August

The first ever national standard on personal data privacy protection has come into force in China. The guidelines, called the Information Security Technology - Guide for Personal Information Protection within Public and Commercial Information Systems (Guidelines), were originally proposed by the nation's telecoms regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2011 and subsequently released by the Standardization Administration of China. The Guidelines provide guidance on protecting personal information handled in information systems and applies generally to the private sector. While the Guidelines do not have the force of law, the introduction of a general national standard on personal data privacy protection marks a significant move for China. The China Software Evaluation and Test Centre have announced it is forming a self-regulatory group to play a consultative role in future legislation in the personal data privacy arena. Organizations should take active measures now to prepare their data collection, handling and processing|use practices for compliance with the best practice Guidelines.

China's top prosecuting authority said it is looking into revising a regulation that limits access to juvenile criminal records, a move that many attorneys have called for. According to Han Yaoyuan, director of legal policy research for the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the authority is aware of the difficulties in enforcing the rules and is collecting suggestions. If it happens, legal experts say it could pave the way to changing a similar article in the Criminal Procedure Law that has caused confusion due to nonspecific language. The debate focuses on rules about sealing the criminal records of minors, which came into effect with the revised Criminal Procedure Law on Jan 1. Many prosecutors have complained that they were confused about how to carry it out. Under the original law, the criminal records of people under 18 can be sealed if the sentence is less than five years. The article aims to better protect juveniles' rights, but it does not clearly define the legal organs or related departments that can access the files, said Zheng Ruizhi, a prosecutor in Beijing's Dongcheng district.

New Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) produced the best employment results, between April and June 2013, with 27% of the job market share, according to the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India. New Delhi-NCR generated over 34,000 jobs in Q1 2013, a year-on-year increase of approximately +16%. IT, Information Technology-enabled Services (ITeS), and hardware sectors created 47% of the jobs in New Delhi-NCR. Academic appointments accounted for the second most successful sector with 14% of the market share, followed by banking, insurance and financial services with over 6%. Kolkata was another high performing region with the second highest job creation numbers. New jobs totaled 6,500, a year-on-year increase of 1,000 jobs. IT, ITeS, and hardware sectors again created the most jobs with a 38% market share in the region. Bangalore recorded a +7% increase in new jobs number during the same period. New job figures in Chennai dropped by -21% year-on-year, with 2,200 fewer jobs created. Mumbai experienced the biggest decline in number of jobs created, falling -28% compared with last year.