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DIALOGUE & DISCUSSION |
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| Startups and MSMEs |
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| Government Procurement - Understanding the GeM portal and its key features |
| We, in partnership with the nasscom start-ups team, organised a workshop on the GeM portal and its key features. This interactive workshop on March 13, 2024 witnessed participation from over 20 early-stage tech start-ups and MSMEs from diverse verticals, including lean-tech, edtech, e-logistics and drones. The speakers included AV Muralidharan, Addl. Director General & Chief Product Category Office (GeM), Vinit Bansal, Director, Services (GeM) and Anurag Awasthi, Chief Manager, Social Inclusion and Inclusive Seller Impact (GeM). Participants learned the unique features of the GeM portal, such as, option to avail collateral free working capital loan, integration with Udyam portal for MSMEs etc. GeM is a significant avenue for market access for the industry. In FY 23-24, the cumulative order value on GeM for start-ups and MSMEs was over INR 22, 990 cr and INR 377 cr, respectively. |
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| Startups and MSMEs |
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| Patents - filing process, common challenges and commercialisation |
| We, in partnership with the nasscom start-ups team, organised a workshop on patent filing On March 13, 2024. This interactive workshop witnessed participation from over 20 early-stage tech start-ups and MSMEs from diverse verticals, including lean-tech, edtech, e-logistics and drones. The speaker, Kirti Balasubramanian, Partner, Trilegal, covered the different types of IP protections, process for filing patents, essential elements of patentability, characteristics of a good quality patent that can withstand the pressure of opposition, and best practices for start-ups to secure a patent for their invention. Participants also learned the benefits of creating an IP-protection strategy, specifically to identify the right type of IP protection, deciding the approach for commercialising the invention etc. |
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| Data Governance |
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| Data for Good Governance |
| On March 28, 2024, MEITY organised a workshop on Data for Good Governance with the aim to have a dialogue charting the course for leveraging data governance as a catalyst for transparency, efficiency, and innovation across government and society. Ashish Aggarwal spoke on ‘Data Governance for Unlocking Innovation' where he focused on the importance of reusability of government data for enabling innovation in India. |
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| Consumer Protection |
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| AI and Protection of Consumer Rights - Challenges versus Opportunities |
| On March 15, Ashish Aggarwal spoke at the Department of Consumer Affair's event on 'Fair and responsible AI for consumers'. As a panellist, he spoke on 'AI and Protection of Consumer Rights - Challenges versus Opportunities’. He focused on highlighting how industry is using AI-based solutions to strengthen consumer protection, for example, for managing grievance redressal, detecting fake reviews and counterfeit products on e-commerce websites, improving consumer experience in offline transactions etc. |
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| Data Protection |
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| Privacy and Progress - Pillars of Digital Bharat |
| On March 21, 2024, ASCI organised an event releasing its whitepaper 'Privacy and Progress: Pillars of Digital Bharat' highlighting the implications of the DPDP Act in advertising. Nasscom's Vice President and Head, Public Policy, Ashish Aggarwal participated in the panel discussion on ‘DPDPA – Compliance, Preparedness, Challenges and Tools’ along with Bibhav Pradhan, Data Protection Advisor, South Asia Cluster, HUL and Gowree Gokhale, Nishith Desai Associates. The discussion was derated by Indranil Choiudhary, Lexplosion Solutions. Ashish highlighted the applicability of the DPDPA to the adtech and marketing campaigns in India and the increasing emphasis on consent as the basis for processing personal data across jurisdictions. |
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| Data Protection |
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| Age Gating and Verifiable Parental Consent |
| On March 7, 2024, at the 2024 annual ITechLaw conference, Ashish Aggarwal spoke at a panel on 'DPDPA - Age Gating and Verifiable Parental Consent'. He was joined by Amlan Mohanty; Rahul Matthan, Trilegal; and Ritika Chatterjee, Mayhem Studios, India. In this discussion, he focussed on the need for infrastructure and ecosystem for consent management to make verifiable parental consent workable at scale. |
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| Data Protection |
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| Navigating India's New Personal Data Protection Framework |
| On March 29, 2024, Ashish Aggarwal spoke at the ABA India Conference 2024 event as a part of the panel on ‘Navigating India’s New Personal Data Protection Framework’. He was joined by Rakesh Maheshwari, Former MEITY Officer, Cyber Law and Cyber Security Division; Damini Marwah, General Counsel, Axis Bank; Meenal Nasa, Senior Corporate Counsel, Corporate, External and Legal Affairs; Microsoft, and Adhiraj Singh, Associate General Counsel, Make My Trip. He discussed the distinctions between consent and voluntary provision of personal data under the DPDPA. |
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NEW & UPCOMING |
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| CCI |
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| Draft Digital Competition Bill 2024 |
| We are inviting feedback on the CDCL report and the draft Digital Competition Bil, 2024. Further, we encourage you to focus on use-cases of possible unintended impact of the Bill and specific clarifications, if any, that the industry needs to seek from the MCA. For any feedback on the same, please write to policy@nasscom.in . |
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OTHER UPDATES |
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| GST |
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| Issue of guidelines by DGGI on investigation and summons |
| The CBIC has approved a detailed standard operating procedure for officials of the Directorate General of GST Intelligence (DGGI) with specific instructions regarding their conduct during tax investigation, summons and searches to improve the ease of doing business and to prevent any incident of harassment to taxpayers. We had requested MoF to make the contents of the Instruction publicly available as the purpose behind releasing these guidelines is to enhance and streamline the investigative procedures conducted by the DGGI. The guidelines are a positive development and will help in addressing challenges being faced by the taxpayers during DGGI investigations. |
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| MEITY |
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| Release of Advisory to intermediaries and platforms on Artificial Intelligence and Synthetic Media |
| In the backdrop of upcoming General elections, on March 15, 2024, MEITY issued a public advisory to all intermediaries and platforms advising them to comply with measures aimed at the use of AI models, software, or algorithms (including generative AI). Measures include ensuring that these do not permit any bias or discrimination or 'threaten the integrity of the electoral process'; that outputs from 'under-tested' or 'unreliable' foundation models or large language models are accompanied with labels that they may be inherently fallible or unreliable; and that synthetic media is labelled or embedded with a unique identifier or metadata. |
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| DGFT |
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| Releases General Authorisation for Export of Information Security Policy and Telecommunication |
| On March 27, 2024, the DGFT released the final bulk licensing policy, which provides framework for exporting information security and telecommunication-related items. This includes key changes suggested by nasscom, including a clarification on re-exports, a clarified scope, and the exclusion of Annexure 1. |
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| MOCI |
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| Notification of Patent (Amendment) Rules, 2024 |
| MOCI has notified the amended patent Rules on March 15, 2024 for which nasscom had submitted its feedback. The amendment introduces several EoDB changes in the Indian patent regime, broadly in sync with our previous feedback, including rationalising scope of disclosure on working of patents, reducing the timeline for filing a request for examination, and procedure for scrutiny of representations for pre-grant oppositions by the Controller of Patents. |
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| RBI |
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| Omnibus Framework for recognising SRO for Regulated Entities |
| RBI has published the Omnibus Framework for recognising SROs for Regulated Entities, for which nasscom had submitted feedback. The objective of this SRO is to foster advancement in the financial services sector, promote a culture of compliance among members and address critical industry concerns. Its responsibilities include establishing a grievance redressal framework for members, offer counselling on practices that are detrimental to the growth of the sector, keep RBI informed of the developments in the sector, periodically engage with RBI etc. |
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| EU |
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| Obligations under the Digital Markets Act become operational |
| The obligations and prohibitions (a set of positive and negative obligations) under the Digital Markets Act (DMA) came into effect from March 07, 2024, and would apply to the designated gatekeepers. The DMA imposes rules on platforms designated as "gatekeepers" in the digital sector to ensure fairness and contestability in digital markets. So far, the European Commission has designated 6 gatekeepers (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta and Microsoft) for certain core platform services. |
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