Quirks of the Market Regulator

With the laudable objective of disciplining market participants, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has embarked on a massive operation of building up a comprehensive unique identification scheme. But how will biometric information, to be collected on such a massive scale, add teeth to SEBI's surveillance exercise? And how well is it equipped to isolate those that pose a threat to the integrity of market process? Regulators have to be certainly effective, but they have to be understanding and imaginative as well.