Chapter 5 – OpenBharat.net

Article 20 | Composition & Structure of the OpenBharat.net Governing Council (OBGC)

(1) Institutional Continuity and Founding Mandate:

• The initiative formerly administered as the AiStandard.io Alliance (or AI Standardisation Alliance) is reconstituted as OpenBharat.net, maintaining institutional succession, title stewardship, and governance continuity under the Indian Society of Artificial Intelligence and Law (ISAIL).

• This Charter affirms Abhivardhan and Saiyam Pathak as the Co-Founders of OpenBharat.net, who shall lead the strategic, technical, and institutional direction of the initiative as its founding executive leadership.

(2) Composition of the OpenBharat.net Governing Council (OBGC): The OBGC serves as the apex governing body for India-specific and regional sovereign technology tracks, standardisation deliverables, and working groups, constituted by the following categories of members:

• Founding Leadership:

  • Chairperson and Co-Founder; and

  • Co-Chairperson and Co-Founder.

• Full-Time Executive Members:

  • Executive Members appointed to functional and administrative portfolios as assigned and designated from time to time by the Chairperson and Co-Chairperson; and

  • Nominated institutional representatives of accredited Alliance Members (Technical), who shall sit as full-time Executive Members on the Council for the duration of their active, ratified technical track commitments.

• Advisory Members:

  • Institutional Advisory Members: Nominated leadership representatives and distinguished subject-matter experts drawn directly from the ISAIL Global Advisory Council, representing technology policy, regional strategic studies, and international relations domains; and

  • External Advisory Members: Independent domain specialists, comprising external technology and regional ecosystem advisors from domestic innovation corridors, alongside recognized open-source technologists and leading community ecosystem maintainers.

• Technical and Policy Convenors:

  • Tenured individual ISAIL members designated individually as Technical Convenors or Policy Convenors, who hold formal seats on the Council and lead working track proceedings, maintain drafting discipline, and guide review sprints within their respective OpenBharat.net Working Groups (OWGs).

(3) Elimination of Standing Bureaucratic Committees: The standing representation committees (formerly known as the Enterprises Coordination Committee, Research Labs Coordination Committee, and Technical Associations Committee) are formally dissolved. All domain-specific coordination, ecosystem advocacy, and technical track reviews are transferred directly into OpenBharat.net Working Groups (OWGs) constituted pursuant to Article 5 of this Charter and Schedule 2 of the ISAIL Charter.

(4) Core Principles of Working Groups: All OWGs, whether engaged in formal standardisation or exploratory technical tracks, may conduct their deliberations and sprints in alignment with the following core principles:

• Contextual Relevance: Promoting specifications, models, and technical baselines that reflect domestic operational conditions, linguistic diversity, and regional implementation realities pursuant to Schedule 1.

• Interoperability and Open Architectures: Supporting modular systems and open interfaces that enable compatibility across heterogeneous computational frameworks and software environments.

• Empirical Grounding: Prioritizing verifiable data, functional code implementations, and reproducible testing methodologies over unverified market claims.

• Inclusive Technical Collaboration: Encouraging cross-functional participation among developers, enterprises, researchers, and policy specialists to maintain balanced and practical technical outcomes.

• Safety, Legality, and Public Interest: Respecting statutory mandates, user safety considerations, and recognized ethical frameworks established under the ISAIL AI Principles.

(5) Operational Stages and Division Integration:

• OWGs may be constituted at any stage of standard maturity (exploratory, pre-regulatory, regulatory sandbox, or post-regulatory deployment) across the standardisation categories defined in Schedule 1.

• Fully accredited Alliance Members retain the privilege to participate in technical drafting and apply for regional representative roles across ISAIL Divisions pursuant to Schedule 4 and Schedule 6 of the ISAIL Charter.