Gathering Intelligence

Another way in which corporate houses strengthen their grip over the nation’s polity is by collecting data and information, often through less than legal means. Corporations ranging from payment banks like Paytm to mobile operators, all collect huge amounts of data on users. The government itself has embarked on one of the largest data-collection exercises in the world with Aadhaar. There have also been several reports of data leaking from secure databases.Politics becomes the struggle to control the flows of data. And dictatorship now means that too much data is being concentrated in the hands of the government or of a small elite.