The success of innovation doesn’t correlate directly with statutory or structural impediments, but rather depends on timing and the right set of circumstances. Creating environments conducive to serendipitous connections across unconnected disciplines can foster innovation.

Francis Fukuyama coined the term “vetocracy” to describe a gridlocked decision-making system where individuals can prevent policy implementation through vetoes. But while the physical world may suffer from excessive vetocracy, the digital sphere often leans towards autocracy. We need a balance between these two extremes and that is even more important in the context of India’s digital infrastructure. Vetocratic processes can be used to protect core principles, while maintaining flexibility to foster innovation.

The Indian Supreme Court’s struggle to decipher a convoluted legal order highlights a broader issue of intentional incomprehensibility in legal language. This complexity often makes laws inaccessible to laypersons. We need plain language reforms, comprehensive lists of laws, explainers for every law, and measures to ease the compliance burdens if we are to make the legal systems more accessible and democratic.

Everyone I know has a story about how their phone is spying on them. This usually has to do with how they started seeing ads in their news feed that pertain to something that they said or did offline that was somehow being picked up by our devices and used to target advertising at us. But if you think about it there is no way in which telephone companies can do that - or will even want to. It costs too much and is not worth the effort. What seems like personalised surveillance always has another explanation.

Science funding requires patient capital. The NRF should follow 3 principles as it disburses its funding. (i) projects should get long term funding commitments that are protected against political change, (ii) they need operational autonomy so that researchers can follow their own paths and (iii) the NRF should no longer fund government laboratories but focus on finding academia.

Any attempt to change the beliefs of vaccine skeptics using facts is bound to fail. Thanks to the backfire effect they will take the facts presented to them and bend them to fit with their beliefs rather than allow new facts to convince them that their beliefs were wrong.

The design of digital data sharing infrastructure must be federated. Where there is a need for data availability beyond the duration that data fiduciaries will retain it we need to build data storage alternatives that data principals can use. We should resist the temptation of getting the government to build these data stores as a public good because the role of the government is to govern - and it should not get into the business of data storage and data management. Instead we should take a market approach and encourage private data storage providers to offer federated, inter-operable solutions.

An analysis of the JPCs draft of the data protection bill has some welcome changes - the amendments to children’s data and the introduction of Section 62 that allows complaints to be filed. It also has some misguided changes such as the introduction of NGOs in the definitions. It also has changes that will have a significant impact such as the amendments to Section 35 and 36 on exemptions to law enforcement. Finally it introduces some new concepts that are problematic such as the requirement that data protection officers in companies need to be senior officials and the inclusion of non-personal data within the ambit of the law.

There is a growing recognition of the fact that we can use technology tools to make our regulations smarter. There are 2 categories of tools to do this. The first gives users more control over what can be done with their data by placing data in pods and only allowing them to be accessed in accordance with the privacy management protocols. The second unlocks data silos allowing data to move between them with the consent of the user. While these tools seem contradictory they operate at opposite ends of the data spectrum can can be combined to augment statutory frameworks.

Cryptocurrency regulation will have to address a number of issues. To address the fact that cryptocurrencies provide anonymity, regulations can ensure that crypto exchanges conduct customer verification checks and be trained on anti-money laundering. The exchanges themselves can be required to be registered in India to fall within the ambit of Indian law. To address taxation concerns, our laws can be amended to base the tax payable on the fair market value of cryptocurrency as on the date of payment or receipt. Any offers of cryptocurrency can be required to comply with disclosure requirements for investor protection. All this can be achieved by amending existing laws and does not need a new regulation.