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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.)

Inside Cricket’s Billion-Dollar Carnival

Writer: Amey Chitale
Amey Chitale
Apr 22
5 min read

The IPL has turned a summer sport into a global cash machine by reshaping talent and testing the limits of cricket’s soul.

Each summer, India stages one of the world’s most dazzling sporting spectacles, the Indian Premier League (IPL). Once, the country’s tropical heat discouraged outdoor tournaments, but the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) transformed this perception by hosting evening T20 matches under floodlights, turning scorching temperatures into an electrifying advantage. For decades, cricket was limited to contests between nations or domestic leagues, but the IPL revolutionized the sport with its private franchise model, blending elite cricket with glamour, spectacle and a carnival-like atmosphere that enthrals audiences worldwide.


First introduced by Zee Group through the Indian Cricket League, the IPL was initially seen as a challenge to the BCCI’s authority and declared illegal, prompting the board to launch its own franchise system. Harnessing the rising popularity of Twenty20 cricket and fusing it with city loyalties and celebrity glamour, the BCCI reshaped how the sport was consumed. The inaugural 2008 auction raised US$723.59 million for eight franchises, nearly 80 percent above reserve prices, revealing immense demand for cricket entertainment. Designed as an ‘annual gala’ inspired by the English Premier League and the Super Bowl, the IPL marked the most dramatic transformation in world cricket since the Packer Circus of the 1980s.


Asset-Light Model

IPL franchise model operates as an asset-light, revenue-guaranteed structure, shielding teams from the high operating costs typical of global leagues. Each franchise functions as an independent business owned by corporates, individuals, or private equity firms, paying the BCCI 20 percent of annual revenue for team rights and access to the central pool. Unlike traditional accounting, where human resources are treated as expenses, franchise owners classify players as intangible assets. Acquired through auctions, player costs are amortized over contract terms, reinforcing financial efficiency. IPL cricketers are not employees of the BCCI or franchises but independent professionals, a distinction with major tax implications under the Indian Income Tax Act. For Indian players, earnings are taxed as “Income from Business or Profession,” allowing deductions for expenses like agent commissions, fitness gear, and nutrition support.


IPL’s financial strength rests on a dual-pool revenue system, with the BCCI managing the central pool and franchises building local streams, ensuring stability even for lower-performing teams. Central revenue sharing underpins profitability, as media rights and title sponsorships are pooled and split, 45 percent equally among franchises and 5 percent based on rankings. By 2025, media rights contribute nearly 75 percent of team revenues, up from 48 percent in 2017. Local revenues include sponsorships from jersey and helmet placements, ticket sales, matchday income, merchandising, and diversification into academies, junior leagues, and overseas T20 ventures. Together, these streams create a resilient, scalable business model.


Chief Beneficiary

BCCI serves as both regulator and chief beneficiary of the IPL’s commercial success, retaining about 50 percent of the central revenue pool to fund domestic cricket, infrastructure, and national teams. It also levies a 20 percent franchise fee on each team’s revenue, creating a steady stream independent of matchday results. The board’s financials have risen dramatically from a surplus of just Rs. 14.86 crore in 2008 to Rs. 6,700 crore (US$761 million) in 2023–24, allowing it to remain autonomous without government grants while contributing substantially to government revenue. Media rights remain the engine of this growth. The inaugural ten-year cycle (2008–2017) was sold for Rs. 8,200 crore, while the 2023–2027 cycle fetched Rs. 48,390 crore (US$6.2 billion), translating to roughly US$13.4 million per match.


Hosting an IPL match delivers a concentrated economic boost to the host city, with the “IPL Multiplier” rippling across allied sectors. Tourism and hotels see the sharpest surge, with occupancy in the host cities often exceeding 90% and sometimes hitting full capacity, driving room rates up by 20 percent. An IIM Bangalore study found the IPL supports over 98,000 seasonal jobs across hospitality, logistics, event management, and ancillary services. Local businesses, from street vendors to taxi drivers benefit from the influx of fans, while food delivery platforms report 40–50 percent spikes in orders during matches. The league’s recurring nature has also spurred stadium upgrades, from floodlights to drainage and spectator facilities, enhancing both IPL and domestic cricket year-round.


The Indian government is also one of the biggest beneficiaries of the IPL’s financial activity through extensive taxation. Admission tickets are classified as “Luxury Premium Services” and are taxed at 40 percent GST, meaning every ₹500 ticket contributes about ₹142 to state and central coffers. In FY 2023–24 alone, the BCCI paid Rs. 2,038.55 crore in gross GST. Direct taxes add further weight, with approximately Rs. 100 crore collected in TDS from players. Corporate taxes of 25–30 percent levied on broadcasters, sponsors, and franchises further add to the kitty.  The BCCI’s tax-exempt status under Section 11 remains contested, as the IT department has increasingly disallowed exemptions for IPL-related income leading to recoveries. Together, these streams highlight how the IPL serves as a significant revenue engine for the Indian government.


IPL has democratized cricket in India, giving players from regions like Kashmir and the Northeast a platform for national recognition. Exposure to international stars and elite coaches has accelerated both technical and psychological growth, with young bowlers confidently executing Yorkers under pressure and batsmen pushing strike rates beyond 250. High-pressure moments such as Super Overs have further instilled the mental toughness needed for international competition. Financially, the league offers a transformative alternative to the domestic circuit, where an uncapped player can earn more in a single season than in a decade of Ranji Trophy cricket. This security enables athletes to focus fully on their craft, legitimizing cricket as a professional career path for thousands of young Indians.


Digital Reach

Though younger than the American ‘Big Four’ or European football leagues, the IPL competes strongly in monetization and digital reach. Its annual media rights revenue of US$1.5–2 billion trails the NFL’s US$19.1 billion and the NBA’s US$10.6 billion, yet the league is far more efficient, generating high value from just 74–84 matches. With per-match media rights averaging US$12–16.8 million, the IPL ranks second globally behind the NFL (US$36.8 million) and ahead of the EPL, NBA, and MLB. On the digital front, the NBA leads with 212 million followers, but the IPL’s footprint is expanding rapidly. The 2025 season achieved record-breaking reach of 19 billion viewers - 537 million on TV and 652 million on digital—alongside 840 billion minutes of watch time. The final alone drew 169 million TV viewers and a peak digital concurrency of 55 million, cementing the IPL as one of the world’s most-watched sporting events.


Global private equity giants like RedBird Capital, Blackstone, and CVC Capital Partners have propelled the IPL into an institutional era, drawn by its strong fundamentals and steady cash flows. Meanwhile, the Women’s Premier League (WPL) has emerged as a growth frontier, with sponsorships tripling in three years, thus cementing the IPL’s status as a global sports business powerhouse.


Despite its commercial success, the IPL faces systemic risks to cricket’s long-term health. Integrity remains fragile, with scandals like the 2013 spot-fixing case and ongoing illegal betting testing the BCCI’s Anti-Corruption Unit. Player burnout is rising as congested schedules strain bodies and minds; a 2025 study found nearly half of inter-university cricketers moderately burned out, with many specializing in T20 at the expense of Test skills. The focus on power-hitting has further eroded traditional techniques, favouring strike rates over defensive stability. Thus, while the IPL is praised for economic impact, it is equally criticized for commercialism, technical decline and integrity risks.


To protect the game’s essence, the BCCI and franchises must institutionalize player care, prioritizing mental health and skill preservation, so commercial ambitions do not erode cricket’s technical foundations or long-term vitality.


(The writer is a Chartered Accountant with a leading company in Mumbai. Views personal.)


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