India’s long-term digital resilience depends on supporting domestic entities that have true skin in the game. Domestic operations are bound directly by Indian law, answerable to local courts and invested in the nation’s socio-economic stability

Elon Musk recently launched an offensive against India’s regulatory pace over his company Starlink, a SatCom service not getting the licence to operate despite compliance with Indian authorities. Expressing his frustration over delayed commercial approvals, Musk accused “oligarchs” of keeping a monopolistic chokehold on the Indian market, going as far as calling the delays a “crime against the people”. It was, to be honest, quite amusing to see a trillion dollars’ worth oligarch himself have a go at others, and a misplaced attack at that. While his ire was directed at the telecom companies that have partnered with him, his aim was to hit out at the Indian government. The government has rightly and firmly pushed back, saying that its regulatory framework is fair, transparent, and uniformly applied, and also confirmed that all major satellite communication licensees, including Starlink, Bharti Airtel-backed Eutelsat OneWeb, and Reliance Jio Satellite Communications, are currently at the exact same stage of security evaluation.

So why the tantrum? Does Elon believe that processes can be bypassed to accommodate him if he tries arm-twisting? It isn’t how this works! In fact, there has been a long-standing concern about allowing Starlink permits to operate in India. As part of the Standing Committee of IT & Communications, I had repeatedly expressed concerns about the IT Ministry........

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