Gunjan Singh
The Government of India (GOI) is planning to introduce in Parliament this month changes to the Information Technology Act, 2000 (IT Act, 2000). The IT Act, 2000 was enacted in the year 2000 and lots of changes have taken place from that point of time. The IT Ministry/Department of Information Technology (DIT) suggested the IT Act Amendment Bill in December 2006. However, the same was found inadequate and deficient by the Parliamentary Standing Committee that submitted its recommendations in September 2007. The recommendations by the Standing Committee largely endorsed the suggestions of Perry4Law (http://perry4law.com/index1.htm) and some other cyber law experts. It seems, the GOI and DIT have also finally accepted the majority of suggestions of Perry4Law regarding Proposed Amendments in the IT Act, 2000. However, still a long distance has to be covered since lots of changes have already taken place since those suggestions were originally provided.For instance, the Cyber Security in India is a topic discussed by few and appreciated by even fewer. This is so because the Cyber Security Strategy of India is defective as the GOI has not paid enough attention towards this issue. Of course, some brilliant "public initiatives" have been trying to fill this policy vacuum. The efforts by Perry4Law are the best in this regard. Initiatives like PTLB, PTLITC, Cyber Law Working Group in India, Cyber Law Database of India, Techno-Legal ICT Regulations in India, etc have been path braking and trend setter in India in this regard. They are providing valuable "Public Awareness" that is the need of the hour in India.
According to Praveen Dalal (http://reclaiming-india.blogspot.com/), the Leading Techno-Legal Specialist of India, "Cyber security in India is a Myth and not Reality. The Cyber Security Trends by PTLB, 2007 suggested to the GOI to take an immediate action in this regard. Issues like offensive cyberspace capabilities, rights perspective of cyber security, ICT and Cyber Security in India, Cyber Forensics in India (http://computerforensicsinindia.blogspot.com/), etc were not treated seriously by the Government. Further, we have also provided our Techno-Legal suggestions and recommendations to the GOI/DIT in the fields of Cyber Law, Cyber Security, Cyber Forensics, etc and they seem to have been accepted by them by incorporating in the proposed amendments to the IT Act, 2000".
It would be a good idea to seek public opinion and experts' views for the proposed IT Act, 2000 amendments. The GOI must absolutely seek the expertise and suggestions of Perry4Law in general and Mr. Praveen Dalal in particular.