One important thing: Apple is reportedly making India a standalone sales region, an indication of the country’s growing importance for the Cupertino-based tech giant. Apple currently includes India as part of its Europe region, along with the Middle East and Africa.

• Apple reported record revenue in India last quarter, at a time when its global sales slipped. The iPhone maker is now gearing up to open its flagship retail store in India besides expanding its manufacturing in the country.  

In today’s newsletter:

• Legal immunity of internet platforms at risk
• ADIA nears buying $500 mn stake in Lenskart
• Crypto industry welcomes govt's PMLA move

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The government is mulling doing away with the safe harbour norm which grants internet platforms legal immunity against content shared by users on the platforms.

• Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the logic for the provision – that internet platforms don’t have power over what content users share – does not hold in 'this day and age'

• Online platforms that are pretending to be dumb intermediaries and allow cybercrime to proliferate will not be tolerated and will be addressed by the new law, the minister said

The first draft of the Digital India Act may be ready by March-end, sources familiar with the matter told us.

• The new legislation will replace the Information Technology Act as the most important piece of law governing tech in the country

• In a public presentation in Bengaluru today, Chandrasekhar outlined the government's plans on a wide range of issues that the upcoming law will address. These issues include preventing harm to users and monetisation options for creators

Lenskart, an eyewear startup, is poised to defy the current funding challenges by finalising one of the largest funding rounds in the recent past.

Lenskart, the eyewear company founded by Peyush Bansal, is close to securing a funding round of $500 million from Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA).

• The Middle Eastern sovereign wealth fund is in the process of finalising a deal to purchase a mix of existing shares and new equity in Lenskart, Bloomberg reported

• Lenskart could be valued at $4 billion in the deal, which could be announced as early as this week

Bansal said in an interview in July last year that Lenskart was profitable and planned to go public in 48 months.

Meanwhile, another Abu Dhabi-based sovereign wealth fund-backed startup, Byju's, is reportedly eyeing a $250 million pre-IPO round for Aakash Educational Services. This will be done through the issuance of convertible notes by the three-decade-old coaching company.

• Byju's has been looking to list Aakash and raise funds as it deals with a liquidity crisis and slowing demand for its services.

The crypto industry received an early Holi present from the Finance Ministry, thanks to its latest notification bringing crypto and virtual asset businesses under the purview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA).

Top crypto industry players such as WazirX's Nischal Shetty, CoinSwitch's Ashish Singhal, and CoinDCX's Sumit Gupta praised the move, calling it the way forward to legitimise the sector.

Exchanges and intermediaries dealing with crypto and VDA must now comply with the following requirements:

• Report all suspicious activity to the Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND)
  
  
• Crypto exchanges and intermediaries dealing with virtual digital assets (VDAs) must have KYC documentation for all customers
  
  
• Companies must keep records of transactions over Rs. 10 lakhs for five years

The inclusion of crypto and VDA trading under the PMLA was one of the key recommendations in the Bharat Web3 Association's (BWA) budget submission and IndiaTech.org's whitepaper in 2021.

Go deeper

On March 9, 1993, Apple, Motorola, IBM, and four other computer companies joined forces to establish the PowerOpen Association. 

Its goal was to encourage the development of new computer chip technology in preparation for the next generation of personal computers. Apple was the primary user of PowerOpen chips until it switched to Intel chips in 2006.

• The parent company of Silvergate Bank has announced plans to wind down operations and liquidate the bank.
  
  
• A federal judge approved a stipulation between Voyager Digital and FTX, which included a $445 million loan repayment agreement. The agreement may allow FTX and Alameda Research to reclaim assets.

How amazing would it be if you can download hundreds of movies in just one second? You can, in fact, in Japan.

You can download 80,000 movies in a second with an internet speed of 319 terabits per second, as proven by Japanese engineers at the country’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology.

How did they do it? These engineers designed a new fibre optics cable with four cores as opposed to one, as well as lasers and amplifiers, to speed up the internet.

Do not get your hopes up; this is just an experiment and not ready for widespread adoption. But the good news is, with 5G coming in, this might soon become a reality! 

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