The Beginning of the Cyber Law Journey

[Continued from the previous article]

In 1996, the UNCITRAL had passed a UN resolution with a model law for E Commerce to facilitate global trade through EDI over computer networks. Following this, the Government of India had formed a committee of experts which included Mr Narayan Murthy of Infosys which recommended that India required Cyber Laws. Accordingly, in 1998, Government released a draft of E Commerce Act 1998. Those were the days of the dynamic late Mr Dewang Mehta as Chairman of NASSCOM and India became one of the first countries in the world to draft a law under the Ministry of Commerce headed by Mr Ramakrishna Hegde. While it was being debated in the public, Naavi had already taken several steps ahead. He had created his website www.naavi.com(Now available on the domain www.naavi.org) with a tag line, Let Us build a Responsible Cyber Society where the copy of the Act was available, called for public comments to be submitted to the Government through Naavi.com (now this domain is not in the control of Naavi).

He had also negotiated a business deal for bringing the Digital Signature deal from “Global Sign” in collaboration with a Chennai based company. Naavi was also one of the first three Thawte notaries for Digital Signature Certificates.

When the Government was getting ready to pass the Bill, Naavi was busy writing the first book on Cyber Laws in India namely “Cyber Laws for Every Netizen in India”. Today, Mr Modi calls the Netizen as “Digital Nagrik” which is a translation of the word used by Naavi in the title of his book. It was interesting that the book was released in the Press Information Bureau at Chennai on the same day (9th December 1999) when Information Technology Bill was introduced in the Parliament by late Mr Pramod Mahajan.

With this Naavi established himself in the field of Cyber Laws and also the name “Naavi” as a service mark.

The efforts to collect public views and present it to the Government happened with the website which hosted the copy of the Bill along with the earlier E Commerce Act 1998. A press conference was also held in Hotel Palmgrove to present the views of Naavi.com which was submitted to the Government.

In mid 2000, Naavi had already planned his educational venture “Cyber Law College” and as soon as the Bill was passed, the educational initiative was commenced as the first virtual educational initiative in India.

…Continued

Naavi