40 years ago, on Shivratri, something changed in me.
In 1986, I was an atheist. An experience during Shivratri changed that belief and began a deeply personal journey towards believing in the Power of God within each of us. Since then, Shivratri has always been a time of reflection, transformation, and new beginnings.
On Shivratri, a journey that began with Backup is evolving into something much bigger — Sovereignty.
Today, 40 years later, what better day could there be for me to announce the beginning of another journey resulting out of strong reflections? Today is Announcement Day for this critical next book:
"WHO CONTROLS YOUR DATA? National & Organisational Data Sovereignty"
This is not a subject I originally set out to write about. It grew naturally from the journey of my previous book,
"Mr. Backup 2.0 – Reco-worry to Recovery: One Habit is Enough."
When I wrote Mr. Backup 2.0, I intended to take the conversation around Backup, Recovery and Resiliency beyond technology and make it relevant to organisations and business leaders.
What started as an attempt to make Backup, Recovery and Resiliency simpler & more focused for organisations has reached places I never really planned for:
📘 Amazon Bestseller
✈️ Available through multiple airport libraries in India
🌐Author presence/listing with Forbes India
🌍 Available across global platforms — from Amazon USA, Books-A-Million to Bookshop.org’s independent bookstore ecosystem in the US, Dymocks in Australia, Medimops in Germany, Mighty Ape in New Zealand, Noon in the Middle East and …..
For a book born out of three decades spent in a relatively niche world of Backup & Recovery, seeing it travel that far was deeply encouraging. More importantly, the journey reinforced a belief that Backup and Recovery are no longer just technology conversations. They are increasingly about resilience, continuity, leadership and responsibility.
And that led me to a much bigger question:
We protect our data. But who really controls it?
An organisation may own its data, maintain backups and have disaster recovery and cyber-resilience capabilities. But what happens when access to that data depends on a cloud provider, technology vendor, identity system, another jurisdiction or infrastructure outside its independent control, proprietary formats/platforms?
Do we truly control the data we say we own?
The more I thought about this, the bigger the question became. Eventually, it became the foundation of my next book.
The evolution now feels natural:
Backup → Restoration → Resiliency → Sovereignty
Backup asks if we have another copy. Restoration asks if we can bring it back. Resiliency asks if we can continue operating. Sovereignty goes one step further: can we independently access, use and recover our own data?
Our digital data has increasingly become our organisational memory — and, in some cases, our national memory. Financial records, research, intellectual property, healthcare information, government records and decades of institutional knowledge now exist digitally.
That means protecting data is no longer simply about managing storage, software and infrastructure. We are becoming custodians of memory. People in power have been working on Memory ownership & power of it, for ages, and leading countries know about its importance.
Data Sovereignty therefore needs to go beyond where infrastructure is located. It must also consider who controls access, which jurisdiction applies, whether data can be moved or independently restored, and whether an organisation or nation can continue functioning if a critical technology dependency disappears.
Mr. Backup 2.0 began with a simple question:
Can we recover without worry?
This next journey begins with a deeper one:
If our data represents our memory, innovation, and future — who should ultimately control it?
I intentionally chose Shivratri to share this evolution. For me, it represents transformation — carrying forward what we have learned while beginning something with a larger purpose.
One journey does not really end. It evolves.
From Backup to Restoration. From Restoration to Resiliency. And now, from Resiliency to Sovereignty.
WHO CONTROLS YOUR DATA?
The next journey begins.
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