naavi.org has been impressing upon
the community that the Information Technology bill-99 which is now an Act,
is a landmark legislation in India which sets the rules for the governance
of the emerging Digital Society. Ever since the Bill was placed before
the Parliament in December 1999, an attempt has been made by the undersigned
through this website to spread Cyber Law literacy in the country so that
we can dream the formation of a prosperous, law abiding Cyber society.
Towards this end, shortcomings
of the Bill were highlighted and also brought to the notice of the Ministry
of Information Technology(MIT) from time to time. A Memorandum has
also been submitted to the MIT under the banner of the forum on 30th August
when a Press meet was also held in Chennai. An acknowledgement has since
been received for the memorandum from the MIT and we await further information.
In the meantime on 7th September,
the Semiconductor Bill has received the assent of the President.This pertains
to the design of electronic circuits and Chips. A Gist
and a Copy
of the Bill (pdf format) is available for the interested persons to
peruse. We have to await the rules concerning the Act to assess the
impact on the Cyber Society.
It has also been pointed out earlier
that the Telecom Ministry has through its guidelines for Landing Stations
for Submarine Cables in India has brought in sevral provisions that
endanger the "Privacy" of the honest Netizen. I request readers to peruse
the article "Landing
Stations or Police Stations". Privacy has not been a vibrant issue
in the Indian society so far. However it is time we look at how much freedom
is desirable with the law enforcement agencies so that some unscrupulous
elements donot misuse them. For example, a Company may not think that its
commercial correspondence is of any value to the Cyber Police and ignore
evesdropping by the Police. But can they be sure that their competitors
would not be willing to pay a price to a Policeman to divert some sensitive
information to them?. We need to therefore look at the Telecom guidelines
as well as the Communications Bill which will be passed in the next few
months.
Yet another issue which the Cyber
Society needs to be concerned is the issue of state sponsored hacking of
another Courntry's sites as may be alleged in the case of attacks on Indian
Websites by Pakistani agents. Protecting the Netizens who are attacked
because they are the Citizens of a country should be the responsibility
of the State. This requires a Computer Emergency Response Team. This
should be funded with R&D funds and should rush to help the Cyber Society
against vandalism or Cyber War. Netizen's Forum would like this issue to
be addressed immediately.(Refer
here for more information)
I have tried to list some of the
tasks ahead of the Forum. Obviously the task is huge and beyond the sole
capability of the undersigned. I would therefore request Netizens
to become members of the Forum in large numbers so that we can quickly
have a working body of eminent people from different parts of the country
who can shulder the responsibility. naavi.org as an organisation is dedicated
to the cause and would provide the virtual community infrastructure required
for the purpose.
Naavi
September 8, 2000
