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Published (non-binding, current)Non-binding · Guidelines / framework

India AI Governance Guidelines: Enabling Safe and Trusted AI Innovation

Record IN-02

Issued by
Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India
Jurisdiction
India
Level · region
National · South & Southeast Asia
Published / adopted
2025-11-05
Language
English

Summary

India's national AI governance framework. It sets seven guiding principles or sutras (trust, people first, innovation over restraint, fairness and equity, accountability, understandable by design, and safety, resilience and sustainability) and recommendations across six pillars, including an India-specific risk assessment framework based on evidence of harm, a graded liability system, voluntary measures backed by techno-legal solutions, a national AI incident database, and new bodies: an AI Governance Group, a Technology & Policy Expert Committee and the AI Safety Institute. It finds that existing laws can address many risks and that a separate AI law is not needed at this stage.

Safety topics

risk-based classificationincident reportingaccountability & liabilitysafety institutetransparency & labellingdeepfakes & synthetic media

Status notes

A drafting committee constituted by MeitY in July 2025 and chaired by Prof. Balaraman Ravindran (IIT Madras) wrote the guidelines. It built on a draft report by a sub-committee on AI governance under the Principal Scientific Adviser's advisory group, which MeitY published for public feedback and which drew more than 2,500 submissions; that draft is superseded by these guidelines. The seven sutras are adapted from the Reserve Bank of India's FREE-AI Committee report. Principal Scientific Adviser Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood unveiled the guidelines on 5 Nov 2025, calling 'Do No Harm' the guiding principle of the framework, ahead of the India-AI Impact Summit (New Delhi, 19-20 Feb 2026). PIB published an explainer on 15 Feb 2026 for the Summit. India has no AI-specific statute.

Sources

Open the official source https://indiaai.gov.in/article/india-ai-governance-guidelines-empowering-ethical-and-responsible-ai

Secondary source: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2186639

Local copy

Partial (secondary source only). The official source could not be downloaded (The site's TLS certificate could not be verified. robots.txt could not be checked, which RFC 9309 treats as 'do not crawl'); only the secondary source was saved. Last attempt 2026-10-18 03:22:13 UTC

Secondary source (third-party copy, not published) archive/IN-02/2026-10-18/secondary.html
Retrieved 2026-10-18 02:59:19 UTC
SHA-256 c6ed15b33827f8f809ec8336dea86849ced702003467604ae32ac849ab00acc9

Verification

B
Another official source, such as an announcement by the issuer, confirms the title, date and status. checked 2026-10-18 · alternative-official-url-fetched
Recheck of 18 Oct 2026. The official_url (IndiaAI article on indiaai.gov.in) could not be stored on any attempt (robots.txt unreachable, DNS failures, then a TLS certificate that could not be verified); copies of the PIB release on digitalindia.gov.in and negd.gov.in returned HTTP 403. Stored: the PIB release of 5 Nov 2025 (PRID 2186639, pib.gov.in, the secondary_url), the guidelines document itself (static.pib.gov.in, 68 pages) and PIB's explainer of 15 Feb 2026 (static.pib.gov.in). The guidelines confirm the title, MeitY's drafting committee, the four parts, the sutras, the six pillars, the institutions, the incident database, the risk framework, the voluntary approach and the finding that a separate AI law is not needed. The guidelines carry no date; the date of 5 Nov 2025 and the unveiling rest on the PIB release, which was stored as the record's secondary source and so counts as another official source. The guidelines do not use the phrase 'Do No Harm'; it is the Principal Scientific Adviser's description at the launch, so it moved from the summary to the notes. The explainer of 15 Feb 2026 says the guidelines were 'releasing in AI Impact Summit 2026', which reads as a reference to the Summit rather than a second release.
Second check: Independent check by Claude Code (claude-sonnet-5-5), 2026-10-18: 6 field(s) supported.

History

  1. 2026-10-18related: [{"slug": "india-indiaai-safety-institute", "id": "IN-01"}, {"slug": "india-it-r → [{"slug": "india-indiaai-safety-institute", "id": "IN-01"}, {"slug": "india-it-r — two-way link added: NP-01 link(s) to IN-022026-10-18-fix-related-links · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
  2. 2026-10-18verification.level: A → B — level computed from the evidence by tools/pipeline.py2026-10-18-recheck-south-asia-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
  3. 2026-10-18notes: A drafting committee chaired by Prof. Balaraman Ravindran (IIT Madras) wrote the → A drafting committee constituted by MeitY in July 2025 and chaired by Prof. Bala — rewritten from the stored guidelines and PIB release: drafting committee, sub-committee draft and its 2,500+ submissions, FREE-AI origin of the sutras, the PSA's 'Do No Harm'; the unsupported title 'Report on AI Governance Guidelines Development' and the consultation date of 6 Jan 2025 dropped (no stored file shows them); the remark on the Digital India Act moved out2026-10-18-recheck-south-asia-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
  4. 2026-10-18safety_topics: ["risk-based classification", "incident reporting", "accountability & liability" → ["risk-based classification", "incident reporting", "accountability & liability" — reduced from 7 to 6 (the limit is 6): evaluation & testing dropped as the least central; the others are supported by the guidelines (risk assessment framework, incident database, graded liability, AISI, content authentication and deepfakes)2026-10-18-recheck-south-asia-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)
  5. 2026-10-18summary: India's main AI governance framework. It sets seven guiding principles ('sutras' → India's national AI governance framework. It sets seven guiding principles or su — rewritten from the guidelines: the sutras named, the risk assessment framework, graded liability, voluntary techno-legal measures, the national incident database, the institutions and the finding on a separate law; 'with Do No Harm at the core' removed from the summary because the guidelines do not say it (the PSA said it at the launch; now in the notes)2026-10-18-recheck-south-asia-1 · Claude Code (claude-opus-5-5)

Related records

IndiaAI Safety Institute India · Published (non-binding, current)

IT Rules amendment on synthetically generated information (deepfake labelling), 2026 India · In force

New Delhi Declaration AI Impact Summit (New Delhi, 2026) · Published (non-binding, current)

Nepal National AI Policy 2082 (2025) Nepal · Published (non-binding, current)

Citation

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. India AI Governance Guidelines: Enabling Safe and Trusted AI Innovation. 2025-11-05. https://indiaai.gov.in/article/india-ai-governance-guidelines-empowering-ethical-and-responsible-ai. Status: Published (non-binding, current); verified 2026-10-18 (level B). Local copy archive/IN-02/2026-10-18/secondary.html retrieved 2026-10-18 02:59:19 UTC, SHA-256 c6ed15b33827f8f809ec8336dea86849ced702003467604ae32ac849ab00acc9. Every AI Policy Ever, version 1.18 (snapshot 2026-10-18), record IN-02.

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