India is preparing to publish its first formal proposal on how to regulate artificial intelligence. Ashwini Vaishnaw, the minister in charge of electronics and IT, told the NDTV World Summit 2026 that “we will be issuing a consultation paper in the coming weeks,” MediaNama reports. Based on his earlier remarks, the draft could appear in early November.
What a consultation paper is
A consultation paper is a draft set of ideas that the government publishes so the public can comment before any law or rule is finalised. Vaishnaw said the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) would “seek all the inputs from civil society, from citizens, and from industry stakeholders.” According to MediaNama, the ministry has already held talks with the tech industry, so this would be the first chance for ordinary citizens and campaign groups to weigh in.
The timing has already slipped once. On October 8, Vaishnaw said the draft would come out within a month.
A new law, or the old one?
The biggest open question is whether India will write a dedicated AI law or regulate AI under the existing Information Technology Act of 2000. Policy has wavered on this. In December 2025, MediaNama reported that India was not planning a separate AI law. Then in June 2026, Vaishnaw told the news agency PTI that “there is a requirement for a new law,” because AI is so different from the world in which the IT Act was written.
MediaNama notes that the paper’s exact contents are not yet known. Based on the minister’s past statements, the themes are likely to include:
- AI that stays “human-centric,” with people keeping control over AI models and agents and the outcomes they produce
- a way to shut down AI systems that go out of control
- alignment with international frameworks, which Vaishnaw has compared to global cooperation on nuclear safety
- input from sectors such as banking, manufacturing and financial services
Innovation first, but with guardrails
Vaishnaw has said India’s “bias has always been more towards innovation,” while still keeping citizens safe. That puts India somewhere between the European Union, which has a detailed AI law with strict rules for “high-risk” uses, and the United States, which has no single national AI law and leaves much of the work to individual states.
He also said “AI has been adopted very aggressively by our industry,” which is one reason the government now sees a need for clear rules on harms.
What it means for you
For people in India, nothing changes yet. No new obligations apply until a final law or rule is adopted, which usually takes months after a consultation.
What you can do is take part. When the paper is published, MeitY is expected to invite public comments, usually through its website. If you have concerns about deepfakes, AI scams, how your personal data is used to train AI, or AI making decisions about loans and jobs, the consultation window is the moment to say so. For businesses that build or use AI in India, it is worth watching closely, as the final rules could decide what checks and disclosures you will need.