The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IITM) became a member of the Hedera Hashgraph Board for Decentralized Governance.

IIT Madras is one of India’s leading technical education institutes, reporting directly to the Indian Ministry of Education. As a Hedera Board of Directors member, IITM has become one of 39 global organizations that operate the original network nodes to manage the Hedera public ledger, which is based on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

In addition to improving DLT’s education and research capabilities, IITM plans to explore use cases around public blockchains for payments through the Hedera Consensus Service and the Hedera Token Service.

Professor Prabhu Rajagopal from the IITM Center for Non-Destructive Evaluation spoke about helping other panel members identify sustainable use cases:

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

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

Related: Indian uses the Ethereum blockchain to verify diploma certificates

In addition to the initiatives of national institutions, the Maharashtra State Skills Development Council recently implemented a tamper-proof authentication system based on the Ethereum blockchain called LegitDoc.

LegitDoc CEO Neil Martis said mainstream institutions, including the National Institute of Technology and Ashoka University, talk about using similar systems to combat document tampering.

Related: India’s income tax authority could soon target cryptocurrency exchanges and ecosystems.

Indian regulators are reportedly in talks to pass a crypto bill that will tax crypto traders, but entrepreneurs believe the move could bring crypto into the mainstream.

As reported by Cointelegraph, India’s income tax authority is interested in taxing revenue from cryptocurrency exchanges and transactions. However, upcoming tax laws will not classify cryptocurrencies as a good asset class.

Cryptocurrency experts in India think the move is optimistic and believe that the crypto tax will eventually provide regulatory clarity for Indian investors.