• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager
• BL Club
• Smartbuy

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth
• Events 2007

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

Our Bureau

Hyderabad, Dec. 8 The Union Government in its proposed Amendment Bill 2006 to the Information Technology Act 2000 is considering incorporating exemplary punishments for cyber crimes, especially child pornography.

“Many countries have taken stringent action against cyber threats to children . We have proposed a seven-year imprisonment in the amendment,” Mr Jainder Singh, Secretary, Union Ministry of Communication and IT, said on the concluding day of the Internet Governance Forum here.

The Government has introduced the IT (Amendment), Bill 2006 in Parliament and expects it to be tabled in the next the session. Once adopted, it would be in line with the European Cyber Convention.

For the first time, the Government has tried to define the cyber terrorism, child pornography, spam, phishing and online frauds in the amendment.

Responding to a question, Mr Singh said the proposed amendment also deals with the question of storage of data and adequate safeguards would be taken to ensure that data is not misused.

Speaking on the shift to IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) in place of the current IPv4 (version 4), Mr N Ravi Shanker, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Communications and IT said “the National Internet Exchange of India is organising a number of training programmes for professionals in the academia and industry to scale up the skills required for the transition.”

He also said that the Government has engaged itself into a constant dialogue with technical experts. Already Internet service providers, professionals in IT industry and academics have a good idea on requirements for the transition.

On the question of the possibility of a code of conduct for the Internet, Mr Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to UN Secretary-General for Internet Governance, said “discussions are under way on the rights and obligations. Many people have talked of something very similar and termed it as the Internet Bill of Rights and it is a matter of time that a code will evolve.”

More Stories on : Policy | Children & Parenting | Internet

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Copyright © 2008, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line