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The COVID-19 pandemic sparked rapid digitalisation worldwide, with work-from-home interactions, online payments, and online consultations for various services becoming acceptable practices. While this shift in the manner and nature of work brought enormous benefits, crucially in terms of access, it has also increased the kind of cyber security threats that countries face, with vulnerabilities felt particularly in the health and financial sectors.

On August 12, 2016 the Observer Research Foundation convened the first in a series of multistakeholder roundtables on encryption. This report is the outcome of the discussion of issues and proposal of solutions conducted at the roundtable. Being a complex, technical-legal question around access to data for law enforcement, encryption has long been a contested issue. Creating best-in-class regulation on encryption will require targeted interventio

सायबर क्षेत्र सुरक्षित करण्यासाठी आणि सायबर सुरक्षेच्या  समस्यांना प्राधान्य देण्यासाठी जागतिक भागीदारीचे नेतृत्व करण्याची भारताकडे आता संधी आहे.

समावेशी स्वास्थ्य के लिए सार्वभौम (universal) डिजिटल पहुंच सतत विकास लक्ष्य- 3 (बेहतर स्वास्थ्य और सलामती) हासिल करने से जुड़े G20 के दृष्टिकोण का हिस्सा है. हालांकि इन उद्देश्यों तक

This Issue Brief looks at the world of digital spaces and analyses issues such as the politics of silencing women; propriety; and health and gender-specific vulnerabilities.

Historically, the values of gender-caste-based minorities have been systematically kept aside from being even counted, and this bias leads the prior data to be gender-biased or rather gender-invisible.

What should be India's approach towards the international internet governance discourse? This Issue Brief attempts answer this question by examining the Indian government's engagement with the global community, using the recently concluded NETmundial conference on internet governance as a case study. It also provides policy recommendations for the way forward.

The government should remain a licensor, regulator and adjudicator where neither capital nor technology are in constraint and should not make in India

Mitigating the adverse impact of Beijing’s crude ambition while simultaneously absorbing Chinese capital is a tough balancing act. Before making policy choices, India must rapidly improve its ability to monitor the full extent of economic exposure to China.

India’s online gaming sector is rapidly growing, surpassing other emerging digital sectors in the country. It contributes to GST revenue, creates jobs, and attracts FDI. The sector also promotes ancillary sectors, contributing indirectly to the economy. However, concerns persist around harms such as addiction, financial crimes like money laundering, and implications to national security. Regulatory uncertainty continues to hinder the sector’s

Even though India might benefit from weak energy prices, industries exiting China, it’s going to get harder to compete in manufacturing.

The multiple crises besetting India’s justice delivery system are related to a large extent to what the Chief Justice calls “dilapidated” infrastructure. Indeed, it is empirically known that there is a positive correlation between adequacy of infrastructure—whether courtrooms, chambers, sanitation facilities, or digital connectivity—and productivity in the delivery of justice. This brief highlights the stark gaps in infrastructu

India’s strong growth in recent years has outstripped job creation and poverty remains a key challenge. In the face of the changing world of work, how can perceived economic problems become opportunities?

This paper highlights the imperatives for India’s G20 Presidency for promoting development cooperation towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Given its unique development cooperation model—more precisely, its development partnership model—India can utilise its G20 presidency to push the sustainability agenda. This will help bridge the North-South divide in sustainable development financing. The paper recommends

Ties between India and Australia are wide-ranging: from geostrategic cooperation and trade, to soft power mechanisms such as cricket and tourism. This paper makes a case for improving bilateral relations between New Delhi and Canberra. While there are substantial opportunities for trade and investment flows between the two countries, the engagements have been largely underdeveloped over the years. The immense scope of complementarities between th

India is on its way to becoming “the Saudi Arabia of data”. This brief argues that India enjoys unmatched advantages of demography, economy, and geography and could be a hub of the submarine cable network that would facilitate the transport of data across the Indian Ocean. India’s public and private sectors should leverage these advantages to push the country to the centrestage of connectivity across the region and beyond. India’s

A ‘new age’ free trade deal with India remains critical in anchoring the United Kingdom economically to the Indo-Pacific

India is a sovereign nation; is it digitally sovereign, too? This paper examines the degree to which India is self-reliant in electronic hardware. After all, for a country to be self-reliant in the information age, it has to either attain indigenous capability in electronic manufacturing and services or be equipped to protect data and mitigate the threats associated with supply chain vulnerabilities. This paper refers to self-reliance in electron

To share and benefit from development data, it must be accessible, of high-quality, and offered in real time. India at the helm of G20 has much to offer as this will build on principles governing PM Modi’s Digital India initiative

A digital revolution in MSMEs' access to credit might accelerate growth and prosperity - if policymakers focus on simplicity, access, and human capital.

It's now a battle to the finish. The amazing diversity of the digital world is seen as a threat by a coterie of bureaucrats who are going all out to annihilate it.

This report presents an initial stocktaking of the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced in 2023 following a meeting in New Delhi between the leaders of India, the US, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Italy, France, Germany, and the European Commission. Given that the participating economies contribute to almost half of the global GDP, there are many opportunities and challenges associated with the economic corridor.

India’s growing strategic importance as a balance to China in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as convergence between New Delhi and Washington DC about Beijing’s aggressive stance on emerging technology, have resulted in warming relations between the United States (US) and India. Indeed, in recent years, there has been a spur of cooperative agreements between the two sides on domains such as defence technology, 5G, and semiconductors. This br

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, extremist groups find workarounds to the digital blockade as ordinary citizens endure restricted access

In the face of geopolitical turmoil and a Chinese exit, India must negotiate its Indo-Pacific trade ties with caution

Think20, the ideas bank of G20, will engage with the gamut of issues – strategic, economic and structural – that confront all countries

India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME) sector is a key driver of the country’s economic and social development by fostering entrepreneurship and generating substantial employment opportunities at comparatively lower capital costs. However, inadequate access to finance is one of the most crucial barriers to the sector’s growth. Recent developments in digital public infrastructure in India could present new solutions to boost MSM

Young men and women from the countryside discovered the joys of creativity, individuality and even celebrity on the Chinese app.

This paper projects the nationwide and state-wise size of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI) market under various GDP growth scenarios. The market sizes under these scenarios are expressed in monetary values at the scale of both sub-national units and the Indian economy as a whole. With the help of transactions and market share data from Phonepe, a UPI company, the paper estimates the national and state-wise base case scenario market volu

India’s emerging urban moment is caught between two realities: inadequate systems in public transportation, housing, waste management, and access to sanitation and health; and a burgeoning ecosystem of enterprising individuals, communities and start-ups pushing innovative solutions to these very same civic issues. This paper examines India’s urban picture and understands how the urban narrative of crumbling systems and inadequate infrastructu

Technology is vital to enabling accelerated socio-economic growth, effective governance, and relief delivery at scale. Many economies are adopting and developing technology-first frameworks to strengthen their population’s social welfare net, and support economic growth. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed both the challenges and opportunities in India that can be addressed and driven by multidimensional technology frameworks. With the rebalancin

The public attribution of a cyber incident—undertaken coherently and underscored by robust decision-making—can be a useful tool for national security. India, thus far, has not publicly attributed any international cyber incident to a specific private perpetrator or nation-state. Studying the models framed by scholars based in other jurisdictions, this brief offers suggestions on how India can approach the issue of public attribution of cybera

‘Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress’ is the theme of this year’s International Women’s Day. This is a clarion call with particular resonance for India given the barriers to women’s economic participation. Imagine the extraordinary economic tailwinds that can be generated for India if these barriers are dismantled and women have access to capital and technology and supportive public policy frameworks

The common prosperity of India and China is linked to the digital future, and even lifeline provisions such as social security schemes, health and education among others are likely to be delivered through virtual means. Therefore, it is important for the two countries to ensure that the world does not witness the birth of "digital sovereignty".

The idea of the 'global village', the efforts to create a global economy and emerging global digital marketplace, are all likely to be impacted if nations and communities do not find it within themselves to agree to norms and laws that would apply to this realm.

Israeli president Reuven Rivlin has offered his country's expertise to India to make the world safe.

The pandemic showed us how digital divides worsen inequality - this project shows they’re not inevitable

Amongst India’s stated priorities in its G20 Presidency are reforming multilateral institutions, climate action alongside energy transition, digital transformation and governance, sustainable economic growth, and women’s empowerment. In many of these concerns, countries in the Global North and Global South have serious divergences, thereby hampering progress towards consensus and unified action. To remove some of the deadlocks

The presence of almost nine million Indian nationals in the Gulf region makes India a key source of human capital for the six GCC nations. The majority of these Indians are blue-collar workers engaged in low-paying jobs. As countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) move up the technology ladder, they are increasingly seeking workers with specific, certified skills. This report outlines a pilot project for the mapping, harmonisation and accred