The 14th International Tourism Mart (ITM) opened at Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh (29–31 October 2026), returning there after 13 years. It drew a record 43 international buyers from 22 countries, as domestic tourist visits to the North-East rose about 58% — from 95.65 lakh (2019) to 1.51 crore (2025).

• Livelihoods: tourism is labour-intensive and can diversify incomes in a region with limited manufacturing.
• Act East and border development: visitors bring economic activity to frontier areas, complementing the Vibrant Villages Programme.
• Constraints: connectivity gaps, permit procedures, limited hotel stock, monsoon landslides and patchy digital connectivity.
• Sustainability: fragile ecology and distinct tribal cultures require carrying-capacity planning, waste management and community ownership to avoid over-tourism.

With over 109 crore internet subscribers and average wireless data use of about 25.5 GB a month per user, India’s demand for computing is surging. A PIB backgrounder sets out how cloud computing, data centres and initiatives such as MeghRaj and the IndiaAI Mission are building a domestic digital foundation — and why data sovereignty matters.

Figure 2 — How cloud computing works

Device → internet → data centre → answer back. Infographic courtesy PIB / MeitY, 29 October 2026; reproduced with credit for educational use.

Figure 3 — Types of cloud services

Moving up the stack, the provider manages more and the user less. Infographic courtesy PIB / MeitY, 29 October 2026; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service): rent virtual servers, storage and networks — e.g. a retailer scaling for festive sales.
• PaaS (Platform as a Service): tools to build, test and deploy applications without managing servers — e.g. developing a banking app.
• SaaS (Software as a Service): ready-made software used through a browser or app, maintained by the provider — e.g. video conferencing, online file storage.
• Serverless computing: code runs only when triggered, with the provider managing servers — servers still exist, but are invisible to the developer.

Figure 4 — Public, private and hybrid clouds

A fourth model, the community cloud, is shared by organisations with common needs. Infographic courtesy PIB / MeitY, 29 October 2026; reproduced with credit for educational use.

• DPDP Act, 2023 — cross-border transfers: the Act follows a negative-list approach — personal data may be transferred abroad except to countries the Centre restricts by notification; stricter sectoral rules continue to apply.
• Sectoral localisation: the RBI’s 2018 directive requires payment-system data to be stored only in India.
• Why it matters: foreign laws can give overseas authorities access to data held by their companies; domestic infrastructure strengthens legal control over sensitive data.

• Energy and water: data centres are power- and cooling-intensive; their growth must be matched with renewable power and efficient cooling, measured by Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
• Market concentration: a few global hyperscalers dominate; vendor lock-in and dependence on foreign providers raise strategic questions.
• Cybersecurity: concentration of data creates high-value targets, as recent breaches have shown; cloud contracts need strict security and audit clauses.
• Regional imbalance: capacity clusters near submarine-cable landing points and big cities; dispersal needs reliable power and fibre.
• Balanced view: shared cloud infrastructure lowers costs for governments, start-ups and researchers, and is a prerequisite for India’s AI ambitions.

The second ARISE Cities Forum in New Delhi ended with the Delhi Declaration on Local Action for Global Climate Goals, setting out ten commitments that cities and local governments of the Global South will carry to COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye — urging that mayors and local bodies be treated as partners in climate decision-making.

• The finance gap: cities rarely have direct access to international climate funds; most finance flows to national governments. “Institutionalising multilevel finance” targets this.
• Capacity at home: many Indian urban local bodies have limited own revenue and technical staff; Twelfth Schedule functions are unevenly devolved, constraining city-level climate action.
• Formal status: local governments participate in the UNFCCC as observers through the LGMA constituency; they have no negotiating role — the Declaration seeks greater recognition within this structure.
• India’s urban priorities: heat action plans, flood resilience, electric public transport, waste management and urban greening are areas where local action produces measurable results.