[This piece has been authored by Anushruti Shah, a fourth-year law student at the Hidayatullah National Law University, Raipur]
Introduction
Category: Convergence
The Insurtech Revolution: What Lies Ahead for India? (Part II)
[This post has been authored by Angeline Priety and Nisha Nahata, fourth year law students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar. Part I can be found here.]
In Part I of this essay, we looked at how Insurtech is shaping up in India within the current legal framework. Identifying emerging risks is essential to ensuring the industry is here to stay. In Part II, we look at the challenges before the industry and suggest recommendations to build trust in the minds of the consumers.
The Insurtech Revolution: What Lies Ahead for India? (Part I)
[This post has been authored by Angeline Priety and Nisha Nahata, fourth year law students at Gujarat National Law University, Gandhinagar. Part II can be found here.]
In recent times, data driven sectors have been going over and beyond to harness technology to consolidate, utilise and analyse data from various sources for efficient functioning. In the Insurance industry, these efforts have led to the creation of the Insurtech sector. In Part I of this essay, the authors shall elucidate the emerging models of insurtech and the Indian legal framework governing it. In Part II we shall highlight the challenges that the Insurtech industry faces and proposes recommendations to navigate through them.
Exploring the Feasibility of Pretrial Risk Assessment Tools
[This post has been authored by Tanvi Tanu and Sakshi Tulsyan, 2nd year students at the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun.]
The biases and inequalities are infused in the criminal justice system and are baked into the algorithmic tools, Pretrial Risk Assessment instruments being one of them. These tools are used in the determination of a qualitative value of risk related to the non-appearance of a pretrial defendant at trial; they are lauded as a substitute for the perturbing cash-reliant bail system.
Inclusive FinTech: Bridging the Gap
[The following post has been authored by Harshita Lilani, a third year student of NALSAR University of Law. This essay is part of an ongoing collaboration between r – TLP and the NALSAR Tech Law Forum Blog and is the fourth post in the series. The first entry can be found here, and the rest of series is available here.]
Financial inclusion and inclusive growth have emerged as one of the main agendas in the past decade as several nations have become aware that sustainable and inclusive growth of all the sections of the society is important for a nation to prosper. By working parallelly with traditional financial institutions like banks, credit unions and insurance companies, Financial Technology or ‘FinTech’, claims to enhance financial inclusion by offering novel products that are better tailored to consumers’ needs at a lower cost. However, a wide ‘FinTech gender gap’ shows that women are significantly less likely to use fintech products or services offered by the fintech entrants than men. This article discusses this gender gap in the FinTech industry and analyses the existing government policies and initiatives that claim to regulate fintech with an aim to bridge this gap. Finally, it highlights the key regulatory and policy changes that are required to create an enabling environment for financial inclusion in India.
Mapping the rise of the surveillance state amid the COVID-19 crisis
[This post has been authored by Noyanika Batta, a Senior Associate at Lakshmikumaran & Sridharan Attorneys. She is a 2018 graduate from Gujarat National Law University.]
There exist dichotomous views on the usefulness of surveillance and its relationship with public health. The disease control strategies adopted by the states often necessitate extensive surveillance practices having an overbearing and intrusive effect on the daily lives of its citizens. The debate thus lies in striking the right balance between public health and the need to strengthen public health infrastructures vis-a-vis privacy protection for individual citizens. With the rapid spread of COVID19 debilitating economies and causing health systems across the globe to crumble, it became imperative for governments and organizations to take immediate actions to protect its people. This in turn saw a fierce boom in surveillance technologies dedicated towards monitoring whole populations, with governments trying to chart the virus’ trajectory from broad swathes of personal data. This article seeks to examine the disproportionate risks to data privacy caused by the use of invasive and pervasive technologies such as contact tracing across the world.
A Tax Policy Response to Automation in India
[Ed Note: The following post is part of the TLF Editorial Board Test 2020-21. It has been authored by Sankalp Jain, a fourth year student of NALSAR University of Law.]
This post discusses policy responses to the threat of automation on India’s labour, contextualising the same amidst a major technological shift and efforts to revive India’s economy after a nation-wide lockdown crippled it.
Indian Convergence Law – Forever 'in the Pipelines'?
(Image Source: https://flic.kr/p/pVxM7q)
Back in the year 2001, when the same government was in power, it tried to pass a bill called the Communication Convergence Bill, 2001. The Bill failed, due to reasons mentioned later in the post, but apparently it isn’t quite ready to die yet. The Bill has now been revived as the Communication Convergence Bill, 2014, with news reports indicating that the Telecom Minister is quite definitely going to push for it.