercise leverage over multinational tech companies due to its sheer population size, combined with a rapid surge in users coming online and the country’s large gross domestic product. India could, and possibly should be doing more on the global front. Torsha Sarkar and Pranav MB are in conversation this week with Arindrajit Basu to find out how. Reading list: (1) https://www.lawfareblog.com/indias-role-global-cyber-policy-formulation; (2) https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/the-localisation-gambit.pdf; (3) https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-retreat-of-the-data-localization-brigade-india-indonesia-and-vietnam/