Draft rules on online gaming being scrutinised, to be notified soon: MoS IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar

Chandrasekhar was speaking at the Times Network India Digital Fest on Tuesday.

“Our approach or our response to a sector is not based on comfort or discomfort as much as harm legality and illegality,” he said. “The basic principle is that online gaming represents platforms in the sense who are operating on the internet, and we will certainly make it very, very difficult and certainly illegal for any wagering to happen on these games.”

On cryptocurrency and blockchain, Chandrasekhar said the government had a clear stance on the future of the internet, which is Web 3 and blockchain.

While the government is supportive of innovation, crypto intersects between the internet and innovation ecosystem, and the macro economy in the financial sector, which is regulated by the RBI, he said.

As more functionalities and services are enabled online, there will be many examples of ‘twin regulation’, he added.

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“There will be a sectoral regulator, who has his or her view on what the regulations for that sector must be and there will be the internet and tech regulator which is MeitY (Ministry for Electronics & Information Technology),” Chandrasekhar said.“We have no problems on anything to do with blockchain but certainly it is RBI’s case and it’s a very legit case that crypto represents a macroeconomic risk. It represents many other types of risks…FTX and many of these cases have only reaffirmed that crypto is not business as usual. Certainly, crypto is not just innovation.”

India’s biggest advantage was its large talent pool, Chandrasekhar said, adding that the Indian innovation ecosystem has become the backstop or the enabler of the world’s increased appetite for digitization.

“For 30 years, China has been the place where they were the manufacturers for the world. And as that concentration in China has proved to be unhealthy, the world is looking to diversify. I think India is uniquely suited to the position and from a capability is also very ready to play its role as being a partner in the growth of the digital economy and the global economy,” he said.

On the progress with respect to cyber laws, Chandrasekhar said the government was “certainly mid-stream” in creating a successor to the IT Act in the form of the Digital India Act.

He added that the government was close to taking the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill as the second leg of this new framework of laws, while the National Data Governance Policy would form the third component of what would be a ‘very modern framework of laws.’

“The basic principles are very simple, that we want to protect the citizens’ rights. We certainly don’t want any slowing down of the innovation ecosystem. So, there will be ease of business and ease of living, and certainly protect the government’s security and intelligence as the case may be… these laws are being built for the young Indians for the next decade, we will have global standard legislation that people will notice from all around the world,” he said.