Shelar Urges Legal Safeguards at Tokenisation Summit

Maharashtra Minister of Electronics, IT, AI and Cultural Affairs Ashish Shelar addressed industry representatives at Unchained Summit India in Mumbai on Nov. 5-6. The event covered digital assets, real-world asset (RWA) tokenisation, stablecoins, financial infrastructure and institutional participation.

In a special address titled “Maharashtra’s Digital Future: Innovation, Investment and Financial Transformation,” Shelar argued that emerging technologies should solve practical problems and create measurable economic value. He called for clear legal rights, consumer protection and accountability in digital systems.

Shelar also discussed potential uses for artificial intelligence and blockchain in business processes and financial services. For tokenised assets, he highlighted the need for secure custody, sound governance and enforceable ownership rights.

“A token cannot strengthen a weak asset, guarantee liquidity or eliminate risk,” Shelar added. He also called for credible legal frameworks, customer protection and effective redress mechanisms for digital asset markets.

Aeternum organised the two-day summit at the Courtyard by Marriott Mumbai International Airport. Sessions covered digital asset investment, regulatory developments, payments and settlement, custody, liquidity, blockchain scalability, interoperability and decentralised applications.

A roundtable titled “RWA Tokenisation in India: From Pilots to Adoption” examined the requirements for expanding tokenisation beyond trial projects. Participants discussed suitable asset classes and use cases, ownership rights, investor protection, custody, settlement and the ability of separate systems to work together.

The discussion included Jaideep Reddy of Trilegal, Sanmesh Kalyanpur of Finternet, Dilip Chenoy of the Bharat Web3 Association, Kunaal Patel of Ondo Finance, Parth Chaturvedi of Canton Foundation, Ashutosh Dubey of Jio Financial Services, Prasanth Kalangi of Zoniqx, Dinesh Dahiya of OpenZeppelin, Pramod Mishra of PwC and Garima Singh of BitViraj Technology.

Sharath Kumar, founder and CEO of Aeternum, described the summit as a forum for participants from India’s financial and Web3 sectors to discuss applications, infrastructure and institutional participation. He noted that the RWA session included representatives from PwC, Ondo Finance, OpenZeppelin, Trilegal and Jio Financial Services.

The programme also featured “The 5-Step Tokenisation Playbook,” a workshop led by Cristian Ulloa, co-founder of Crave Management and Liquid Loans. The session examined strategic, structural and operational issues in tokenisation, including implementation challenges and risks for organisations considering such projects.

Aeternum organises business-to-business events and provides consulting services related to emerging technologies.

Reviewed and fact-checked by Alex Panasenko on November 14.