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This article argues that India’s draft National E-Commerce Policy will harm its startups. An edited version of this article was first published in the Economic Times on Saturday, 16 March 2019. The version published by the Economic Times is also available online, here.   About two months from now, the US government will start to imposeRead more

This note maps the position of all the stakeholders in relation to the Recommendations on Privacy, Security, and Ownership of the Data in the Telecom Sector (“Recommendations”) published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) on 16th  July, 2018. In order to address key data protection and privacy issues, the TRAI framed twelve (12)Read more

In a 4 part series, we have mapped the publicly accessible opinions of 27 stakeholders on the White Paper of the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India, released on 27th November, 2017 (“White Paper”). Comments of all 27 stakeholders are available here. In each of our posts, a table provides a brief snapshotRead more

In a 12 part series, we have mapped stakeholders’ comments to the Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of the Data in the Telecom Sector by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In order to address key data privacy and security issues, the TRAI framed twelve (12) questions and invited comments to these questions. InRead more

This note maps the opinions of some stakeholders to the White Paper of the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India, released on 27th November, 2017 (“White Paper”). While all responses to the White Paper are currently unavailable, responses of twenty-seven (27) stakeholders are available on Dvara Research’s blog, here.   BackgroundRead more

Angel tax has been a cause of concern  in the startup and angel investor community since 2012. It is a tax levied on investments in startups by treating the investment, or a part of the investment, as taxable income under the Income Tax Act, 1961. Following is a timeline of the important developments in relationRead more

On 9th August 2017, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) released a consultation paper on Privacy, Security, and Ownership of Data in the Telecom Sector (“Consultation Paper”) as a step towards developing a robust data protection framework to safeguard consumer interest in the telecom sector. TRAI is expected to release its final recommendations on the subject soon.[1]Read more

On 29th May, 2018, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”)  released the draft Telecom Commercial Communication Customer Preference Regulations, 2018 (“Regulations”), aimed to curb the problem of unsolicited commercial communication, or spam, for telecom subscribers. As stated in the accompanying press release, TRAI has chosen to adopt Distributed Ledger Technology (also known as “blockchain”)Read more

Since 2016, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (“TRAI”) has been making concerted efforts towards improving access to internet in the country. This post provides a chronological overview of the steps taken by TRAI in this direction:   1. July 2016: TRAI initiates discussions on public Wi-Fi in India 1.1 On 13th July 2016, theRead more

Pursuant to the mandate from the Finance Minister of India in his budget speech for 2018-19 to establish the National Program on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”), the NITI Aayog published a discussion paper on a “National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence” (“Paper”) on 4th June, 2018. Some highlights of the Paper are as follows:   The PaperRead more