International Commercial Arbitration In India And Commercial Transactions

Information and communication technology (ICT) has given a new meaning to international commercial transactions and business. E-commerce has now become an indispensable part of our day to day commercial activities. This has also given rise to both traditional as well as contemporary international commercial disputes all over the world. So much so that the Law Minister Veerappa Moily has said that a commercial court would be set up in each high court and all cases with an investment exceeding a certain sum will be tried in the commercial court.

At the same time alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism in India is also under the process of rejuvenation. Though online dispute resolution (ODR) and e-courts in India are still a distant dream yet the procedure of bringing suitable amendments in the existing arbitration law of India is in pipeline.

Thus scope of International Commercial Dispute Resolution (ICDR) Services in India is increasing day by day. ICDR can be availed of for disputes arising out of contracts on sales of goods, distributorship, agency and intermediary contracts, construction, engineering and infrastructure contracts, intellectual property contracts, domain name dispute resolutions, joint venture agreements, maritime contracts, employment contracts, etc. The list is just illustrative as the business transactions are too many to categorised here.

The traditional litigation methods of dispute resolution are not very helpful for such high staked commercial disputes. This has necessitated the requirement for ADR mechanisms like Arbitration, Mediation, Conciliation, etc.

India has tremendous capabilities for both ADR and ODR. However, India is lacking on the front of a good law in this regard. The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 has proved more to be a burden than a relief. There is an emergent need of reformulating Indian laws in this regard.

Public Services (Protection and Regulation) Bill, 2010 Of India

Very few laws are as important as is Public Services (Protection and Regulation) Bill, 2010 of India. It has, however, not received the attention that it required. Even there is no mention whether it would be passed in the current winter session (July-August 2010) of the Parliament of India or not.

The “Model Public Services Law” was one of the items included in the President’s Address to Parliament on the 4th June, 2009. The law is to cover functionaries providing important social services like education, health, rural development, etc., and commit them to their duties and for that purpose, Legislative Department has attempted a tentative Bill titled the Public Services (Protection and Regulation) Bill, 2010.

The legislation seems to be a good one and like right to information act can go a long way in reforming and streamlining public services in India. Removal of corruption and bringing transparency in public dealings must be the main objective of the ultimate bill.

Interested persons or institutions may send their suggestions or recommendations to the ministry of law, India.

National Litigation Policy Of India

Law Minister Veerappa Moily has recently released the National Litigation Policy of India (NLPI). It has many good legal and judicial reforms ideas. From avoiding unnecessary litigation by governmental departments to use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanism, the NLPI is full of great ideas.

However, the NLPI is also deficient when it comes to use of information and communication technology (ICT) for legal and judicial purposes. The NLPI lacks ICT impetus as it failed to address the issues like e-courts and online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism as means of speedy and effective dispute resolutions.

Further, in the absence of political will, India also cannot be a global arbitration hub. The absence of political will would also jeopardise the NLPI and the same may remains as mere words.

Moily is working really hard in the direction of legal and judicial reforms and all he need is accomplishment of the tasks assigned in NLPI. Further, he must also have a pro active approach towards use of ICT for legal and judicial purposes.

Moily must insist upon time bound achievements regarding crucial projects like e-courts and ODR. There is also an emergent need of techno legal trainings of police officers, lawyers, judges, court staffs, etc.

Let us hope that Moily would pay attention to all these crucial aspects so that legal and judicial reforms can be a reality in India.

Domain Name Dispute Resolution Institutions In India

Domain name disputes are increasing day by days these days. This is primarily attributable to cyber squatting episodes. The growing cyber squatting incidences require strong domain name protection and effective domain name dispute resolution mechanism.

The present domain names are based upon IPv4 and very soon India would adopt the IPv6 framework. This would also add its own share of domain name dispute that have to be handled effectively.

All over the world individuals, organisations and nations are working in the direction of using online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism for resolving various disputes, including domain name disputes. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has been using ODR mechanism to resolve disputes for long.

In India, we have selective institutions that are providing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) services. Even fewer are institutions providing ODR services and just a single platform providing techno- legal ODR services.

The limited growth of ADR and ODR in India is primarily attributable to lack of awareness among the individuals and companies engaged in disputes. Further, even the laws in this regard are not appropriate.

The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 is the sole ADR law of India and there is no dedicated law regarding ODR in India. Although arbitration services in India are for long yet they have to match the international standards. This is the reason why Law Minister Veerappa Moily is considering amendments in the ADR law of India.

With the ADR law in the process of amendments and India’s stand to shift to IPv6 the future of Indian domain name dispute resolution institutions seems to be bright.

What Failed E-Governance In India

E-governance in India has become a source of corruption rather than removing corruption and bringing transparency. Various e-governance projects in India have been achieved on papers alone without any transparency and accountability for the hard earned public money wastage.

E-governance in India has by and large a flop show. There are many factors that led to the poor performance of the e-governance in India. The major among them are lack of planning, omnipresent corruption in governmental offices, lack of accountability, misleading policies, etc. Further, e-governance in India has never been considered a part of good governance.

E-governance is beyond the scope of e-government. While e-government is defined as a mere delivery of government services and information to the public using electronic means, e-governance allows direct participation of constituents in government activities.

E-governance is not just about government web site and e-mail. It is not just about service delivery over the Internet. It is not just about digital access to government information or electronic payments. It will change how citizens relate to governments as much as it changes how citizens relate to each other. It will bring forth new concepts of citizenship, both in terms of needs and responsibilities.

E-governance will allow citizens to communicate with government, participate in the governments' policy-making and citizens to communicate each other. The e-governance will truly allow citizens to participate in the government decision-making process, reflect their true needs and welfare by utilizing e-government as a tool.

However, e-governance in India has been a complete failure. There is too much stress upon procurement as opposed to management. India has to accept that computerisation of traditional governmental and public functions are not e-governance. We have to empower the citizens with the power of information and communication technology (ICT).

ICT has become an indispensable part of our daily life. It has the potential to streamline procedures, inculcate discipline among workforce, and bring transparency and accountability and reduction of costs. The benefits are tremendous provided we have the will, insight and knowledge to use it.

E-governance in India is in its infancy stage. The National E-Governance Plan (NEGP) is the umbrella under which all e-governance initiatives are taking place. However, there are very few successful and completed e-governance initiatives like MCA21 in India. Whether it is e-courts, e-readiness, legal enablement of ICT systems, e-gazette, e-commerce etc none are even close to success. So where lies the problem?

Firstly, there seems to be lack of insight among the policy-makers. The ICT polices and strategies of India are not covering the e-governance aspects at the national level. No political party ever considers e-governance as an important part of their political agenda before elections. Even commodities like onion and potatoes find place in national debates but not e-governance.

Secondly, there is too much stress upon procurement as opposed to management. India has to accept that computerization of traditional governmental and public functions is not e-governance. We have to empower the citizens with the power of ICT. We have to make the governmental services user-friendly as well as productive and easy.

Thirdly, there is lack of transparency in governmental dealing and in the absence of the same e-governance is just paperwork. In India, we have the Right to Information Act, 2005 but the same has been a failure in India. The public information officers keep on denying the relevant information on flimsy grounds. In exceptional cases, citizens may get some information but by and large very few people get the information.

Fourthly, accountability among governmental officers is missing. There is no mechanism through which we can punish a wrong doer for his violations and negligence. This results in a casual attitude towards public good and e-governance. If we fix accountability and time-bound progress requirements then a lot of problems can be solved.

Fifthly, public participation in both policy making and governmental decisions is missing. If we get the opinion of those who are somehow surviving at the grassroots level we can solve the majority of our problems. However, the fact is that grassroots level problems are never solved.

E-governance will be successful only if we start to undertake due efforts to implement it in all blocks and districts and spread it to the grass root level. Being the largest democratic country, India must show an example to other in this context.

But in last many years we have not seen the efficiency of public servants, who are supposed to be the some of the best brain of India. For attaining developed status our public service system must work in a better way. Citizen must participate in various activities, if we really want to see India as a developed nation. Public service must be strengthened in India in true spirit, if we want to become to become a developed nation in near future.

Cross Border E-Commerce Transactions And Online Dispute Resolution

Arbitration law of India must accommodate some of the present day’s method of dispute resolution. Online dispute resolution (ODR) is one of the contemporary methods of dispute resolution. With the growing numbers of human interactions, there are growing incidences of disputes among them. ODR can be an effective, instantaneous and cost economic method of dispute resolution.

However, ODR has to face many technical and legal challenges as well. That is why modern day ODR must be techno-legal in nature. Besides, ODR must also be associated with other allied fields like e-courts to produce better results.

Cross border e-commerce transactions have further mandated that there must be an internationally accepted ODR framework that must be used while resolving various disputes.

In the Indian context, we have very few ODR providers that are providing qualitative ODR services. However, there is just a single techno legal ODR centre in India that is managed by Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB). In fact, PTLB is also exclusively providing online ODR training so that ODR may be widely used in India.

PTLB has launched the most comprehensive techno legal trainings for lawyers, judges, police officers, court managers, arbitrators, mediators, ODR professionals, etc. These trainings are managed by an online platform to maximise the reach of the trainings of PTLB. Application Form for enrollment to various techno legal training courses of PTLB can be downloaded from Here.

PTLB is also working in the direction of International harmonisation of ODR best practices and ODR regulatory and dispute resolution framework. With these initiatives, the future of ODR in India seems to be bright.

Techno Legal Skill Development By PTLB

These days almost all the persons and institutions are required to deal with techno legal issues like cyber law, cyber forensics, cyber security, etc. However, these techno legal fields are highly specialised in nature and they require good amount of training form the best institutions. Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) is one such institution that provides world class online and offline techno legal trainings and education.

PTLB has launched the most comprehensive techno legal trainings for lawyers, judges, police officers, court managers, arbitrators, mediators, ODR professionals, etc. These trainings are managed by an online platform to maximise the reach of the trainings of PTLB. Application Form for enrollment to various techno legal training courses of PTLB can be downloaded from Here.

Techno legal trainings are particularly important for corporate executives, lawyers and judges. The corporate executives have to take care of regulatory and technical requirements at companies. The lawyers have to develop good knowledge of contemporary topics like cyber law, cyber forensics, etc. Similarly, the judges cannot give proper judgment till they are aware of techno legal issues.

These training and skill development programs of PTLB can go a long way in effective implementation of national litigation policy of India (NLPI). Further, these courses also have great scope for legal and judicial reforms in India.

SOURCE: PTLB NEWS

TrueCrypt Version 7.0 Released With Hardware Accelerator Support

TrueCrypt is a software application that provides great on-the-fly encryption capabilities. It is an open source tool that is available free of cost for Windows 7/Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms.

It creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. It can also encrypt an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive. It encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication). It also allows parallelisation and pipelining that allows data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted. Most importantly, it provides the plausible deniability feature, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.

However, TrueCrypt is not a panacea and users are required to take additional security mechanisms to keep their date completely safe.

TrueCrypt has recently released version 7.0. Some new features have been added the chief among them are hardware-accelerated AES, support for devices that use sector sizes other than 512 bytes, ability to configure a volume to be automatically mounted whenever its host device gets connected to the computer, favorites organizer, and more.

Most of Intel's Core i5 and i7 processors support AES-NI instructions required to accelerate the AES engine. However those who don't trust Intel's implementation of AES can force Truecrypt to use its own open source AES engine, without hardware acceleration.

If you find the product useful, consider donating some amount so that the product can be further improved and continued to be available free of cost.

India Is Getting Ready For IPV6 Framework

Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is an Internet Protocol version which is designed to succeed IPv4. Till now IPv4 is still in use and world over efforts are under process to shift to IPv6.

The main reason for this shift to IPv6 is inadequacy of IPv4 to accommodate the growing demands of IP addresses. Besides, network security is also integrated into the design of the IPv6 architecture.

The Indian government has recently released the roadmap for IPv6 deployment in the country in a time bound manner. Indian citizens would be able to start using IPv6 services by March 2012.

All the Telecom and Internet Service providers are required to become IPv6 compliant by December-2011 and offer IPv6 services thereafter.

However, cyber security issues of IPv6 cannot be ignored. Many security solutions don’t support IPv6 very well today. Many IPS vendors are “light” with their IPv6 signatures and v6-based anomaly detection is also light. Support for IPv6 amongst SIEM vendors varies widely. And then, there’s network management – how well does your console support IPv6?

We must also not forget that a complete tool set to attack the inherent protocol weaknesses of IPv6 and ICMP6 with an easy to use packet factory library is openly available.

Any shift from IPv4 to IPv6 must keep in mind all the aspects.

Cyber Investigative Services In India

Cyberspace dealings are increasing day by day as information and communication technology (ICT) has become an essential part of our daily lives. Whether it is e-governance or e-commerce, technology has touched almost all aspects of our lives.

However, cyberspace, like real word, is not a safe place. In fact, it is less safe than real space because we cannot ascertain with whom we are dealings unless we use technical methods to ascertain the identity of a cyber netizens.

Digital forensics investigation is one of the methods where the perpetrators of cyber crimes and cyber contraventions can be ascertained. Digital forensics investigations in India are still at the infancy stage and very few specialised firms are providing these services.

Cyber investigation services are essentially techno legal in nature. This is so because we need both technical as well as legal issues to be addressed while conducting a cyber investigation. Further, cyber investigation also required techno legal training so that cyber investigators can handle the cases properly.

A wrongly handled case may be lost in a court of law. The chain of evidence must be kept intact otherwise the evidence may be inadmissible in courts. This also requires proper handling of digital evidence by the digital investigators.

Legal Services India: A Legal Platform or Illegal Platform

Bar council of India (BCI) has been trying a lot to improve the standards of Indian legal profession but the one thing that it has to take care of is the lack of research capabilities and legal acumen. A closer scrutiny of most of the articles written by law students of even by national law schools show the poor state of legal research capabilities in India.

Even worst is the platforms that publish the same. They even do not bother to make a preliminary search to ascertain whether the article in questions is original or not? One such platform that is very regular in copyright violations of other is Legal Services India. It frequently publishes copyright violated articles at its platform. At times they are almost complete cut, copy and paste one whereas on numerous occasions its authors pick large number of contents without prior permission and proper attribution.

For example, consider the article titled Copyright law in India published at Indymedia by Mr. Praveen Dalal. The same was published on 14/07/2005 at 15:23. Now consider this article under the same title published on 20 Mar 2008. It is a clear case of copyright violation as the dates suggests themselves.

There are many such articles published at the Legal Services India that is openly and blatantly violating the copyright of others. Now even the administrator of legal services is aware of this copyright violation, it would be a fit case to prosecute them under the provisions of Indian Copyright Act, 1957.

It appears that the legal research acumen of Indian legal fraternity is at its lowest rung. The efforts of BCI to streamline the same are praiseworthy but the task is not easy to manage as long as we have students and platforms like legal services that openly violate others copyright.

Domain Name System Security Extensions Fully Installed

According to Wikipedia “The Domain Name System Security Extensions (DNSSEC) is a suite of Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) specifications for securing certain kinds of information provided by the Domain Name System (DNS) as used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It is a set of extensions to DNS which provide to DNS clients (resolvers) origin authentication of DNS data, authenticated denial of existence, and data integrity, but not availability or confidentiality”.

Operators of the Internet’s authoritative root zone last week completed deployment of enhanced security protocols at the top level of the Domain Name System. The Internet’s 13 root zone DNS servers have been digitally signed using the DNSSEC since May. On July 15 the signed root zone was made available and a trust anchor was published with cryptographic keys that will allow users to verify the authenticity of DNS address requests.

Digitally signed responses to DNS queries that can be cryptographically validated are more difficult to spoof or manipulate. This can help to combat attacks such as pharming, cache poisoning, and DNS redirection that are used to commit fraud and identity theft and to distribute malware.

However, using DNSSEC not a complete solution to the DNS security infrastructure. The TLDs like .com and .net have yet to be signed. .gov and .org were signed in 2009. There is still a lot of work to be done on all of the intervening infrastructure from DNS servers, firewalls and other network equipment that processes/passes DNS, host stub resolvers, and DNS registries will have to support DNSSE. Then there still needs to be a reason to use DNSSEC over SSL/TLS since both protocols can positively identify and authenticate a host.

However, none can doubt about the utility of this first step that would go a long way in ensuring secure and safer DNS uses. With the increasing uses of DNS for malicious purposes, it is very important that we must use internationally accepted uniform standards in this regard.

Australian Federal Police Opens Office In New Delhi

Transborder crimes are difficult to detect and eve more difficult to prosecute. Although there are law enforcement collaborative platforms like Interpol yet at times it becomes imperative to act swiftly.

This requires collaboration of local law enforcement agencies in real time. This has inspired the Australian federal police to open its office in New Delhi which is expected to boost their capacity to fight common threats like terrorism and cyber crime.

Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Tony Negus is optimistic that this would help police in both the countries in combating crime.

In this globalised and inter connected world, transnational crime is a growing threat. This is more so regarding cyber crimes that can be committed through Internet.

This is a good step and India must also, if it has not already done so, open a similar office in Australia. Further, there is also a need of joint operations and joint trainings between Indian and Australian police forces.

E-Discovery Law In India

E-discovery law in India has still to be enacted. Although India has the cyber law of India incorporated in the form of information technology act 2000 (IT Act 2000) yet it is far from being sufficient for cyber forensics and e-discovery purposes.

Cyber forensics is different from E-Discovery, Digital Recovery or other synonymous terms. Cyber Forensics primarily caters the "Legal Requirements" whereas E-Discovery meets the requirements of private individuals and organisations.

In India we have an exclusive techno legal e-discovery research, training and educational centre. The same is managed by the Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB) segment of Perry4Law.

E-discovery issues are posing problems before the law enforcement officials, lawyers and judges in India. They find it real difficult to deal with these techno legal issues. Although these stakeholders are comfortable with traditional evidence issues yet when it comes to e-discovery or digital evidencing in India they are almost clueless.

There is an urgent need of training of police officers, lawyers and judges in crucial techno legal fields.

ODR In India Got Techno Legal Rejuvenation

Online Dispute Resolution in India (ODR in India) is in its infancy stage. Even if we compare the same with other parts of the world, India is not lagging much far behind. However, there is a dearth of initiatives in this regard in India.

Further, the laws of India are also not conducive for the establishment and growth of ODR in India. Fortunately, we have a guiding path in the form of techno legal ADR and ODR platform that can be utilised to establish ODR in India.

With the establishment of PTLB training, education and policy making platform a great impetus has been provided to ODR in general and techno –legal issues in particular. The cycle seems to be complete with the establishment of a techno legal ODR platform in this regard.

Law Minister Veerappa Moily must incorporate the relevant provisions in the proposed amendments in the arbitration law of India to accommodate ODR as well. These techno legal platforms can provide valuable guidance and support for an ODR regulatory framework in India and world wide.

Cyber Arbitration And Mediation Centre Of India

Cyber arbitration in India or cyber mediation in India is the recognition of the changing trend of dispute resolution. Traditionally dispute resolution was an exclusive task of the court alone.

However, the business community desired for an alternative for court litigation. This resulted in the use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms like arbitration, mediation, conciliation, lok adalats, etc.

Information and communication technology (ICT) changed the very manner in which these ADR mechanisms are used. Now business community is stressing more upon online dispute resolution (ODR) than ADR mechanism.

ODR is the most convenient, efficient and speedier method of dispute resolution. The parties are not even required to leave their places and they can resolve their disputes even while sitting at their homes or offices.

With the benefits of ODR there are certain challenges attached to it as well. For instance there are very few ODR service providers in India. Even lesser are the ODR experts who can resolve the disputes through ODR. Further, when it comes to scientific disciplines, there is an inherent limitation for ODR providers to understand those issues. Fortunately, we have a cyber arbitration and mediation centre (CAMC) in India that is providing world class ADR and ODR services.

Sooner or later Indian arbitrators and mediators must learn to adopt and use ODR as the future belong to the ODR community. If you are a lawyer or judge you may consider the techno-legal training platform by Perry4Law Techno Legal base (PTLB) for getting good ADR and ODR training.

If you are an arbitrator or mediator or other professional, you may consider another platform of PTLB that provides cyber law, ODR and other similar trainings. All these platforms of PTLB provide online training, coaching and education and you can get these training as per your convenience.

Cyber Arbitration In India

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in India has a history of more than 60 years with the Arbitration Act 1940 as one of the initial laws in this regard. The 1940 act was repealed by the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996.

This has, however, not produced much change in the ADR law of India. The backlog of civil cases keeps on increasing despite the 1996 Act. This is due to the fact that there are many legal, procedural and fundamental weaknesses in the 1996 Act.

The 1996 Act is in the process of reformulation and there are numerous lacunas that must be removed in the next ADR law of India. The Parliament of India has, however, a serious limitation while formulating ADR laws. It is not much aware of the information and communication technology (ICT) related issues of ADR.

Cyber arbitration is one such aspect. Cyber arbitration is popularly known as online dispute resolution (ODR) mechanism. ODR is a better and improved form of ADR provided India is willing to encash its benefits.

The problem is there are very few ODR institutions in India. Even lesser are ODR experts who can resolve technical, legal and other scientific disputes in an online environment. Even the national litigation policy of India (NLPI) failed to address this issue.

There is no doubt that formulating good techno-legal ODR practices and regulations require tremendous expertise. There are few ODR providers who can assist the Indian government in this regard.

Law Enforcement Of India Needs Cyber Law Training

Law enforcement in India finds it really difficult to deal with technology related cases. There is an urgent need to train them in technology related fields. They cannot always seek outside help for solving cyber crimes and technology related crimes.

They must have techno-legal solution at their disposal so that cases can be efficiently and quickly solved. Further, they must also develop indigenous law enforcement intelligence capabilities.

One may frequently come across media claims that make the law enforcement of India tech savvy. The fact is that law enforcement in India is not at all aware of technology related issues.

Not only the law enforcement machinery of India must be trained in the field of cyber law but also they must have basic level cyber forensics training. Mere opening of cyber crime cell and conducting few workshops would not serve the purpose. Law enforcement in India needs long term and durable training.

Perry4Law Techno Legal Base (PTLB), a reputed cyber law training organisation, imparts cyber law training to law officials, judges, police officers, lawyers and corporate personnel. The online training sessions offered by the institution does not even require the learner to be physically present at the training venue. They can learn as per their convenience, from the comfort of their offices.

It would be a good idea if the government of India provides real and effective cyber law and cyber forensics training to police force of India. With growing incidences of cyber crimes in India this has become a much required necessity.

Open Source Hardware (OSHW) Draft Definition Version 0.3 Released

According to Wikipedia “Open source hardware is hardware that is designed and offered in the same manner as free and open source software (FOSS). Open source hardware is part of the open source culture and applies the open source concept to hardware. The term usually means that information about the hardware is open to all. This would include the hardware design, as well as a FOSS approach to the software that drives the hardware.

According to another source, “Open Source Hardware (OSHW) is a term for tangible artifacts -- machines, devices, or other physical things -- whose design has been released to the public in such a way that anyone can make, modify, distribute, and use those things”.

This definition is intended to help provide guidelines for the development and evaluation of licenses for Open Source Hardware. According to this definition the distribution terms of OSHW must have the prerequisites like Documentation, Necessary Software, Derived Works, Free redistribution, Attribution, No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups, No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor, Distribution of License, License Must Not Be Specific to a Product, License Must Not Restrict Other Hardware or Software and License Must Be Technology-Neutral.

The OSHW culture also prevents arbitrary governmental dealings of hardware as everything is public and nothing is hidden. At present, many nations are banning certain hardware on the basis that they may carry malware or backdoors and thereby are security threats. When hardware is based upon open source foundation, these governments already would have the “source code” and any such decision would in itself be unreasonable.

As per the recent news, open-source hardware companies like Adafruit, Arduino, Chumby, and others have come together to set standards for their nascent industry. This is not only in the interest of end users but these companies as well. Open source is a big industry in itself and merebly because something is based upon open source does not mean that companies cannot derive commercial gain from it.

Further, open source culture also provides an opportunity to improve the end product as many contributors can provide their inputs for the same. In case of a closed source product, this is the biggest limitation and the commercial company has to engage its own technicians to do the job.

Co.Cc Is Blocking Domains Illegally

Free domain service providers like Co.Cc are not following the civil liberties in their true letter and spirit. Rather, on flimsy and extraneous grounds, Co.Cc is filtering and blocking domains without and reasons and justifications. Co.Cc has recently blocked the domain that was used for the famous news site named Cjnews that has been providing techno-legal news, views, opinions, articles, etc.

If you are looking for a free domain, do not consider Co.Cc at all unless you wish to let your hard labour go to drains. In fact, the free domain provider Co.Cc is not providing free anything. It is trying to encash upon the goodwill and reputation of a domain registered at its platform. May be it is an arm twisting technique of Co.Cc to get costs from freely registered users.

Once a domain is well known and reputed, it is blocking the same for extraneous considerations without any prior notice and explaining grounds for the same. On 5th July 2010 our site was suddenly off the web. We analysed and found that there was a server side error that prevented it from appearing. However, on contacting our host provider it was very clear that this illegal blocking was happening on the Co.Cc level. How something like this could happen without any prior intimation is beyond understanding?

Even there is a clear change of stand by Co.Cc from time to time. Firstly they said that the domain has been suspended because Co.Cc thought it has some “possibilities” to become a phishing / spam / illegal site. On pursuing the matter further, they shifted their stand and informed that our site was blocked due to “inappropriate contents”. It seems our site has suddenly ceased to be site “capable” of phishing, spam and illegal activity in “future”. Now our site is providing “inappropriate contents” in present.

Come on Co.Cc clear your head and give us the real reason for your illegal and unreasonable blocking of our site. The funny reasons that you are giving is only strengthening the suspicion of bad faith and mala fide intentions on your part. Similarly, this episode is all raising lot of doubts about your professional and legal commitments.

It seems Co.Cc is trying to hush up something more sinister. Either they are acting on the instance of governmental authorities (Indian or Korean) or they are trying to establish a dubious practice of arm twisting and then forcing free users pay otherwise. It is high time for Co.Cc to explain their illegal and unreasonable actions

If this is the attitude of Co.Cc, we recommend that none should register a free domain with them. Too much for the cost of a free domain from a site named Co.Cc.

Critical ICT Infrastructure Protection In India

Critical ICT infrastructure protection (CIIP) is becoming more and more crucial these days. The reason is very simple to understand. These days many crucial functions of private and government are essentially connected with the computers and computers systems. If these computers or computer systems are compromised, much damage can be done to the country where such breach has occurred.

Although the importance of CIIP is well understood by India yet it has not taken any active steps in this regard. There is neither a cyber security policy of India nor is there any strategy in this regard. Even there is absence of basic level of cyber security training in India and cyber security research and development in India.

Till now we have just one techno-legal cyber security research and training centre in India (CSRTCI). The same is managed by Perry4Law, the exclusive techno-legal firm of India. The CSRTCI has been managing the techno-legal aspects of cyber security for long. Some of the areas of its specialisation pertain to cyber law, cyber security, cyber forensics, cyber war, cyber terrorism, cyber espionage, corporate espionage, critical ICT infrastructure protection, CCTNS, Natgrid, NCTC, etc.

However, CSRTCI is also a part of much larger and highly specialised initiative providing protection to human rights in cyberspace. The human rights initiative is also the exclusive initiative providing techno-legal measures and remedies against cyber terrorism in India and cyber war in India.

Except this private initiative, there is no other initiative that is providing techno-legal solutions against cyber terrorism, cyber war, cyber espionage, etc. Sooner or later India would also need to take measures to protect CIIP.

Online Cyber Law Education In India

Cyber law is a specialised field of law that requires knowledge of both legal and technical principles. However, contrary to the general perception prevailing among the potential cyber law professionals, cyber law is much more than mere academic diplomas and degrees. Cyber law requires actual practical application of technical and legal principles to a given situation.

Here comes the importance of a good techno-legal training and education course that caters the practical requirement of this specialised field. In India there are very few techno-legal training and education course providers. Perry4Law Techno-Legal Base (PTLB) is the best techno-legal cyber law education and training provider not only in India but also world wide.

The best part about its qualitative techno-legal training and educational courses is that they are also available through online mode. The online platform of PTLB allows a lawyer, judge, law enforcement officer corporate executive, etc to sharpen their cyber law related skills even at the comfort of their home, offices, chambers or corporate room.

Presently PTLB is providing techno-legal online cyber law education in India, online cyber law training in India, online cyber law internship in India, online cyber law coaching in India and many such related services.

For the members of legal fraternity and judicial community, PTLB has launched a separate platform known as Online Lawyers And Judges Training And Educational Centre of India. In short, it is known as Bar & Bench Blog that provides meaningful insight to lawyers and judges world wide.

With these great techno-legal cyber law training and education initiatives of PTLB, the law enforcement, legal, judicial and corporate segments can be benefited a lot.

ADR Must Be Used As An Alternative To Litigation

Law Minister Veerappa Moily has recently announced the National Litigation Policy of India. It has many great reforms and if implemented in a timely and appropriate manner would go a long way in reducing the backlog of cases in India.

However, the policy is deficient in one crucial aspect. It failed to utilise the benefits of information and communication technology (ICT) for reducing the backlog of cases in India. Two most prominent use of ICT for reducing the arrears of cases in India are the use of e-courts in India and adoption of online dispute resolution (ODR) in India.

Till India is not ready for the use of ICT for legal and judicial purposes, we must concentrate upon using alternative dispute resolution (ADR) methods like arbitration, mediation, etc.

Adoption of use of ICT for legal and judicial purposes would not only reduce the arrears of cases but would also bring ADR business to India. India can become a hub for ADR and ODR services provided we must change the legal system and law in this regard.

There is an emergent need of amending the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 as soon as possible so that international commercial disputes can be resolved through international commercial arbitration in India.

The amendment procedure is already in the process and it would be a good idea if provisions regarding e-courts and ODR are also incorporated in the same.

Indian ICT Policy In Deep Mess

India is an information and communication technology (ICT) superpower. However, this status is confined to providing outsourcing and other related services alone. When it comes to indigenous capabilities and self reliance, India does not stand anywhere. Why there is a mutual disharmony and conflict in this regard?

The reason is very simple. India does not have an “ICT Vision”. All Indian decisions regarding ICT are ignorant, half hearted, corruption laden, transparency lacking and retrograde in nature.

This is bound to happen when our Executive, Judiciary and Legislature(s) are simply technologically illiterate and are not paying any attentions towards bringing good ICT reforms.

Whether it is cyber law, cyber security, cyber forensics, judicial training, law enforcement training, etc there is a complete failure in India. For instance, India has cyber criminal friendly and impotent law, meager cyber security and cyber forensics capabilities, excessive e-surveillance, absence of privacy and data protection laws, rampant corruption, absence of transparency and many more vices.

We do not have an ICT Policy that can cater the requirements of these fields. All we have are thousands of unfulfilled promises by our ruling government where no action has been taken upon them since decades.

This is so because these requirements though urgent and necessary have no “vote bank” importance hence they are just ignored even if India at large is at the receiving end.

Indian ICT Policy is in deep mess and there is an urgent need to streamline the same. Is Indian government listening?

Twitter Please Do Not Censor Our UIDAI And Privacy Related Tweets

The best part of a democratic setup is that in case of conflicting viewpoints both sides get their respective chance to put forward their version. A similar concept applies to cyberspace where both the sides of an aspect must be freely available to the public for their appraisal.

We have been observing for the past many months that the expression “UIDAI” is subject to great deal of search engine optimisation (SEO). This term is also subject to great deal of “results censorship”.

Twitter is a platform that is known for its micro blogging and community information sharing. We have been using Twitter for some period of time. Although our experience with Twitter is great yet there is a single point where we are seriously dissatisfied, rather concerned.

Like many other places, even at Twitter our use of the expression “UIDAI” is mercilessly censored. A dominant majority of our tweets mentioning UIDAI never appears before the community for their perusal. This is so even if the same is a part of the title of news/Blog item or separately mentioned by us.

We are aware of the spam, over capacity, and other aspects pertaining to twitter and our posts are not disappearing due to these or any other technical reason.

Twitter please do not “censor” our UDIAI and Privacy related tweets.

SOURCE: CJNEWS