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How Concentration Kills Innovation: A Round Table on Investing and Innovating in the Age of Big Tech

Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri — 2025-04-29T16:27:18Z

We are at the cusp of pivotal technological transformation – driven by rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence, computing, robotics, biotechnology, and digital infrastructure, including the next generation of communication technologies. India aspires to be one of the leaders in this technological age, with ambitions of achieving a US$1 trillion digital economy in the near future, and domestic startups are anticipated to be a major driving force behind achieving this milestone and as such have been instrumental in ushering investments from state and market actors, alike.

At the same time, AI continues to ride a wave of popularity fuelled by a surge in corporate investment, an increase in M&A activity, and aggressive hiring strategy. Over the past three years, AI has emerged as the most hyped popular ‘innovation’ of our times, driven largely by the emergence and rapid adoption of Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Open AI’s GPT and Meta’s Llama. Even though, at first glance, AI was touted to disrupt the Big Tech dominance and create a vibrant competitive landscape, it is hard to imagine current AI systems without the Big Tech.

These phenomena of market consolidation and Big Tech dependence raises some important concerns for all involved, but most pertinently for entrepreneurs and investors – who form the core constituency of today’s digital revolution. Some of these concerns reflect the funders’ sectoral interests, and how their choices are affected by the Big Tech’s market consolidation. Other issues relate to the outcomes of these choices, and whether the current arc of innovation excludes, or even harms, certain stakeholders.

To this end, Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri – with research assistance from Girish Chandra and Ayush Menon – conducted an analysis of the three seasons of Shark Tank India, and organised an online roundtable discussion with entrepreneurs, investors, and market researchers. Their analysis, and the subsequent roundtable, aimed to answer the following key questions

How does the startup ecosystem’s dependence on Big Tech affect i) how entrepreneurs think about innovation, and ii) how investors think about funding?
How can regulation be channelled to facilitate innovation in this context?
What role do mergers, acquisitions, and investments play in killing market competition?
Since ‘innovativeness’ remains a subjective concept, what kinds of metrics (proxy or otherwise) does the startup ecosystem usually rely on to identify innovative ideas?

You can read through their findings and key learnings from the roundtable here.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/how-concentration-kills-innovation-a-round-table-on-investing-and-innovating-in-the-age-of-big-tech

Whose Technology is it Anyway? An exploratory essay on the political economy of India's digital revolution

Abhineet Nayyar — 2025-04-11T15:42:41Z

The story of India's digital journey has become an oft-cited tale of economic success across the globe, inspiring similar experiments in other nations in the Global Majority world - most prominently across sub-Saharan Africa. At home, however, this tale has been used to rapidly normalise the deployment of digital technologies. In this process, these innovations have not just bolstered the state's control over individuals and their actions, but have also enabled the tech elite to extract more value from workers, small businesses, and even consumers.

In this exploratory essay, Abhineet reiterates that technology's presumed benefits are not, and have never quite been, an inevitable consequence of progress. By presenting a historical view of the industrial revolution and the green revolution, the piece instead shows that the outcomes of any innovation depend crucially on the choices made by the political and economic elite of the time. Consequently, to truly reflect the interests of the country's masses, the essay calls for India's digital revolution to also take this insight into account.

The central thesis of the essay is borrowed from Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson's 'Power and Progress', and its substantiation for the various historical moments is done through secondary material.

Click here to download the research

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/whose-technology-is-it-anyway-an-exploratory-essay-on-the-political-economy-of-indias-digital-revolution

Navigating the Digitalisation of Finance: User experiences of risks and harms

2025-04-10T05:49:23Z

Our study unpacks the experiences of marginalised users navigating the digitalisation of finance. Through a survey of 3,784 users, 18 interviews and 7 focus group discussions, our study’s findings highlight user experiences of risks and harms while accessing digital financial services, unpacking experiences specifically of persons with disabilities, transgender persons, gender and sexual minorities, elderly persons, women, regional language-first users, and persons facing digital and economic vulnerabilities.

Read the full report here

Executive Summary

The last couple of decades have seen significant changes in the financial ecosystem in India, both within the fintech sector and with respect to digital financial inclusion. The rapid growth in the reach of banking services to previously unbanked citizens through the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana has been followed by digitalisation in financial and public services.

However, a commensurate increase in digital and financial literacy has not followed, and rates of access to digital devices and the internet are still growing for many user groups, like rural women and regional language speakers. From the proliferation of fraudulent schemes and cybercrime to regulatory loopholes and inadequate consumer protections, the landscape of online financial services in India presents numerous risks. Factors such as weak cybersecurity measures, data breaches, lack of awareness among users, and the absence of comprehensive regulations create a fertile ground for financial scams. Simultaneously, rapid digitalisation of financial services, especially post demonetisation and the COVID-19 pandemic, has also brought to the fore concerns around omissions and exclusion of sections of users from databases, and a steep learning curve in adapting to this new digital ecosystem.

These combined factors open up users to a range of potential financial risks and harms, with differential impact on specific marginalised and vulnerable groups. With this understanding, we use the term digital financial harms to refer to adverse financial outcomes and other related detrimental consequences in the use of digital financial services.

Through this study, we aim to situate these experiences in a continuum of harms within a rapidly digitalising financial ecosystem. By exploring questions of access, accessibility and language we hope to bring aspects of cybersecurity, digital and financial literacy and design justice into conversation with each other. While some research has aimed to understand technology-facilitated gender based violence, financial fraud, misinformation, and other forms of digital risks in siloes, the correlations between these risks online remain severely understudied. In this report, we focus on the experiences of groups long marginalised within the financial system, to recommend that their needs are centred in shaping digital financial services.

Key questions guiding our research were:

How were digital financial risks understood and experienced by users of digital financial services across groups? What factors have amplified risks for marginalised and at-risk user groups?
What potential vulnerabilities, risks and harms have emerged relating to digital financial services around device and internet access, accessibility, challenges with use, exclusions from digitalised social protection, and forms of social engineering and digital financial fraud?
How accessible were digital financial service providers’ and governments’ reporting and grievance redressal systems?
What role should fintech platforms, social media platforms, banking and financial institutions, government, and regulatory bodies play in reducing digital financial risks across the ecosystem?

This was a mixed methods study, consisting of a review of available literature in the field, followed by quantitative and qualitative data collection through surveys and in-depth interviews. The report highlights the experiences of persons with disabilities, gender minorities, the elderly, low income users, and regional language first users; to better understand how discrimination, exclusion or slow redressal processes may increase their risk or cause disproportionate harm when using digital financial services. It discusses users’ experiences of fraud in the context of an evolving regulatory ecosystem, as well as practical challenges users face with redressal systems.

Key findings include:

Access to digital financial services, still requires improving access and accessibility of physical and phygital banking services, and good internet connectivity.
Even among mobile phone owners, many users still rely on shared devices, particularly among women and persons with disabilities.
There is a high need for support in utilising net banking services, with 60% of surveyed netbanking users mentioning that they sought help to conduct online banking transactions. Migrating to digital financial services is not a purely digital journey for users who are still building comfort with digital interfaces, or those whose languages are deprioritised in the development of digital financial platforms.
Age, gender, and income were significant factors in the access to the internet, and adoption of digital financial services. For instance, women and transgender persons over 45 years were less likely to have a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) account. Women, transgender persons, and disabled users of UPI were also more likely to be infrequent users compared to the rest of the sample.
Over reliance on digital platforms for the administration of direct benefit transfer programmes results in challenges and risks of exclusions for beneficiaries.
While awareness of common forms of fraud is high, awareness of security protocols, Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements and markers of trustworthy banking and non-banking institutions is low.
Irrespective of the amount of money lost during frauds, it caused significant financial and emotional burden, especially for low-income persons.
In the absence of monitoring frameworks, bad actors within the financial system are able to exploit vulnerabilities like the dependence of account holders on banking correspondents.
Gender and sexual minorities, and women face disproportionate impacts of harm in the event of financial loss, including the consequences of image-based sexual abuse, victim blaming, domestic violence and limits on financial independence.
Ineffective grievance redressal for cybercrimes is a major deterrent to reporting.
Digitalisation and the use of assistive technology have allowed some persons with visual impairments to gain relative levels of independence in managing their own finances and conducting transactions. However, implementation of accessibility policies and features remains uneven, and is marred by the continued exclusion and discrimination within traditional banking services.

Based on these findings, this report offers a set of recommendations addressed to stakeholders within the financial ecosystem such as banking and other financial institutions, regulatory bodies, fintech companies, cybersecurity professionals, as well as social media platforms and civil society organisations working on digital inclusion, safety and literacy. The recommendations offer nuanced perspectives on how digital financial harms can be prevented and mitigated based on our interactions with various stakeholders during the research process.

Key recommendations emerging from the study are:

Create meaningful connectivity and access to digital platforms by improving public infrastructure and addressing the challenges associated with shared devices and mediated use.
Improve platform design to engender trust; increase accessibility and usability through assessment and better implementation of available technologies, regular design audits and facilitate availability in Indian languages.
Building awareness and capacity across user and stakeholder groups through customised and inclusive programming, working in partnership with communities.
Centre consumer protection in regulatory interventions and approaches to law enforcement, by implementing robust time-sensitive reporting and redressal mechanisms, placing accountability on financial institutions, and monitoring and curbing fraudulent activity.
Encourage transparent governance and public oversight by measuring and evaluating digital public infrastructures to maximise their public value.

Contributors

Research design and/or report writing: Amrita Sengupta, Chiara Furtado, Garima Agrawal, Nishkala Sekhar, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Vipul Kharbanda

Research advice and/or review: Antara Rai Chowdhury, Janaki Srinivasan, Nayantara Sarma, Palak Gadhiya, Pallavi Bedi, Sameet Panda, Semanti Chakladar, Shashidhar K J, Shweta Mohandas, and Taranga Sriraman

Research and/or data analysis support: Chetna V M, Pallavi Krishnappa, and Yesha Tshering Paul

Data analysis: Chiara Furtado, Garima Agrawal, and Nishkala Sekhar

Research tool translation: Aravind R (Kannada), Balaji J (Tamil), Bhaskar Bhuyan (Assamese), Nettime Sujata (Bangla), and Suresh Khole (Marathi)

Research tool pilots: Raveenaben (Megha Cooperative, SEWA), Sunaben (Megha Cooperative, SEWA), and Raja Mouli N

Data collection (survey): D-Cor Consulting

Data collection (focus group discussions): D-Cor Consulting; Jnana Prabodhini, Pune; Transgender Rights Association, Chennai; and Subodh Kulkarni

This work is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/navigating-the-digitalisation-of-finance

Bahujan Digital Publishing Infrastructures

Yatharth — 2025-01-20T10:48:39Z

In this study, we look at alternative Bahujan digital publishing as sites where Bahujans can claim media representation and how a vision of an anti-caste internet is emerging through these publishing practices.

Formal knowledge production, media, and technology in India are dominated and hegemonised by elite oppressor castes (the Savarnas). The exclusion of the caste-oppressed majority (the Bahujans) from mass media systematically erases their narratives, histories, and opportunities present to them.

We study how, despite systemic challenges, Bahujan publication spaces have emerged across digital media as sites of intersectional discourse on caste, using new media such as blogs, visual art, memes, YouTube channels, infographics, podcasts, etc. Further, we look at how this has exposed casteism buried under the ‘casteless’ facade of digital technologies, which are rife with issues of caste-based hate speech, poor moderation, algorithmic bias, and inadequate platform governance. For this, we draw on qualitative interviews with ten Bahujan publishing projects across social media.

Through a caste-critical lens, we look at motivations, infrastructural needs, editorial processes, audience engagement, other challenges, and the future vision for these publishing projects. We discuss questions of identity, community, hate speech, platform censorship, mental health, and self-care that emerge in online anti-caste publishing. Finally, we try to articulate an emerging vision of an anti-caste internet.

We explore the following questions through our research:

Why do Bahujans start publishing?
What are the infrastructures of Bahujan publishing?
Who engages with anti-caste content?
What resistance do Bahujan publishers face?
How do Bahujan publishers view mainstream progressive movements?
How do Bahujan publishers think about the future of the internet?

The key takeaways from our research are:

Publishing is a socio-technical response Digital Bahujan publishers have largely started in response to shifting political landscapes within India, where caste oppression, while increasingly invisibilised, has only strengthened. Bahujan publishing uses digital tools to challenge caste oppression, fostering anti-caste discourse and community building despite limited resources and systemic barriers.

Publishing is a community effort Bahujan publishing exists primarily within online anti-caste communities. Anti-caste communities help each other navigate resource constraints to raise funds, build safe spaces to provide critical mental health support, provide safety from hate speech, and build resistance and resilience together.

Caste mediates publishing infrastructure Caste hierarchies restrict resources and opportunities for Bahujan publishers, who often precariously self-fund their work. Meanwhile, media circles and the funding ecosystem are dominated by savarnas, who gatekeep their resources and knowledge from Bahujan publishers.

Online Casteism is enabled by Platforms Social media platforms have failed to address rampant caste-based hate speech effectively, leaving Bahujan publishers to manage the hate speech on their own. This takes a severe toll on the publisher’s mental and emotional health, especially hurting Bahujan publishers from smaller towns, women, and queer folks.

The future of Anticaste publishing is uncertain The reach of Bahujan publishers varies wildly and unexplainably, which makes it difficult for them to rely on social media for audiences and monetisation. Bahujan publishers face a triple whammy: algorithms that suppress anti-caste content, social media platforms moving away from political content, and contentious legislation that censors independent political content.

The future of Anticaste publishing is on independent platforms Bahujan publishers desire platform sovereignty—to own and control their own platforms and to be able to control what they put out and how it reaches their audiences—and a vision of the internet that works towards the annihilation of castes, both online and offline.

Read the full report here

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/bahujan-digital-publishing-infrastructures

Explainer | Predatory Pricing

Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri — 2025-04-23T13:50:12Z

Who doesn't love discounts? After all, that is what got so many of us on the internet for the first time. And yet, earlier this year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, in its draft Digital Competition Bill, mentioned 'Pricing/Deep Discounting' as one of the Anti-Competitive Practices, or ACPs, that the draft Bill relies on. Does this mean that discounting or pricing can be anti-competitive? If so, how do we identify this form of predatory pricing?

In this Explainer, we explore the practice of 'Predatory Pricing' and unpack it not just for legal practitioners and antitrust authorities, but also for lay people whose reliance on BigTech platforms continues to increase every day."

Credits

Conceptualisation and research by Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri

Design by Chris

Click here to see the explainer.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/explainer-predatory-pricing

AI for Healthcare: Understanding Data Supply Chain and Auditability in India

2024-11-30T08:17:48Z

This report aims to understand the prevalence and use of AI auditing practices in the healthcare sector. By mapping the data supply chain underlying AI technologies, the study aims to unpack i) how AI systems are developed and deployed to achieve healthcare outcomes and, ii) how AI audits are perceived and implemented by key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.

Read our full report here.

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies constitutes a significant development in the Indian healthcare sector, with industry and government actors showing keen interest in designing and deploying these technologies. Even as key stakeholders explore ways to incorporate AI systems into their products and workflows, a growing debate on the accessibility, success, and potential harms of these technologies continues, along with several concerns over their large-scale adoption. A recurring question in India and the world over is whether these technologies serve a wider interest in public health. For example, the discourse on ethical and responsible AI in the context of emerging technologies and their impact on marginalised populations, climate change, and labour practices has been especially contentious.

For the purposes of this study, we define AI in healthcare as the use of artificial intelligence and related technologies to support healthcare research and delivery. The use cases include assisted imaging and diagnosis, disease prediction, robotic surgery, automated patient monitoring, medical chatbots, hospital management, drug discovery, and epidemiology. The emergence of AI auditing mechanisms is an essential development in this context, with several stakeholders ranging from big-tech to smaller startups adopting various checks and balances while developing and deploying their products. While auditing as a practice is neither uniform nor widespread within healthcare or other sectors in India, it is one of the few available mechanisms that can act as guardrails in using AI systems.

Our primary research questions are as follows:

What is the current data supply chain infrastructure for organisations operating in the healthcare ecosystem in India?
What auditing practices, if any, are being followed by technology companies and healthcare institutions?
What best practices can organisations based in India adopt to improve AI auditability?

This was a mixed methods study, comprising a review of available literature in the field, followed by quantitative and qualitative data collection through surveys and in-depth interviews. The findings from the study offer essential insights into the current use of AI in the healthcare sector, the operationalisation of the data supply chain, and policies and practices related to health data sourcing, collection, management, and use. It also discusses ethical and practical challenges related to privacy, data protection and informed consent, and the emerging role of auditing and other related practices in the field. Some of the key learnings related to the data supply chain and auditing include:

Technology companies, medical institutions, and medical practitioners rely on an equal mix of proprietary and open sources of health data and there is significant reliance on datasets from the Global North.
Data quality checks are extant, but they are seen as an additional burden; with the removal of personally identifiable information being a priority during processing.
Collaboration between medical practitioners and AI developers remains limited, and feedback between users and developers of these technologies is limited.
There is a heavy reliance on external vendors to develop AI models, with many models replicated from existing systems in the Global North.
Healthcare professionals are hesitant to integrate AI systems into their workflows, with a significant gap stemming from a lack of training and infrastructure to integrate these systems successfully.
The understanding and application of audits are not uniform across the sector, with many stakeholders prioritising more mainstream and intersectional concepts such as data privacy and security in their scope.

Based on these findings, this report offers a set of recommendations addressed to different stakeholders such as healthcare professionals and institutions, AI developers, technology companies, startups, academia, and civil society groups working in health and social welfare. These include:

Improve data management across the AI data supply chain

Adopt standardised data-sharing policies. This would entail building a standardised policy that adopts an intersectional approach to include all stakeholders and areas where data is collected to ensure their participation in the process. This would also require robust feedback loops and better collaboration between the users, developers, and implementers of the policy (medical professionals and institutions), and technologists working in AI and healthcare.

Emphasise not just data quantity but also data quality. Given that the limited quantity and quality of Indian healthcare datasets present significant challenges, institutions engaged in data collection must consider their interoperability to make them available to diverse stakeholders and ensure their security. This would include recruiting additional support staff for digitisation to ensure accuracy and safety and maintain data quality.

Streamline AI auditing as a form of governance

Standardise the practice of AI auditing. A certain level of standardisation in AI auditing would contribute to the growth and contextualisation of these practices in the Indian healthcare sector. Similarly, it would also aid in decision-making among implementing institutions.

Build organisational knowledge and inter-stakeholder collaboration. It is imperative to build knowledge and capacity among technical experts, healthcare professionals, and auditors on the technical details of the underlying architecture and socioeconomic realities of public health. Hence, collaboration and feedback are essential to enhance model development and AI auditing.

Prioritise transparency and public accountability in auditing standards. Given that most healthcare institutions procure externally developed AI systems, some form of internal or external AI audit would contribute to better public accountability and transparency of these technologies.

Centre public good in India’s AI industrial policy

Adopt focused and transparent approaches to investing in and financing AI projects. An equitable distribution of AI spending and associated benefits is essential to guarantee that these investments and their applications extend beyond private healthcare, and that implementation approaches prioritise the public good. This would involve investing in entire AI life cycles instead of merely focusing on development and promoting transparent public–private partnerships.

Strengthen regulatory checks and balances for AI governance.
While an overarching law to regulate AI technologies may still be under debate, existing regulations may be amended to bring AI within their ambit. Furthermore, all regulations must be informed by stakeholder consultations to guarantee that the process is transparent, addresses the rights and concerns of all the parties involved, and prioritises the public good.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ai-for-healthcare-understanding-data-supply-chain-and-auditability-in-india

Explainer | Tying and Bundling

Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri — 2024-12-23T11:05:31Z

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Corporate Affairs released the draft Digital Competition Bill for public comment. Although much has been written about the ex-ante process it proposes, there is little discussion of the nine Anti-Competitive Practices, or ACPs, that the draft Bill builds on. Even when it exists, this discussion is often accompanied by heavy jargon, thereby limiting its accessibility for small businesses, workers, and consumers who are most affected by these ACPs.

In this iteration of Explainer, we delve deeper into 'Tying and Bundling', one of these practices and unpack it not just for legal practitioners and antitrust authorities, but also for lay people whose reliance on BigTech platforms continues to increase every day.

Credits

Conceptualisation and research by Abhineet Nayyar and Isha Suri

Design by Chris

Click to read the research

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/explainer-tying-and-bundling

Platforming precarity: Data narratives of workers sustaining urban platform services

2024-10-15T02:42:26Z

CIS conducted quantitative surveys with over 800 workers employed in the app-based taxi and delivery sectors across 4 cities in India as part of the ‘Labour Futures’ project supported by the Internet Society Foundation. The surveys covered key employment indicators, including earnings and working hours, work-related cost burdens, income and social security, and platform policies and management. Findings from these surveys are presented as data visualisation briefs centring workers’ everyday experiences. These data briefs form a foundational evidence base for policy and action around labour rights, social protection, and urban inclusion in platform work.

It has been over a decade since app-based delivery and taxi sectors began operations in India, and have since expanded to several metropolitan and smaller cities. These sectors together account for the largest proportion of the platform workforce in India. Workers’ organising and collective action have long revealed extractive labour practices in the platform economy. Their demands call for the recognition of their labour rights by policymakers and platforms, an end to exploitative working conditions, and the introduction of effective policy that protects their rights and wellbeing.

In 2021-22, the labour research vertical at the Centre for Internet and Society conducted quantitative surveys with over 800 workers in the app-based taxi services and app-based delivery services sectors. Spanning four cities (Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Guwahati, Lucknow), the surveys gathered comprehensive data on the conditions of work in the platform economy in these cities, within its two dominant sectors.

The survey covered key labour indicators—(i) the conditions of work for workers, including recruitment, wages, incentive structures, and work-related cost burdens (ii) workforce management, including hours spent working for the platform, surveillance and control measures, and (iii) workers’ coverage under income security, social security and social protections, including provident funds, health and accident insurance, and pensions.

Key Findings

The generation of city-level data aimed to support policymaking and advocacy towards achieving just outcomes for workers in the rapidly platformising Indian economy. These survey findings speak to i) top-down approaches of regulatory, legislative, and judicial action through evidence-building, and ii) bottom-up approaches of mobilisation and advocacy campaigns of workers’ collectives.

The city-wise data briefs highlight region-specific differences and similarities shaped by histories and newer developments of labour platforms operating in the urban economy. Across the four survey cities, the data briefs reveal the ways in which precarity materialised in platform work. Workers grappled with numerous socioeconomic vulnerabilities that influenced their entry and continued employment in platform work. They faced low-wage outcomes, worsened by a reduction in bonuses, and high operational work-related expenses. Earnings remained low and uncertain despite workers putting in immensely long hours working for platforms. Worsening these burdens was widespread income insecurity that workers faced in both app-based taxi and delivery sectors.

Mapping delivery and taxi platform services across cities

The taxi services sector in all cities was dominated by two large platforms—Uber and Ola Cabs. These platforms had established a highly concentrated labour market for taxi workers. The exception to this was the taxi platform labour market in Guwahati, where the local platform, PeIndia, employed 35% of taxi workers in the city.

The delivery services sector in all cities had a high concentration of pan-India platforms. Food delivery services were concentrated by Swiggy and Zomato across cities. E-commerce delivery services had a diversity of platforms including Amazon, Flipkart, E-kart Logistics, and Shadowfax, as well as grocery delivery services like Big Basket, Dunzo, and Jio Mart.

Economic necessity and a lack of alternative employment pushing workers into precarious platform work

The pathway to precarious platform work was distress-driven, borne out of low wages in previous salaried work, or a lack of alternative employment. A large proportion of workers were previously engaged in salaried employment, who then shifted to platform work, marking increased informality and precarity in their employment status. In Mumbai, over 64% of workers were in salaried employment previously, and this also the case for over 50% of workers in Guwahati, and over 42% of workers in Delhi-NCR. In Lucknow and Delhi-NCR, pandemic-driven unemployment was a key driver for a staggering proportion of workers who joined platform work as a distress employment source. Over 30% of workers in Lucknow and Delhi-NCR were previously unemployed.

These socioeconomic vulnerabilities influenced workers entry and continued employment in platform work. Key factors for workers entering were the lack of alternative employment sources and the hope for better pay and potential job flexibility. The lack of alternative jobs was a major push into platform work for workers in Delhi-NCR and Lucknow—over 60% of workers in Delhi-NCR and over 50% of workers in Lucknow. At least 40% of workers across cities mentioned the expectation of better pay as a major reason to start platform work, while potential job flexibility was also a key reason for workers in Mumbai and Guwahati. However, as the findings below show, workers’ expectations were unmet.

Externalised joining, statutory, and operational costs

High joining, statutory, and operational costs were offloaded onto workers to access and continue platform work. This was especially the case for taxi workers who owned their vehicles, and had to incur vehicle investment costs and downpayment, as well as statutory costs that included operating permits, road tax, vehicle insurance, and fitness fee. Across all cities, average monthly expenses for taxi workers were above INR 30,000. For delivery workers, average monthly expenses mostly comprised fuel costs, and were around INR 5,500 in Guwahati and Lucknow, and around INR 6,700 in Delhi-NCR and Mumbai. These high externalised costs reveal the economic vulnerabilities inherent within platform work.

Compounding these costs, platforms in the taxi services sectors also charged commissions unevenly and in varying fee structures—ranging from 20% to 30% of the fare in Mumbai and Lucknow, and going as high as 35% in Delhi-NCR and Guwahati. It is important to note that high commissions persist despite the mandate under the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020 to cap commissions and other platform charges at 20% of the fare.

Platforms’ offloading of costs to workers have resulted in workers’ having to rely on informal leasing, debt, and subcontracting arrangements. These arrangements were seen across all cities, where workers in the city were either renting the vehicle they were driving, paying a commission to a vehicle owner, paying off vehicle EMIs on someone else’s behalf, or were paid a fixed salary by a vehicle owner. Notably, in Lucknow, around 35% of taxi workers were engaged under these informal arrangements.

Insufficient incomes and economic vulnerabilities

Workers' experiences, across cities, highlight how a majority contended with low-wage outcomes. Earnings remained low and uncertain for workers despite the fact that they were putting in long work hours. Several factors contributed to this insufficiency and uncertainty in workers’ earnings: stringent platform requirements around high acceptance rates and ratings, which were important determinants, decreased flexibility, and high offloaded work-related expenses.

Across cities, earnings for delivery workers were considerably lower than those for taxi workers. When earnings were adjusted for standard weekly work hours (48 hours/week), over 50% of delivery workers in Mumbai, Guwahati, and Lucknow were earning less than the corresponding state-wise minimum wages. Further, over 75% of delivery workers in these cities were earning below estimated state-wise living wages. Platform work was also insufficient in meeting essential living needs for taxi workers in Mumbai, Guwahati, and Lucknow. Around 30% of taxi workers (23% in Guwahati) were earning less than minimum wages, and around 50% (80% in Mumbai) were earning less than estimated living wages. Earnings for both delivery and taxi workers in Delhi-NCR were substantially lower than minimum wage and living wage standards. 69% of workers in the taxi services sector and 87% of workers in the delivery services sector earned less than the minimum wage in Delhi. Moreover, 92% of workers in the taxi sector and 97% of workers in the delivery sector earned lower than the estimated living wage.

These insufficient incomes were particularly damaging to workers’ lives and livelihoods, considering their high dependence on income from platform work. An overwhelming proportion of workers (over 94% across all cities) were engaged in platform work as their main source of income, as opposed to part-time employment. They also faced significant economic burdens such as being sole earners in their household, having multiple financial dependents, having financial commitments to provide remittances back home, and so on. Worsening these burdens was widespread income insecurity that workers faced across all cities—for over 43% of workers (up to 65% in Guwahati), earnings from platform work were insufficient for covering basic household expenses.

Workplace risks and ineffective redressal mechanisms

Workers in both sectors were working immensely long hours in order to try and make adequate earnings while working for platforms, working several hours above standard weekly work hours (48 hours/week) typically prescribed by occupational health standards. Across all cities, delivery workers spent a median of over 60 weekly hours working for platforms, and taxi workers spent a median of around 84 weekly hours.

Alongside the adverse health impacts of long work hours, workers faced grievous workplace risks, including risks of physical assault, theft, poor road safety, and harsh weather conditions. Around 75% of delivery and taxi workers faced these issues in Mumbai and Lucknow. An even greater proportion of workers were exposed to these risks in Delhi-NCR (84%) and Guwahati (90%).

Despite several workplace risks, platforms remained unaccountable for their failure to guarantee safe working conditions. Across all cities, less than 10% of workers found that their platform took steps to improve working conditions. Workers’ overall experience with platform grievance redressal mechanisms was mixed. For instance, in Lucknow, only around 25% of workers who raised grievances did not receive a resolution. In contrast, 50% of taxi workers in Delhi-NCR did not receive a resolution, as was the case for 76% of taxi workers in Mumbai. Workers have limited recourse when their grievances go unanswered. Platforms, however, wield significant control over terms of work, making it difficult for workers to challenge unfair decisions.

Low coverage and accessibility of social protection mechanisms

Social security covered by platforms typically included health insurance and accident insurance. Workers faced significant gaps in insurance coverage, and these gaps were particularly glaring in the taxi services sector. Across cities, health and accident insurance coverage for taxi workers was below 10% (an exception was 11% of workers covered by accident insurance in Delhi-NCR). It is important to note that this low coverage exists despite the Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines, 2020 mandating provision of health insurance and term insurance from platforms.

Delivery workers had a relatively higher percentage of insurance coverage from platforms, although coverage varied across cities. Health insurance coverage was low for delivery workers in Delhi-NCR (21%) and Guwahati (14%), but higher for workers in Lucknow (34%) and Mumbai (44%). In the case of accident insurance, insurance was covered by platforms for over 40% of delivery workers in Delhi-NCR and Lucknow, while a greater proportion of workers were covered in Mumbai (63%) and Guwahati (72%). Even though delivery workers were covered by platform-provisioned insurance, claiming benefits was an unreliable and time-consuming process. Workers who attempted to access benefits faced several obstacles, including poor awareness of available schemes, inadequate coverage, and little to no platform support in navigating complex claims procedures.

The inadequacy of platform-provisioned insurance was exacerbated by the exclusion of workers from government social protection mechanisms. In Delhi-NCR, Guwahati, and Lucknow, over 35% of workers in both sectors were left outside of social protection from governments. In Mumbai, over 66% of workers were excluded.

Contributors

Conceptualisation + planning: Aayush Rathi, Abhishek Sekharan, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V M, Chiara Furtado, and Nishkala Sekhar

Writing: Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Chetna V M, Chiara Furtado, and Nishkala Sekhar

Data analysis: Abhishek Sekharan, Chetna V M, and Nishkala Sekhar

Data visualisation: Sriharsha Devulapalli

Design + design direction: Annushka Jaliwala and Yatharth

Review: Aayush Rathi and Abhineet Nayyar

Survey design + planning: Abhishek Sekharan and Ambika Tandon

Survey implementation: Abhishek Kumar

Research advice: Nora Gobel and Uma Rani Amara

We are deeply grateful to the workers who participated in the surveys for generously sharing their time, experiences, and insights with us.

This work was supported by the Internet Society Foundation, as part of the “Labour Futures” project at the Centre for Internet and Society.

This work is shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0)

To know more about this work, please write to us at chiara@cis-india.org

Explore more of CIS’ research on labour and digitalisation at platformwork.in

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/platforming-precarity-data-narratives-workers

Gig and platform workers’ perspectives on worker collectives

Shaik Salauddin — 2024-08-13T02:50:05Z

This report highlights findings from a survey conducted by the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union on platform workers’ perspectives around various worker collectives, particularly platform worker unions and cooperative societies. The survey was conducted with workers working for app-based platform companies like Ola, Uber, InDriver, Swiggy, Zomato, and Flipkart.

Survey report: download (PDF)

Press release: download (PDF)

To understand worker perspectives on diverse types of worker collectives, the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union conducted surveys with 79 workers, who had worked in the sector for a median of 5 years. 51% of the workers who were surveyed were members of TGPWU.

The survey findings highlight workers’ perspectives relating to the type and effectiveness of various union structures, priority of union demands, and their interest in joining cooperative societies.

This report highlights key findings from the survey, some of which detailed below:

Workers had a high preference for collective structures that are democratically owned and controlled by workers, with 75% of them expressing interest in joining a cooperative society.
Out of several worker support services that cooperative societies can offer, priority services that workers highlighted were healthcare services, insurance services, and educational support for children of members.
46% of workers each cited independent unions, and unions that were affiliated with another trade union as their preferred forms of union structures.
Around 40% of workers each found that both these forms of union structure were effective in terms of i) presenting worker demands to central and state governments, and ii) promoting worker representation and democratic participation.
66% of workers placed high importance on union demands that focus on both platforms and governments.

Contributors

Design: Annushka Jaliwala
Research conceptualisation: Shaik Salauddin
Research support and writing: Chetna V.M., Nishkala Sekhar, Chiara Furtado, Aayush Rathi

About the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers’ Union

The Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union (TGPWU) is an independent, worker-led union founded in 2021 for gig and platform workers in Telangana, India. TGPWU has over 1,000 active members and has had over 10,000 registered members since its inception.

Contact: tgapwu@gmail.com; +91 96424 24799

Connect: Website; Twitter/X; Facebook; Telegram

The views and opinions expressed on this page are those of their individual authors. Unless the opposite is explicitly stated, or unless the opposite may be reasonably inferred, CIS does not subscribe to these views and opinions which belong to their individual authors. CIS does not accept any responsibility, legal or otherwise, for the views and opinions of these individual authors. For an official statement from CIS on a particular issue, please contact us directly.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/gig-and-platform-workers-perspectives-on-worker-collectives

Future of the Commons: A Conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Indian Languages, and Archives Conference Report

Soni Wadhwa, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, Garima Agrawal and Nishant Shankar — 2024-08-06T03:24:53Z

We are pleased to share our report on the ‘Future of the Commons: A Conversation on Artificial Intelligence, Indian Languages, and Archives’ conference, held in July 2024 at the Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) in Pune.

Organized by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, and MKCL, the conference explored the development of localized or Indic generative AI models, state of digital commons, and the role of public institutions such as archives and digitization movements. It featured a mix of panel discussions, roundtables, and workshops, providing a platform for policymakers, civil society organizations, academia, researchers, technologists, archivists, and creative practitioners to exchange views and collaborate. The keynote address by P. Sainath, founder of the People's Archive of Rural India (PARI), dwelled on the importance of digitization and archives in India. He emphasized the role of human translators in maintaining the authenticity of stories and the socio-political implications of digitalization on low-resource languages.

The themes discussed at the conference included:

Ongoing Efforts and Innovations in AI:

Current state of research and development of localized generative AI systems.
Use-cases of generative AI products in Indian languages.
Challenges with the availability of training datasets and dependency on big tech.
Open-source development of generative AI models.

Development and Use of Digital Commons:

Digitizing, preserving, and using knowledge and cultural heritage for training AI models.
Practices and challenges in archives and digitization movements, especially in Indian languages.
Role of open knowledge movements and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institutions.

Future of AI, including LLMs, in Indian Languages:

Designing AI systems that contribute to the digital commons.
Incentivizing expansion, foregrounding diversity, and safeguarding digital commons.
Role of law, policy, ethics, and algorithmic justice.

The conference concluded with participants emphasizing the need for multidisciplinary collaboration, fostering trust in AI applications, and importance of democratization of technology and data.

We invite you to read the full report for a comprehensive view of the discussions and recommendations that emerged.

If you would like to participate in further discussions on this topic, please write to us at anubha@cis-india.org.

For more details visit http://editors.cis-india.org/raw/report-on-the-future-of-the-commons