Author
The author is an Advocate, practicing in Delhi, and a Chartered Accountant
"Last year, Whatsapp changed its encryption algorithm several times and, every time, it was breached,” says Saket Modi, hacker, entrepreneur and CEO of Lucideus Technologies, which just created an app that monitors wayward activity on your smartphone. That’s geekspeak for: “Your WhatsApp chats, including deleted ones, would have been accessible to any hacker worth his salt”. And we are talking about a company that was valued at $19 billion at some point during the year. Only in November 2014 did WhatsApp finally embrace end-to-end encryption, which will ostensibly address the issue.
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When the annals of the 21st century are written, how will it’s greatest flag-bearer, the Internet be remembered the best? Will it be as the bridge that brought people closer, irrespective of distance? Or will it be the service that saved countless man-hours, by bringing everything from shopping to banking home (and then wasted all of it by inventing social media and Angry Birds)? Will its legacy be remembered as the repository of information that anybody could tap into, any time? All of these, without a doubt. But more importantly, the Internet will, and should be remembered as the great leveller; everybody — rich, poor, employed, student — whoever you are, you have a voice, and the power to start a revolution.
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“The Internet is currently not broke, and the FCC is out to fix it,” began John Oliver, American talk-show host and comedian, introducing his show’s discussion on Net neutrality. America’s telecom regulator Federal Communications Council (FCC) had just proposed allowing Internet carriers to give preference on their network to websites in exchange for a fee.
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The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has been on an overdrive. Till June-end, it had already made four modifications and issued 18 clarifications to the Companies Act 2013 — a legacy of the UPA government. The changes, some yet to be approved, have been lapped up by industry.
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If it were a murder, it would have been the perfect murder. It was quick and quiet. In February, while India’s corporate governance vigilantes obsessed over Maruti and its deal with Japanese parent Suzuki, Alstom Transport India, a wholly owned subsidiary of French engineering major Alstom, bought out the transportation division of Alstom India, another arm of Alstom. The division was sold for Rs 176.9 crore, a figure far lower than the division’s sales for the previous 12 months, leaving minority shareholders of the Indian arm high and dry.
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Of all the UPA’s perceived sins, its shunning of investment was probably the unkindest cut of all. Take, for example, the Vodafone tax case. Did it achieve anything? Investors still protest the unfairness of using a retrospective amendment to over-rule a Supreme Court verdict that went against the government. Abraham C. Mathews speaks to Cyril S. Shroff, managing partner, Amarchand Mangaldas, to get an idea of what the government should do on priority in terms of sending the right signals.
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Scindia House in the South Mumbai area of Ballard Pier is a far cry from the typical government office. For one, it is spacious and well maintained. The few visitors are usually in suits. And, you will be hard-pressed to find paan stains. Most importantly, for the better part of the day, the officers seem to be at work. The offices in the building are roomy, some even bigger than in private sector tax firms. Scindia House is home to the international tax division of the income tax department in Mumbai. By some estimates, its FY13 tax mop-up will bring in Rs 25,000 crore.
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Deep in the recess of the World Wide Web resides a proud community of money dealers which calls itself the Mavrodians. Its lineage is not particularly kosher, but it makes no bones about that either. Its website warns you in no uncertain terms that it is a financial pyramid. In red, bold letters. Thrice.
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There is an old joke about a businessman interviewing people for a manager’s job. The last candidate was an accountant who, when asked how much two plus two was, responded with “How much do you want it to be?” Apply that to corporate balance sheets and you will find a number of ways in which numbers ‘add’ up.
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Alawyer’s nightmare is not being able to give a clear answer when a client comes calling with a query. Answers like those of Harry Truman’s economists (“All my economists say, ‘on the one hand... and on the other hand…’”) won’t do. After all, if a lawyer cannot interpret the law, who can? But lawyers can and do face such a situation; nowadays, to queries from firms on how they should go about complying with competition laws, they have no answer.
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