INDIA Trends and Developments Contributed by: Anuja Tiwari, Mallika Anand, Pranjal Bhattacharya and Antra Shourya, AZB & Partners
ability reporting, including India. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (India’s capital markets regu- lator) introduced a sustainability reporting framework called the “Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report” (BRSR) in 2021. The BRSR reporting frame- work is applicable to the top 1,000 listed companies (by market capitalisation), which include conglomer- ates that are in “hard-to-abate” sectors such as steel, conventional power, and oil and gas. The 2024−25 central budget also introduced the “climate finance taxonomy” intended to boost capital availability for climate-resilient infrastructure projects. In high-value M&As with cross-border implications, the investor sensitivity towards ESG awareness in the target’s jurisdiction is gradually increasing − especially in investments from jurisdictions with some form of mandatory ESG reporting, such as the USA, the UK and the EU. Data protection Amid increased stakeholder consultations seeking to amend the existing data protection regime in India, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (the “DPDP Act”) was enacted in August 2023. The scope of the legislation has been expanded from “sensitive person- al data” (as protected under the erstwhile Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Pro- cedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules 2011) to “personal data”. Therefore, any data that is related to or provides any personal identifica- tion details of a person must be protected under the umbrella of the DPDP Act. The DPDP Act prescribes compliances for companies handling such data and penalties that are significantly higher, ranging up to INR2.5 billion. On 13 Novem- ber 2025, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology notified the Digital Personal Data Protec- tion Rules 2025 (the “DPDP Rules”) to operationalise the DPDP Act. The DPDP Rules set out the operative standards, procedural requirements, and compliance safeguards that govern the collection, processing, storage and disposal of personal data. Separately, the Digital India Act 2023 may also be enacted to replace the prevailing Information Technol- ogy Act 2000 in order to streamline the framework for
technology and digitalisation regulations. This reform aims to address key concerns afflicting the current legal framework, including misinformation and cyber- security. Impact of sanctions In recent times, geopolitical movements in the form of tariff wars and sanctions have re-drawn business con- siderations and have particularly impacted the oil and gas sectors, creating energy security concerns. While a tariff war has been waged by the USA, there has also been increasing pressure on India from global forums to cut off Russian oil imports owing to sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the Russia−Ukraine war. Indian energy companies such as Nayara Energy (a major Indian refinery with Russian ownership) have been severely impacted by sanctions imposed by the EU, leading to significant drop in their exports. Another of the key monetary impacts has been the repatriation of dividends to Indian oil companies that have investments in Russian energy projects. Bankability of energy and infrastructure projects The Indian government has made various changes to achieve bankability in the energy and infrastructure sectors, as follows. Renewable energy The following measures have been introduced in the renewable energy sector. i) Standard bidding guidelines To streamline the bidding processes by tendering authorities, the Indian government has introduced var- ious standard bidding guidelines (the “Bidding Guide- lines”) based on the source of renewable energy and the underlying technology. The Bidding Guidelines aim to ensure bidding for renewable energy projects is conducted in a transparent manner. The continued evolution of these Bidding Guidelines has sought to address various issues in industry – compensation in cases of grid unavailability, termination compensation, payment security, etc – all of which impacted projects’ cash flows. ii) Compensation for changes in law
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