TMS Ep472: Data Protection Bill, Threads, markets, rupee global currency

Are you sure that your personal information, like the details of Aadhaar and PAN cards are not in the wrong hands? And are you sure that they will never be misused? Until now, such safety was hard to guarantee. But an attempt is being made to address this, and much more. The government is planning to regulate the processing of personal information through a law. The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill got the Union Cabinet’s nod last week, and it is likely to be tabled in the upcoming Parliament session. So how different this draft is from the earlier one? And what are the major hits and misses? 

Twitter too had a brush with hackers early this year. Email addresses of over 235 million Twitter users were put in public by an online hacking forum. That was about six months ago. Twitter is now facing another big challenge. It has a new rival, and this time it comes from the stable of mighty Meta. Threads was launched in 100 countries last week. And 10 million people joined it within the first seven hours of the launch. So is Threads the real threat to Twitter? 

Back home, India Inc. will begin the June quarter earnings season from Wednesday, 12th of July. The Street expects most sectors to report an in-line set of earnings, thanks to easing commodity costs and overall improvement in macros. The weak demand environment, however, is likely to keep the overall numbers in check. Find out the likely winners and laggards of the June quarter.

Let us turn our gaze to Mint Street now. The RBI’s inter-departmental group last week said that the Indian rupee has the potential to become an “internationalised” currency. This comes at a time when several countries are scrambling to find an alternative to the US dollar in international transactions in the light of sanctions on Russia for the war in Ukraine. But what does the “internationalisation” of the rupee mean? Listen to this episode of the podcast to know.