Technology
From Tehran Rooftops To Orbit: How Elon Musk Is Reshaping Who Controls The Internet
How Starlink turned the sky into a battleground for digital power — and why one private network now challenges the sovereignty of states
On a rooftop in northern Tehran, long after midnight, a young engineering student adjusts a flat white dish toward the sky. The city around him is digitally dark—mobile data throttled, social media blocked, foreign websites unreachable. Yet inside his apartment, a laptop screen glows with Telegram messages, BBC livestreams, and uncensored access to the outside world.
Scenes like this have appeared repeatedly in footage from Iran’s unrest broadcast by international news channels.
But there’s a catch. The connection does not travel through Iranian cables or telecom towers. It comes from space.
Above him, hundreds of kilometres overhead, a small cluster of satellites belonging to Elon Musk’s Starlink network relays his data through the vacuum of orbit, bypassing the state entirely.
For governments built on control of information, this is no longer a technical inconvenience. It is a political nightmare. The image is quietly extraordinary. Not because of the technology — that story is already familiar — but because of what it represents: a private satellite network, owned by a US billionaire, now functioning as a parallel communications system inside a sovereign state that has deliberately tried to shut its citizens offline.
The Rise of an Unstoppable Network
Starlink, operated by Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX, has quietly become the most ambitious communications infrastructure ever built by a private individual.
As of late 2025, more than 9,000 Starlink satellites orbit Earth in low Earth orbit (LEO) (SpaceX / industry trackers, 2025). According to a report in Business Insider, the network serves over 9 million active users globally, and Starlink now operates in more than 155 countries and territories (Starlink coverage data, 2025).
It is the largest satellite constellation in human history, dwarfing every government system combined.
This is not merely a technology story. It is a power story.
Unlike traditional internet infrastructure — fibre cables, mobile towers, undersea routes — Starlink’s backbone exists in space. It does not cross borders. It does not require landing rights in the conventional sense. And, increasingly, it does not ask permission.
Iran: When the Sky Replaced the State
During successive waves of anti-government protests in Iran, authorities imposed sweeping internet shutdowns: mobile networks crippled, platforms blocked, bandwidth throttled to near zero. These tactics, used repeatedly since 2019, were designed to isolate protesters from each other and from the outside world.
They did not fully anticipate space-based internet.
By late 2024 and 2025, Starlink terminals had begun appearing clandestinely across Iranian cities, smuggled through borders or carried in by diaspora networks. Possession is illegal. Penalties are severe. Yet the demand has grown.
Because the network operates without local infrastructure, users can communicate with foreign media, upload protest footage in real time, coordinate securely beyond state surveillance, and maintain access even during nationwide blackouts.
The numbers are necessarily imprecise, but multiple independent estimates provide a sense of scale. Analysts at BNE IntelliNews estimated over 30,000 active Starlink users inside Iran by 2025.
Iranian activist networks suggest the number of physical terminals may be between 50,000 and 100,000, many shared across neighbourhoods. Earlier acknowledgements from Elon Musk confirmed that SpaceX had activated service coverage over Iran despite the lack of formal licensing.
This is what alarms governments most: the state no longer controls the kill switch.
Ukraine: When One Man Could Switch It Off
The power — and danger — of this new infrastructure became even clearer in Ukraine.
After Russia’s 2022 invasion, Starlink terminals were shipped in by the thousands to keep Ukrainian communications alive. Hospitals, emergency services, journalists, and frontline military units all relied on it. For a time, Starlink was celebrated as a technological shield for democracy.
Then came the uncomfortable reality.
Investigative reporting later revealed that Elon Musk personally intervened in decisions about where Starlink would and would not operate. In at least one documented case, coverage was restricted near Crimea, reportedly to prevent Ukrainian drone operations against Russian naval assets.
The implications were stark: A private individual, accountable to no electorate, had the power to influence the operational battlefield of a sovereign war. Governments noticed.
Digital Sovereignty in the Age of Orbit
For decades, states have understood sovereignty to include control of national telecom infrastructure, regulation of internet providers, the legal authority to impose shutdowns, the power to filter, censor, and surveil.
Starlink disrupts all of it.
Because, the satellites are in space, outside national jurisdiction. Access can be activated remotely by SpaceX, and the terminals can be smuggled like USB devices. Traffic can bypass domestic data laws entirely.
In effect, Starlink represents a parallel internet — one that states cannot fully regulate, inspect, or disable without extraordinary countermeasures such as satellite jamming or physical raids.
Authoritarian regimes view this as foreign interference. Democratic governments increasingly see it as a strategic vulnerability. Either way, the monopoly problem is the same: A single corporate network, controlled by one individual, increasingly functions as critical global infrastructure.
How the Technology Actually Works
The power of Starlink lies in its architecture. Traditional internet depends on fibre-optic cables across cities and oceans, local internet exchanges, mobile towers and ground stations, and centralised chokepoints.
Starlink bypasses most of this. Instead, it uses thousands of LEO satellites orbiting at ~550 km altitude, user terminals (“dishes”) that automatically track satellites overhead, inter-satellite laser links, allowing data to travel from satellite to satellite in space, and a limited number of ground gateways connecting the system to the wider internet.
This design creates resilience: No single tower to shut down, no local ISP to regulate, and no fibre line to cut.
For protesters, journalists, and dissidents, this is transformative. For governments, it is destabilising.
A Private Citizen vs the Rules of the Internet
The global internet was built around multistakeholder governance: National regulators, international bodies like the ITU, treaties governing spectrum use, and complex norms around cross-border infrastructure.
Starlink bypasses much of this through sheer technical dominance, and it has become a company that: owns the rockets, owns the satellites, owns the terminals, controls activation, controls pricing, controls coverage zones… effectively controls a layer of global communication.
This is why policymakers now speak openly of “digital sovereignty at risk”. It is no longer only China’s Great Firewall or Iran’s censorship model under scrutiny. It is the idea that global connectivity itself might be increasingly privatised, personalised, and politically unpredictable.
The Unanswered Question
Starlink undeniably delivers real benefits, it offers connectivity in disaster zones, internet access in rural Africa, emergency communications in war, educational access where infrastructure never existed.
But it also raises an uncomfortable, unresolved question: Should any individual — however visionary, however innovative — hold this much power over who gets access to the global flow of information?
Today, a protester in Tehran can speak to the world because Elon Musk chooses to allow it.
Tomorrow, that access could disappear just as easily — with a policy change, a commercial decision, or a geopolitical calculation.The sky has become infrastructure. Infrastructure has become power. And power, increasingly, belongs not to states — but to a handful of corporations.
There is another layer to this power calculus — and it is economic. While Starlink has been quietly enabled over countries such as Iran without formal approval, China remains a conspicuous exception. The reason is less technical than commercial. Elon Musk’s wider business empire, particularly Tesla, is deeply entangled with China’s economy. Shanghai hosts Tesla’s largest manufacturing facility in the world, responsible for more than half of the company’s global vehicle output, and Chinese consumers form one of Tesla’s most critical markets.
Chinese authorities, in turn, have made clear their hostility to uncontrolled foreign satellite internet, viewing it as a threat to state censorship and information control. Beijing has banned Starlink terminals, restricted their military use, and invested heavily in its own rival satellite constellation. For Musk, activating Starlink over China would almost certainly provoke regulatory retaliation that could jeopardise Tesla’s operations, supply chains, and market access. The result is an uncomfortable contradiction: the same technology framed as a tool of freedom in Iran or Ukraine is conspicuously absent over China — a reminder that even a supposedly borderless internet still bends to the gravitational pull of corporate interests and geopolitical power.
Technology
Karnataka Lets Students Choose AI Over a Third Language. Is This the Future of School Education?
Karnataka has introduced an AI curriculum that allows Class 9 and 10 students in government schools to opt for Artificial Intelligence instead of a third language. The move makes the state one of the first in India to integrate AI into the curriculum in this way, sparking debate over technology and multilingual education.
The Karnataka AI curriculum marks a major shift in school education, making the state one of the first in India to allow students to choose Artificial Intelligence (AI) instead of a third language. From the 2026–27 academic year, students in Classes 9 and 10 across 1,642 government high schools can opt for AI as a vocational subject under the National Skills Qualifications Framework (NSQF). The move positions Karnataka at the forefront of efforts to integrate emerging technologies into mainstream school education while redefining how future-ready skills are taught.
The Karnataka AI curriculum reflects a growing push to equip students with skills needed in an economy increasingly shaped by automation and digital technologies. While several states have introduced AI in classrooms, Karnataka has taken a different approach by integrating it into the curriculum as an alternative to the third language.
Karnataka AI Curriculum Focuses on Future Skills
According to the School Education and Literacy Department, AI will be introduced in schools offering NSQF vocational courses. It will replace the existing vocational subject and serve as an alternative to the third language. Each participating school will appoint a guest AI instructor, while third-language teachers will be redeployed to schools facing vacancies.
The curriculum is expected to introduce students to AI fundamentals, computational thinking, problem-solving and the responsible use of emerging technologies. Officials say the initiative is intended to prepare students for higher education and careers in technology-driven sectors.
The move also follows Karnataka’s earlier decision to exclude third-language marks from the SSLC aggregate, signalling a gradual shift towards skill-based learning.
How Other States Are Introducing AI
The Karnataka AI curriculum stands apart from initiatives in other states, where AI has largely been added to the existing syllabus rather than replacing a language subject.
Tamil Nadu’s TN SPARK programme, for example, introduces AI, robotics, coding and digital tools to students in selected government schools. However, these subjects complement the existing curriculum instead of substituting any language requirement.
Similarly, the Ministry of Education has proposed integrating AI and computational thinking into school education through the National Curriculum Framework. The focus is on building AI literacy alongside core academic subjects.
CBSE has also expanded AI education in affiliated schools while continuing to follow the three-language formula under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, although the third language is not part of the Class 10 board examination.
A Shift in Education Priorities
The Karnataka AI curriculum reflects a broader debate on how schools should prepare students for a rapidly changing world.
Supporters believe early exposure to AI can improve digital literacy, encourage innovation and better prepare students for future careers. As AI increasingly influences industries ranging from healthcare to manufacturing, familiarity with the technology is becoming a valuable skill beyond the information technology sector.
However, language educators argue that multilingual education plays an important role in cognitive development, communication skills and preserving India’s linguistic diversity. Teacher associations have also expressed concerns over the redeployment of language teachers and the long-term impact on third-language learning.
Can Karnataka’s AI Curriculum Become a Model?
The success of the Karnataka AI curriculum will depend on more than policy changes. Schools will need trained teachers, adequate digital infrastructure, computer laboratories and reliable internet connectivity to deliver meaningful AI education.
The initiative also raises an important question for education policymakers across India: should emerging technologies be integrated into existing curricula, or should they replace traditional subjects to make room for future-ready skills?
As other states continue experimenting with AI education, Karnataka’s model will be closely watched. If implemented effectively, the Karnataka AI curriculum could shape how schools across the country balance technological innovation with foundational learning.
Technology
From Sky to Sea: Bird-Inspired Robot Could Transform Ocean Exploration
Bird-inspired robot developed by MIT can fly, swim underwater and transition between air and water, offering a promising new tool for ocean exploration.
Exploring the ocean often requires a combination of ships, underwater vehicles and aerial drones. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have developed a bird-inspired robot that could combine all three roles in a single machine. Called the Flapping-Wing Aerial-Aquatic Vehicle (FAAV), the 300-gram bird-inspired robot can fly through the air, swim underwater and transition seamlessly between the two, offering a new tool for ocean exploration. The findings, published in the journal Science, could also help scientists better understand how diving birds navigate two vastly different environments.
Learning from nature
The bird-inspired robot draws its design from diving birds such as puffins and loons, which hunt underwater without losing their ability to fly. These birds plunge beneath the surface in search of prey before launching themselves back into the air, a remarkable feat that engineers wanted to replicate.
To recreate this capability, the researchers studied the flight mechanics of several diving bird species. They found that smaller birds flap their wings roughly ten times per second while flying but reduce that frequency to about four times per second underwater. These observations became the foundation for designing the robot’s wing movements.
Replicating this behaviour was far from straightforward. Water is nearly 1,000 times denser than air, meaning a machine that performs efficiently in one environment is unlikely to function well in the other without significant adaptation.
“You have to do some adaptation to make that transition work. But there’s a solution that exists in nature,” said lead researcher Raphael Zufferey, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “Birds like puffins can fly very fast through the air, and can dive and swim through water at speeds of 3 metres per second. They’re able to do pretty amazing things. So we knew it was possible. Just no one had tried this in a mobile robotic system.”, he said.
How the bird-inspired robot works
The bird-inspired robot consists of a waterproof central body containing a battery and electric motor, which powers a crankshaft to flap its wings. The flexible wings are coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles that repel water, while a motorised tail adjusts the robot’s pitch to help it climb into flight or dive beneath the surface.
Researchers tested three wing sizes in laboratory water tanks before conducting field trials in Switzerland’s Lake Geneva. After experimenting with different wing dimensions, flapping frequencies and tail angles, they found that medium-sized wings provided the best balance between underwater propulsion and stable flight.
During the trials, the bird-inspired robot swam underwater at speeds approaching one metre per second and flew through the air at around six metres per second. The team also discovered that pitching the robot at an angle of about 70 degrees allowed it to break through the water’s surface smoothly without its wings striking the water, enabling a successful transition into flight.
One of the study’s more surprising findings was that the bird-inspired robot did not require paddling feet to launch itself from the water. Many diving birds, including ducks and puffins, rely on their feet in addition to their wings when taking off from the water’s surface. In the robot’s case, however, carefully coordinated wing flapping and body positioning were enough to achieve the same result.
A new tool for ocean science
Beyond demonstrating an engineering achievement, researchers believe the bird-inspired robot could become a valuable tool for marine science. Instead of deploying costly research vessels, the robot could be launched from a boat or shoreline, fly to a remote study site, dive underwater to collect water samples or environmental measurements, return with the data, and repeat the mission multiple times a day.
“Our dream vision is for oceanographers, marine biologists and members of coastal communities to launch this robot from a boat, or from shore, and it would fly close to the area of interest, such as an iceberg or a port facility, or over a pod of whales. It would dive into the water to take a measurement or collect a sample, and fly back to deliver the data at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. Then it could go back out to dive for more.” Zufferey said.
The research team is now working to improve the bird-inspired robot by enabling its wings to rotate as well as flap, while also testing its performance in rough seas and strong winds. If successful, the technology could pave the way for a new generation of hybrid aerial-aquatic robots, making ocean research faster, safer and significantly more cost-effective.
Technology
India’s Youngest Startup Founders Are Reaching for Space and Reinventing AI
At just 20, Onkar Singh Batra and Dhravya Shah are India’s youngest startup founders, building SpaceTech and AI ventures on the Hurun U30 List 2026.
India’s startup ecosystem is beginning to see a new generation of entrepreneurs who are starting younger and taking on increasingly complex technological challenges. This year’s youngest startup founders are just 20 years old, Onkar Singh Batra, founder of SpaceTech startup “Apolink”, and Dhravya Shah, founder of AI startup “Supermemory”. At just 20, they are the youngest entrepreneurs featured in the Avendus Wealth–Hurun India U30 List 2026, lowering the age benchmark from 22 in last year’s edition.
Building Solutions Beyond Their Years
At this young age, Batra and Shah are solving complex problems.
Batra founded Apolink to improve communication between low-Earth orbit satellites. As satellite constellations continue to expand worldwide, maintaining uninterrupted connectivity has become one of the industry’s key challenges. His startup is developing an inter-satellite broadband network designed to keep satellites connected without relying entirely on ground stations, helping improve the efficiency of future space communication systems.
Shah’s AI startup Supermemory, meanwhile, is focused on one of artificial intelligence’s biggest limitations. The startup is building what it describes as a memory layer for AI systems, enabling them to retain and retrieve information across interactions. As businesses increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, such capabilities are expected to make AI assistants more effective at handling long-term tasks and contextual decision-making.
Their ventures may be young, but both operate in technology sectors where innovation often requires years of research, engineering expertise and sustained investment.
A New Profile of Young Entrepreneurship
The inclusion of Batra and Shah reflects a broader evolution in India’s startup ecosystem, where younger founders are entering sectors that demand specialized technical knowledge.
“The 2026 U30 list reflects a decisive shift in India’s entrepreneurial landscape. One in four honourees are building in DeepTech and HardTech, spanning AI, SpaceTech, Aerospace & Defence, EVs and Cybersecurity. This marks a clear evolution from consumer-first startups to founders solving globally relevant, technology-intensive problems. The youngest entrepreneurs are now just 20 years old, underscoring how innovation is beginning earlier than ever,” said Anas Rahman Junaid, Founder and Chief Researcher at Hurun India.
The report also notes that 84 per cent of the entrepreneurs featured are first-generation founders, reflecting the growing accessibility of entrepreneurship beyond established business families.
Youngest Startup Founders Making an Early Mark
While Batra and Shah represent the youngest entrants on the list, several other founders in their early twenties have already built companies of remarkable scale.
Leading the list is Zepto, founded by Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, both 23. The quick-commerce startup is the highest-funded company on this year’s U30 ranking, having raised US$2.3 billion. In just a few years, Zepto has grown into one of India’s most valuable startups, illustrating how quickly young entrepreneurs are translating ideas into businesses with national reach.
The ranking also features founders behind companies in fintech, healthcare, climate technology, defence, software and electric mobility, highlighting the breadth of sectors in which India’s under-30 entrepreneurs are making their mark.
Starting Younger, Aiming Further
The stories of Onkar Singh Batra and Dhravya Shah are about more than setting an age record. With greater access to technology, global networks, venture capital and startup support systems, young founders are entering the ecosystem earlier than previous generations. Many are choosing to solve problems that extend beyond consumer services, taking on challenges in fields such as artificial intelligence, space technology and advanced engineering.
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