Preliminary On 12 November 2018, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”)[1] published the Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for over-the-top (“OTT”) communication services (“Consultation Paper”).[2] This Consultation Paper was deemed necessary due to existing regulatory imbalances between telecom service providers (“TSP”) and OTT service providers, especially since the adoption and usage of OTTRead more
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The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 (“PSS Act”)[1] for the first time recognized payments as a different function from a bank’s core functions, such as lending, accepting deposits or managing monetary policy[2]. The Watal Committee Report[3] further explained this difference when it suggested in 2016 that payments must be regulated by a separate, independentRead more
Aparna Sai and Ranajit Dam cover Ikigai Law’s views in their article “Start-up Nation” in the June edition of Asian Legal Business. The article discusses how the startup practice is evolving for law firms and how lawyers are playing a critical role in the development of the sector. Here are some excerpts: Anirudh Rastogi, founderRead more
Arnika Thakur’s ‘Fintech: Fast and Furious’ in the June edition of Fortune India is a compelling read if you are interested in the Indian fintech ecosystem. The article examines three broad themes: Banks and fintech entities working together: The article examines the sometimes tenuous relations fintech entities share with banks. We note that increasingly fintech companies manageRead more
The WHO classification The World Health Organisation (“WHO”) recently classified compulsive gaming as a mental health disorder, affecting both children and adults (“Gaming Disorder”), in the 11th revision to the International Classification of Diseases (“ICD”). The Gaming Disorder can be diagnosed if the following symptoms exist: Control over online gaming is impairedRead more
1. Preliminary The union budget of India for the year 2019-2020 was presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 05 July 2019. This was the National Democratic Alliance – II (“NDA-II”) government’s first budget. Shortly after Sitharaman’s presentation of the budget, IndiaSpend, a non-profit organization that uses open data to analyse India’s socio-economic issues, publishedRead more
Fantasy sports are no longer an alien concept in India. With the introduction of gaming websites like Dream11, which recently became India’s first gaming Unicorn,[1] fantasy gaming has taken a front seat. According to a recent IFSG-KPMG report,[2] there are about 20 million fantasy gamers in India currently and this number is expected to riseRead more
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 An initial exchange offering(“IEO”) is a crowdfunding mechanism which, for the large part is similar to an initial coin offering (“ICO”) but for certain reasons is considered an improvement over it. Prime amongst these is that an exchange serves as a trusted intermediary between the token sellers[1] and the buyers. This meansRead more
The gaming industry is a sizeable component of the global digital content market and is also one of the leading industries where blockchain technology is being rapidly integrated. A report titled ‘A Brief Overview: Blockchain Technology in Gaming’[1] (“Report”) was released recently by online gaming platform Tradisys, in collaboration with crypto platform ‘Waves’. This reportRead more
1. INTRODUCTION The Indian union budget was declared on 05 July 2019 by the finance minister, Nirmala Sitharaman. This was the first budget presented by the Narendra Modi government in its second term. The budget speech is available here, highlights released by the union government are available here, the Finance Bill, 2019 is availableRead more