India this Month

Robocops in India?

The Government of India has proposed to provide computer facility with
Internet to all the police stations in the country, including Delhi, by March
2010.

Informing this in written communication to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State
in the Ministry of Home Affairs Sriprakash Jaiswal said that the planning
commission has provided an outlay of Rs 2,000 crore for the computerization in
11th five year plan.

Meanwhile, the Lok Sabha was also informed that CCTV cameras have been
installed in Tihar jail to monitor prisoners and help the prison authorities to
keep a better check on untoward incidents and enhance vigilance.

Under the scheme of modernization of prisons, the state governments have been
allowed to utilize 10% of the funds allocated for their annual action plan
2006-07 on purchasing equipments for modernization of jails and building and
improving infrastructure for undertaking correctional programmes.

The Indian government in their proposed second phase of the prisons
modernization scheme has identified installation of CCTV as one of the reform
agenda.

Lok Sabha in Rashtrabhasha

Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Wednesday launched the Hindi website
of the lower house.

Addressing the launching ceremony at Parliament Library Building, the speaker
said the launch of the Hindi website would be beneficial for MPs and the Lok
Sabha secretariat, reports IANS.

The Hindi website will help bring parliament nearer to the people,
Chatterjee said.

Appreciating the efforts of the officials of the secretariat and National
Informatics Centre for launching the website, Chatterjee said, One will be able
to access the information on parliamentary activities online in Hindi.

Lok Sabha Secretary PDT Acharya said, Now, members will be able to access
the information on parliamentary activities online in Hindi as well, thereby
helping them discharge their parliamentary tasks more quickly and effectively.

The members and the public will be able to access the Hindi website of Lok
Sabha by logging on to the website loksabha.nic.in and then clicking on the
Hindi site, a Lok Sabha public relations statement said.

They too Can Complain

Will help file complaints related to physical violation, abuse or refusal
of rights

MUMBAI: India has more than 21 mn physically challenged people. While the
central and state governments have passed many laws, legislations and orders to
provide rights and reservations to them, they still face discrimination and
injustice in their normal life.

Now the physically challenged can heave a sigh of relief, as the Ministry of
Social Justice and Empowerment has recently introduced e-complaint facility so
that they can file their grievances independently.

Meira Kumar, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment officially launched
this online scheme in Delhi on Tuesday. The e-complaint facility is available at
the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCD)s website-www.ccdisabilities.nic.in.

Here, any disabled person can file or register complaints linked to physical
violation, abuse, and refusal of mandatory reservation or benefits.

Following the registration, a reference number is given and in case the
complainant has given the cell phone number in the complaint, he/she will
receive SMS alerts on the complaints status or any development pertaining to
it.

Also, the complainant can send an SMS ccpd reference number to
09870977193 to get the updated status of the complaint.

The ministry also plans to launch phone service within a few months, where
the pre-recorded voice based system will ask some questions to the caller then
the complaint will be registered and reference number will be given
automatically.

Erotic Misdemeanors

Crime in 2007 report published by the NCRB says cyber crime rate
increased by 50% in a year

NEW DELHI: India, which has made giant strides in information technology and
Internet usage is also surging ahead in cyber crime, according to the recent
reports of the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB).

As per the data available in Crime in 2007 report published by the NCRB,
the number of cyber crimes registered under the IT Act in 2007 was 217, as
against 142 in 2006, an increase of 52.8 %.

As expected, cases of cyber pornography leads the list with 99 cases, which
is nearly 46 % of the total cases registered. In 2006 it was 69. Hacking with
computer system comes second with 76 cases, which includes loss/damage to
computer resource/utility (30) as well as hacking (46).

Apart from the cases registered under IT Act, 339 cases were recorded under
IPC in 2007 compared to 311 cases in 2006.

A total of 429 persons were arrested in the country for cyber crimes under
IPC during 2007.

According to Crime 2007, 63 % of the offenders were in the age group 1830
years (97 out of 154) and 29.9 % of the offenders were in the age group 3045
years (46 out of 154). Tamil Nadu reported two offenders whose age was below 18
years.

If you thought that the cases of cyber crime are limited to metros only, you
are wrong. When it comes to crime it is democratically distributed all over
India, the data in the report shows.

Analysts say cyber crimes have increased rapidly due to extensive use of the
Internet and IT enabled services.

Do you think the IT Act has to made more stringent to prevent the threat of
cyber crime?