
'India not needed...': Finfluencer Akshat Shrivastava shares why the next 10 years will be tough for Indian stock markets
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No major role for India in AI value chain, says Shrivastava
'We are nowhere close to becoming a hub of innovation'
Implications for stock markets
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Finance educator and content creator Akshat Shrivastava has said that Indian stock markets could face a challenging next decade, arguing that India does not have a meaningful role in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race. Shrivastava linked India's future economic and market performance to its relative position in global technological innovation.Shrivastava began by stating that economies are shaped by innovation cycles. From Dutch shipbuilding and the UK's Industrial Revolution to US-led factory automation, he said each major economic shift has been led by disruptive technology. 'Wealth does not appear out of thin air. It is systematically build on the back of technological innovation,' he said.According to him, AI is now becoming that next core innovation shaping the global economy—comparable to the internet boom of the late 1990s. AI is driving transformations in energy, manufacturing, learning, and computing, he said, adding that with tools like large language models (LLMs), 'anyone can technically reap the benefits of coding, without being a coder.'Explaining the global innovation structure, Shrivastava referenced the 'hub and spoke' model, where a few countries act as innovation hubs while others operate as peripheral beneficiaries. In the past, India benefited from this structure by becoming a spoke in the US-led IT outsourcing boom.However, Shrivastava suggested India is missing out in the current wave. 'China and US: are in a AI race . China has already built massive energy reserves (US is catching up). US has already built massive tech reserves (and one could argue China is catching up). This is the new arms race,' he wrote.Shrivastava raised a direct question: 'Why is India needed in this AI race?' He dismissed three possible advantages—data harvesting, cost-effective infrastructure, and a large consumer market—as either already exhausted or ineffective in India's case.'Can we lower the cost for AI infrastructure? (we have very high cost of energy and poor leakages in infra; so we can't). We can't build giga-factories. This is the reason why our manufacturing sucks,' he wrote. On the demand side, he pointed out that 'getting users to pay 20$/month is a challenge for LLMs right now.'According to Shrivastava, India lacks both a cost advantage like China and a premium-paying consumer base like the US. 'So where does India fit in the AI race?' he asked, answering that the country may see isolated economic success stories but will fall behind in global comparison.'Now of course: as the world becomes more productive. India will benefit too. That's obvious. Standard of living will improve. But, 'compared' to other countries, it will fall,' he said. He blamed 'decades of regressive economic policies, unnecessary pride and inability to look at things rationally' for the current state.Shrivastava concluded that this innovation gap will reflect in the markets. 'All this will reflect into the stock market. There is a reason why since 2020: FIIs have been consistently existing our markets,' he said, referring to foreign institutional investors reducing their positions in India.(Disclaimer: This article is based on a user-generated post on X for informational purposes. ET.com has not independently verified the claims made in the post and does not vouch for their accuracy. The views expressed are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of ET.com. Reader discretion is advised.)
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Scroll.in
14 minutes ago
- Scroll.in
India's embrace of dangerous facial recognition technology is great for AI, terrible for privacy
In February, India, along with France, co-hosted the AI Action Summit held in Paris. At the end, it was announced that the next edition will be held in India. In its naming, priorities, and focus, the summit witnessed a clear shift from 'safety' to 'innovation' as the principal theme in artificial intelligence discourse. This move aligns with India's lax regulatory stance on AI governance, even in high-risk areas like healthcare and surveillance-driven technologies such as facial recognition technology. In the upcoming summit, this shift will enable the Indian government to steer discussions toward innovation, investment and accessibility while avoiding scrutiny over its weak legal protections, which create an environment conducive to unregulated technological experimentation. Shortly after the introduction of Chinese start-up DeepSeek's R1 model – which upended assumptions about large language models and how much it might cost to develop them – the Indian Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology announced plans to develop indigenous foundation models using Indian language data within a year and invited proposals from companies and researchers under its IndiaAI Mission. While local development in these areas is still in the early phase, the domain of AI that has already seen widespread adoption and deployment in India is facial recognition technology. As India contemplates a sustained push toward AI development and will likely seek to leverage its hosting of the next AI Summit for investments, it is instructive to look at how it has deployed and governed facial recognition technology solutions. Understanding Facial Recognition Technology Facial recognition technology is a probabilistic tool developed to automatically identify or verify individuals by analysing their facial features. It enables the comparison of digital facial images, captured via live video cameras (such as CCTV) or photographs, to ascertain whether the images belong to the same person. Facial recognition technology uses algorithms to analyse facial features, such as eye distance and chin shape, creating a unique mathematical 'face template' for identification. This template, similar to a fingerprint, allows facial recognition technology to identify individuals from photos, videos, or real-time feeds using visible or infrared light. Facial recognition technology has two main applications: identifying unknown individuals by comparing their face template to a database (often used by law enforcement) and verifying the identity of a known person, such as unlocking a phone. Modern facial recognition technology utilises deep learning, a machine learning technique. During training, artificial neurons learn to recognise facial features from labeled inputs. New facial scans are processed as pixel matrices, with neurons assigning weights based on features, producing labels with confidence levels. Liveness checks, like blinking, ensure the subject is real. Still, facial recognition technology faces accuracy challenges – balancing false positives (wrong matches) and false negatives (missed matches). Minimising one often increases the other. Factors like lighting, background and expressions also affect accuracy. Over the past seven years, facial recognition technology has seen widespread adoption in India, especially by the government and its agencies. This growth has coincided with debates surrounding Aadhaar (the national biometric ID system), frequent failures of other verification methods, a rise in street surveillance, and government efforts to modernise law enforcement and national security operations. In this review, I have surveyed the range of facial recognition technology deployment across sectors in India, both in public and private service delivery. This adoption tells the story of an exponential rise in the use of FRT in India, with barely any regulatory hurdles despite clear privacy and discrimination harms. Locating India's regulatory approach While efforts toward regulating AI are still in their infancy, with a handful of global regulations and considerable international debate about the appropriate approach, regulatory discussions about facial recognition technology predate them by a few years and are a little more evolved. Facial recognition technology systems can produce inaccurate, discriminatory, and biased outcomes due to flawed design and training data. A Georgetown Law study on the use of facial recognition technology in the US showed disproportionate impacts on African Americans and tests revealed frequent false positives, particularly affecting people of color. In 2019, the UK's Science and Technology Committee recommended halting facial recognition technology deployment until bias and effectiveness issues are resolved. The UK government countered the report by stating that the existing legal framework already offered sufficient safeguards regarding the application of facial recognition technology. Civil society organisations have been demanding bans or moratoriums on the use and purchase of facial recognition technology for years, most notably after a New York Times investigation in 2019 revealed that more than 600 law enforcement agencies in the US rely on the technology provided by a secretive company known as Clearview AI. An impact assessment commissioned by the European Commission in 2021 observed that facial recognition technology 'bear[s] new and unprecedentedly stark risks for fundamental rights, most significantly the right to privacy and non-discrimination.' The European Union and UK offer regulatory models for facial recognition technology in law enforcement. The EU's Law Enforcement Directive restricts biometric data processing to strictly necessary cases. While initial drafts of the EU's AI Act banned remote biometrics – such as the use of facial recognition technology – the final version has exceptions for law enforcement. In the UK, the Data Protection Act mirrors Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and a landmark court ruling deemed police facial recognition technology use unlawful, citing violations of human rights and data protection, and the technology's mass, covert nature. The EU's AI Act, while not explicitly banning discriminatory facial recognition technology, mandates data governance and bias checks for high-risk AI systems, potentially forcing developers to implement stronger safeguards. The GDPR generally bans processing biometric data for unique identification, but exceptions exist for data made public by the subject or when processing is for substantial public interest. In Europe, non-law enforcement facial recognition technology often falls under these exceptions. 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The Indian Supreme Court's Puttaswamy judgment, which upheld a right to privacy, outlines a four-part test for proportionality to test whether state actions violate fundamental rights: a legitimate goal, suitable means, necessity (meaning there are no less restrictive alternatives), and balanced impact on rights. Facial recognition technology applications, like those that use the technology to mark attendance and carry out authentication, often have less intrusive alternatives, suggesting they fail the necessity test. Street surveillance using facial recognition technology inherently involves indiscriminate mass surveillance, not targeted monitoring. India's newly legislated Digital Data Protection Act, whose rules are currently being framed, permits the government to process personal data without consent in certain cases. Section 17(2) grants a broad exemption from its provisions for personal data processing, exempting state entities designated by the Indian government for reasons as broad as sovereignty, security, foreign relations, public order, or preventing incitement to certain offenses. In India, the primary policy document on facial recognition technology is a Niti Aayog paper, ' Responsible AI for All,' which anticipates that India's data protection law will handle facial recognition technology privacy concerns. However, it lacks detailed recommendations for ethical facial recognition technology use. It suggests the government should not exempt law enforcement from data protection oversight. It remains to be seen whether this recommendation will be followed, but this alone would be insufficient protection. 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As a prime example, both Meta and OpenAI are seeking partnerships with Reliance Industries in India to offer their AI products to Indian consumers, which would be hosted at a new three-gigawatt data center in Jamnagar, Gujarat. These investments in India need to be seen in the context of a number of geopolitical and geoeconomic factors: data localisation regulations under India's new data protection law, the negotiating power that the Indian government and the companies close to it possess by leveraging the size of its emerging data market, how these factors facilitate the emergence of domestic BigTech players like Reliance, and most importantly, the Indian government's overall approach toward AI development and regulation. It was earlier reported that the much-awaited Digital India Act would have elements of AI regulation. However, the fate of both the legislation or any other form of regulation is, for the moment, uncertain. As recently as December 2024, Ashwini Vaishnav, the Indian minister of electronics and information technology, stated in the Indian Parliament that a lot more consensus was needed before a law on AI can be formulated. This suggests that the Indian government currently has no concrete plans to begin work toward any form of AI regulation, and despite the widespread use of AI and well documented risks, will stay out of the first wave of global AI regulations.


Economic Times
14 minutes ago
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Time of India
14 minutes ago
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Congress – singing the tune of Pakistan
Keshav Upadhye, a young, dynamic and prominent face, has been working with the Bharatiya Janata Party for over two decades. In 2014, the then state president Devendra Fadnavis had appointed Upadhye as the spokesperson in his team. Owing to his journalistic background and better understanding of the socio-economic issues of the state, Upadhye made a mark as a spokesperson in a short span. He articulates the views of the party and aggressively defends the party on various platforms including the Marathi and Hindi national news channels. Keshav Upadhye worked for the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and after completing his degree in Journalism from Ranade Institute, Pune, he began his career as a journalist with daily Pudhari, Loksatta and Mumbai Tarun Bharat. Knowing the pulse of the news, he writes on varied topics and on various platforms like the newspapers, blogs and other social media platforms. He was involved in two study groups formed by the Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodhini in 2006 to study the naxalite movement and its adverse impact on the development of Chhatisgarh. The Prabodhini later published this report. He was also a part of the Prabodhini's fact-finding committee formed to study the Solapur riots. LESS ... MORE Parliament recently held a discussion on 'Operation Sindoor', a joint operation by the Indian armed forces against terrorist outfits in Pakistan. Entire opposition including Congress were consistently demanding a discussion in Parliament on this issue. Congress' prince Rahul Gandhi and his sidekicks were also alleging that the government is not ready to discuss this subject in the parliament. The Modi government refuted the opposition's allegation by discussing this issue in detail. Rahul Gandhi's objection that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is not speaking a word on this matter also turned out to be totally false. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar also shed light in detail on various aspects related to 'Operation Sindoor' and the subsequent developments. This helped expose Congress' pro Pakistan stand in front of the nation once again. Congress' prince, while speaking in Lok Sabha, questioned why the action by armed forces against Pakistan was stopped and also bragged that the bravery and courage should have been shown like his grandmother Indira Gandhi. There is absolutely no doubt that Mrs Indira Gandhi showed the courage of breaking Bangladesh from Pakistan and making it an independent nation in 1971. Jan Sangh, the main opposition party at that time, had given its complete support to Indira Gandhi. The world could see the proud picture of the entire opposition standing in solidarity behind Indira Gandhi. The same picture was expected during the time of 'Operation Sindoor'. However, the behaviour of opposition parties over the last eleven years has shown time and again that they do not hesitate to take even an anti-national stand just to oppose Modi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi completely exposed the Congress' stand during his speech in the Lok Sabha. Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram, while speaking on this matter in Rajya Sabha, showed another example of his love for Pakistan by raising a question 'Why do you assume that they came from Pakistan?' At the same time Praniti Shinde, daughter of another senior Congress leader and former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, while making her point in Lok Sabha insulted the Indian armed forces by calling 'Operation Sindoor' a 'Tamasha' performed only for the media. She revealed Congress' traditional love for Pakistan by blatantly lying that the government is not giving information on how many terrorists were killed in 'Operation Sindoor'. In the press conference held immediately after 'Operation Sindoor', the Indian armed forces had clearly stated that the only purpose behind this operation was to destroy terrorist camps in Pakistan. In this operation India targeted 4 terrorist camps located 100 km inside Pakistan and destroyed 5 camps in POK with great precision. Officials of the Indian armed forces had informed in a press conference in New Delhi that the bases of the terrorist organizations Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba have been destroyed. Despite that, a public representative like Praniti Shinde in Lok Sabha by asking questions like 'what exactly was achieved by this operation' and calling 'Operation Sindoor' a 'Tamasha', cast a doubt on the actions of the Indian armed forces. Congress has this old habit of insulting the armed forces. Pakistan launched missile attacks targeting civilian settlements in India after 'Operation Sindoor'. However, the Indian armed forces repelled all these attacks. After that the Indian armed forces showed its strength by targeting army bases in Pakistan. Terrified by these attacks, Pakistan pleaded with India to stop the attacks. The Indian armed forces had also clearly stated that they have temporarily stopped 'Operation Sindoor' at Pakistan's request as the aim of teaching Pakistan a lesson had been achieved. Leaders of the ruling party, ministers at centre were not briefing the media throughout this period. All the briefings regarding this operation, losses suffered by Pakistan in this operation were officially done by representatives of the Indian armed forces itself. A modern technique of PowerPoint presentation was used while sharing information about this operation. In spite of this Congress leaders have no shame in doubting the bravery of the Indian armed forces by making statements like what was achieved through 'Operation Sindoor' at the supreme level like Lok Sabha. Few days back, Rahul Gandhi had demanded information on the number of aircrafts shot down by Pakistan in 'Operation Sindoor'. The Indian armed forces had already given a clear explanation on this. Pakistan's Prime Minister had made the ridiculous claim that their army had shot down Indian planes. However, the government of Pakistan failed to provide a single evidence of this. Instead of demanding information about the damage done to Pakistan, Rahul Gandhi was asking for the information on the number of Indian aircrafts that were shot down. Today, Rahul Gandhi is making childish remarks like asking why 'Operation Sindoor' was stopped?, Modi Government lacks courage to take action against Pakistan, but he will conveniently forget that no action was taken against Pakistan after the Mumbai attacks in 2008 despite the readiness of Indian armed forces only because of the weak stand taken by Sonia Gandhi. Rahul Gandhi also forgot that his grandmother unconditionally released over one lakh Pakistani soldiers. The prince is even oblivious to the fact that he is speaking the language of Pakistan just to oppose Modi and BJP. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.