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By:

Sagari Gupta

24 March 2026 at 2:16:04 pm

SpaceX’s IPO and India’s Sovereignty

The record-breaking $1.75 trillion IPO underscores a new reality that nations which do not control critical digital infrastructure risk ceding part of their sovereignty. Last week, SpaceX listed on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, raising $75 billion at a staggering valuation of $1.75 trillion. That single offering surpassed Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record of $25.6 billion by a factor of three. India’s defence budget for FY 2025-26 was Rs. 6.81 lakh crore, approximately $78.57 billion, according to...

SpaceX’s IPO and India’s Sovereignty

The record-breaking $1.75 trillion IPO underscores a new reality that nations which do not control critical digital infrastructure risk ceding part of their sovereignty. Last week, SpaceX listed on Nasdaq under the ticker SPCX, raising $75 billion at a staggering valuation of $1.75 trillion. That single offering surpassed Saudi Aramco’s 2019 record of $25.6 billion by a factor of three. India’s defence budget for FY 2025-26 was Rs. 6.81 lakh crore, approximately $78.57 billion, according to the Union Budget. SpaceX raised the near-equivalent of that annual allocation in one day. The investors who participated were not buying into a rocket company. They were pricing control over satellite infrastructure, global internet access, launch capability, and an integrated AI platform at a level exceeding the GDP of most countries. Roughly 30 percent of the shares, worth approximately $22.5 billion, went to retail investors, three times the proportion typical of a US listing. India has no private entity in this category. What SpaceX actually controls Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet division, operated approximately 7,000 active satellites globally as of early 2026. It counts over nine million subscribers worldwide, and following a 2026 merger, SpaceX also owns xAI, the developer of the Grok AI system. A company that controls satellite connectivity, launch capacity, and a frontier AI model occupies a position no regulator has previously had to classify. It is not a telecom operator, not a defence contractor, and not a technology platform. It is all three at once, under common ownership. In June 2025, SpaceX received authorisation from India’s Department of Telecommunications, followed by a licence from IN-SPACe in July 2025. As of June 2026, Starlink’s commercial operations in India remain pending, with the company in active discussions with the Government of India on security clearances, a process slowed by concerns linked to Starlink terminal use in the Iran conflict. That delay is itself revealing. A foreign company’s service continuity in India depends on negotiations that India does not fully control. Satellite communications, launch systems, and AI-integrated data infrastructure are the functional equivalents of roads and electricity grids in a digital economy. States that built those grids in the twentieth century retained control over access, pricing, and service continuity. States that depend on foreign corporations for digital infrastructure in the twenty-first century do not. The dependence question is already live for India India’s digital public infrastructure, covering Aadhaar, UPI, and the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, processes billions of transactions monthly. Aadhaar covers nearly the entire adult population, and UPI carries the bulk of India’s retail digital payments. The system’s design is sound: public architecture, state-controlled data governance, open standards. The next connectivity layer is the problem. TRAI data shows rural internet penetration at 44.2 percent as of March 2024, with only 3.8 percent of rural households connected through high-speed fixed infrastructure. Approximately 630 million Indians remain offline, with primary barriers being awareness, affordability, and limited local-language content, according to the Kantar ICUBE 2024 survey. That gap will not close through terrestrial fibre rollout alone. Satellite broadband, through Starlink, Eutelsat OneWeb, or Amazon’s Project Kuiper, will carry a large share of that load over the next decade. None of these are Indian entities. Their pricing decisions, service continuity choices, and data routing practices sit outside Indian jurisdiction. A farmer in Chhattisgarh receiving crop advisory data through a satellite connection does not know that a pricing decision made in California affects whether that signal arrives tomorrow. She will notice only when it stops. Foreign private capital has built connectivity infrastructure in India before. Reliance Jio brought down mobile data costs after its 2016 launch, extending internet access to hundreds of millions of Indians who had not been able to afford it before. Jio’s rollout also created large-scale domestic employment in network maintenance, retail, and customer service, jobs that remain within India’s economy. Private investment in connectivity is not a threat to sovereignty. Structural Gap The difference with SpaceX is structural. Jio operates under Indian law, pays taxes in India, employs Indian engineers, and answers to Indian regulators when disputes arise. Its towers and fibre sit on Indian soil. Starlink’s constellation orbits at 550 kilometres, outside any single national jurisdiction. Under the Telecommunications Act 2023, existing Starlink operators in India continue under the legacy Unified Licence framework, with their licences remaining valid. But no Indian regulatory instrument contains a binding service continuity obligation for satellite operators. If Starlink suspends Indian operations, no domestic legal mechanism compels continuation or requires a managed transition for the users left without service. The $1.75 trillion valuation amplifies this structural gap. India’s external debt stood at $736.3 billion at end-March 2025, according to the Reserve Bank of India. SpaceX’s market valuation now exceeds India’s total external debt by a wide margin. A corporation at that scale does not face the same regulatory friction as a domestic operator. It does not need to negotiate from a position of dependence. India’s satellite communications framework, updated through the Indian Space Policy 2023 and the Telecommunications Act 2023, governs licensing and spectrum allocation in detail. It does not contain binding service continuity or exit-transition obligations for foreign satellite operators. That gap needs closing through explicit licence conditions before Starlink and its competitors reach commercial scale in India. India’s Semiconductor Mission has made genuine progress. Pilot production started in three plants in 2025, and the government confirmed that four plants commenced commercial production in 2026. Kaynes Semicon’s OSAT unit in Sanand reached commercial production in March 2026. India also inaugurated its first 3-nanometer chip design centres in Noida and Bengaluru in 2025, a step toward design capability even as fabrication capacity remains limited. These are real milestones, not announcements. They do not yet constitute a domestic supply chain for the advanced chips needed for satellite infrastructure, AI systems, or next-generation communications hardware. India’s domestic semiconductor market was approximately $45-50 billion in 2024-25, according to industry estimates cited by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Closing the gap between consumption and domestic production is a decade-long task requiring sustained capital commitment. India’s competition framework does not treat foreign satellite infrastructure concentration as a market power question. The Competition Commission of India has a clear mandate over domestic pricing and merger activity. It has no instrument to act when a foreign entity’s control over orbital infrastructure creates de facto monopoly conditions for remote connectivity within India. That regulatory gap needs explicit legislative attention before dependence deepens further. Market Signals SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion valuation is not a data point about one company. It is a market signal about what global capital considers most valuable in 2026: not oil fields or shipping lanes, but control over the systems through which economies communicate, compute, and transact. India entered the hydrocarbon era as a net importer and spent decades building the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and domestic refining capacity to reduce that dependence. The programme continues to expand today, a reminder that infrastructure sovereignty is an ongoing commitment. The response was slow and expensive. It was also the right call. The digital infrastructure era has well and truly arrived. India is already a net importer of the connectivity and computing systems that will define the next phase of its economic growth. The SpaceX IPO makes the scale of that dependence visible in a single number. And policymakers do not have decades to respond this time. (The writer is an independent public policy researcher. Views personal.)

Why a Caste Census Is Crucial for Maratha Reservation?

Caste-based Maratha reservation exposes Maharashtra’s evolving political dynamics, resurfacing as both a legal and an electoral strategy.

Ideally, elections in a democracy should focus on development, education, agriculture, and good governance. However, in Maharashtra—especially in rural areas—local polls are often driven by caste politics rather than real developmental issues. This undermines democratic progress, social harmony, and merit-based leadership.


The leap year of 2024 was marked by major elections in Maharashtra, with both Lok Sabha and Assembly polls dominated by the volatile demand for Maratha reservations. With local body elections ahead, caste-based reservation demands are expected to intensify further.


Reservation politics have major social implications, and the Maratha quota demand is no exception in Maharashtra. For decades, it has fuelled political debates and mass movements. In 2024, ahead of elections, the State Government granted Marathas—around a third of them—a 10 per cent reservation in education and jobs. The law is now under Constitutional Court review.


Despite these efforts, Maratha leader Manoj Jarange has given the government a deadline of 6 June 2025 to fulfil key demands—chiefly, the blanket issuance of Kunbi certificates to Marathas for inclusion in the OBC category. Failing this, he has threatened an indefinite hunger strike in Mumbai starting August 2025. This development, along with potential counter-demands from OBC groups, could significantly impact the state’s political climate ahead of the upcoming local body elections.


The legal position

The legal battle over the Maratha reservation has been a rollercoaster with several twists. In 2019, the Bombay High Court upheld the SEBC Act, 2018, granting Maratha reservation. However, in 2021, the Supreme Court struck it down, ruling that it breached the 50% cap on reservations. In 2024, the Shinde-led government passed a new SEBC law granting a 10% quota to Marathas, but this too is currently under High Court scrutiny.


With local body elections approaching, the issue is expected to resurface. Notably, many Marathas still lack access to education and employment. It is therefore essential for the state government to gather the necessary data to establish the community’s social and economic backwardness, enabling reservation within the constitutional framework.


The Kunbi tag?

Kunbis, an agricultural community mainly in Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, and parts of Gujarat, are concentrated in Marathwada and Vidarbha. Though distinct, they are often seen as a subgroup of Marathas—while all Kunbis may be Marathas, not all Marathas are Kunbis.


The Kunbi’s identity dates back to Maharashtra’s formation. In 1979, the Second Backward Classes Commission recognised Marathas as a forward caste. A request to include Marathas, with Kunbis, on the Central Backward List was rejected after detailed hearings, as they weren’t deemed socially backward.


Class within a class

For any community to be recognised as a backward class, it must be socially and educationally disadvantaged. The Maratha community, particularly in western Maharashtra, has long held influence in politics, administration, sugar cooperatives, and educational institutions. Despite these advantages, many within the community claim to lack access to education and employment.


Conversely, Kunbis from Marathwada and Vidarbha are recognised as socially and educationally backward and are already included in the OBC list. This raises a key question: can all Marathas holding Kunbi certificates be classified as OBC, even if they enjoy a sound socio-economic and educational status?


Under Article 16(4) of the Indian Constitution, the State may make provisions for communities inadequately represented in public services. However, given the strong presence of Marathas in state services, granting blanket OBC status to all Marathas with Kunbi certificates would challenge the constitutional principle of genuine social and educational backwardness.


Is caste alone enough?

Article 15(4) of the Indian Constitution empowers the state to make special provisions for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes. However, current demands for the Maratha reservation often hinge on economic grounds. A plain reading of Articles 15(4) and 16 shows no mention of economic backwardness as a criterion. To include 'economically backward' groups, a constitutional amendment would be required, raising complex debates on the Constitution’s basic structure.


The Supreme Court’s landmark Indira Sawhney judgement clarified that caste, not solely economic status, defines backwardness under Article 16(4). Economic criteria alone cannot justify a reservation. This distinction between 'caste' and 'class' risks reinforcing entrenched caste identities, particularly in rural Maharashtra, where caste still shapes access to education and employment.


Many landless or marginal Maratha farmers in Marathwada and Vidarbha are socially and educationally backward. The state should prioritise its SEBC inclusion, with or without Kunbi certificates, based on verifiable data.


Maratha reservation is as political as it is legal, often resurfacing during elections to sway voters rather than drive real progress. Without solid data, lasting reform is unlikely. A caste-based census in Maharashtra is vital to assess true backwardness and shape a fair policy.


(The writer is a lawyer practicing in Mumbai. View personal.)

 
 
 

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