Below the line

The buzz in the corridors of power is that the upcoming Crypto Bill will designate SEBI as the regulator for crypto assets.

This is clearly a pointer that the Bill is not going to endorse the treatment of crypto as a currency but look at defining it as a security or an asset, say crypto industry insiders.

There is also going to be a general prohibition on all activities by any individual on mining, generating, holding, selling or dealing in digital currencies as a medium of exchange, store of value and a unit of account.

To top it all, any flouting of rules and the legislation would be treated as cognisable offence (arrest without warrant is possible). Only time will tell if all these policy intent gets enacted into law in the same form without any dilution or otherwise. Too many legal bumps ahead for crypto industry to navigate through

As the competition heats up to attract investments, State governments are doing their utmost to woo investors. The past week saw Chief Ministers and Ministers from Gujarat, West Bengal and Rajasthan travelling to meet investors and pitching for investments. The bigger task for the Ministers was to market their respective States and fetch as much money as possible.

For instance, Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel visited Dubai to engage with prospective investors and get assurances to invest during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit (VGGS).

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was seen posing with top-notch businessmen in Mumbai, inviting them for the Bengal Global Business Summit scheduled for April 2022. From Rajasthan, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot sent his two emissaries State Health Minister Parsadi Lal Meena and Industries Minister Shakuntala Rawat to Gujarat and Maharashtra, respectively, to make a marketing pitch for investments during the ‘Invest Rajasthan’ summit. The VGGS and Invest Rajasthan summits are scheduled for January 2022.

While speaking at a public forum, one needs to be careful if a domain expert is sitting on the dais. And, the speaker should be doubly careful if the expert also happens to be a professor. That’s what happened at a recent technology seminar in Chennai when a senior bureaucrat started talking about various technologies, and then suddenly realised that an expert, who also happens to be a professor, was sitting on the dais.

“Please correct me if I am wrong, Professor,” the bureaucrat said. Taken by surprise, the Professor just laughed. But this exchange left the audience wondering if the bureaucrat actually spoke sense or the professor chose to laugh away the official’s ignorance.

Business leaders often create an aura of spontaneity around them, but the reality may be very different. A highly respected Indian business leader, known for speaking his mind, recently agreed to give an interview to a media outlet but asked for the questions in advance. Since this is a usual practice these days, the journalist agreed to send the tentative questions via email but was surprised to receive a response back from the PR agency that the leader has agreed to respond to only five of the 14 questions.

What was even more surprising is that once the interview began, the executive wanted the questions to be asked in the same sequence as was sent in the email earlier because he had “prepared” the responses accordingly.

If that wasn’t enough, the executive appeared confused when the journalist asked the questions using slightly different words than what was sent earlier by email.

The honcho even found it difficult to answer any follow-up questions that the journalist asked to get more clarity on topics that he had spoken about.

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