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By:

Anil D. Salve

21 March 2026 at 8:11:09 pm

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically...

A Drought of Wisdom in an Ocean of Information

We live in an age where information is everywhere. With a single click, we can access news from across the world, thousands of opinions, countless videos and endless claims. Knowledge has never been so accessible. Yet, in this overwhelming flow of information, something increasingly scarce is discernment-the ability to distinguish what deserves our belief from what deserves our doubt. Information and knowledge are not the same. Reading, watching or hearing something does not automatically make it true. We need the ability to verify information, understand its context, recognise its purpose and only then form an opinion. In the digital age, this ability has become one of the most important forms of wisdom. Social media has transformed the way information travels. WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms have made communication faster, wider and more accessible. But the same speed that connects society can also overwhelm it. Information often reaches us before facts do. A headline is read before the full story. A short video is watched without knowing what happened before or after it. A photograph is circulated without its original context. A message arrives with the familiar words, “Forwarded as received,” and within minutes it may reach thousands of people. By the time the truth catches up, the rumour may already have done its work. The problem becomes even more serious when misinformation is deliberately created and circulated. Rumours may be planted not merely to mislead individuals but to divert public attention from an important issue, create suspicion, damage someone's reputation or push society towards a particular narrative. A distraction does not always need to be completely false. Sometimes a small piece of truth is mixed with exaggeration, selective facts or emotional language. The result can be more powerful than an outright lie because it appears believable. This is how narratives are manufactured. Social media platforms can become powerful tools in this process. A repeated claim begins to look familiar, and familiarity is often mistaken for truth. A provocative post attracts attention. Thousands of reactions create the impression that “everyone” believes it. One emotional video triggers another, comments intensify the mood, and before facts have an opportunity to speak, public sentiment may have already shifted. This is where mob psychology enters the picture. A society can move from calm to anger, suspicion to trust, or optimism to fear with surprising speed. People who would ordinarily think carefully may react differently when they see thousands of others expressing outrage, fear or hostility. The individual begins to follow the crowd, and the crowd begins to reinforce the individual. The danger is not limited to negative emotions. The same mechanism can also be used positively-to mobilise people for social causes, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, public awareness and community action. Technology itself is neither wise nor foolish. Its impact depends on how information is created, amplified and consumed. The greatest danger, therefore, is not that we have too much information. It is that we may lose the habit of thinking while consuming it. We are increasingly becoming consumers of information rather than creators of thought. Everyone has access to information today, but access does not necessarily mean understanding. The boundaries between a rumour and a report, an opinion and a fact, popularity and truth are becoming increasingly blurred. A post does not become true because thousands of people have liked it. A video does not become evidence merely because it has gone viral. An opinion does not become a fact because it is expressed confidently. An idea does not become correct simply because it confirms what we already believe. This last point deserves particular attention. We often accept information not because it is accurate, but because it is comfortable. We are naturally attracted to information that confirms our existing beliefs and suspicious of information that challenges them. In the digital world, this tendency can be amplified by algorithms that repeatedly expose us to content similar to what we have already watched, liked or shared. Gradually, we may find ourselves living inside an information bubble where we hear many voices-but mostly voices that agree with us. That is not diversity of information. It is an illusion of certainty. Discernment does not mean doubting everything. It means thinking before believing. It means asking simple but powerful questions: Who is saying this? What is the evidence? What is the context? What may be missing? Who benefits if I believe it? And have I heard the other side? These questions may take only a few seconds, but they can prevent hours, days or even years of misunderstanding. This responsibility is particularly important for the younger generation. Children today are growing up in an environment of unprecedented information exposure. They can encounter more information in a few hours than earlier generations might have encountered in weeks. Therefore, education cannot merely teach students how to collect, remember and reproduce information. It must teach them how to question, verify, analyse and interpret it. A student who can write the correct answer in an examination may be academically successful. But a student who knows how to ask the right question is better prepared for life. The classroom of the future must therefore produce not merely informed students, but thinking citizens. They must learn that forwarding a message is also a form of responsibility. Sharing a post is not an innocent act when it can affect someone's reputation, create public fear or influence social behaviour. The challenge becomes even greater in the age of Artificial Intelligence. AI can generate information, images, audio and video with extraordinary speed and sophistication. The distinction between what is real and what merely appears real may become increasingly difficult. In such a world, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. Technology can produce an answer in seconds. It cannot automatically tell us whether that answer deserves our trust. Some answers require experience. Some require context. Many require the ability to think independently. We have more information, more technology and more connectivity than any previous generation. Yet our real challenge is to preserve something technology cannot manufacture for us: the capacity to think for ourselves. The ocean of information will only become larger. The question will no longer be, “How much information do we have?” The more important questions will be: What should we accept? What should we question? What should we verify? And what should we reject? No technology can completely answer these questions for us. No number of likes can substitute for evidence. No viral trend can replace judgment. No majority can turn misinformation into truth. That responsibility belongs to human beings. Information can tell us what happened. Discernment helps us understand what it means, why it happened, what may be missing from the story and how we should respond. Perhaps, therefore, the greatest educational challenge of our time is not to teach people how to find more information. They already know how to do that. The greater challenge is to teach them how to pause-to pause before believing, to pause before reacting, to pause before forwarding and to pause before joining the crowd. Because sometimes the most intelligent response to information is not an immediate reaction, but a moment of reflection. The ocean is already around us. It is growing deeper every day. What we need now is not more information to swim through it-but the wisdom to know which direction to take. (The writer is the Principal of Podar International School, Ausa, Latur. Views personal.)

AI Vulnerabilities and Digital Payment

Writer: Sagari Gupta
Sagari Gupta
Apr 28
4 min read

India’s rapid shift toward a digitally mediated financial system has delivered gains in efficiency, inclusion, and transaction speed. At the centre of this transformation is the Unified Payments Interface, now processing billions of transactions each month and functioning as the backbone of retail payments. This architecture improves access and reduces friction, but it also concentrates operational dependence within a tightly connected system where vulnerabilities can scale quickly.


Recent advances in AI-based code analysis systems, including autonomous vulnerability detection tools under development in frontier AI firms such as Anthropic, have expanded concerns about cybersecurity exposure in critical infrastructure. These systems are framed as defensive tools for identifying software weaknesses, but their capability profile raises dual-use concerns. The ability to map vulnerabilities across large codebases at scale shifts cyber risk from isolated breaches toward systemic exposure across interconnected financial networks.


India’s payment infrastructure depends on layered integration between banks, payment providers, and the central switching system operated by the National Payments Corporation of India. This structure enables scale and near real-time settlement across financial actors. Its efficiency is linked to interdependence, where disruption in one layer can propagate quickly across others, especially when legacy systems are not uniformly hardened.


Unknown Vulnerabilities

The concern is not only system outages but also the possibility of AI systems identifying previously unknown vulnerabilities across banking software and API layers. In such cases, the challenge moves from detection to containment of adaptive exploit patterns that evolve faster than conventional response systems. Recovery timelines may extend if attacks target logic-level weaknesses rather than surface infrastructure.


From a macroeconomic perspective, the Reserve Bank of India focuses on inflation control, liquidity management, and financial stability. Digital payment systems influence transaction velocity and play an indirect role in monetary transmission. While a major disruption would not lead to immediate monetary failure, it could introduce short-term frictions in liquidity flows.


In a stress scenario, economic agents may temporarily shift toward cash holdings, altering currency circulation patterns. Such behavioural adjustments complicate liquidity forecasting and short-term policy calibration. They may also distort high-frequency economic indicators that central banks rely on for real-time assessment.


India’s banking system exhibits uneven cybersecurity capacity across institutions. Large private banks and globally integrated financial institutions invest significantly in threat intelligence, continuous testing, and cyber defence systems. In contrast, several public sector and smaller banks operate with legacy systems and constrained cybersecurity budgets. This creates asymmetric exposure to cyber risk. If advanced AI-based vulnerability tools become unevenly accessible, the gap in defensive capacity may widen. Cybersecurity risk then becomes linked not only to system design but also to institutional capability. From a systemic standpoint, financial stability depends on the resilience of weaker institutions as much as on stronger ones. This raises a policy question about whether cybersecurity should remain market-driven or be treated partly as shared infrastructure.


India’s approach to AI governance is evolving through initiatives such as the India AI Impact Summit and related policy frameworks. These efforts recognise AI as a strategic domain intersecting with economic policy, innovation, and security considerations. However, current regulation remains focused on data protection, algorithmic transparency, and consumer-facing applications.


The emergence of autonomous systems capable of interacting with software infrastructure suggests a need for expanded regulatory scope. One policy direction under consideration globally is structured auditing of high-capability AI systems. This involves evaluating whether such systems can be misused to identify or exploit vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, including financial networks. The objective is to establish baseline safety standards for systems with systemic risk potential. Such frameworks would require coordination between financial regulators, cybersecurity agencies, and technical oversight bodies. They would also need to remain adaptive as AI capabilities evolve.


From a development economics perspective, financial systems shape individual capability. The framework associated with Amartya Sen highlights that economic security depends on reliable access to systems that enable participation in economic life. In a digital financial environment, cybersecurity becomes a condition for maintaining that access.


If individuals are unable to use payment systems, access savings, or rely on digital transactions due to disruptions, their economic functioning is constrained. Cybersecurity therefore becomes a welfare concern, not just a technical issue.


Policy Challenge

The policy challenge is to align the growth of AI capability with proportional safeguards in financial infrastructure. This requires strengthening institutional resilience through continuous stress testing, including scenarios that account for AI-driven threats. It also requires reducing asymmetry in cybersecurity capacity by improving access to defensive tools across institutions.


Governance frameworks must incorporate security auditing as a standard requirement for advanced AI systems, particularly those with code-level or autonomous capabilities. This ensures that technological progress is accompanied by appropriate safeguards.


India’s digital public infrastructure remains among the most advanced large-scale payment systems globally. Preserving its stability requires anticipating both conventional cyber threats and emerging risks associated with increasingly autonomous software systems. The objective is not to slow digital transformation, but to ensure that its foundations remain secure under evolving technological conditions.


International coordination is also relevant as financial systems become interconnected across jurisdictions. Cyber incidents in one system can transmit through correspondent banking relationships and shared infrastructure providers. Harmonised cybersecurity standards for systemically important institutions can improve resilience.


Domestic policy can further strengthen stability through redundancy in payment routing, improved system segmentation, and stronger incident response protocols. Clear communication during disruptions is equally important to maintain public trust and prevent behavioural shocks that amplify technical failures. Over time, resilience in digital finance will depend on combining technical safeguards with institutional coordination and regulatory clarity. This will allow continued innovation in financial technology while maintaining stability in core economic functions.


India’s experience shows that digital finance can scale rapidly when supported by strong infrastructure and governance. The next phase requires integrating cybersecurity into the core design of financial systems rather than treating it as an external layer. This shift is essential to ensure that technological progress strengthens the foundations of economic security.


(The author is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

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