IT law debate gets dirty
By Pulkit Sharma

Cyber law expert Na.Vijayashankar, also known as Naavi in Cyberspace, is one of the most respected names in the Indian tech world.  As Chairman of the Digital Society Foundation and as a Director of Cyber Law College, one of Naavi’s life mottos is “Let’s build a responsible Cyber society”.   Naavi’s views are highly regarded and he is regularly quoted by Indian media.

Late 2008, the Indian Parliament passed the Information Technology Act amendment bill 2008.  The President has given her assent to the Act, and it has now become law.

Naavi has now blogged about how a small section of Cyber Law observers and business interests are working to repeal the law.  Navi wrote: “There is a group of Cyber Law observers in India that are trying their best to spread a rumour that the Act would be withdrawn. Supported by the vested interests in business who are opposed to the security oriented provisions of the Act, these observers are undertaking a media campaign which includes planting of stories in Internet complete with posting of supportive comments in different names. This campaign has the effect of misleading the industry that they need not respond to the proposed amendments.”

Ideally, in a democratic system, laws are proposed by the Government and fine tuned by experts.  There is public debate and discussion (and all manner of lobbying) before our elected representatives (politicians) vote for and against it.  If the politicians and public are not happy, any law can be changed or repealed.

The ground realities are when such important laws are changed, than the lobbying can be quite bitter.  Techgoss had first hand experience of this ‘fake attacking comments planted as personal, informed views’.   Techgoss received a comment attacking Naavi’s public exhortation to business to implement the security measures under our new laws.

When we tried to contact the person who sent the comments, his email turned out to be fake.  Techgoss will never publish any ones name if they prefer anonymity, but we prefer to do basic checks to ensure that discussion and debate remains civil.

Techgoss note:  Techgoss has never had any business or personal equation with either sides of the argument.  We do not understand the complexities of the laws enough to make informed comment.  But we know that posting fake comments is not conducive to a healthy debate and discussion.