Digitalisation of Indian smart cities: post-Covid-19 approaches to data, recognition and health monitoring.

This article examines the digitalisation and platformisation of urban and health services in India, focusing on the Smart City Mission and the National Digital Health Mission through a case study of Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. It highlights how these initiatives adopt a top-down, innovation-driven model that often excludes marginalized groups, particularly women frontline health workers (FFHWs), who mediate digital health platforms despite limited access to technology. The study integrates digital and feminist geographies to analyze the gendered and socio-spatial impacts of these technologies, revealing tensions between official smart city visions and residents' lived experiences amid issues like digital divides, surveillance, and social exclusion. It calls for more inclusive, decentralized approaches that address structural inequalities and the digital divide to ensure equitable access and meaningful participation in digital urban and health services.