Published: January 01, 2026
Dear Friends,
Citizens have begun to hold various layers of government to action, as in the case of Aravalli hills, on pollution and on cybercrimes. These are heartening developments to begin a New Year with.
Governments are supposed to respond to priorities that citizens set and not the other way round. When governments set priorities, they often chase will-of-the-wisps, rather than genuine necessities. The citizens need to set the agenda for the government to function. This only happens when the people can make their voice heard with relative ease, as it has happened in India, in these cases. The voices open the way for a regular dialogue between the citizens and the governments, which translates into a non-confrontational polity where plenty of good decisions get taken. This is the reason why democracies function the best among all forms of governance.
Notice that the issues on which the citizens have a grievance are also those which do not offer a clear yes or no answer. These require deliberations for the approximately right set of decisions to be built. This means these are not actionable as laws.
The Indian laws in most cases are adequate, but as we have all noticed, those are not enough. It is the rules, to be made under those laws and their implementation, which leaves a lot to be desired. This is where the role of the regulators come into play. They are supposed to be technical institutions, mandated by Parliament to examine difficult areas of public policy and then implement those. For these to happen, they need the independence to operate.
India has a plethora of regulators, though mostly confined to the Centre. The difference among them in their functioning is made up by those which are really independent and those which are not.
For example, in the case of environment we have the National Biodiversity Authority of India set up by the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. But it has remained an extended arm of the ministry of environment and forests and so lacks the “authority” to decide as in the case of the Aravalli hills. Instead of the ministry, it is this organization which should have decided on the concerns.
The difference is made clear when one sees the operation of the insurance sector. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India has shown it has the right and the will to pull up errant insurance companies when setting health insurance claims. The insurance regulator has done the right thing, writing a model no frills health insurance policy for the companies to adopt.
Continuing the good work, in the recently concluded winter session of Parliament, the central government has devolved more powers to the insurance regulator. Not just the insurance, the government has been very active in this session, ramping up the regulatory space in several sectors. A regulator for the higher education sector has been drawn up.
The nuclear power sector has been opened up to private sector participation, which will naturally need a regulator to police it, listen to the voice of the citizens and draw up rules for fresh forays into new technologies. The biggest of those is the merger of several laws for the capital markets to allow the market regulator easier space to develop the sector. In the year 2025, the government has already set up a regulator for the sports sector, revamping sports administration in a big way. A regulator is in the works for the shipping sector and so also one for the online gaming sector. There have been some disappointments too like the turf war of the government with Trai. These create avoidable risks as our coverage of the Artificial Intelligence scorecards show.
The other relevant issues that made the headlines in December were granting NFRA (National Financial Reporting Authority) more functional and financial independence, resolution of a case between Asianet and JioStar serving as a benchmark as to how regulators with parallel proceedings can coordinate effectively , the low payout issues related to Health Insurance flagged by IRDAI, and lapses on the Renewable Power projects, flagged by CERC.
At the Centre for Regulatory Governance at the Jindal Global Law School in the Jindal Global University, we have tracked all of these developments, extensively. We hope you enjoy reading our commentaries on all these developments. Naturally, we would want to hear your response. Do please write in with your comments. As you might have already heard, we plan to hold a workshop on regulatory effectiveness on the 16th of this month at New Delhi. We shall send the details soon, with a request to block your date for an intense session, that you will highly appreciate. We plan to come up with several more initiatives in the weeks and months ahead.
Meanwhile, from our team here, we wish you a splendid 2026 in your life and endeavours.
