US tech giant Nvidia announces India deals at AI summit
By AFP
February 18, 2026
This week's AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual international gathering to discuss how to govern the fast-evolving technology. - © AFP Arun SANKAR
Katie Forster
US artificial intelligence chip titan Nvidia unveiled tie-ups with Indian computing firms on Wednesday as tech companies rushed to announce deals and investments at a global AI conference in New Delhi.
This week’s AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual gathering to discuss how to govern the fast-evolving technology — and also an opportunity to “define India’s leadership in the AI decade ahead”, organisers say.
Mumbai cloud and data centre provider L&T said it was teaming up with Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, to build what it touted as “India’s largest gigawatt-scale AI factory”.
“We are laying the foundation for world-class AI infrastructure that will power India’s growth,” said Nvidia boss Jensen Huang in a statement that did not put a figure on the investment.
L&T said it would use Nvidia’s powerful processors, which can train and run generative AI tech, to provide data centre capacity of up to 30 megawatts in Chennai and 40 megawatts in Mumbai.
Nvidia said it was also working with other Indian AI infrastructure players such as Yotta, which will deploy more than 20,000 top-end Nvidia Blackwell processors as part of a $2 billion investment.
Dozens of world leaders and ministerial delegations have come to India for the summit to discuss the opportunities and threats, from job losses to misinformation, that AI poses.
Last year India leapt to third place — overtaking South Korea and Japan — in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford University researchers.
But despite plans for large-scale infrastructure and grand ambitions for innovation, experts say the country has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.
– Hyperscale –
The conference has also brought a flurry of deals, with IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying Tuesday that India expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, including roughly $90 billion already committed.
Separately, India’s Adani Group said Tuesday it plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to develop “hyperscale AI-ready data centres”, a boost to New Delhi’s push to become a global AI hub.
Microsoft said it was investing $50 billion this decade to boost AI adoption in developing countries, while US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic and Indian IT giant Infosys said they would work together to build AI agents for the telecoms industry.
Nvidia’s Huang is not attending the AI summit but other top US tech figures joining include OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are expected to deliver a statement at the end of the week about how they plan to address concerns raised by AI technology.
But experts say that the broad focus of the event and vague promises made at previous global AI summits in France, South Korea and Britain mean that concrete commitments are unlikely.
Nick Patience, practice lead for AI at tech research group Futurum, told AFP that nonbinding declarations could still “set the tone for what acceptable AI governance looks like”.
But “the largest AI companies deploy capabilities at a pace that makes 18-month legislative cycles look glacial,” Patience said.
“So it’s a case of whether governments can converge fast enough to create meaningful guardrails before de facto standards are set by the companies themselves.”
By AFP
February 18, 2026
This week's AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual international gathering to discuss how to govern the fast-evolving technology. - © AFP Arun SANKAR
Katie Forster
US artificial intelligence chip titan Nvidia unveiled tie-ups with Indian computing firms on Wednesday as tech companies rushed to announce deals and investments at a global AI conference in New Delhi.
This week’s AI Impact Summit is the fourth annual gathering to discuss how to govern the fast-evolving technology — and also an opportunity to “define India’s leadership in the AI decade ahead”, organisers say.
Mumbai cloud and data centre provider L&T said it was teaming up with Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, to build what it touted as “India’s largest gigawatt-scale AI factory”.
“We are laying the foundation for world-class AI infrastructure that will power India’s growth,” said Nvidia boss Jensen Huang in a statement that did not put a figure on the investment.
L&T said it would use Nvidia’s powerful processors, which can train and run generative AI tech, to provide data centre capacity of up to 30 megawatts in Chennai and 40 megawatts in Mumbai.
Nvidia said it was also working with other Indian AI infrastructure players such as Yotta, which will deploy more than 20,000 top-end Nvidia Blackwell processors as part of a $2 billion investment.
Dozens of world leaders and ministerial delegations have come to India for the summit to discuss the opportunities and threats, from job losses to misinformation, that AI poses.
Last year India leapt to third place — overtaking South Korea and Japan — in an annual global ranking of AI competitiveness calculated by Stanford University researchers.
But despite plans for large-scale infrastructure and grand ambitions for innovation, experts say the country has a long way to go before it can rival the United States and China.
– Hyperscale –
The conference has also brought a flurry of deals, with IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw saying Tuesday that India expects more than $200 billion in investments over the next two years, including roughly $90 billion already committed.
Separately, India’s Adani Group said Tuesday it plans to invest $100 billion by 2035 to develop “hyperscale AI-ready data centres”, a boost to New Delhi’s push to become a global AI hub.
Microsoft said it was investing $50 billion this decade to boost AI adoption in developing countries, while US artificial intelligence startup Anthropic and Indian IT giant Infosys said they would work together to build AI agents for the telecoms industry.
Nvidia’s Huang is not attending the AI summit but other top US tech figures joining include OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis and Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders including French President Emmanuel Macron and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are expected to deliver a statement at the end of the week about how they plan to address concerns raised by AI technology.
But experts say that the broad focus of the event and vague promises made at previous global AI summits in France, South Korea and Britain mean that concrete commitments are unlikely.
Nick Patience, practice lead for AI at tech research group Futurum, told AFP that nonbinding declarations could still “set the tone for what acceptable AI governance looks like”.
But “the largest AI companies deploy capabilities at a pace that makes 18-month legislative cycles look glacial,” Patience said.
“So it’s a case of whether governments can converge fast enough to create meaningful guardrails before de facto standards are set by the companies themselves.”
By AFP
February 18, 2026
An Indian firm is using AI to design intricate brooches and other jewellery which are then handmade by artisans - Copyright AFP Arun SANKAR
Katie Forster and Uzmi Athar
Glinting under the exhibition centre lights, the gold brooch studded with gemstones on the startup founder’s lapel was handmade by Indian artisans — but artificial intelligence dreamt up its elaborate design.
The brooch, in the shape of Hindu deity Lord Krishna, is an emblem of both the fast-developing power of AI technology and hopes it will drive innovation in India’s youthful economy.
Siddharth Soni, 23, showed AFP a box of AI-designed jewellery, mostly in classical Indian style, made by the company Idea Jewellery which he co-founded in 2023.
“Jewellery like this used to take around six months, seven months” to manufacture using traditional methods, said Soni, at a global AI summit in New Delhi.
Now, using a 3D-printed mould based on an AI blueprint, and streamlining the process in other ways, “I can make this piece in one week” with a few more needed for hallmarking, he said.
Tech bosses and world leaders are gathered in the Indian capital this week to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by AI, including the threat of mass redundancies and loss of human expertise.
Soni’s startup is a new direction for his decades-old family jewellery manufacturing business in the city of Hyderabad.
He said his father was “excited” about the new venture and “wants to take it all over the world” so retailers in places like the United States can offer custom AI-designed Indian jewellery.
At the same time, his father and grandfather, both in the industry for around 30 years, are conflicted because they believe “artisans should not lose their imagination”, Soni said.
“We’re losing the form of art, basically, by using AI,” but even so, “we have to move forward.”
– ‘Very uncomfortable’ –
Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the AI summit “shows the capability of our country’s youth” as “further proof that our country is progressing rapidly” in technology.
India’s government is expecting $200 billion in AI investment in the next two years, with plans to build large-scale data centres and nuclear power plants to run them.
Idea Jewellery, which does not receive government support but would like to, is in talks with 20 retailers including well-known brands in major cities who are already clients of the long-running family business.
On a tool powered by a fine-tuned version of Google’s Gemini, customers can specify the type of metal, precious stones and price range of their jewellery, and describe their desired style with a simple text prompt.
The tool shows examples of the piece and can then produce a detailed 3D model to be turned by hand into real jewellery.
Some of the workers, who have spent years mastering their craft and usually spend weeks designing a piece of jewellery, are “very uncomfortable with it” and fear their jobs could eventually disappear, Soni admitted.
However they are still making the AI-designed pieces, “because it’s their livelihood”.
– New fields –
The AI boom has brought huge profits for tech giants and sprouted many startups worldwide, but the bubble could pop if the frenzied excitement loses momentum.
For now, governments and companies are bullish that AI innovation will benefit society, from helping teachers educate large populations to better personalising medical care.
Peush Bery’s startup, Xtreme Gen AI, sells a voice chat tool that can answer and make calls for Indian businesses in a dozen local languages.
It’s a competitive field, but the company hopes to carve out a niche by offering smaller businesses a customised tool that they don’t need technical know-how to implement.
Different accents and India’s noisy streets can make accuracy a challenge. But as the technology improves and becomes more affordable, it could threaten the country’s huge call centre industry.
Bery remains optimistic. “New jobs come up, new fields come up,” such as working with data to improve the AI models, he said.
Another startup, Soil Doctor, has offered AI-powered soil testing to 500 farms across 10 Indian states, working with NGOs to run programmes with rural women and youth.
The government could help the company by granting access to historical agricultural data that it currently does not have, said Soil Doctor’s chief of staff Vartika Gupta.
AI technology can “benefit farmers big time”, helping them save money by buying fertiliser better targeted to their soil type, Gupta said.
“Season after season, at a much lower input cost, they will be able to achieve an increased yield.”
Glinting under the exhibition centre lights, the gold brooch studded with gemstones on the startup founder’s lapel was handmade by Indian artisans — but artificial intelligence dreamt up its elaborate design.
The brooch, in the shape of Hindu deity Lord Krishna, is an emblem of both the fast-developing power of AI technology and hopes it will drive innovation in India’s youthful economy.
Siddharth Soni, 23, showed AFP a box of AI-designed jewellery, mostly in classical Indian style, made by the company Idea Jewellery which he co-founded in 2023.
“Jewellery like this used to take around six months, seven months” to manufacture using traditional methods, said Soni, at a global AI summit in New Delhi.
Now, using a 3D-printed mould based on an AI blueprint, and streamlining the process in other ways, “I can make this piece in one week” with a few more needed for hallmarking, he said.
Tech bosses and world leaders are gathered in the Indian capital this week to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by AI, including the threat of mass redundancies and loss of human expertise.
Soni’s startup is a new direction for his decades-old family jewellery manufacturing business in the city of Hyderabad.
He said his father was “excited” about the new venture and “wants to take it all over the world” so retailers in places like the United States can offer custom AI-designed Indian jewellery.
At the same time, his father and grandfather, both in the industry for around 30 years, are conflicted because they believe “artisans should not lose their imagination”, Soni said.
“We’re losing the form of art, basically, by using AI,” but even so, “we have to move forward.”
– ‘Very uncomfortable’ –
Prime Minister Narendra Modi says the AI summit “shows the capability of our country’s youth” as “further proof that our country is progressing rapidly” in technology.
India’s government is expecting $200 billion in AI investment in the next two years, with plans to build large-scale data centres and nuclear power plants to run them.
Idea Jewellery, which does not receive government support but would like to, is in talks with 20 retailers including well-known brands in major cities who are already clients of the long-running family business.
On a tool powered by a fine-tuned version of Google’s Gemini, customers can specify the type of metal, precious stones and price range of their jewellery, and describe their desired style with a simple text prompt.
The tool shows examples of the piece and can then produce a detailed 3D model to be turned by hand into real jewellery.
Some of the workers, who have spent years mastering their craft and usually spend weeks designing a piece of jewellery, are “very uncomfortable with it” and fear their jobs could eventually disappear, Soni admitted.
However they are still making the AI-designed pieces, “because it’s their livelihood”.
– New fields –
The AI boom has brought huge profits for tech giants and sprouted many startups worldwide, but the bubble could pop if the frenzied excitement loses momentum.
For now, governments and companies are bullish that AI innovation will benefit society, from helping teachers educate large populations to better personalising medical care.
Peush Bery’s startup, Xtreme Gen AI, sells a voice chat tool that can answer and make calls for Indian businesses in a dozen local languages.
It’s a competitive field, but the company hopes to carve out a niche by offering smaller businesses a customised tool that they don’t need technical know-how to implement.
Different accents and India’s noisy streets can make accuracy a challenge. But as the technology improves and becomes more affordable, it could threaten the country’s huge call centre industry.
Bery remains optimistic. “New jobs come up, new fields come up,” such as working with data to improve the AI models, he said.
Another startup, Soil Doctor, has offered AI-powered soil testing to 500 farms across 10 Indian states, working with NGOs to run programmes with rural women and youth.
The government could help the company by granting access to historical agricultural data that it currently does not have, said Soil Doctor’s chief of staff Vartika Gupta.
AI technology can “benefit farmers big time”, helping them save money by buying fertiliser better targeted to their soil type, Gupta said.
“Season after season, at a much lower input cost, they will be able to achieve an increased yield.”
India’s tougher AI social media rules spark censorship fears
By AFP
February 16, 2026
A man passes by a mural depicting various social media apps in Bangalore on March 22, 2018 - Copyright AFP/File Manjunath KIRAN
Parvaiz BUKHARI
India has tightened rules governing the use of artificial intelligence on social media to combat a flood of disinformation, but also prompting warnings of censorship and an erosion of digital freedoms.
The new regulations are set to take effect on February 20 — the final day of an international AI summit in New Delhi featuring leading global tech figures — and will sharply reduce the time platforms have to remove content deemed problematic.
With more than a billion internet users, India is grappling with AI-generated disinformation swamping social media.
Companies such as Instagram, Facebook and X will have three hours, down from 36, to comply with government takedown orders, in a bid to stop damaging posts from spreading rapidly.
Stricter regulation in the world’s most populous country ups the pressure on social media giants facing growing public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny globally over the misuse of AI, including the spread of misinformation and sexualised imagery of children.
But rights groups say tougher oversight of AI if applied too broadly risks eroding freedom of speech.
India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already faced accusations from rights groups of curbs on freedom of expression targeting activists and opponents, which his government denies.
The country has also slipped in global press freedom rankings during his tenure.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital‑rights group, said the compressed timeframe of the social media take-down notices would force platforms to become “rapid-fire censors”.
– ‘Automated censorship’ –
Last year, India’s government launched an online portal called Sahyog — meaning “cooperate” in Hindi — to automate the process of sending takedown notices to platforms including X and Facebook.
The latest rules have been expanded to apply to content “created, generated, modified or altered through any computer resource” except material changed during routine or good‑faith editing.
Platforms must now clearly and permanently label synthetic or AI‑manipulated media with markings that cannot be removed or suppressed.
Under the new rules, problematic content could disappear almost immediately after a government notification.
The timelines are “so tight that meaningful human review becomes structurally impossible at scale”, said IFF chief Apar Gupta.
The system, he added, shifts control “decisively away from users”, with “grievance processes and appeals operate on slower clocks”, Gupta added.
Most internet users were not informed of authorities’ orders to delete their content.
“It is automated censorship,” digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa told AFP.
The rules also require platforms to deploy automated tools to prevent the spread of illegal content, including forged documents and sexually abusive material.
“Unique identifiers are un-enforceable,” Pahwa added. “It’s impossible to do for infinite synthetic content being generated.”
Gupta likewise questioned the effectiveness of labels.
“Metadata is routinely stripped when content is edited, compressed, screen-recorded, or cross-posted,” he said. “Detection is error-prone.”
– ‘Online hate’ –
The US-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), in a report with the IFF, warned the laws “may encourage proactive monitoring of content which may lead to collateral censorship”, with platforms likely to err on the side of caution.
The regulations define synthetic data as information that “appears to be real” or is “likely to be perceived as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event.”
Gupta said the changes shift responsibility “upstream” from users to the platforms themselves.
“Users must declare if content is synthetic, and platforms must verify and label before publication,” said Gupta.
But he warned that the parameters for takedown are broad and open to interpretation.
“Satire, parody, and political commentary using realistic synthetic media can get swept in, especially under risk-averse enforcement,” Gupta said.
At the same time, widespread access to AI tools has “enabled a new wave of online hate “facilitated by photorealistic images, videos, and caricatures that reinforce and reproduce harmful stereotypes”, the CSOH report added.
In the most recent headline-grabbing case, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok sparked outrage in January when it was used to make millions of sexualised images of women and children, by allowing users to alter online images of real people.
“The government had to act because platforms are not behaving responsibly,” Pahwa said.
Junk to high-tech: India bets on e-waste for critical minerals
By AFP
February 17, 2026
Workers dismantle discarded monitors at 'Ecowork', an e-waste recycling facility in Ghaziabad, India - Copyright AFP Punit PARANJPE
Arunabh SAIKIA and Uzmi ATHAR
Hundreds of discarded batteries rattle along a conveyor belt into a crusher in a remote plant in northern India, fuelling a multi-billion-dollar industry that is bolstering the country’s geopolitical ambitions.
India is cashing in on the growing “e-waste” sector — pulling critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are needed to make everything from smartphones to fighter jets and electric cars, from everyday electronics.
Global jitters about China’s dominance as a critical minerals producer has kicked New Delhi into action, ramping up extraction of the materials that are essential for its drive to become an artificial intelligence hub.
With demand expected to soar and domestic mining unlikely to deliver meaningful output for at least a decade, the country is turning to an often‑overlooked source — the swelling mountains of electronic waste.
Dead batteries yield lithium, cobalt and nickel; LED screens contain germanium; circuit boards hold platinum and palladium; hard disks store rare earths — e‑waste has long been described as a “gold mine” for critical minerals.
India generated nearly 1.5 million tonnes of e‑waste last year, according to official data — enough to fill 200,000 garbage trucks — though experts believe the real figure is likely to be twice as much.
At Exigo Recycling’s sprawling plant in Haryana state, a machine churns the batteries from e-scooters into a jet-black powder.
The material is then leached into a wine‑red liquid, filtered, evaporated and finally transformed into a fine white powder — lithium.
“White gold,” said the facility’s lead scientist, watching the final product collect in trays.
– Backyard workshops –
Industry estimates suggest “urban mining” — the recovery of minerals from e‑waste — could be worth up to $6 billion annually.
While insufficient to meet India’s projected demand, analysts say it could help absorb import shocks and strengthen supply chains.
Most e‑waste, however, is still dismantled in informal backyard workshops that extract easily saleable metals such as copper and aluminium, leaving critical minerals untapped.
India’s formal recycling capacity remains limited compared to China and the European Union, both of which have invested heavily in advanced recovery technologies and traceability systems.
India has a “100 percent import dependency” for key critical minerals including lithium, cobalt and nickel, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Seeking to close the gap, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government approved a $170‑million programme last year to boost formal recycling of critical minerals.
The programme builds on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules, which require manufacturers to collect and channel e‑waste to government-registered recyclers.
“EPR has acted as a primary catalyst in terms of bringing scale to the recycling industry,” said Raman Singh, managing director at Exigo Recycling, one of the few Indian facilities able to extract lithium.
Other analysts agree the rules have redirected more waste into the formal sector.
“Before EPR was fully implemented, 99 percent of e-waste was being recycled in the informal sector,” said Nitin Gupta of Attero Recycling, which says it can recover at least 22 critical minerals.
“About 60 percent has now moved to formal.”
Government data suggests an even higher shift, though critics say the figures are inflated due to poor tracking of total e‑waste generation.
More than 80 percent of India’s e-waste is still processed informally, according to a United Nations Development Programme note in October.
– Rife with hazards –
Indian government-backed think‑tank NITI Aayog warned that organised recycling lagged behind both policy targets and the rapid growth in waste volumes.
Informal recycling is rife with hazards — open burning, acid baths and unprotected dismantling expose workers to toxic fumes and contaminate soil and water.
A bulk of India’s e‑waste still flowed through informal channels, leading to “loss of critical minerals”, said Sandip Chatterjee, senior adviser at Sustainable Electronics Recycling International.
“India’s informal sector remains the backbone of waste collection and sorting,” he told AFP.
In Seelampuri, a low‑income Delhi neighbourhood home to one of India’s largest informal e‑waste hubs, narrow alleys spill over with tangled cables and broken devices.
“The new companies just keep enough for certification, but the rest still comes to us,” said Shabbir Khan, a local trader. “Business has increased… not gone down.”
Even the junk that eventually reaches formal recyclers often passes through informal hands first, Chatterjee said.
“Integrating informal actors into traceable supply chains could substantially reduce” loss of valuable critical minerals at the sorting and dismantling stages, he said.
Ecowork, India’s only authorised non‑profit e‑waste recycler, is attempting that through training and safe workspaces.
“Our training covers dismantling and the (full) process for informal workers,” said operations manager Devesh Tiwari.
“We tell them about the hazards, the valuable critical minerals, and how they can do it the right way so the material’s value doesn’t drop.”
At its facility on the outskirts of Delhi, Rizwan Saifi expertly dismantled a discarded hard drive, slicing out a permanent magnet destined for an advanced recycler, where it will be shredded to recover dysprosium — a rare‑earth metal essential to modern electronics.
“Earlier all we would care about was copper and aluminium because that is what was high-value in the scrap market,” Saifi, 20, said.
“But now we know how valuable this magnet is.”
By AFP
February 16, 2026
A man passes by a mural depicting various social media apps in Bangalore on March 22, 2018 - Copyright AFP/File Manjunath KIRAN
Parvaiz BUKHARI
India has tightened rules governing the use of artificial intelligence on social media to combat a flood of disinformation, but also prompting warnings of censorship and an erosion of digital freedoms.
The new regulations are set to take effect on February 20 — the final day of an international AI summit in New Delhi featuring leading global tech figures — and will sharply reduce the time platforms have to remove content deemed problematic.
With more than a billion internet users, India is grappling with AI-generated disinformation swamping social media.
Companies such as Instagram, Facebook and X will have three hours, down from 36, to comply with government takedown orders, in a bid to stop damaging posts from spreading rapidly.
Stricter regulation in the world’s most populous country ups the pressure on social media giants facing growing public anxiety and regulatory scrutiny globally over the misuse of AI, including the spread of misinformation and sexualised imagery of children.
But rights groups say tougher oversight of AI if applied too broadly risks eroding freedom of speech.
India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already faced accusations from rights groups of curbs on freedom of expression targeting activists and opponents, which his government denies.
The country has also slipped in global press freedom rankings during his tenure.
The Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF), a digital‑rights group, said the compressed timeframe of the social media take-down notices would force platforms to become “rapid-fire censors”.
– ‘Automated censorship’ –
Last year, India’s government launched an online portal called Sahyog — meaning “cooperate” in Hindi — to automate the process of sending takedown notices to platforms including X and Facebook.
The latest rules have been expanded to apply to content “created, generated, modified or altered through any computer resource” except material changed during routine or good‑faith editing.
Platforms must now clearly and permanently label synthetic or AI‑manipulated media with markings that cannot be removed or suppressed.
Under the new rules, problematic content could disappear almost immediately after a government notification.
The timelines are “so tight that meaningful human review becomes structurally impossible at scale”, said IFF chief Apar Gupta.
The system, he added, shifts control “decisively away from users”, with “grievance processes and appeals operate on slower clocks”, Gupta added.
Most internet users were not informed of authorities’ orders to delete their content.
“It is automated censorship,” digital rights activist Nikhil Pahwa told AFP.
The rules also require platforms to deploy automated tools to prevent the spread of illegal content, including forged documents and sexually abusive material.
“Unique identifiers are un-enforceable,” Pahwa added. “It’s impossible to do for infinite synthetic content being generated.”
Gupta likewise questioned the effectiveness of labels.
“Metadata is routinely stripped when content is edited, compressed, screen-recorded, or cross-posted,” he said. “Detection is error-prone.”
– ‘Online hate’ –
The US-based Center for the Study of Organized Hate (CSOH), in a report with the IFF, warned the laws “may encourage proactive monitoring of content which may lead to collateral censorship”, with platforms likely to err on the side of caution.
The regulations define synthetic data as information that “appears to be real” or is “likely to be perceived as indistinguishable from a natural person or real-world event.”
Gupta said the changes shift responsibility “upstream” from users to the platforms themselves.
“Users must declare if content is synthetic, and platforms must verify and label before publication,” said Gupta.
But he warned that the parameters for takedown are broad and open to interpretation.
“Satire, parody, and political commentary using realistic synthetic media can get swept in, especially under risk-averse enforcement,” Gupta said.
At the same time, widespread access to AI tools has “enabled a new wave of online hate “facilitated by photorealistic images, videos, and caricatures that reinforce and reproduce harmful stereotypes”, the CSOH report added.
In the most recent headline-grabbing case, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok sparked outrage in January when it was used to make millions of sexualised images of women and children, by allowing users to alter online images of real people.
“The government had to act because platforms are not behaving responsibly,” Pahwa said.
Junk to high-tech: India bets on e-waste for critical minerals
By AFP
February 17, 2026
Workers dismantle discarded monitors at 'Ecowork', an e-waste recycling facility in Ghaziabad, India - Copyright AFP Punit PARANJPE
Arunabh SAIKIA and Uzmi ATHAR
Hundreds of discarded batteries rattle along a conveyor belt into a crusher in a remote plant in northern India, fuelling a multi-billion-dollar industry that is bolstering the country’s geopolitical ambitions.
India is cashing in on the growing “e-waste” sector — pulling critical minerals like lithium and cobalt, which are needed to make everything from smartphones to fighter jets and electric cars, from everyday electronics.
Global jitters about China’s dominance as a critical minerals producer has kicked New Delhi into action, ramping up extraction of the materials that are essential for its drive to become an artificial intelligence hub.
With demand expected to soar and domestic mining unlikely to deliver meaningful output for at least a decade, the country is turning to an often‑overlooked source — the swelling mountains of electronic waste.
Dead batteries yield lithium, cobalt and nickel; LED screens contain germanium; circuit boards hold platinum and palladium; hard disks store rare earths — e‑waste has long been described as a “gold mine” for critical minerals.
India generated nearly 1.5 million tonnes of e‑waste last year, according to official data — enough to fill 200,000 garbage trucks — though experts believe the real figure is likely to be twice as much.
At Exigo Recycling’s sprawling plant in Haryana state, a machine churns the batteries from e-scooters into a jet-black powder.
The material is then leached into a wine‑red liquid, filtered, evaporated and finally transformed into a fine white powder — lithium.
“White gold,” said the facility’s lead scientist, watching the final product collect in trays.
– Backyard workshops –
Industry estimates suggest “urban mining” — the recovery of minerals from e‑waste — could be worth up to $6 billion annually.
While insufficient to meet India’s projected demand, analysts say it could help absorb import shocks and strengthen supply chains.
Most e‑waste, however, is still dismantled in informal backyard workshops that extract easily saleable metals such as copper and aluminium, leaving critical minerals untapped.
India’s formal recycling capacity remains limited compared to China and the European Union, both of which have invested heavily in advanced recovery technologies and traceability systems.
India has a “100 percent import dependency” for key critical minerals including lithium, cobalt and nickel, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Seeking to close the gap, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government approved a $170‑million programme last year to boost formal recycling of critical minerals.
The programme builds on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) rules, which require manufacturers to collect and channel e‑waste to government-registered recyclers.
“EPR has acted as a primary catalyst in terms of bringing scale to the recycling industry,” said Raman Singh, managing director at Exigo Recycling, one of the few Indian facilities able to extract lithium.
Other analysts agree the rules have redirected more waste into the formal sector.
“Before EPR was fully implemented, 99 percent of e-waste was being recycled in the informal sector,” said Nitin Gupta of Attero Recycling, which says it can recover at least 22 critical minerals.
“About 60 percent has now moved to formal.”
Government data suggests an even higher shift, though critics say the figures are inflated due to poor tracking of total e‑waste generation.
More than 80 percent of India’s e-waste is still processed informally, according to a United Nations Development Programme note in October.
– Rife with hazards –
Indian government-backed think‑tank NITI Aayog warned that organised recycling lagged behind both policy targets and the rapid growth in waste volumes.
Informal recycling is rife with hazards — open burning, acid baths and unprotected dismantling expose workers to toxic fumes and contaminate soil and water.
A bulk of India’s e‑waste still flowed through informal channels, leading to “loss of critical minerals”, said Sandip Chatterjee, senior adviser at Sustainable Electronics Recycling International.
“India’s informal sector remains the backbone of waste collection and sorting,” he told AFP.
In Seelampuri, a low‑income Delhi neighbourhood home to one of India’s largest informal e‑waste hubs, narrow alleys spill over with tangled cables and broken devices.
“The new companies just keep enough for certification, but the rest still comes to us,” said Shabbir Khan, a local trader. “Business has increased… not gone down.”
Even the junk that eventually reaches formal recyclers often passes through informal hands first, Chatterjee said.
“Integrating informal actors into traceable supply chains could substantially reduce” loss of valuable critical minerals at the sorting and dismantling stages, he said.
Ecowork, India’s only authorised non‑profit e‑waste recycler, is attempting that through training and safe workspaces.
“Our training covers dismantling and the (full) process for informal workers,” said operations manager Devesh Tiwari.
“We tell them about the hazards, the valuable critical minerals, and how they can do it the right way so the material’s value doesn’t drop.”
At its facility on the outskirts of Delhi, Rizwan Saifi expertly dismantled a discarded hard drive, slicing out a permanent magnet destined for an advanced recycler, where it will be shredded to recover dysprosium — a rare‑earth metal essential to modern electronics.
“Earlier all we would care about was copper and aluminium because that is what was high-value in the scrap market,” Saifi, 20, said.
“But now we know how valuable this magnet is.”
