India should favour partnerships that pursue flexible safeguards, transparency, knowledge sharing, accountability, economic growth and development. To ensure balance, governments must attempt to mitigate AI's multifaceted risks and create a framework for responsible innovation. The framework should constructively engage with substantive issues without getting bogged down with challenges like the feasibility of prescriptive regulation. This can be viewed as phase one in the life cycle of AI governance, where India lays sound foundational aspects that advance state capacity.