AI may widen income gaps both within and between countries. Discuss, and evaluate how far the IndiaAI Mission addresses this risk.

The IMF estimates that AI will affect about 60% of jobs in advanced economies, 40% in emerging markets and 26% in low-income countries [1]. Being less exposed does not protect a country: those that cannot use AI fall behind. The IndiaAI Mission narrows India's gap with the world, but it does much less for the gap within India.

How AI widens gaps between countries

• Readiness divide: many developing countries lack the digital infrastructure and skilled workers to use AI. The IMF warns this could worsen inequality among nations [1].
• Narrow use: in middle-income countries, ICT workers and teachers do nearly three-quarters of all AI use. In high-income countries, use is spread across many professions [3].

How AI widens gaps within countries

• Skill premium: workers who can use AI gain productivity and wages, while others fall behind [1].
• Capital returns: high earners' tasks tend to complement AI, and these earners also gain from higher returns to capital. This raises wealth inequality [2].
• Gender: more than twice the share of female employment is potentially affected by automation. Clerical work, where women are over-represented, is the most exposed [4].
• Informality: India's ~490 million informal workers will not benefit from AI automatically [8].

Evaluating the IndiaAI Mission

Strengths

• An outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore over five years, spread across seven pillars [5].
• About 38,000 GPUs at ~₹65/hour and 12 firms building indigenous foundation models [6]. These narrow the gap with richer countries.
• FutureSkills sets up Data and AI Labs in Tier-2/3 cities [5].

Gaps

• Focus on supply: most pillars fund compute, datasets, startups and models. Only FutureSkills is aimed directly at workers [5].
• No support during the transition: tech services face significant job losses by 2031. The up to 4 million new jobs [7] will mostly go to people who already have digital skills.
• Groups left out: informal workers and women in clerical jobs are not specifically targeted [4][8].

On balance, IndiaAI substantially addresses the gap between India and other countries but only partly addresses the gap within India. To close it, India should add the recommended National AI Talent Mission [7] and the proposed Mission Digital ShramSetu [8], with reskilling that reaches women first. This would advance Article 38(2)'s mandate to minimise income inequalities and SDG 10.