New Delhi, March 28 -- A few weeks ago, Delhi-based author and leadership coach Aparna Jain had an early morning flight from terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport. Since she'd reached early, she stopped for a bite.

"It was relatively quiet at that hour, except for the music played by the restaurant," Jain says. "But then a man sitting three tables away started blaring reels on his mobile phone." After listening to the tinny noises playing on loop for a couple of minutes, she politely requested him to use headphones. He looked up briefly, then returned to scrolling as though no one had spoken at all.

"I repeated myself after a few seconds, in Hindi and a little louder this time," Jain says, "but a woman sitting nearby started...