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 All eyes are now on Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as the countdown to Budget 2026 has begun, which will mark the biggest business event for the country at the beginning of 2026. Sitharaman will present the 88th Union Budget, and her ninth consecutive Union Budget on Sunday, 1 February 2026. Ahead of Budget 2026, experts and stakeholders across industries have put forward their expectations from the government. “Any development in the infrastructure space will help create jobs. Government allocations to develop industrial parks and promote public-private partnerships will be appreciated. If the government is looking for sectors to raise productivity, tourism, agri-processing, horticulture, and floriculture, may be sectors they can consider additional allocation in. For rural employment, additional allocations for MGNREGA may be considered,” says Sajai Singh, Partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors. Read more

India’s reported move towards mandating source code sharing by smartphone manufacturers has triggered concern across the legal and technology ecosystem. Analysts warn that any rigid requirement could undermine intellectual property protection and weigh on foreign investment sentiment. Currently, the government maintains that no such mandate has been finalised and that discussions remain consultative in nature. Tony Verghese, Partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors, described the proposal as a significant regulatory development that raises multiple red flags. “While such measures may be intended to strengthen security oversight, it raises important legal concerns relating to protection of proprietary technology, intellectual property rights and confidentiality obligations,” Verghese said. He also pointed out that even a consultative move towards accessing manufacturers’ software source code would require careful legal framework analysis. According to him, the challenge lies in balancing national security objectives with investor confidence and contractual obligations tied to global technology platforms. Read more

India Inc’s global capability centre (GCC) boom is keeping the country’s law firms busier than ever as more multinational companies set up larger office campuses on longer lease tenures across major cities. According to Vivek K. Chandy, joint managing partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors, there is no room for poor construction quality, as even design and specification choices can significantly affect costs and risk. Read more

The misuse of Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot of X (formerly Twitter), to generate sexualised images of women without their consent has once again brought India’s weak AI guardrails into sharp focus. Experts underscored that such incidents highlight not just the absence of robust safeguards on AI platforms but also the urgent need for clearer liability frameworks and stricter penalties for harms caused by generative AI systems. Similarly, Akshaya Suresh, Partner JSA Advocates & Solicitors, said there is an urgent need for strong content and safety controls on AI systems. These include prompt level checks to screen and block unlawful prompts, as well as system-level safeguards to ensure that models do not generate illegal or obscene content even when such prompts are attempted. Suresh noted that under the Information Technology Act and the Intermediary Guidelines, the first step is the takedown of unlawful content following a government order. “More sanctions would follow and the intermediary will lose its safe harbour, if the takedown notice is not adhered to. Conversely, where the unlawful content is taken down within prescribed timelines, stricter sanction may not follow,” she added. She said that while India does not yet have a standalone AI law, a patchwork of existing statutes can be used to regulate Al-driven harms, including the IT Act. Read more

With the aim of making India a more business-friendly jurisdiction, the new codification reduces the number of labour governance rules from 1,400 to around 350 and cuts down the number of regulatory forms employers must complete from 180 to just 73. “In the absence of central and state rules, employers are seen stranded in anticipation of implementation guidelines,” notes JSA Law’s Sonakshi Das. “A phased transition from the old regime to the new, particularly concerning the establishment of statutory bodies and enforcement of compliance requirements, is certainly anticipated. This transitional period is likely to be marked by uncertainty for Indian employers,” she adds. Read more

Al has turned deepfakes from an expensive niche tool into a widespread threat, making it harder to distinguish real content from fake. Although intermediaries like X have been granted ‘safe harbour’ immunity under the IT Act, 2000, this protection is not absolute, according to Probir Roy Chowdhury, Partner at JSA Advocates and Solicitors. The law is particularly stricter in relation to sexual imagery, where a 24hour takedown obligation applies. If a court concludes that the platform has not met these obligations, its safe harbour immunity could be weakened, allowing victims to pursue legal action. Read more

Privacy compliance is shaping up to be a major new cost centre for India Inc, with companies expected to spend nearly ₹20,000 crore in the first year of implementing the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, according to consulting firms. The organisation size, type of personal data and the industry vertical, also influence the size of investments, said Akshaya Suresh, Partner at JSA Advocates & Solicitors (JSA).“Restrictions on data transfer will require investments to host data in data centres in India. There will also be costs to move data to India if it is hosted in a region that is subsequently blacklisted by the government. If companies have vendors that store data globally, there may also be a cost to require vendors to host data locally or change vendors if they don’t support local hosting. Separately, data retention, archiving and secure erasure will also need infrastructure capacity planning,” she said. The story has also appeared in Communications Today and News Bytes.  Read more

India’s SHANTI law modernises its nuclear power sector, encouraging private and foreign investment to achieve 100 GW capacity by 2047. It introduces a new licensing framework, aligns international liability standards, and allows foreign investment up to 49%. The law maintains government control over strategic nuclear activities while opening research and development for peaceful purposes. “Interestingly, the ambit of the new legislation extends beyond power generation to include the application of nuclear technology in healthcare, food, water and agriculture, to provide a cleaner and more predictable regulatory environment. The law permits foreign direct investment of up to 49% in specified nuclear activities under the automatic route, thereby unshackling the public sector monopoly over this domain,” said Amit Kapur. Read more

The enactment of SHANTI Act, allowing private sector entry into nuclear power generation, has also brought focus on regulatory authority to decide tariff electricity generated by private nuclear plants. The industry has been seeking a separate authority to regulate the nuclear power tariff and that the tariff discovery should be through competitive bidding. “Evidently, the fixing of tariff for nuclear power plants is squarely within the domain of DAE, unless DAE elects to delegate that power to AERB by Rules to be notified. From the perspective of private investors, this may be a problem of perception for robustness of tariff determination mechanism and for components of tariff,” says Amit Kapur, Partner at JSA, Advocates & Solicitors. Read more

The year 2025 has been an inflection point for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India as policymakers recognised the strategic importance of the technology, saw a need to set a framework around it, and also sprang into action with a line of policy decisions. “From a legal and regulatory perspective, 2025 has shown that India prefers the gradual alignment of existing laws over the enactment of a standalone AI statute,” said Probir Roy Chowdhury, partner, JSA Advocates and Solicitors. “This appears to be a deliberate policy choice where AI is regulated through well-established domains like data protection, intellectual property, and intermediary obligations rather than by passing a technology-specific law too soon,” he added. The DPDP Act, with its requirements on consent and purpose limitation, will have a direct impact on how AI systems are developed, though it is not an AI legislation, Chowdhury added. Read more

With the new nuclear energy legislation SHANTI — short for Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India — finally coming into force, India is set to enter a new phase of global nuclear power generation and commerce. The Bill is armed with provisions that seek to strike a balance between a stable and predictable investment environment for rapid capacity creation and a strong regulatory regime ensuring safety and security of critical infrastructure and its operations. “The Bill permits foreign direct investment of up to 49 per cent in specified nuclear activities under the automatic route, thereby unshackling the public sector monopoly over this domain,” said Amit Kapur, partner at law firm JSA. Read more

The amendment to insurance laws is expected to trigger a fresh round of consolidation and deal-making in the sector, alongside new capital inflows following govt’s decision to permit 100% foreign direct investment. According to Shivangi Sharma Talwar, partner at JSA Advocates and Solicitors, the amendments could materially alter the legal framework governing mergers in the sector. “With the amendments proposed under the new bill seeks to widen consolidation options by allowing insurers to merge with non-insurance cos to listing, while insurers may also be able to acquire service providers, it may become legally permissible for an insurer to amalgamate with a non-insurance entity. provided the scheme results in an insurance company as the surviving or resultant entity,” she said. She added that the impact will depend on regulations yet to be notified, particularly on the scope of non-insurance activities insurers may be allowed to undertake. Read more