Best of BS Opinion: Credibility tests across tech, policy and sport

Here are the best of Business Standard's opinion pieces for today

The internet's trust model is weakening under the surge of AI-generated content, writes Gautam Mukunda. For years, users moved away from institutional authority and embraced distributed trust through reviews, influencers and peer commentary. That model depended on scale and diversity with many voices correcting one another. Generative AI has altered that balance. Before ChatGPT, roughly five per cent of web articles were primarily AI-generated. By April 2025, 74 per cent of new web pages contained AI-generated material. Established media organisations and Wikipedia show that visible curation and transparent processes can sustain confidence even in a saturated information space.

 

Devangshu Datta reviews the AI Impact Summit, intended to project India’s technological rise. Delegates reported logistical disruptions including bans on phones and cars, restricted access during VIP movements and long walks to transport points. A larger controversy involved Galgotias University’s display of a Chinese-made robodog presented as an indigenous innovation reportedly backed by $39 million in R&D. Datta situates this within a broader pattern of exaggeration during technology booms, warning that credibility gaps can undermine long-term positioning.

 

US President Donald Trump may have rekindled the sovereignty impulse globally, thanks to his dismantling of a global order that happily shared it, but in India it has only revived a recently-dormant sentiment, writes Shekhar Gupta. India has long nurtured a certain animus towards the US, not always without reason, and has often had to side with the erstwhile USSR, now Russia, as part of the strategic choices it made decades ago. But at no point did it compromise on its sovereignty. Today's world, though, is far more inter-dependent, necessitating a more flexible version of sovereignty, with shared vested interest as the only guiding principle.

 

Meanwhile, R Gopalakrishnan examines India’s development gap with China in income, technology and industrial depth. He proposes pragmatic engagement rather than rigid rivalry. India’s regional variation, as visible in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, demonstrates that stronger manufacturing, higher per capita incomes and better human development outcomes are achievable within the current system. He outlines priorities including decentralised human capital policy, greater state-level initiative, export orientation, higher investment in technology and research, stronger SMEs and MSMEs, and systematic agricultural modernisation.

 

Finally, in today’s Eye Culture, Kumar Abishek highlights Yuvraj Samra’s century for Canada against New Zealand at the 2026 T20 World Cup as evidence of T20 cricket’s levelling effect. Associate sides such as Italy, the Netherlands and Nepal increasingly compete through defined roles and disciplined preparation, even when players balance full-time jobs. Franchise leagues convert strong performances into contracts that fund training and deepen domestic systems. As exposure widens and conditions balance, execution increasingly outweighs pedigree.

 

Stay tuned!