Indian university joins Hedera decentralized governance council

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras will test use cases around the Hedera Token Service, a public blockchain for payments.

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) has become a member of the Hedera Hashgraph’s council for decentralized governance.

IIT Madras is one of the top institutes for technical education in India, which falls under the direct jurisdiction of India’s Ministry of Education. As a member of the Hedera Governing Council, IITM has become one of the 39 global organizations that run initial network nodes for governing the Hedera public ledger built on distributed ledger technology (DLT).

In addition to advancing DLT’s capabilities in education and research, IITM plans to test use cases around public blockchains for payments via Hedera Consensus Service and the Hedera Token Service.

Professor Prabhu Rajagopal from IITM’s Center for Nondestructive Evaluation spoke about helping other council members identify sustainable use cases:

“I am particularly enthused by the opportunity to test and scale our solutions in blockchain-backed information systems in healthcare, industry and digital media.”

In May, IIT researchers launched a blockchain-based phone application called BlockTrack that helps users and organizations digitize and manage medical records.

Related: India to use Ethereum blockchain to verify diploma certificates

Complimenting the initiatives of national institutions, the Maharashtra State Board of Skill Development recently deployed an Ethereum blockchain-based tamper-proof credentialing system called LegitDoc.

According to LegitDoc CEO Neil Martis, mainstream institutions, including the National Institute of Technology and Ashoka University, are in talks to implement similar systems to counter document forgery.

Related: India’s Income Tax Department may soon target crypto trades and ecosystem

Indian regulators are reportedly in talks to pass a crypto bill that would tax cryptocurrency traders, but entrepreneurs believe the move could potentially push cryptocurrencies into the mainstream.

As Cointelegraph reported, the Income Tax Department of India is keen on taxing earnings made through crypto trades and exchanges. However, the upcoming tax laws will not classify cryptocurrencies as a valid asset class.

Crypto experts in India see this move as bullish and believe that crypto tax will eventually provide regulatory clarity for Indian investors.