Why you FUD? OK, I will try to explain to all people not capable of understanding written text:
Finance minster Arun Jaitley, in his budget speech today (Feb. 01), stated that the government will do everything to discontinue the use of bitcoin and other virtual currencies in India. He reiterated that India does not recognise them as legal tender and will instead encourage blockchain technology in payment systems.
“The government does not recognise cryptocurrency as legal tender or coin and will take all measures to eliminate the use of these cryptoassets in financing illegitimate activities or as part of the payments system,” Jaitley said.
the government will do everything to discontinue the use of bitcoin and other virtual currencies in India
Oh nice, he stated that in some speech. I don't know what is the exact government type in India (parliament democracy?) but here is what he has to do in order to "ban bitcoin and other altcoins":
1) Prepare the law
2) Get the law accepted
3) Possibly get signed by president
Ah well, we are at least half a year from point that this would happen. The thing which you have posted is NOT a law. It is just a statement of a minister (similar to Donald Trump twitter posts I would say) and a lot of work will have to be done in order to legally embed that into the India legal framework.
It is possible that the final law will not be that strict and maybe you will just have to register yourself to avoid usage of cryptocurrency to money laundering or I don't know. We have VPNs, privacy coins, even TOR-enabled coins like xspec. Anyone who wants to use cryptocurrencies for illegal activities simply can and no India law can make it impossible for them.
I don't believe they are so stupid that they would ban cryptocurrencies completely. Crypto can become a significant money income from taxes to nations. They just need to understand it.
