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By:

Sagari Gupta

24 March 2026 at 7:46:04 pm

India’s Digital Footprint Is No Longer a Choice

India’s digital economy has made personal data unavoidable. The harder task is ensuring that citizens retain meaningful control over the trails they leave behind. In August this year, the Unified Payments Interface processed about 24.5 billion transactions worth nearly Rs. 29.8 lakh crore, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India. Aadhaar’s authentication system recorded more than 17,759 crore transactions in FY2025-26, according to UIDAI’s dashboard. Behind these...

India’s Digital Footprint Is No Longer a Choice

India’s digital economy has made personal data unavoidable. The harder task is ensuring that citizens retain meaningful control over the trails they leave behind. In August this year, the Unified Payments Interface processed about 24.5 billion transactions worth nearly Rs. 29.8 lakh crore, according to data from the National Payments Corporation of India. Aadhaar’s authentication system recorded more than 17,759 crore transactions in FY2025-26, according to UIDAI’s dashboard. Behind these numbers sits a question Indian policy has yet to answer clearly: what happens to the data these systems generate, and who controls it? The most pressing privacy question in India today is not what people choose to post online. It is what they are required to leave behind to take part in everyday life. A UPI payment leaves a transaction trail. A loan application generates financial records. A food-delivery order records your address and buying habits. A cab ride shows where you work and when you travel. A social-media post adds something more personal: what you think, like, fear or believe. Individually, these fragments look harmless. Together, they can describe a remarkably detailed version of a person’s life. Orwellian Society This is not digital technology invading a society that was once offline. It is a society in which digital systems have become part of ordinary economic life. For a software professional, deleting social media may be an inconvenience. For a domestic worker paid through a bank account, a student applying for a scholarship or a pensioner completing an identity check, opting out is not a workable choice. Consider an ordinary Saturday. You check the weather, search for a medicine, order groceries, pay through UPI, book a cab and make an online purchase. No single action tells a complete story. Together, they reveal your location, spending patterns, household composition, health concerns and daily routine. Artificial intelligence changes what this data means, because machine systems are increasingly good at connecting fragments that once sat in separate databases. The concern is not that an AI system knows what you searched for once. It is that automated systems can identify patterns across millions of ordinary interactions that, taken individually, meant little. The problem is also one of asymmetry. The individual usually sees only the service being offered; the organisation sees the accumulated information behind it. A single transaction may be trivial, but millions of such transactions can become commercially or administratively valuable when linked and analysed. That makes data different from many other commodities. Once information has been copied, combined or used to build a profile, the original individual may have little visibility into its subsequent journey. The question is therefore not simply who collected the data, but who can combine it, infer from it and act upon those inferences. The public debate on AI scraping is often too simple. Not every online interaction is pulled into an AI model, and not every company holds every piece of a person’s digital life. Collection depends on the platform, its policies, its technical architecture and the applicable law. But the gap is real: the capacity to analyse vast volumes of information is growing faster than most people’s understanding of where their information goes. A PwC India survey found that 56 percent of consumers did not know their rights over personal data, while 70 percent said privacy policies were difficult to understand. When a person does not understand what they are agreeing to, consent risks becoming a formality rather than a genuine choice. There is also a distinction between privacy and secrecy. A person may have nothing embarrassing to hide and still reasonably object to a detailed record of their movements, purchases and associations being assembled without meaningful control. Privacy is less about having something to conceal than about retaining a degree of agency over one’s own life. A Right on Paper The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 gives individuals rights to correct and erase personal data, subject to the conditions and exceptions set out in the law. The government notified the Digital Personal Data Protection Rules in November 2025, with provisions coming into force in phases. On paper, this changes the relationship between citizens and the organisations that hold their data. In practice, most people do not think in terms of “Data Principal” or “Data Fiduciary” when an app asks for access to their information. They think about whether the app will still work if they say no. That is the test that decides whether a data-protection law functions on the ground. A small retailer selling online may not fully understand the compliance requirements. An elderly customer faces a long privacy notice before completing a routine transaction. A young user accepts an app’s terms because refusing means losing access to a service that friends or employers already use. A right that exists on paper does not guarantee a person’s ability to exercise it. The ability to protect personal data is not distributed evenly. A high-income professional can pay for privacy-focused software, encrypted communication and legal advice. Someone on a smaller income uses whichever free application is available. The same divide applies to time. A person who understands technology can adjust permissions and request deletion. A person working two jobs may accept an app’s terms because reading a 30-page privacy notice at 11 p.m. is hardly realistic. This produces an uneven outcome. The people with the strongest ability to protect their data are often the same people with the clearest sense of what is being collected. Those with fewer resources tend to generate more data while having less power to question how it is used. This is why treating “going offline” as the solution has limited use in India. Cash does not cover every digital transaction. A basic phone does not replace every digital service. Deleting a social-media account does not erase bank or government records. Refusing every digital platform carries its own economic cost, particularly for people who depend on digital payments for income. The realistic goal is not disappearance. It is control. India’s digital economy should not be measured only by payment volumes or platform reach. It should also be measured by whether people understand the exchange taking place underneath that convenience. Regulators should track whether a person can find out what a service holds about them, correct inaccurate information, delete data that is no longer necessary and withdraw consent without clicking through several layers of settings. The sharper test is what happens when data collected for one purpose becomes useful for another. Rising Stakes The stakes will rise as India’s digital infrastructure becomes more deeply embedded in public services, finance and commerce. The country has built impressive systems for moving money and verifying identity; the next challenge is to build equally credible systems for limiting what can be inferred from the information those systems generate. The next phase of India’s privacy debate should move past the idea of digital disappearance, because most people have no practical way to leave the systems through which they earn, pay, borrow, travel, study and access public services. The more useful task is making those systems answerable to the people whose lives they record. The measure of digital freedom is not whether a citizen leaves no trace. It is whether they have a say over where that trace leads. (The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

How to Retire Without Actually Retiring

Writer: Waleed Hussain
Waleed Hussain
May 18
4 min read

As the IPL 2026 curtains fall—presumably with Mumbai Indians once again discovering that talent and chaos are not the same thing—cricket’s most elegant lounger, Rohit Sharma, stands at the crossroads. At 39 (yes, the man who looks like he was born wearing sunglasses and a half-smile is now closer to 40 than to his debut), the Hitman faces a future that is part nostalgia tour, part fitness miracle, and entirely unpredictable. One thing is certain: retirement for Rohit will be less of a door closing and more of a polite suggestion that he might want to consider the exit, while he keeps knocking centuries just to troll everyone.


Let’s be honest. Rohit has already done the dignified retirements. Tests? Gone in 2025 after a career that included more elegant drives than a luxury car showroom. T20Is? Bid adieu after captaining India to the 2024 World Cup glory, proving once and for all that you can win tournaments by looking mildly bored while smashing sixes. Now only ODIs remain, with the 2027 World Cup in South Africa gleaming like a carrot on a very long stick. The man lost 10-11 kilos, transformed into the “fittest, meanest” version of himself, and is apparently treating every net session like it’s personal revenge against gravity.


Post-IPL 2026, expect the great Indian cricket soap opera to hit peak absurdity. Rumors of full IPL retirement swirl like Virat Kohli’s hair during a chase—persistent, dramatic, and probably exaggerated. Some whispers say he’ll hang up the Mumbai Indians jersey after this season. Others insist he’ll keep going because, well, what else is he supposed to do? Take up gardening? The man once scored 264 in an ODI; his retirement plan cannot involve pruning roses.


Satirically speaking, Rohit’s future looks suspiciously like his batting: elegant procrastination followed by sudden violence. Picture the post-IPL press conference. “I will retire when I feel I’m not contributing,” he’ll say with that trademark calm, while secretly calculating how many more IPL paychecks he can extract before selectors start dropping passive-aggressive hints. Meanwhile, commentators will wax poetic: “The Hitman still has the shots!” Yes, and the body still has the hamstrings that occasionally file for divorce mid-match.


In the immediate future, Rohit will almost certainly chase the 2027 ODI World Cup. India loves a veteran on a mission. He’ll play domestic cricket for Mumbai, turn up fitter than players half his age, and drop casual double centuries that make younger batsmen question their life choices. BCCI will keep him on a short leash—perform or perish—but given his record (most sixes in international cricket, multiple World Cup contributions, five IPL titles as MI captain), they’ll probably let him perish around 2028.


Beyond cricket? The hints are already there. A TV debut teaser went viral amid IPL 2026. Rohit on television—imagine the chaos. “Good evening, I’m Rohit Sharma, and today we’ll discuss why your favorite team choked, but elegantly.” He could be the next great pundit, delivering verdicts with the same nonchalance he shows while pulling short balls for six. Or perhaps coaching? Though mentoring young guns might involve him demonstrating the “pull shot” and then napping while they try (and fail) to replicate it.


Humorously, one can envision Rohit’s retirement tour de force. Franchise cricket in T20 leagues worldwide, where he’ll open the batting, score fifties, and remind everyone that “Hitman” isn’t just a nickname—it’s a lifestyle. Sponsors will queue up: sunglasses brands, shampoo (that hair doesn’t quit), and perhaps a line of relaxed-fit jerseys for those who bat like poetry but train like it’s optional.


Critics will, of course, demand he retire “with dignity” the moment he has one bad series. Indian cricket discourse is brutal—half the country thinks he should have retired yesterday, the other half wants him captaining till 45. Rohit, being Rohit, will probably ignore both and post a serene Instagram story of him chilling with family while secretly plotting his next ton.


In the grand satire of Indian sport, Rohit Sharma represents the ultimate middle-aged triumph: still relevant, still dangerous, and utterly unbothered by the calendar. He has already achieved more than most could dream—World Cups, IPL dominance, records galore. The future holds commentary gigs, possible mentoring roles, brand endorsements, and the occasional irresistible comeback when someone doubts him. So what does the future hold? More Rohit, until it doesn’t. He’ll retire on his terms, probably after one final flourish that leaves fans screaming “one more season!” And even then, don’t be surprised if he pops up in a veteran’s match, hitting sixes while complaining about his back. The Hitman doesn’t fade away; he just adjusts the timing and finds the gap again.


As IPL 2026 ends and another chapter beckons, one can only salute the man who made elegance look effortless and longevity look like a casual flex. Rohit Sharma’s post-2026 journey won’t be retirement—it’ll be an extended victory lap with occasional sprints. And cricket, for all its obsession with youth, will be better for it. After all, in a world of influencers and algorithms, we still need Hitmen who can actually hit.

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