⚡ Quick Summary
Published by The Alan Turing Institute, this country profile examines how the Government of India approaches AI regulation and standardisation. It is written by Nalanda Sharadjaya, a Research Associate in AI Governance at the Institute, and forms part of the Institute's AI governance around the world project, which maps national approaches through a consistent framework and draws exclusively on primary sources.
The profile describes India's regulatory posture: a stated focus on domestic AI adoption for economic growth, social impact, infrastructure and workforce development, with no comprehensive AI-specific legislation proposed. Hard measures instead rely on existing IT law, principally a March 2024 MEITY advisory requiring intermediaries and platforms to conduct due diligence, alongside the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 and a draft Digital India Bill. Sectoral instruments include SEBI's 2019 reporting circular, ICMR's 2023 healthcare ethics guidelines and TRAI's 2023 telecommunications recommendations.
On standardisation, the profile records that the Bureau of Indian Standards represents India at ISO and IEC and participates in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42; that BIS has not published indigenous AI standards but has adopted at least 19 AI-related ISO/IEC standards as Indian Standards; and that BIS and the Department of Telecommunications each run AI-focused standardisation committees.
🧩 What’s Covered
- Executive summary and project framing: states that India's government is principally committed to advancing domestic AI adoption, has not proposed comprehensive AI-related legislation, relies on hard measures under existing IT laws, and is a signatory to the Bletchley and Seoul declarations.
- Regulatory approach — aims, principles and definitions: describes a vertically oriented, pro-innovation posture; NITI Aayog's 2018 anthropomorphic definition of AI, MEITY committees' refusal to define AI explicitly, and TRAI's 2023 sourcing of definitions from the OECD, EU, ITU, ETSI and ISO/IEC 22989:2022.
- Key policy initiatives (horizontal): the 2018 AITF report, the National AI Strategy (#AIForAll), the four MEITY committee reports covering data infrastructure, sectoral adoption, research and workforce capacity, and governance, the Responsible #AIForAll series, the December 2025 Report on AI Governance Guidelines Development, and the IndiaAI mission platform.
- Laws and policies: the Information Technology Act 2000, the IT Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 (updated June 2023), the draft Digital India Bill, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023, and the 15 March 2024 MEITY due diligence advisory banning unlawful content, bias, electoral interference and under-tested foundation models.
- Vertical initiatives: SEBI's 2019 quarterly reporting circular on AI and ML use, ICMR's non-binding healthcare ethics guidelines, TRAI's July 2023 telecommunications recommendations, three national AI Centres of Excellence, the IP Saarthi chatbot, UIDAI's Aadhaar biometric identity system, and state government deployments in Ahmedabad, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.
- Approach to AI standardisation: the ISI's 1946 founding ISO membership, its replacement by BIS under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, 12 further contributing agencies, voluntary Indian Standards that government can make mandatory, the 2019 Standards National Action Plan, a BIS AI subcommittee of more than 30 experts across nine areas, and a DOT subcommittee on AI in 5G.
- International engagement: BIS representation at ISO and IEC, participation in ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, and the adoption of at least 19 AI-related ISO/IEC standards as Indian Standards.
💡 Why it matters?
For anyone assessing or operating AI in India, the profile sets out where obligations actually sit: not in a single AI statute but in IT law, the 2024 due diligence advisory, data protection rules and sectoral instruments from SEBI, ICMR and TRAI. It gives governance, compliance and standards teams a primary-source map of what is binding, what is voluntary and what is still a draft, including the Digital India Bill's proposed testing framework for high-risk AI systems. It also shows how Indian standards work connects to ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, which matters for conformity planning.
❓ What’s Missing
The profile is explicitly descriptive: it offers no assessment of the efficacy of India's governance model and no consolidated checklist of obligations. Penalty detail is thin — the IT Rules are said to outline no specific penalties — and enforcement practice is not examined. The Digital India Bill is discussed only as a draft whose final form is unknown, and the 2025 MEITY governance report is summarised briefly. State-level AI use is illustrated with examples rather than surveyed systematically, and the analysis is bounded by primary sources available at the time of writing.
👥 Best For
Policy analysts and researchers tracking national AI governance; standards and conformity teams following ISO/IEC adoption in India; compliance leads at firms deploying AI in Indian markets or public services; and public-sector risk teams working on biometric identity, surveillance or automated decision systems.
📄 Source Details
AI governance around the world: Country profile: India by Nalanda Sharadjaya, published by The Alan Turing Institute, August 2025, 20 pages, in English. The citation is printed as "Sharadjaya, N (2025). AI governance around the world: India. The Alan Turing Institute." with the DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16759768. The text extraction covered all 20 pages, though the final page contains only a page number, and printed page numbers in the body differ from the PDF page count.
