India plans to seek public and industry views on AI rules in the coming weeks, a step that could shape whether the country moves beyond its current governance framework.
At the NDTV World Summit in New Delhi on Friday, Oct. 23, Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said AI's risks now warrant a law and additional regulation. He said the paper would come in the coming weeks but provided no calendar date.
The consultation is expected to gather views from citizens, industry and other stakeholders. Vaishnaw named banking, manufacturing, services, finance and insurance as sectors adopting AI rapidly. He did not set out draft obligations for those sectors.
He also urged countries with AI ecosystems ranked among the world's top three or four to establish shared principles for evaluating the technology. Vaishnaw said human oversight should extend across AI systems and how they are used.
India's previous policy took a different position on a broad law. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology released its AI Governance Guidelines on Nov. 5, 2025. The document groups its recommendations within six governance areas and sets out seven principles for managing AI.
In a Dec. 19, 2025, statement to the Rajya Sabha, the government said its framework could rely on laws already in force and regulators overseeing individual industries. It said a single law spanning sectors was not needed at that stage.
The government described the guidelines as risk-based and pointed to the Information Technology Act and data-protection laws as measures that could address many AI-related risks. It also named potential harms, including bias, discrimination, unfair results, exclusion and limited transparency.
Vaishnaw’s remarks mark a change in the government’s stated position, though he did not say what prompted it. The next stated step is publication of the consultation paper in the coming weeks; its text will show what approach the government proposes for comment.
