Hyderabad, 3 rd February, 2026: SFLC.in along with VISWAM.ai, FOSS United, and The
Linux Foundation, hosted an official India AI Impact Pre-Summit event that brought together
policymakers, technologists, journalists, civil society and industry voices. The event was
inaugurated by Prof. Sandeep Shukla, Director of International Institute of Information
Technology Hyderabad (IIIT Hyderabad).
As part of the consultation, we held two closed-door roundtable discussions on Trust, Safety, and
Accountability in AI:
- Harnessing Open Source AI: exploring openness, transparency, safety, licensing, and
governance in AI systems. - Balancing AI Innovation and Copyright: Examining the DPIIT Working Paper on Generative
AI and Copyright, including proposed licensing models and their implications for creators and
developers. - Across both the roundtables, the participants emphasised that India’s AI future should be focused
on openness, accountability and inclusive access. The First roundtable concluded that AI
education and skilling initiatives must be grounded in open-source frameworks rather than
closed, vendor-controlled models. The principle of ‘public money, public good’ featured
prominently during the discussion, with participants questioning when state funding is used to
develop AI systems, including whether this should require open weights and transparent
methodologies. The roundtable also explored the potential role for public audit mechanisms in
assessing whether AI models genuinely serve last-mile communities and advance public-interest
objectives. In addition, the roundtable also emphasised data governance as a foundational pillar
of India’s AI ecosystem, calling for responsible data sharing of public and domain-specific data
with appropriate safeguards to enable education, research and innovation.
Speakers at the first roundtable included Mishi Chaudhary (Founder), Prasanth Sugathan
(Legal Director) and Angela Thomas (Legal Counsel) from SFLC.in; Praveen Chandrahas
(Secretary) and Ranjith Raj Vasam (Executive Committee Member) from Swecha; Kiran
Chandra (Chief Technology Officer), Gourinath B. Reddy (Chief of Staff), Rajasekhar
Ponakala (Senior Engineering Lead), and Dr. Praveen Gorla (Principal Researcher) from
VISWAM.ai; Poruri Sai Rahul (Chief Executive Officer) from FOSS United; Sridhar Rao
(Director) from The Linux Foundation; Venu Kumar (Data Scientist) from Factly; Ram
Iyengar (Security Evangelist) from OpenSSF; Chaitanya Chokkareddy (CTO and Co-founder)
from Ozonetel Communications; Prof. Ramesh Loganathan (Professor, Co-Innovation and
Outreach) from IIIT Hyderabad; Anoop Kunchukuttan (Co-Founder and Co-Lead) from
AI4Bharat; Anwesha Sen (Assistant Programme Manager- Tech and Policy) from Takshashila
Institution; Arpita Kanjilal (Head, Research and Communications Division) from Digital
Empowerment Foundation, Srinivas Kodali (Independent Researcher) and Prof. Rahul De
(Retired Professor) from Indian Institute of Management Bangalore.
The second roundtable focused on questions of compensation, personality rights, and creators
and journalistic freedom in the context of generative AI. The speakers largely echoed that the
hybrid model proposed by the DPIIT working paper proposes a paternalistic view by taking
away a copyright owner’s autonomy without providing them an opt-in /opt-out option to AI
training and legitimising data theft in the name of AI innovation. Speakers also raised concerns
about the proposed compensation mechanisms, which may prove inadequate and inaccessible to
large sections of the public. The discussion also examined risks around misuse, opacity, and
concerns related to corruption and accountability in the proposed collective management society
models development and deployment.
Speakers at the second roundtable included Prasanth Sugathan (Legal Director) and Angela
Thomas (Legal Counsel) from SFLC.in; Kiran Chandra (Chief Technology Officer),
Gourinath B. Reddy (Chief of Staff) from VISWAM.ai; Poruri Sai Rahul (Chief Executive
Officer) from FOSS United; Sridhar Rao (Director) from The Linux Foundation; Jatin Gandhi
(Vice President) from the Press Club of India; Ana Enriquez (Copyright Officer and Head-
Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright) from Penn State University Libraries;
Ambika Aggarwal from SpicyIP/ Ph.D. (IP Law scholar at NALSAR); Srinivas Kodali
(Independent Researcher); Swaraj Barooah (Senior Expert) from SpicyIP; Salauddin (Founder
President) from the Telangana Gig and Platform Workers Union; Merrin Ashraf (Technology
Law and Policy Researcher) from IT for Change;
Athira P S Nair (Director, Centre for
Intellectual Property Rights) from National University of Advanced Legal Studies;
Priyanshi Sharma (Co-founder) from Peek TV;
Anoop Kunchukuttan (Co-Founder and Co-Lead) from
AI4Bharat; Ram Iyengar (Security Evangelist) from OpenSSF; Chaitanya Chokkareddy
(CTO and Co-founder) from Ozonetel Communications; Sanjay Kapoor (President) from the
Editors Guild of India; Venu Kumar (Data Scientist) from Factly; Ashik Kumar Satheesh
(CEO, Ashik Arts; Director and Author).
The dialogue collectively reaffirmed that AI development and deployment are not just technical
issues but also social and governance challenges. Participants emphasised the need for
frameworks that promote openness, transparency and accountability in shaping AI policies.
VISWAM.AI and SFLC.IN also released a draft of the VISWAM.AI Data Set License for
consultation.
Various community initiatives for the publication of datasets for public use have
gained traction, exemplified by the community model pioneered by VISWAM.AI and Swecha in generating Telugu speech-to-text datasets. Nonetheless, the absence of suitable licensing
frameworks presents a risk that these datasets could be appropriated by large organisations
without appropriate attribution or reciprocal contribution to the community. The purpose of this
new license is to establish a framework that will require any entity utilising a dataset for machine
learning or related purposes to abstain from asserting proprietary rights over it and to contribute
any modifications or derivations back to the community. The Provider of the Original dataset
must be appropriately credited, and any subsequent or modified dataset must be released under
the identical license. This framework is grounded in the principles of copyleft licenses applicable
to software.
VISWAM.AI and SFLC.IN will be conducting a series of online and in-person consultations to
gain feedback on the draft of the license. We invite all stakeholders to use the link
(https://discuss.sflc.in/d/SBNXHa9k/swecha-data-sets-license-draft-for-discussion) to submit
public comments on the draft License consultation.
Prasanth Sugathan, Legal Director, SFLC.IN said “We need to ensure that the rights of creators
are protected and big tech companies do not appropriate the work of individuals and the
community without even attributing them. The VISWAM.AI license that we have released for
consultation is an attempt to protect the rights of creators so that they are given attribution and
users downstream also get the same kind of rights as those given by the creators. ”
The Free and Open Source Software movement has been one of the most successful
collaborative efforts in history. However, the licenses that powered this movement like the GPL
and Creative Commons, were written for a world of copying and distribution. They were
designed to answer: “Can I copy this code?” They were never built to answer: “Can I train a
neural network on this culture?
Even in the internet era, “to train or not to train” was a context the pre-AI world never envisaged.
We are releasing this Draft License for consultation to ensure proprietary models cannot simply
appropriate our work without attribution. This paves the way for the release of community-
contributed, crowdsourced datasets under a framework that guarantees community ownership
and verifiability,” Said Kiran Chandra, Head and Chief technologist of VISWAM.AI, and the
Founder of Swecha.
Through the discussions and release of the draft license, the roundtable reflected its continued
commitment to foster multi-stakeholder dialogue and strengthen public interest approaches to AI
governance and digital rights in India
About the Organisers
- SFLC.in – SFLC.in is a donor-supported legal services organization that has united lawyers,
policy analysts, technologists, business professionals, students, and citizens to protect freedom in
the digital world since 2010. The organization is dedicated to promoting open knowledge, free
expression, online privacy, innovation, and equality in the digital world. It works at the
intersection of digital freedom, technology policy and law. SFLC.in promotes digital security
and raising awareness about safe online practices.
- VISWAM.ai – A group of open source enthusiasts, community builders, technologists and
researchers working towards tech for social good. We bring together expertise from research
institutions, industry partners, and community organizations to create innovative AI
technologies, and foundations to help building solutions for the Global South. - FOSS United – FOSS United is a not-for-profit organization that promotes & strengthens the
Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) ecosystem in India. - The Linux Foundation – The Linux Foundation is a global nonprofit that brings together
leading developers and companies to advance open-source technologies through collaboration,
shared innovation, and large-scale technology ecosystems.
