Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw during the 21st D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture on the occasion of CBI’s 62nd Foundation Day in New Delhi, on April 1, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI
Law enforcement agencies should be aware of societal changes underway in India, Union Minister for Railways, Electronics and Information Technology, and Information and Broadcasting Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Tuesday (April 1, 2025). Mr. Vaishnaw was delivering the D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture on the foundation day of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
“When a country is growing at 6-8%, the rapid growth brings changes in the system,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. “When change happens, the context of investigation changes. What was in the control and permit raj era a crime is today removed from the statutes and seen as something that is part of the economy. That mindset change is what really is required in today’s context.”
Mr. Vaishnaw is the second Union Minister to deliver the D.P. Kohli lecture, established in 2000 to honour the eponymous inaugural Director of the CBI. The annual lecture has also been delivered in the past by visiting leaders of foreign police forces and the Interpol, Supreme Court judges (who delivered the previous three lectures), Attorneys General, the President of India, and the Vice President of India.
“Gone are the days when investigations used to be limited to talking to people and collecting evidence manually,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. “Today, an AI agent can commit a crime, and ethical questions on whom to arrest will arise. Is the company that created the AI agent liable? … As we take this journey towards Viksit Bharat (developing India), we should collaborate with startups, industry, and academia.”
“Today, the new tariff regime of the U.S. will kick in,” Mr. Vaishnaw said. “This whole new thinking in the geopolitical, geo economic and geo-cultural norms is changing the global economic order significantly. The world will not remain the same.”
Published – April 01, 2025 11:43 pm IST