Daily Newspaper Notes: February 21, 2026

Centralisation of Power And The Need To Reset Indian Federalism

Core Points:

• The committee finds a steady increase in centralisation of power over the decades.
• Centralisation is described as unhealthy and detrimental to federal democracy.
• The report is a wide-ranging critique of the weakening of federalism in India.
• It argues that Indian federalism requires a “structural reset” comparable to the 1991 economic reforms.
• Federalised governance is essential for a country of India’s size and diversity.
• Ignoring the need for federalism would be dangerous for national progress.
• The report challenges and rejects arguments supporting centralisation.
• It urges that the findings should initiate a new national conversation on federalism.

Mother-Tongue-Based Multilingual Education as Foundation for Inclusive Learning

Core Points:

• India has an exceptionally rich linguistic landscape, integral to how children learn and develop.
• Language loss implies loss of accumulated knowledge and ways of understanding the world.
• Safeguarding languages is both a cultural and educational imperative.
• Mother-tongue-based multilingual education (MTB-MLE) is critical for quality education.
• Young learners thrive when their languages and identities are recognised in classrooms.
• UNESCO promotes multilingual teaching based on the language best understood by learners.
• MTB-MLE is pedagogically sound and has transformative potential.
• Linguistic diversity should be treated as an asset, not a challenge.
• Children learn best when taught in a language they understand.
• Education systems must recognise and value every learner’s language to improve outcomes and affirm identity.

Pax Silica and India’s Entry into the Techno-Security Order

Core Points:

• Global power in the 21st century is increasingly shaped by semiconductors, critical minerals, and AI.
• These technologies are overtaking fossil fuels and naval power as key determinants of hegemony.
• Nations must rethink security architecture and technological alliances.
• India is no longer only a technology consumer but part of a strategic inner circle.
• Pax Silica represents a new economic security consensus among trusted partners.
• Dual-use nature of critical and emerging technologies has fused national security with economic policy.
• Frictionless globalisation has ended; supply chains are now securitised.
• A nation unable to secure its technology stack loses strategic autonomy.
• Autarky is a liability in a techno-nationalistic era.
• Economic security now requires deep integration with reliable partners.
• India’s signing of Pax Silica is grounded in realpolitik.
• Long-term goal of atmanirbharta remains, but short-term alliances are necessary.
• India must build overlapping technology coalitions to hedge against disruptions.

Artificial Intelligence: Ethical Risks and Transformation of State–Capital Relations

Core Points:

• AI is a transformative force capable of resetting the direction of civilisation.
• Central concern: making AI human-centric, sensitive and responsible.
• AI is democratic in nature, enabling many actors to build impactful algorithms and applications.
• AI can augment human capabilities and enable superfast, efficient delivery of services.
• Risks of AI include:
  • Emergence of “superhumans” via AI-genetics intersection.
  • Widening gap between tech-haves and tech-have-nots.
  • Job displacement and skill disruption.
  • Data privacy, deepfakes, disinformation and algorithmic bias.
  • AI-powered autonomous weapons that cannot discriminate between soldiers and civilians.
• Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is being actively pursued and could surpass human cognition.
• Hypothetical “singularity” stage may see AI escape human control.
• Need for strong philosophical, moral and ethical frameworks to accompany AI evolution.
• Vatican’s “Rome Call for AI Ethics” advocates granting humanity centrality and a new “algor-ethics”.
• Stephen Hawking warned that the long-term impact of AI depends on whether it can be controlled.
• India adopted Sarvajana Hitaya, Sarvajana Sukhaya as the AI Impact Summit motto.

AI and the Reconfiguration of State–Capital Relations

Core Points:

• First theory: backlash stems from inequality, job loss and cultural fears; solution lies in redistribution and welfare.
• Second theory: technological change, culminating in AI, has altered capital’s interests.
• AI requires a new strategic alignment between states and capital.
• Manufacturing-era capital benefited from geographic dispersion and mobility.
• AI-era capital is capital-intensive, infrastructure-heavy and territorially anchored.
• Leading AI firms resemble early 20th-century infrastructure monopolies.
• AI blurs boundary between market coordination and administrative control.
• Information becomes price through algorithmic systems.
• Large-scale AI operation requires legal permissions, data access and state sanction.
• Emerging symbiosis:
  • Capital extracts data.
  • State gains surveillance capacity.
• Geopolitical competition now centres on technological sovereignty.
• Exit as a disciplining mechanism loses relevance because assets are territorially embedded.
• US and China both exhibit techno-nationalist frameworks.
• Big capital aligns with states that seek greater social control.
• Techno-nationalism reflects re-embedding of capital in the state, not markets in society.