Random Thoughts

Asoke K. Laha
President & MD, Interra IT

Terminologies like "cause and effect" mostly relate to physical sciences. But I believe that they have a universal application. The events that have been unfolded in the recent days convincingly prove that. The most unfortunate incident – Nirbhaya episode in Delhi – has shaken the entire apparatus of governance. The incident caused anger, concern and public resentment. The effect of it has been even more significant. The entire government apparatus has sprung to action for seeking a time-bound solution to the concerns of the public articulated through media.

You might ask me why I have chosen this subject. Because I believe that all aspects of the sensational incident and solutions thereto owe their origin to information technology. I know I have to explain this concept clearly to drive home my hypothesis. Let me explain first how the incident has occupied the emotional space of the multitudes of people across geographies and forced them to stand against such atrocities.  Protest marches and demonstrations against the gruesome incident were held in most of the countries. In India, the protest was widespread and intense. People protested and lent their support to this cause.

Nirbhaya's case travelled across the world in no time. It was the convergence of all media – print, electronic, net, blog, YouTube, and other forms of social media. This is how the information travels more than the speed of light. Because of information technology, public resentments are not insulated within the narrow confines of the national boundaries.

Let us look at the swiftness at which the communication about the gory incident travelled across the world. Blogs were busy churning out thousands of opinions. Millions tweeted against the crime. A mind-boggling number of people were glued to the social media trying to disseminate information and garner support of the people to push the government and other agencies to act fast and put in place a system that can ensure ordinary people protection from such atrocities.

If the emotional outbursts have travelled at a break-neck speed, governmental actions, perhaps, were quicker than ever happened. The administration had to act in a manner which they were never used to. Huddling sessions and consultations were held to debate and resolve what further actions could be taken. Media aired the incident and protests on a minute-to-minute basis. Legislative branch got into business preparing a long list of do's and don'ts to ward off such incidents. The judiciary made statements condemning the incident and compelling different layers of judicature to fast track cases that involve complaints of women on sexual abuse. This resulted in the promulgation of an anti-rape ordinance – perhaps in the shortest possible time.

It is interesting to analyze some of the preparedness contemplated by the judiciary. Not many would know that the Supreme Court has set up an e-governance committee under the chairmanship of a sitting Supreme Court Judge some time back. The mandate before the Committee is not only to digitize the processes and procedures in the  Indian courts, but also to explore the possibilities of  greater use of technology in the judicial process  such as evidences against the person, who perpetrates the crime, speedy disposal of cases, expeditious granting  of bails, etc. For instance, the judiciary is seriously considering a mobile image about an attempt to molest or stalk as enough evidence to nail the culprit. Under the governance structures that are being discussed, an overwhelming point that is emerging is the use of mobile telephony like SMSes for sending complaints and acting upon them by the police. Cities and towns are going to be under surveillance using CCTVs so that the culprits are caught immediately.

Technology can come in handy in several other avenues of the judiciary. Rampant adjournment of cases delays justice. There should be systems that can track the history of the case, the dates when it was heard, duration of the pendency, number of times adjournments were sought and granted, etc. Technology can help reduce the cost of governance. For instance, for grant of bail, the accused has to be brought to the court, which involves expenses incurred for transportation, providing security to the under trail, etc. There can be special cells in prisons with facilities for video trials so that the judge can hear the arguments and decide on the bail, without the accused physically present in the court premises.

I cannot resist narrating business aspects of these reforms.  Such changes in judiciary can bring huge business opportunities for IT companies which mostly depend on exports and are exposed to the vagaries of political compulsions and policy changes in the host countries. Recently, some 30 software companies have set up a new organization called Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSpirt). The basic idea behind the formation of the new body is to build blocks for evolving powerful software products that can transform India. Their focus is on developing software products for the development of India. The focus on software is significant in many ways. First, undue focus on export market has, to a very great extent, compelled us to ignore the domestic market. We develop software packages for large, medium, small and tiny enterprises abroad and how many of us have developed for a large corporation in India? How many of us are glued to the domestic market? How many of us are aware of the dire need for wiring our courts and educational institutions? How many of our hospitals and dispensaries are net savvy so that patients can avail of the best treatment? How many of our educational institutions have access to the Internet? How many of our village- and block-level offices are net-connected?

Nirbhaya's case has brought focus on rape. We have to similarly trigger in many other aspects, where people suffer for no fault of theirs. Poverty, lack of educational facilities, destitution, malnourishment, corruption, delays in project implementation,  unaccountability of  officials, indifference of politicians, commercialization in academia and the list goes on are the ailments afflicting our society. When are we going to respond to these issues with the same seriousness, speed and intensity as we have rightly shown in the Nirbhaya's case? The earlier, the better!!!