On 24 December 2023, the Telecommunications Act, 2023 (Act) was published in the official gazette after the bill being passed by both houses of the Parliament and receiving the Presidential assent.
On 18 December 2023, the Government of India tabled the Telecommunications Bill, 2023 (Bill) before the lower house of the Parliament. The Bill promises a tectonic shift in the legal framework relating to telecommunications in India, by demolishing more than a century old Indian Telegraph Act, 1885 (Telegraph Act) and other laws that have so far formed the basis of governing the telecom space in India.
On 14 October 2023, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) published the IndiaAI Report 2023 (Report). The Report is a collaboration of seven working groups which provided practical considerations and recommendations on India’s artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem. The aim is to make ‘governance smarter and more data-led’.
In a recent development, the Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) has issued the ‘Additional Influencer Guidelines For Health and Wellness Celebrities, Influencers and Virtual Influencers’ (Health & Wellness Influencer Guidelines) on 10 August 2023, developed in collaboration with Ministry of Heal
On 31 August 2023, the Department of Telecommunication (DoT) issued a notification addressed to all telecom licensees setting out instructions to further streamline the subscriber verification process (Notification). The Notification was prompted by the regulatory requirements under the terms of the Unified License (UL), which requires all licensees to ensure adequate verification of customers before enrolling them as subscribers, facilitating SIM swap or replacement, and to comply with related subscriber verification obligations.
On 20 April 2023, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) released the Indian Space Policy 2023 (Space Policy), which was reported to have received the nod of the Union Cabinet on 6 April 2023. The Space Policy has been issued subsequent to the reforms announced by the Government in space domain by opening doors for participation of non-governmental entities (NGEs) and enable a level-playing field.
On 3 March 2023, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) issued a set of advisory guidelines to machine-to-machine (M2M) / internet of things (IoT) stakeholders for securing consumer IoT (Guidelines). These Guidelines have been issued pursuant to a technical report released by the Telecommunication Engineering Centre titled “Code of Practice for securing Internet of Things (IoT)” (CoP).
