Volume 1, Issue 1

This paper examines the feasibility of integrating blockchain technology into the Indian electoral process, the largest democratic exercise globally. Faced with a demographic crisis of voter disenfranchisement driven by domestic migration, the Election Commission of India has actively explored remote voting technologies. Concurrently, persistent public skepticism regarding the opacity of existing Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) necessitates a transition towards End-to-End Verifiable (E2E-V) systems. This research employs a multi-dimensional methodology, synthesizing cryptographic literature, empirical data from regional e-voting pilot studies, and rigorous legal analyses of Indian constitutional frameworks, including the Representation of the People Act, 1951, and the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023. The principal findings indicate that while pure internet-based public blockchains present catastrophic national-scale cybersecurity risks and exacerbate the digital divide, a hybrid architectural convergence is highly viable.

The subscription trap economy describes a structural market condition in which recurring-revenue businesses systematically exploit consumer behavioral vulnerabilities through dark-pattern interface design, asymmetric information disclosure, and deliberately obstructed cancellation mechanisms. This paper examines the economic foundations, behavioral mechanisms, documented consumer harm, and regulatory responses constituting this phenomenon. Methodologically, the study employs systematic document analysis of regulatory enforcement records, large-sample consumer surveys, and peer-reviewed behavioral economics literature. The global subscription economy reached an estimated USD 492–593 billion in transaction value in 2024, projected to approach USD 1 trillion by 2028.

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act) arrived as the country’s first comprehensive privacy statute, filling a regulatory void that ad hoc provisions under the Information Technology Act, 2000 had long struggled to cover. Yet the legislation was conceived primarily as a general data-protection instrument, not as a direct response to the governance challenges posed by artificial intelligence. This paper argues that the Act’s architecture contains four structural gaps when assessed against AI-specific privacy risks: the legal status of machine-generated inferences about individuals remains undefined; there is no statutory right against consequential automated decisions; obligations on Data Fiduciaries regarding algorithmic transparency are thin; and the broad exemptions granted to State instrumentalities sit uncomfortably with the proportionality standard mandated by the Supreme Court’s right-to-privacy ruling.

The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act, 2021 (SRA) represents a landmark, if contested, statutory intervention in India’s previously unregulated surrogacy industry — once estimated to generate revenues exceeding USD 2 billion annually. While the Act’s prohibition on commercial surrogacy and its institutional oversight framework are defensible regulatory responses to documented exploitation of economically vulnerable women, its eligibility architecture introduces significant constitutional tensions under Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution of India.