Heena Sharma Blog

  The government on Thursday decided to restore with immediate effect all existing visas, except electronic, tourist and medical categories, almost eight months after their suspension following the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent imposition of a nationwide lockdown. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) also announced giving permission to all Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) and Person of Indian Origin (PIO) card holders and all other foreign nationals to visit India for any purpose, except on a tourist visa. The ministry said in a statement that in view of the situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government had taken a series of steps to curtail the inward and outward movement of international passengers since February, 2020. The government has now decided to make a graded relaxation in visa and travel restrictions for more categories of foreign nationals and Indian nationals who wish to enter or leave India. Read More

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has permitted authorised card payment networks to offer card tokenisation services to any third party requesting it. Tokenisation acts as an additional layer of security as it masks sensitive card data such as the 16-digit account number, expiration date and security code. It creates a set of numbers that is used to substitute your card information. This ensures that your card information is not disclosed to the website or merchant you are transacting with. "Services such as the Visa Token Service can help prevent fraud by offering financial institutions, merchants, and third party payment providers, such as digital wallet providers, a secure way to enable mobile and online payments without sharing sensitive account information," said T R Ramachandran, Group Country Manager, India & South Asia, VISA. Tokens can be device-specific, retailer-specific or even use case-specific. It is a service offered by leading card networks all a