Viswanathan K's Thoughts

The last pillar of India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) is privacy . We take that to mean control over who knows what, whether that info can be shared with others, for how long it can be retained etc. Yes, privacy is all those things.   But India’s DEPA takes it a lot further, explains Rahul Matthan in The Third Way . It actively seeks to ensure portability (Unlike those private corporations which deliberately have data is in non-standard formats to prevent interoperability). Even better, DEPA has “been designed to support requests for specific items of data ”. An example helps. When we apply for say a visa, the issuing country really only wants to know if we earn enough (salary month on month). But the bank statement exposes every transaction. The DEPA framework allows you to select only salary credits be shown and everything else blacked out.   The next issue with privacy is consent , i.e., explicit permission of the individual. In theory, the solution lie...

Another design principle of India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) is protocols . As opposed to platforms. This needs some explanation, as done by Rahul Matthan in The Third Way . A platform (like Facebook or YouTube) provides a forum where anyone can post material but there are no guarantees on what will be permitted (or how the rules could change with time). A protocol, on the other hand, is a set of rules that are defined upfront so all participants know what is allowed and expected.   The DPI’s protocol model means any participant can create entirely new applications that nobody had thought of, as long as they follow the protocols. This allows for enormous creativity and evolution of applications over time.   And lastly, since protocols are rules, regulations can be enforced via the protocol. The government doesn’t have to chase down every participant to see if they follow the rules. The mere act of agreeing to follow the protocol (in software, remember this ...

The second design principle behind India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) is interoperability . As any engineer will tell you, systems rarely talk to each other. Every piece gets optimized for itself, and thus is rarely suited to work with anything else. Plus, companies deliberately choose to keep things in proprietary formats so customers cannot easily switch out.   When we say Aadhar is the world’s first digital ID system, it doesn’t just mean that the ID was created and stored in digital format. It means a lot more than that, as Rahul Matthan explains in The Third Way . It means that it was designed to be usable in all kinds of digital workflows, an example of which we saw in an earlier blog on the design of UPI by unbundling things first.   Another example is Aadhar’s integration with Jeevan Praman, a government pension service. Proof of life can be established remotely by a pensioner, thanks to Aadhar’s interoperability. This is hugely helpful in the rural...

There are 4 design principles behind India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) . The first one is unbundling , writes Rahul Matthan in The Third Way . What this means is that DPI didn’t just digitize existing workflows. Instead, it broke down existing workflows into their constituent elements and then restructured them to be resilient and interoperable. Then it assembled things back in entirely new ways.   An example helps understand how big an impact this can have. Take the old way of transferring money to someone.   This is why checks took time to encash. Banks had to perform checks and communicate with each other. Unbundling in this case started from scratch. It didn’t look how to accelerate the above system. Instead, it looked at the easiest form of money transfer. Yes, cash. The giver and sender don’t need to know anything about each other; nobody needs to check and confirm if the giver has enough in the account; you just hand the cash. Could payments be digitized...

Empowerment via DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) , that is the next benefit described in Rahul Matthan’s The Third Way . That refers to empowerment of the individual over the data collected about him and what it can be used for. On this front, India has created DEPA (Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture) . What is that? “A consented (consent based) data-sharing framework capable of being applied across various sectors.”   An example helps understand it. Matthan takes a vegetable vendor, Rajini. Say, she goes to the wholesale market early every morning, buys ₹25,000 worth of vegetables. Then she brings it to the neighbourhood, and sells it for ₹28,000 per day, netting a profit of ₹3,000 per day. That’s a lakh a month. Thanks to digitization and UPI, there is a digital trail of these transactions. With which she could prove her credibility and success to seek a loan at better terms.   The problem though is that her bank transaction record will show many, man...

In an earlier blog, we went over one of the benefits of India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) . In this one, we go over another benefit – engagement , as explained in Rahul Matthan’s The Third Way .   The most obvious reason why DPI has increased and improved citizens’ engagement is the cost reduction of everything digital as opposed to physical. People don’t need to create copies of documents; recipients don’t need to find storage space to keep it.   Even better, with a digitized system, identification no longer requires a trip; which saves both time and money. Workflows are easier to design and change. Digital trails help finding fraud or fault easier. Transactions are digitally signed and timestamped (sometimes geo-stamped, i.e., location coordinates included).   “Universally trusted digital rails” are now well and truly in place. The most used and well-known services of which is, yes, payments. UPI, a “blindingly simple system”, allows money transfer...

In earlier blogs, we saw the US and European policies on data. Coming to India, Rahul Matthan (in The Third Way ) points out it is one of those rare countries which has collected a huge amount of digital data before it became rich. This is entirely because of the combo of smartphone + cheap Internet plans. Even those of us who lived through this phase forget how quick it was – in 2014, just 15% of the population had a smartphone, by 2022 over 65% had one.   There is one element of the data equation on which India is unique, namely that its gathering was facilitated by deliberate government policies and protocols, not by private players. Yes, DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) , which includes everything from UPI to eKYC to DigiYatra to DigiLocker and more. It ensures “interoperable digital architectures” (contrast that with the silos of Google or Facebook in the West; Alibaba or WeChat in China). Does the Indian approach provide any benefits and opportunities? Yes, on 3 front...

Digital public infrastructure. Or DPI. Examples include UPI, subsidy transfer, Digi Locker, Digi Yatra and many other such services. Which is why, as Rahul Matthan writes : “Small wonder that so many of us have come to assume that for all things DPI, India is the global epicentre of innovation.”   But, as Matthan points out, many other countries have built some DPI too. During COVID, usage of digital wallets in Sierra Leone boomed. mPESA in Kenya for money transfer. A few Caribbean countries have issued a joint digital currency, the DCash. The BPNT program in Indonesia is used for the delivery of subsidized rice to its intended beneficiaries. In Ghana, they have the Safe Water Network that allows payment via SMS codes to improve water delivery.   The biggest use of such digital systems across countries seems to be wrt payments. But, in addition, as you saw above: “This DPI approach had significantly accelerated the achievement of their societal objectives.” These...