Time for Ashwini Vaishnaw to Show the Door to MeitY’s Apathetic Bureaucrats
The ongoing India AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam was supposed to be the crowning achievement of India’s technological sovereignty. With global titans like Sundar Pichai and Sam Altman in attendance, and the launch of the indigenous BharatGen Param2 model, the stage was set to prove that India is no longer just a consumer of technology, but a creator.
Instead, the headlines have been hijacked by a robodog named Orion. This wasn’t a breakthrough from a budding Indian startup; it was a commercially available Unitree Go2 robot—manufactured in China and purchased for 2.5 lakh—presented by Galgotias University as a 350 crore in-house innovation.
While the university’s attempts at damage control are laughable, the real culprit isn’t just a rogue professor on a DD News clip. The real failure lies within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It is time for Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to stop apologizing for his team and start showing the door to the apathetic bureaucrats who allowed this own goal to happen.
A Minister Working in Isolation
Minister Vaishnaw is arguably one of the hardest-working members of the Cabinet. He has spent the last year on a war footing, securing 38,000 GPUs, establishing a sovereign AI stack, and positioning India as the leader of the Global South’s digital future. His vision is modern, fast-paced, and uncompromising.
Unfortunately, the bureaucratic machinery beneath him seems to be operating on a 1990s frequency. How did a flagship pavilion at a VVIP summit—one where the Prime Minister himself is the guest of honor—get assigned to an entity that didn’t undergo even a basic technical audit? A simple reverse image search by any junior officer would have revealed the Orion robot for what it was.
The Cost of Administrative Apathy
When MeitY officials fail at basic vetting, the cost isn’t just a viral meme; it is a direct hit to the Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) brand. By allowing a rebranded Chinese product to be showcased as indigenous innovation, the bureaucrats in charge of the Expo have effectively mocked the Minister’s own mission.
The immediate action taken today—cutting the power to the Galgotias stall and ordering them to vacate—is too little, too late. It is a reactive measure for a proactive failure. If the Additional Secretary and the CEO of the IndiaAI Mission cannot ensure that the IndiaAI banner is protected from such blatant misrepresentation, then the leadership is clearly out of touch with the very technology they are supposed to govern.
Accountability, Not Just Apologies
Minister Vaishnaw recently apologized for the logistical chaos on day one of the summit. He shouldn’t have to. The logistics and vetting are the bread and butter of the IAS and MeitY cadre. If they cannot manage a registration queue or a stall-vetting process without causing national embarrassment, they are an active bottleneck to India’s progress.
We are told that sovereign AI is about control and pride. But there is no pride in a summit where a Chinese toy overshadows the launch of a 17-billion parameter Indian language model.
Minister Vaishnaw must realize that his legacy is being diluted by generalist apathy. To save the IndiaAI Mission, he must hold the officers in charge of this Expo’s due diligence personally accountable. It’s time for a purge of the deadwood. If an officer’s negligence leads to a national PR disaster, they shouldn’t just be moved to another department—they should be shown the door.
India’s AI future is too important to be left in the hands of bureaucrats who can’t tell the difference between an innovation and an invoice.
