“it is observed that a few banks have already started offering mobile payment services to their customers without waiting for the release of RBI’s Guidelines”.

Clearly they wanted everyone to wait before they figured out where they figured. That’s understandable. So we waited anxiously for their final carefully crafted guidelines. Well what we did get was a revised draft of the guidelines with some amazing changes after months of deliberations:

• They’ve decided they want to regulate “mobile banking transactions” and not “mobile payments”.
• imposed a per transaction limit of INR 2500 and daily limit of INR 5000
• now require prior approval of the RBI before a bank provides mobile banking services

Yup. That’s it. Those are the sum and substance of the extensive revisions to the draft operating guidelines. That’s why they asked banks to put their mobile banking services on hold all these months.

Download a redline if you’d like to review the revisions.

The regulations provide for the constitution of a board to oversee the implementation of the Act and procedures for service providers to obtain approval for providing their payment services.

For the regulars, I must apologise - I’ve again managed to let time slip by without a few bytes in your direction.

February was an eventful month what with opening a new office, attending conferences and tracking some interesting developments in law. I happened to attend the fourth annual Asian conference of the International Technology Law Association at Mumbai - an interesting event that brings together technology lawyers from India and overseas together for some neat presentations and a lot of networking. It was also a chance to meet and catch up with a number of fellow alumnae from the National Law School of India University, many of whom now work with Western law firms.

What I did miss attending was the public meeting of ICANN held for the first time in New Delhi. This meeting was organized with assistance from NIXI and the Government. I have serious misgivings over the manner in which ICANN is organized and managed, but am glad to see some level of activity in the echelons of the Indian government in recognizing the importance of the domain name system to the present day Internet.

For my readers with an interest in e-commerce issues, I should point you in the direction of a new Indian statute. The Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 was passed by the Indian Parliament on December 20, 2007 but did not make it on my radar then. This enactment requires any entity seeking to operate payment systems (including electronic payment systems) to obtain a prior authorization from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Existing operators of payment systems are required to obtain such an authorisation within a period of six months from the date the Act comes into force. This statute follows on the 2005 constitution by the RBI of an authority to regulate and supervise payment systems. I believe this is a significant development in the e-commerce scene in India in that it brings non-bank participants in an electronic payment system within the ambit of the RBI’s regulatory framework for payment systems. More on this when I have time to present succinct analysis…

What surprises me is the way issues grab media attention much after the raw material becomes publicly available. The official was merely restating the position of the European Advisory Body on data protection and privacy that he heads - titled the “Article 29 Working Party” (um…as in “don’t you remember that section 48 working party we had when Rahul got totally smashed and puked all over the place?”;)). This body released a paper way back in June last year setting out its position on the definition of “personal data”. Example 15 on page 16 of the paper explains why IP addresses should be considered personal data. One possible explanation for the late buzz (no pun intended) is that this statement was made in the context of Google’s acquisition of Doubleclick and drew a strong and public response from Google.

Google statements always get some attention! Interestingly, when the India Parliamentary Committee on IT released its report on proposed amendments to the Information Technology Act, it was Google’s Rishi Jaitly who blogged against the MPs’ recommendations on not protecting intermediaries such as google from liability. And this was then picked up by some technologically challenged journalist from the Times of India and published with embellishments under the title “Recipe for killing Internet in India“….

…sigh.

But is this relevant to India? While Indian outsourcing firms are increasingly sensitive to western laws and standards of privacy and India is under the spotlight for its lack of data privacy legislation, the average Indian wonders what the fuss is all about. There is a bill on data protection gathering dust, wiretap laws and supreme court guidelines are routinely flouted, every festival has a neighborhood jukebox blaring a heady mix of devotional and film music into your home and the proliferation of camera phones and other devices has enabled widespread invasion of privacy.

But then there are incidents such as the Lakshmana Kailash case (the kind that makes my blood boil) which really bring home the need to have minimum safeguards against the abuse of personal information. Stuff that really makes India an IT superpower. What say?

In case you came in late, I’m referring to that highly imaginative first-come-first-serve policy for distributing spectrum to a whole lot if folks who’ve been given letters of intent by the government. And this, without elaborating on how this policy would work and what “first-come-first-serve” really means in this context. All while the government stands to gain in millions in license and spectrum fees.

They appeared to get it right when they accepted most of TRAI’s recommendations earlier this year on opening the sector to more players and restructuring the spectrum policy. And now they’re back to their old games. Maybe they should ask TRAI for a detailed how-to rather than a set of recommendations.

Did you know that there is a system in our constitution, as per the 1969 act, in section “49-O” that a person can go to the polling booth, confirm his identity, get his finger marked and convey the presiding election officer that he doesn’t want to vote anyone!

Yes such a feature is available, but obviously these seemingly notorious leaders have never disclosed it.
This is called “49-O”. Why should you go and say “I VOTE NOBODY”… because, in a ward, if a candidate wins, say by 123 votes, and that Particular ward has received “49-O” votes more than 123, then that polling will be cancelled and will have to be re-polled. Not only that, but the candidature of the contestants will be removed and they cannot contest the re-polling, since people had already expressed their decision on them. This would bring fear into parties and hence look for genuine candidates for their parties for election. This would change the way; of our whole political system… it is seemingly surprising why the election commission has not revealed such a feature to the public….

Please spread this news to as many as you know…
Seems to be a wonderful weapon against corrupt parties in India …
show your power, expressing your desire not to
Vote for anybody, is even more powerful than voting… so don’t miss
your chance.

Well, here’s the text of Rule 49-O of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 (“Rules”):

49-O. Elector deciding not to vote.-If an elector, after his electoral roll number has been duly entered in the register of voters in Form-17A and has put his signature or thumb impression thereon as required under sub-rule (1) of rule 49L, decided not to record his vote, a remark to this effect shall be made against the said entry in Form 17A by the presiding officer and the signature or thumb impression of the elector shall be obtained against such remark.

Rule 49-O falls under the Chapter II of Part IV of the Rules which was introduced in 1992 and deals only with voting by electronic voting machines or EVMs. The remark referred to here is an offline entry by the presiding offer (accompanied by the voter’s signature) to record the fact that a vote was not electronically recorded even though the voter had registered in the register of voters. This would allow reconciliation of mismatches arising from a situation where you have lesser votes polled in the machines than the names entered and signed in the register of voters. There is no provision for polling to be cancelled based on the number of 49-O votes.

Just my 2 paise worth on a chain mail that’s getting everyone very enthusiastic about elections.

I have the distinction of having once worked in a legal sweatshop for an amazingly long 5 months. While I clearly wasn’t hooked with the concept then, it got me thinking of the ways in which the future could move for legal professionals and our system of justice, not just in India but worldwide. There are incredible possibilities under the surface. But for now I will let the vision lie and make way for a modest section on this blog called LPO Diligence. I’m posting details on LPOs - six a month. Check it out and let me know what you think!

[UPDATE: I clearly haven't had the time to follow up on this - 6 a month was way too ambitious but I'll try to update this regularly]

The FIPB in its meeting on 16th November, 2007, deferred decisions on proposals filed by Bycell Telecommunications India Private Limited to increase its paid up capital and undertake nationwide telecom services under the UASL and Sistema Joint Stock Financial Corp. to increase its shareholding in Shyam Telelink from 10% to 74%.

Observers might be forgiven for seeing this as another angle to the ongoing chill in relations between the governments of Russia and India. Manouveurs from the Russian side include attempts to renegotiate the deal to refurbish and sell the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov and delaying construction of the Talwar-class stealth frigates at the Yantar Shipyard.

In 2003, CERT-IN issued a directive through the department of telecommunications asking all ISPs to block a particular URL (a yahoogroup mailing list set up by an obscure separatist group). The ISPs that implemented this ban did so by blocking the entire yahoogroups website and resulting in collective bewilderment among Internet users. In 2006, another directive required ISPs to block a few random websites such as..blogspot! Blogs that were blocked as a result included mumbaihelp.blogspot.com, a blog that was set up to provide assistance to those affected by bomb blasts that had recently taken place in Mumbai.

Last month, it issued a widely publicised advisory on vulnerabilities in Google products…after Google clarified that these vulnerabilities had never been exploited and had been rectified.

Why is this relevant today? Well, I just happened to notice a position vacant in CERT-IN. Would you like to be director at the agency that takes the cake for incompetence in India?

Oops, I just might get CERT-INed!

[xyz] also provides a dashboard of enterprise-level performance indicators-dynamic information repositories, rationalized organizational workflows and measurable team performance. Its information clean-up services, which are part of the company’s robust and flexible document management system, enable exponentially greater visibility to critical information over user-defined data categories. Effective process-mapping and redesign as implemented through the platform-based delivery model enables the clients to regain control over the workflow chaos created by increasingly distributed workforces and the proliferation of multiple external service providers.

whaaa? Do people speak like this? Am I the only one who didn’t get that? Am I alone in this universe? Hello?