India Innovates: Why we need tech sovereignty in a data-driven world

India Innovates: Technological Sovereignty in a Weaponised World 

by Pranjal Sharma 

Published by Vikas Publishing 

208 pages  ₹399

  The moment I saw the words “India Innovates” on the cover of this book, I was excited because I have spent the greater part of my life digging deep into how technology innovation works. But then I saw, also on the cover, the words “Sovereignty” and “Weaponised,” and I felt a sense of alarm. I did know that technology and warfare are intimately linked throughout history, but in the contemporary world, public discourse about this topic is presented more diplomatically.

 

This brings us to the essence of this book: It directly addresses issues such as technology’s role in preserving a country’s sovereignty, the various interest groups involved in this tussle, and the various forms these issues take. And all of this in a mere 180-page paperback.

 

To start with, this book points out that technological sovereignty is essential for a nation’s economic independence and, as an example of this, describes how, during the Kargil War of 1999, India discovered that it could not use the mapping technology that the country had licensed and found that the only way out was to develop its own satellite navigation system.

 

The author also describes some of the dilemmas India faces in this regard. Our neighbour, China, for example, used its domestic technology skills to create what is popularly known as “the Great Firewall”, a filtering and blocking regime that separates its own mainland internet traffic from global platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Wikipedia. This is what allowed domestic Chinese companies such as Tencent’s WeChat, Alipay, Baidu and TikTok to dominate the domestic Chinese market as well as keep the data within the country.

 

The author also points out that China has, in its Made in China 2025 project, set the target of replacing foreign players across 10 strategic sectors, from semiconductors to robotics and medical devices, and the author spells out the specific ways the Chinese government is supporting the domestic efforts.

 

On another front, the author describes how India does almost nothing to “ring-fence” its domestic data. Almost all data centres, particularly the hyper-scaled ones that operate in India are foreign-controlled, even when they are hosted within India.

 

Some action, says the author, is underway to ring-fence India’s domestic data, and he gives the examples of the Reserve Bank of India requiring that data such as UPI of Indian users must be stored only in India. Similar efforts are underway to ensure that Indian government data is stored by Indian Cloud providers within India, as well as “critical personal data”. The author also points out the dangers and processes of “Data Colonisation”. Data colonisation, he points out, is not just about privacy; it’s about power, inequality, and who controls the rules of the digital world, “turning human life into a resource to be mined and controlled by a few”.

 

The author devotes chapters specifically analysing the roles of such things as “Rare Earths”, “Navigation, Space and Shipping”, “Digital Infrastructure”, “AI and GenAI ”, and “Defence and National Security”, and the challenges India faces in these areas.

 

The author goes beyond startups and “jugaad.” He covers: Government systems, manufacturing and infrastructure, healthcare and agriculture and emerging technologies. This makes the work feel more like a macro-economic map of change, not just a business book. The book is also grounded in Indian realities, like a large workforce entering jobs each month, the fear of job loss due to automation and the need for inclusive growth. This nuance is important—and rare.

 

 He describes (and praises) some of the areas where good work is being done. He points out that the Union Budget 2026 has “doubled down on efforts to allot adequate funds for tech sovereignty.” India has also announced the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0, with a focus that goes beyond assembling and manufacturing. He also describes the good work being done by the Bangalore-based startup, Sarvam AI, which has introduced two new homegrown large language models, and he correctly points out that this could be a turning point for India’s AI ambitions. All in all, this book deserves to be required reading for almost all levels of policymakers. 

---

ajitb@rediffmail.com