Monday, January 7, 2002		Article

IT is a dynamic field wherein law-breakers clearly outpace lawmakers. The terrorists who attacked Parliament on December 13 made full use of the Net. A laptop was used to download the logo of the Ministry of Home Affairs from the ministry's Website and was pasted on a car.

A new breed of e-mail distribution tools are there in the market. They provide some leverage to the sender to either erase or alter the e-mail that has already been sent and received by the receiver in the mailbox. This utility raises many legal questions, as according to the IT Act 2000, every activity on the Net and computer is a legally recognised electronic writing- 'fiddling' software might mean destroying the evidence. In Chandigarh, one company has been booked under the IT Act and the case has made just a little headway.

Catch hold a Netizen surfing a porn site. Under what charges do you hold him and what punishment that can be awarded to him? Privacy issues too crop up. The cyber law situation is too fluid.

"Right now, cyber laws are bouncing between IT and law professionals. Confusion prevails about whose purview it fall under. No one bears in mind that these laws touch and affect every person who surfs the Net, be it a Website developer or the one who sends an e-mail," says Dinesh Sharma, a computer professional, who has opened a Cyber Law Centre at Panchkula and is planning to train students in cyber laws from the second week of January.

"Websites have become a symbol of identification for companies. Millions are connected to the Internet day and night -exchanging information, doing business and online shopping. All this leads to a new kind of society called cyber society and there is an acute need of rules and regulations that govern this society giving rise to a number of cyber disputes as well," he says.

The six-months diploma in cyber laws being run by this Cyber Law College, Pune, affiliated centre would teach students about legal issues in convergence, IT Act 2000 and other issues related to e-business management. "Right now, even faculty members who teach LL.B and LL.M in various colleges and universities of this region are skipping chapters on cyber laws simply because this is a relatively new and yet unexplored field," Dinesh alleges and claims that his is the first institute in the region to offer 'offline' regular course on cyber crimes and cyber law.

He was earlier into the field of cyber cafes, but he found that brick-and-mortar cyber law colleges were a rage in Pune. "So I thought - why not Chandigarh? And I went ahead to discuss franchise model with the Pune college, my alma mater from where I have done a course in cyber laws. They agreed," he tells Login Tribune.

He plans to charge Rs 15,000 as the course fee and says the course would cover cyber jurisprudence, cyber contracts, digital signatures, cryptography, domain name disputes, cyber world privacy and freedom issues. Examination would be conducted under the supervision of cyberlawcollege.com. "The after-course opportunities are immense in banking, insurance, education, e-commerce, e-business, law and consultancy sectors," he maintains.

The college that has given affiliation to the centre also runs cyber law portals like naavi.com and cyberlaw4u.com and has also created a cyber law forum for credible cyber regulations. The forum acts as a watch dog on cyber law regulations and written representations are made to the IT ministry to take care of lacunae and flaws.

HP enables IT learning for mentally challenged kids
Tribune News Service

HEWLETT-Packard (HP) Company and the Academy for Severe Handicaps and Autism (ASHA) recently announced the setting up of an 'HP Computer Lab' in the premises of ASHA. The lab will provide students and faculty, access to high-quality interactive learning resources.

The computer laboratory, with state-of-the-art equipment, will provide these special children at ASHA an opportunity to be introduced interactive learning. The laboratory is self-contained with the company's Brio PCs. "ASHA is doing exemplary work in enabling children with a specialised needs and HP is happy to partner with them in this endeavour," a vice-president with the company that was awarded the CII-Exim Award for Business Excellence for the year 1997, said.

"This initiative will enable us to introduce our students to interactive learning." Jayashree Ramesh, Director, ASHA said. "The integration of IT with our existing training modules will help developing and enhancing their potential" she added.

Autism is a life long developmental disability that typically appears in the first three years of life. It is primarily a neurological disorder that affects the functioning of the brain. Incidents of autism have increased at an alarming rate in recent years.

Over the past 20 years, HP has given more than $1 billion in philanthropic grants. In India alone, HP in the last two years has set up 8 Computer Labs in Delhi and Bangalore schools. ASHA is a multidisciplinary task oriented Academy that provides special education to children with severe disabilities. ASHA formally began its activities is August 1995.