India Releases Draft National AI Ethics Framework: What It Proposes and What Is Missing

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has released a draft National AI Ethics Framework for public consultation, outlining principles for responsible AI development and deployment in India. The framework — 74 pages covering fairness, accountability, transparency, safety, and privacy — is open for stakeholder feedback until April 30, 2026.

Key Principles

The framework is organised around five core principles that all AI systems deployed in India should aspire to:

• Fairness and Non-Discrimination: AI systems should not produce outcomes that systematically disadvantage individuals on the basis of caste, religion, gender, disability, or linguistic background.
• Transparency: Users should be informed when they are interacting with an AI system. High-stakes decisions should be explainable in plain language.
• Accountability: A human must be identifiable as responsible for any AI-driven decision that adversely affects an individual's rights or access to services.
• Safety and Reliability: AI systems in critical sectors must undergo pre-deployment testing against domain-specific safety benchmarks.
• Privacy and Data Governance: AI training data must comply with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.

What Critics Say Is Missing

Civil society organisations have broadly welcomed the framework but note that it is entirely voluntary at this stage, with no enforcement mechanism, no designated regulatory authority, and no sector-specific technical standards. "Principles without enforcement are aspirations," said the Internet Freedom Foundation in a statement. Academics from IIT Bombay have also flagged the absence of any provision for algorithmic audits by independent third parties.