World Assembly of Youth (WAY),
youth wing of United Nations Organisation organised a dialogue at Melaka,
Malaysia on 28, 29 and 30th June 2004 to discuss the 'Youth participation in
decision making process'. One of the comments made in the deliberations by Mr
Donald Charumbira, Secretary General of World Assembly of Youth was that a
youth structure was missing in US and efforts are required to be made for
providing employment to youth to prevent them from deviating into path of
drugs etc
Mr Charumbira's comments are
also relevant in the context of increasing Cyber Crimes through
mis-utilization of ICT and lack of a focused plan to use ICT for youth
employment.
Naavi.org has discussed in the past how the bright careers
of many youngsters have been cut short by an odd deviant behaviour in the form
of a Cyber Crime. There are students who have been hauled up under DMCA by
RIAA for payment of heavy fines in US universities. There are also students in
Bangalore and Chennai who are in the Police net because of the obscene e-mail
they sent to their lover who decided to complain. There are also IT executives
who suddenly face imprisonment charge because of some negligence in the
maintenance of their computers.
While on the one hand regulations need to be there to
prevent deliberate misuse of ICT by certain individuals, it is the
responsibility of the society which consists of the schools and colleges which
provide ICT education and the Parents who provide the Internet facility for
the children and the system of Cyber Cafes which provide easy access to the
Cyber space for any one that the fantastic utility such as the Internet
is not mis-used.
The first step in discharging this duty to the society is
"Building the Awareness" about what is Cyber Ethics? What constitute a Crime
in Cyber Society?, What may be the consequences of a deviant or negligent
behaviour? etc.
Cyber Law College has been undertaking such awareness
building exercises through any college or school that has shown interest.
However it is to be recognized that not much seems to have been done in this
regard.
Primarily the Government itself has failed to focus on this
need for creating awareness of Cyber regulations though there was a thought of
making "Cyber Ethics" as a compulsory subject of study in schools.
Though one of the directive principles of the
WSIS is to promote Cyber Regulatory education, so far the Ministry of
Information Technology has neither come up with its own action plan in this
regard nor provided support to organizations such as Cyber Law College which
have been discharging a public duty.
The World Assembly of Youth has once again opened the eyes
of the society that "Creating a Responsible Cyber Society" is part of its
responsibility towards guiding the youth away from crimes and drugs.
In this connection Cyber Law College advocates immediate
action plan as follows:
1. Large Companies and NGO s interested in similar
activities as well as appropriate wings of the Government of India or UNO come
forward to sponsor the programme of Cyber Law Education to members of youth.
Cyber
Society of India of which Cyber Law College is a constituent is proposing
to undertake a specific action plan to educate Engineering and other
Undergraduate students on different aspects of Cyber Law and interested
entities may participate in this venture.
2. An infrastructure for registering young ICT workers
interested in web based employment opportunities and matching web based
employee seekers to be created so that trusted service exchange can take
place. (Details available in this article-E-Entrepreneurship
Development Cell Required)
Naavi
July 03, 2004
Related Articles:
Detailed Interview with Mr Donald Charumbaria at Prime Point Foundation
A
Brief Report on the proceedings of the conference
