The Trust & Safety India Festival 2026 has been recognised as a labelled initiative under the Indo-French Year of Innovation 2026.
The recognition comes from the Indo-French Year of Innovation 2026 Committee. It places TASI inside the official programme of India-France activity running through this year, and it opens a direct line between the festival and the institutions, researchers and companies taking part in that programme on both sides.
What the label actually is
The Year of Innovation was agreed during President Emmanuel Macron's state visit to India in January 2024 and formally opened on 17 February 2026 in Mumbai, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Macron present and the Gateway of India lit up for the occasion. France's Ambassador to India, Thierry Mathou, called innovation more than "a policy priority" in the relationship between the two countries.
The official framing is deliberately wide. Innovation here means technological, industrial, social, environmental, cultural and artistic work, not just deep tech. Four priority areas were named at the launch: aerospace; health, well-being and food; sustainable development and energy transition; and cultural and creative industries. Around those sits a year of activity in AI, cybersecurity, digital cooperation, defence technology and research, including the Indo-French Innovation Network, a platform built by Capgemini and run by the Indo-French Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
A labelled initiative is one the Committee has accepted into that official programme. For TASI it is recognition rather than funding. What changes is standing. The festival is now something French institutions can engage with as part of a bilateral year they are already part of, and Indian participants get a route to counterparts in Europe that does not depend on who happens to know whom.
India and France have been in this conversation for a while
In February 2025, Prime Minister Modi co-chaired the AI Action Summit in Paris alongside President Macron. It was at that summit that India announced it would host the next one. The India AI Impact Summit ran at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi in February 2026, the first global AI summit held in the Global South.
Paris to Delhi in twelve months is a real shift in where these decisions get discussed. But summits produce declarations. TASI 2026 lands in October, eight months after Delhi, and the work in front of it is the less glamorous half: what a commitment made at head of state level looks like when it reaches a trust and safety team reviewing reports in fourteen languages at three in the morning.
That is the gap TASI was built for, and it is the reason this label sits naturally on the festival rather than being bolted onto it.
France has already been in the room at TASI
This is not a cold start. The Embassy of France was a Diplomatic Partner at TASI 2025 and hosted the festival's opening reception on 6 October 2025 at the Embassy in New Delhi, with more than 100 guests, under the theme "Building a Safer, More Equitable Digital Future." The Embassy of the Netherlands and the Embassy of Sweden hosted the mid-festival and closing receptions across the rest of the week.
So the relationship existed before the label. What the label does is make it official, and give both sides a reason to plan rather than improvise.
Where the two agendas overlap
TASI 2026 is organised around 14 themes. Several of them sit directly on top of work already underway in France and across the EU: responsible AI governance and regulation, platform accountability and safety by design, transparency and risk assessment and compliance, and child and youth protection online.
France operates inside the EU's Digital Services Act, with its systemic risk assessments and independent audits. India is working through its own IT Rules and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act. Two large democracies, two very different instruments, one shared problem. The interesting conversation is not which framework is better. It is what each one has learned about enforcement, about what platforms actually change when asked, and about what falls through in practice.
There is also the Global South question, which runs through the festival. One of the 14 themes is inclusive innovation and Global South leadership in AI governance. India has one of the world's largest online populations, and many of the frameworks that govern it were drafted somewhere else. A French partner in that discussion, coming from a jurisdiction that has spent years arguing over how far regulation should reach, is a useful one to have.
TASI 2026 in short
The festival runs on 14 and 15 October 2026 at the India International Centre in New Delhi, in person and online. Around 500 delegates, 14 themes, more than 50 sessions across three stages.
The programme mixes keynote addresses, high level panels, fireside chats, policy roundtables, industry spotlights and interactive workshops, with government and regulators, industry, civil society and international delegations all in the room. TASI is led by the Centre for Social Research, which has spent over four decades on gender justice, research and advocacy in India, with the Trust & Safety Festival as co-convening partner.
What comes next
Our thanks to the Indo-French Year of Innovation 2026 Committee for the recognition.
Over the coming months we will work with partners in India and France on what this produces in practice: speakers, sessions and research collaborations that put Indian and French experience side by side rather than in separate panels. We will share details as they are confirmed.
Registration is open. TASI runs an approval-based process, so delegates apply, the team reviews, and confirmed participants receive a QR pass in the week before the festival.
Sponsorship is open at Platinum, Gold, Silver and Supporter levels, and organisations that want to fund Global South participation directly can do that too. Write to info@trustandsafetyfestival.com.
Join us at the Trust & Safety India Festival 2026.
📅 14 to 15 October 2026 📍 India International Centre, New Delhi, India