India, Nov. 7 -- Data residency and data sovereignty are often treated as interchangeable, although the distinction becomes important when organisations assess who controls their information and the infrastructure supporting it. As Indian enterprises evaluate cloud investments, questions around ownership, access, jurisdiction and operational independence are gaining attention.

Rahul Takkallapally, Co-Founder, BharathCloud, believes that having data centres within a country does not necessarily guarantee sovereignty. In this interaction with Voice&Data, he discusses sovereignty-washing, the differences between sovereignty-first and sovereignty-also cloud models, the trade-offs involved and emerging regulatory safeguards. Excerpts:

Sovere...