INDIA'S FIRST NATIONAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE POLICY : FEW OBSERVATIONS

 For the first time India made a land mark step by launching national AI framework - AI policy 2025.The initiative come under the Digital India AI Mission with the ambition of making India as a global leader in AI innovation,research and governance. The policy was jointly announced by the Ministry of Electronics and IT and NITI Aayog in coordination  with Digital India Mission,aiming to integrate AI to Government Services, education and  industry. The  Policy promotes innovation, ethical AI use,digital inclusion and outlines strategic steps towards Ai research, infrastructure skills and  set a clear roadmap for developing domestic AI solutions tailored to Indian languages ,diverse socio economic and cultural contexts,and public sector requirements and to meet requirements of all individuals. This Policy not only defines ethical AI principles of fairness, transparency and inclusivity but also promotes AI programs in all educational institutions and industries. It intends to creates AI infrastructure and data platforms for national use and provides a legal and regulatory Roadmap for responsible AI governance. It also ensures public private collaboration under a national Umbrella framework. 

SALIENT  FEATURES OF AI POLICY 

The seven pillars of AI policy 2025 are - 1.Research and innovation. Wherein the Government will establish AI Centers of Excellence to develop India specific Large Language Models (LLM) and indigenous datasets for multilingual use.

2.Skilling and Education- For this purpose AI will be integrated with academic curricula from  schools to universities .Skilling program will train professionals in AI ethics ,coding, and data handling. 

3.Infrastructure and data ecosystem- the policy also introduces ALKosh,India's largest AI data repository and promotes 'AI Compute Infrastructure' to support large scale  projects across different sectors. 

4.Responsible and Ethical AI- Inorder to achieve fairness and transparency the policy integrates  ethical guidelines for developers and users by  addressing non biases, accountability and data privacy. 

5.Sectoral Applications  of AI comprises of predictive diagnostics in Healthcare, crop monitoring and smart irrigation in Agriculture, personalized learning tools in education, and smart cities and public service delivery in Governance. 

6.Global Collaboration- India will partner with global AI coalitions and multilateral forums to create a globally recognized trust based AI governance model.

7.Policy ensures cohesive  federal planning between Central and State Governments to align local AI missions within  the national framework. 

The flagship initiatives  commenced under the present policy consist of  ₹ 500 crore AI Centre of Excellence for education already announced in Union Budget 2025-26, ALKosh data platform for democratize access to datasets and models, for early stage innovators AI Mission Startup Grants,AI Ethics Council of India (AIEC) established for maintaining transparency and ethics and India Portal Revamp 2025 to provide source tools and research libraries for AI learning and development. 

In short the India AI policy 2025 is determined to enforce not only fairness,non discrimination and accountability in algorithm design,but also transparent auditing mechanisms for AI models used in governance. Strong data protection aligned with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and oversight boards,for AI public policy and defense mechanism are expected to create healthy AI development. 

FEW OBSERVATIONS ON  AI POLICY 

AI is making dynamic changes in the world at a  rapid pace making unprecedented changes in many  sectors including health care, education, farming, manufacturing and national security etc and transforming  into a technological shift.AI Mission India aims to democratise AI 's benefit across all strata of society so as to ensure it is accessible, affordable and inclusive. But potential challenges are - deepfakes, misinformation, algorithm biases and security threats.Some observers  commented that India's global dominance by way of both  demographic dividend and potential AI manpower are likely to keep up the advantage further. Global comparisons also indicate relative advantage. While European Union is for risk based regulation, India favours adaptive governance and flexibility. While in USA private sector led innovation is the basic approach, India's Government led policy is inclusive with both public and private sectors. Our approach ensures that AI  is  serving not only industry elites but empowers the marginalised sections of the society as well.

According to Balaraman Ravindran, IIT Professor Madras and main Architect of AI policy the policy is exclusively aiming at a governance framework  not at all a regulatory frame work.If any regulation is required it can be done either by individual Departments or by the law enforcement agencies/mechanism.Main challenges for AI remain in terms of ensuring high quality and unbiased data,bridging rural- urban skill gaps,avoiding  over regulation which may hamper particularly start ups growth and finally proper Center  and states coordination.  Some analysts expressed their concerns about the possibility of  job displacement  due to automation and consequent reduction in existing jobs. Such trends on a limited scale has already been reported even from the reputed IT firms without any redeployment. Moreover AI's heavy reliance on extensive and intensive data raises anxiety and concerns about the vulnerability of potential misuse and breach of data.Hence sufficient safeguards should be provided to protect privacy challenges especially that of women. By the very nature's AI development there is a strong possibility of inequitable distribution of benefit, which may favour very few at the cost of others  The eagerly awaited India's AI policy seems to be less cohesive and forward looking  .However the policy is a turning point in  marking India's official entry into the global AI race ensuring ethical data use, boost to local AI start ups and helps to bridge the digital divide by using AI tools accessible to different sectors including health care, education, agriculture etc.

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