Blaise Fernandes

Blaise Fernandes

Board Member

Blaise Fernandes, is a Board Member at Gateway House and President and CEO of the Indian Music Industry (IMI), has spent over three decades of his career in the media and entertainment sector. The trust he is now associated with looks after the business interests of the recorded music industry. He is on the IPR Committee of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and CII’s Monitoring and Evaluation Committee. He was CEO of Gateway House: Indian Council on Foreign Relations for four years, and prior to that Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs, at Edelweiss Finance.
Expertise

Digital, Soft Power

Last modified: March 31, 2022

Recent projects

GIs Courtesy: Blaise Fernandes
14 January 2022 Gateway House

Indian GI: Local Goes National Goes Global

Geographical Indication (GI) tags denote a good's specific physical origin. These are potential revenue-generators for India. Combining government support with its e-commerce network, India can empower MSMEs and women-led cottage industries to compete with large companies by building a strong GI ecosystem. The Make in India initiative and GI can together provide an impetus to social and economic growth in India.
Growing Locally Courtesy: Shutterstock
7 October 2021 The Indian Express

Growing locally

Geographical Indication (GI) tags can be ready revenue generators today, especially for India. The country's robust global e-commerce system and recent domestic drone policy can help build a strong GI ecosystem and boost India's soft power. The government must lend its support to the industry, learning from European and Chinese examples.
BigTech Report (1) Courtesy: Gateway House
1 July 2021 Gateway House

Regulating Big Tech: A Balancing Act

Big Tech is powerful and its profits are growing - by 105% over the last year. It dominates economies. This raises concerns about data protection and privacy, anti-trust, fintech and the specific role of intermediaries. India is leading the way on fintech, but is behind several countries and institutions on digital rules. It is important to establish laws and rules to govern technology – whether domestic or through multilateral bodies – with the aim to strike the right balance between innovation and regulation.

Source: www.shutterstock.com Courtesy: Shutterstock
3 June 2021 Gateway House

Creating an Indian Digital Service

India is now an integral part of the global digital supply chain, and is salient to global technology stakeholders. The country’s innovation, regulation and legislation is working hard to keep up with this fast-moving new element. The gap is in domestic administrative technical capacity. A new all-India service cadre with technical expertise can streamline the technology policy work across ministries and play an important role in building India’s digital dimensions.
shutterstock_1799297029 Courtesy: Shutterstock
21 September 2020 Gateway House

China wins this TikTok round

With Oracle, Walmart and U.S. venture capitalists now holding the majority of TikTok Global’s shareholding, China’s closed digital world gets a breather, and the possibility of a truly open global Internet, gets a blow. China has won this round.
shutterstock_193919333 Courtesy: Shuterstock
4 September 2020 Gateway House

India on the global digital stage

The depth and complexity of India’s digital citizenry and ecosystem puts it in a unique position to impact global rules on digital governance. An opportunity to assert its influence is coming up with India’s presidency of the G20 in 2022. Work on this agenda must begin now.

BF_Final Courtesy: Uday Deb/Times of India
12 July 2020 Times of India

Chinese 5G: Kiss of death

After the strategic digital pushback against Chinese investments and apps, India should turn its attention to the biggest Chinese domination tool – 5G. This is the mother lode that enables the efficient gathering of data, which when mined, results in product enhancement and pricing benefits to products listed in China 2025 and helps China set global standards. There is an urgency for alternate suppliers of 5G equipment and other technologies to avoid relying on China.
shutterstock_1543048124 Courtesy: Shutterstock
4 June 2020 The Hindu Business Line

Chinese apps pose a security risk

With more than 130 and 119 million users respectively, Chinese apps such as UC Browser and TikTok are not merely internet products, but serious content aggregators in India. But the final control of data collected by these apps resides in China, and this creates a grave risk to national security.
shutterstock_524792053 Courtesy: Shutterstock
28 May 2020 Money Control

Digital India story Covid-19 resistant

India’s e-commerce sector has shown resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a welcome outcome, and to ensure its success, strong regulatory policy in e-commerce is needed to ensure a level-playing field. This will benefit the customer and strengthen the Digital India and Make in India visions of the government. Can emerging markets look to India for a model e-commerce policy where the regulator has played a part, but not overregulated?
Ecomm policy Courtesy: Shutterstock
26 May 2020 Money Control

Digital India story Covid-19 resistant

India’s e-commerce sector has shown resistance to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is a welcome outcome, and to ensure its success, strong regulatory policy in e-commerce is needed to ensure a level-playing field. This will benefit the customer and strengthen the Digital India and Make in India visions of the government. Can emerging markets look to India for a model e-commerce policy where the regulator has played a part, but not overregulated?