#FactCheck -Bangladesh protest video falsely shared as police firing incident in Bihar’s Siwan

Introduction

Earlier this month, lawmakers in Colorado, a U.S. state, were summoned to a special legislative session to rewrite their newly passed Artificial Intelligence (AI) law before it even takes effect. Although the discussion taking place in Denver may seem distant, evolving regulations like this one directly address issues that India will soon encounter as we forge our own course for AI governance.

The Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act

Colorado became the first U.S. state to pass a comprehensive AI accountability law, set to come into force in 2026. It aims to protect people from bias, discrimination, and harm caused by predictive algorithms since AI tools have been known to reproduce societal biases by sidelining women from hiring processes, penalising loan applicants from poor neighbourhoods, or through welfare systems that wrongly deny citizens their benefits. But the law met resistance from tech companies who threatened to pull out form the state, claiming it is too broad in scope in its current form and would stifle innovation. This brings critical questions about AI regulation to the forefront:

• Who should be responsible when AI causes harm? Developers, deployers, or both? 
• How should citizens seek justice? 
• How can tech companies be incentivised to develop safe technologies? 

Colorado’s governor has called a special session to update the law before it kicks in. 

What This Means for India 

India is on its path towards framing a dedicated AI-specific law or directions, and discussions are underway through the IndiaAI Mission, the proposed Digital India Act, committee set by the Delhi High Court on deepfake and other measures. But the dilemmas Colorado is wrestling with are also relevant here.

• AI uptake is growing in public service delivery in India. Facial recognition systems are expanding in policing, despite accuracy and privacy concerns. Fintech apps using AI-driven credit scoring raise questions of fairness and transparency.
• Accountability is unclear. If an Indian AI-powered health app gives faulty advice, who should be liable- the global developer, the Indian startup deploying it, or the regulator who failed to set safeguards?
• India has more than 1,500 AI startups (NASSCOM), which, like Colorado’s firms, fear that onerous compliance could choke growth. But weak guardrails could undermine public trust in AI altogether.

Lessons for India

India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT ( MEITy) favours a light-touch approach to AI regulation, and exploring and advancing ways for a future-proof guideline. Further, lessons from other global frameworks can guide its way. 

• Colorado’s case shows us the necessity of incorporating feedback loops in the policy-making process. India should utilise regulatory sandboxes and open, transparent consultation processes before locking in rigid rules. 
• It will also need to explore proportionate obligations, lighter for low-risk applications and stricter for high-risk use cases such as policing, healthcare, or welfare delivery. 
• Europe’s AI Act is heavy on compliance, the U.S. federal government leans toward deregulation, and Colorado is somewhere in between. India has the chance to create a middle path, grounded in our democratic and developmental context.

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Conclusion

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in hiring, banking, education, and welfare, opportunities for ordinary Indians are being redefined. To shape how this pans out, states like Tamil Nadu and Telangana have taken early steps to frame AI policies. Lessons will emerge from their initiative in addressing AI governance. Policy and regulation will always be contested, but contestations are a part of the process. 

The Colorado debate shows us how participative law-making, with room for debate, revision, and iteration, is not a weakness but a necessity. For India’s emerging AI governance landscape, the challenge will be to embrace this process while ensuring that citizen rights and inclusion are balanced well with industry concerns. CyberPeace advocates for responsible AI regulation that balances innovation and accountability.

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References 

• https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-lawmakers-look-repeal-replace-controversial-artificial-intelligence-law/
• https://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/a-deep-dive-into-colorados-artificial-intelligence-act/
• https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/11/indias-advance-on-ai-regulation?lang=en 
• https://the-captable.com/2024/12/india-ai-regulation-light-touch/ 
• https://indiaai.gov.in/article/tamilnadu-s-ai-policy-six-step-tamdef-guidance-framework-and-deepmax-scorecard 

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‍Introduction

Picture every paper trade document, such as bills of lading, certificates of origin, letters of credit, and packing lists, stacked one on top of another. By one industry estimate, the roughly four billion such documents in circulation each year would form a tower over 500 kilometres high, well past the edge of space. This absurd image reflects a simple truth, global trade has relied on paper for centuries, making transactions slow, expensive, and vulnerable to loss, forgery, and disputes.

Today, however, we complete many activities that once depended on paper through digital platforms. We open bank accounts through mobile applications, sign contracts electronically, file taxes online, and access government services through websites, all without handling a single physical document. Global trade is now undergoing a similar transformation. Yet, as trade moves online, the challenge is no longer managing stacks of paper, but protecting digital trade from cyber threats. The success of this transition will therefore depend as much on robust cybersecurity as on the adoption of digital technologies.

From Paper Trails to Platforms

For decades, an Indian exporter clearing a container needed physical stamps from customs, port authorities, banks, and multiple regulatory agencies, each on its own timeline. That has been changing under India's National Trade Facilitation Action Plan, now in its third iteration (NTFAP 3.0, 2024–27), which set out to close the remaining gaps in paperless trading systems. The shift shows up in international benchmarks: India's score on the UN's Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation has climbed sharply, with the institutional-cooperation component alone improving from under 67% to nearly 89% in recent rounds. A 2026 policy brief jointly released by ICRIER, RIS, and the Centre for WTO Studies concludes that India has achieved full implementation of domestic paperless trade measures, a rare distinction globally even as cross-border digitalisation continues to deepen.

The Building Blocks: ICEGATE to BharatTradeNet

This transformation rests on a stack of interlocking platforms. ICEGATE, the customs electronic data-interchange gateway, lets traders file declarations digitally rather than in person. SWIFT, the Single Window Interface for Facilitating Trade, connects multiple regulatory agencies so a trader deals with one portal instead of dozens. e-SANCHIT digitises supporting documents for customs clearance, cutting paperwork once attached to every consignment. Faceless assessment, rolled out under the CBIC's "Turant Customs" push, separates the assessing officer from the physical location of the goods, reducing scope for delay and discretion. The newest addition, BharatTradeNet, announced in the Union Budget 2025-26, is unified digital public infrastructure linking DGFT, GSTN, banks, shipping lines, and exporters on one platform for trade documentation and financing built to complement the Unified Logistics Interface Platform and align with international conventions.

None of this works without a legal backbone. India's proposed Trade Facilitation Bill aims to give electronic trade documents the same legal standing as paper ones, closing an interoperability gap that has long complicated cross-border recognition of digital records. Recent trade agreements have also begun embedding firmer commitments on paperless trade, a sign that digitalisation is no longer a back-office IT project but a live item in trade diplomacy.

What's at Stake Economically

The economic case is straightforward: paper costs money and time. Digitised customs and documentation shrink dwell times at ports, cut transaction costs, and reduce the discretion-driven delays that disproportionately hurt smaller firms. That matters for India's MSMEs, whose export contribution has grown from roughly ₹3.95 lakh crore to ₹12.39 lakh crore in recent years, aided by platforms such as the Government e-Marketplace and ONDC, which together have onboarded well over a million sellers. Electronics exports touched a record $47 billion in 2025, helped along by production-linked incentives and smoother compliance. With India's total merchandise exports crossing $714 billion in the first ten months of FY 2025-26, the efficiency gains from digitalisation compound across an ever-larger base and help Indian firms plug into global value chains that increasingly expect real-time, verifiable documentation rather than faxed certificates.

India's Regional Moment

Beyond its own backyard, India has regional aspirations. Following deliberations at the Asia-Pacific Trade Facilitation Forum and Paperless Trade Week 2026 in Bangkok last May, international experts were of the opinion that most of the necessary digital and regulatory infrastructure for India to join the UN Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (CPTA – a treaty-based and intended to make paperless trade globally, not just internationally, interoperable) had been laid in place. Joining CPTA will also allow India to have a say on digital trade frameworks in the region and thus be a game-changer in integrating SAARC, ASEAN and global supply chains together while reducing costs of trade.

The Cybersecurity Imperative

The catch is that every portal, system and API that takes the place of a paper stamp has the potential to become an attack vector. The increase in overall ransomware activity reached more than 50% worldwide in 2025, and supply-chain attacks almost doubled. These types of attacks hit manufacturing, now a key part of India's export basket, hardest of all industrial ransomware attacks.

The notorious NotPetya attack in 2017, which effectively brought Maersk's worldwide shipping operations to a halt and shut down container movement at Mumbai's Jawaharlal Nehru Port, serves as a painful reminder that the compromise of even a single system can bring physical cargo movement within a network to a standstill.

For a trade ecosystem running on digital trust, the nature of risks include: ransomware that immobilizes ports and customs systems, supply-chain attacks that leverage a single trusted service provider to get access to dozens of downstream clients, data theft revealing shipment and financial data, impostor fraud to trick people into assuming the identity of a banks or exporter, modification of digital bills of lading, certificates of origin or other essential trade documents. When an original physical document is misplaced, it has no effect on anyone but its keeper. A corrupted digital file, on the other hand, can be stealthily changed and propagate across every system it touches instantly.

Building Trust by Design

It is a prerequisite to digital commerce to have these systems so they can even be trusted. This means a zero-trust architecture where all users and devices are authenticated rather than just assumed to be safe once you cross an organisational boundary; transport-level encryption; digital signatures & PKI for crypto-validating shipping documents; identity & access controls ensuring access to shipment data is limited to authorised persons; and anomaly detection to alert on intrusions before the problems can snowball. India's legal & policy framework for cybersecurity is indeed evolving, with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (and its rules finalised Jan 2025) obligating data fiduciaries & stipulating breaches must be reported within 6 hours to CERT-In; the National Cyber Security Reference Framework provides a foundational blueprint for digital public infrastructure, all under the stewardship of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre, which monitors systems vital for the functioning of commerce.

Conclusion

India's digitised trade infrastructure from ICEGATE and SWIFT to e-SANCHIT, BharatTradeNet, and faceless customs has effectively brought it into the running for the title of regional digital trade leader. However, the success of this transformation will ultimately be measured not by the number of digital platforms it deploys, but by the trust, security, and resilience of the ecosystem that supports them. As trade becomes increasingly digital, robust cybersecurity will remain the foundation for protecting commercial data, maintaining confidence among trading partners, and ensuring that India's digital trade ambitions translate into sustainable economic growth.

Sources

1. Cyble — Ransomware Attacks and Supply Chain Threats in 2025
2. Chambers and Partners — Cybersecurity 2026: India
3. Drishti IAS — Key Cyberthreats India is Facing and Key Measures India has Adopted to Strengthen Cybersecurity
4. Protium — MSME Export Contribution Has Grown from ₹3.95 Lakh Crore to ₹12.39 Lakh Crore
5. IBEF — India's E-commerce Boom: Growth, Trends & Future Prospects
6. News on Air — India Achieves Record Electronics Exports of $47 Billion in 2025

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Introduction:

The National Security Council Secretariat, in strategic partnership with the Rashtriya Raksha University, Gujarat, conducted a 12-day Bharat National Cyber Security Exercise in 2024 (from 18th November to 29th November). This exercise included landmark events such as a CISO (Chief Information Security Officers) Conclave and a Cyber Security Start-up exhibition, which were inaugurated on 27 November 2024. Other key features of the exercise include cyber defense training, live-fire simulations, and strategic decision-making simulations. The aim of the exercise was to equip senior government officials and personnel in critical sector organisations with skills to deal with cybersecurity issues. The event also consisted of speeches, panel discussions, and initiatives such as the release of the National Cyber Reference Framework (NCRF)- which provides a structured approach to cyber governance, and the launch of the National Cyber Range(NCR) 1.0., a cutting-edge facility for cyber security research training.

The Deputy National Security Advisor, Shri T.V. Ravichandran (IPS) reiterated, through his speech, the importance of the inclusion of technology in challenges with respect to cyber security and shaping India’s cyber strategy in a manner that is proactive. The CISOs of both government and private entities were encouraged to take up multidimensional efforts which included technological upkeep but also soft skills for awareness.

CyberPeace Outlook

The Bharat National Cybersecurity Exercise (Bharat NCX) 2024 underscores India’s commitment to a comprehensive and inclusive approach to strengthening its cybersecurity ecosystem. By fostering collaboration between startups, government bodies, and private organizations, the initiative facilitates dialogue among CISOs and promotes a unified strategy toward cyber resilience. Platforms like Bharat NCX encourage exploration in the Indian entrepreneurial space, enabling startups to innovate and contribute to critical domains like cybersecurity. Developments such as IIT Indore’s intelligent receivers (useful for both telecommunications and military operations) and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited’s plans to establish a dedicated Security Operations Centre (SOC) to counter cyber threats are prime examples of technological strides fostering national cyber resilience.

Cybersecurity cannot be understood in isolation: it is an integral aspect of national security, impacting the broader digital infrastructure supporting Digital India initiatives. The exercise emphasises skills training, creating a workforce adept in cyber hygiene, incident response, and resilience-building techniques. Such efforts bolster proficiency across sectors, aligning with the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat vision. By integrating cybersecurity into workplace technologies and fostering a culture of awareness, Bharat NCX 2024 is a platform that encourages innovation and is a testament to the government’s resolve to fortify India’s digital landscape against evolving threats. 

References

1. https://ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/cybercrime-fraud/bharat-cisos-conclave-cybersecurity-startup-exhibition-inaugurated-under-bharat-ncx-2024/115755679
2. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2078093
3. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/indore/iit-indore-unveils-groundbreaking-intelligent-receivers-for-enhanced-6g-and-military-communication-security/articleshow/115265902.cms
4. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/defence-system-to-be-set-up-to-protect-metro-rail-from-cyber-threats/article68841318.ece
5. https://rru.ac.in/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Brochure12-min.pdf

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