1. Complete computerisation of courts and interconnection of court network giving real time court room picture to lawyers, litigants and public.
2. Enabling e filing
3. Promoting arbitration and mediation as not just alternative methods but mandatory preliminary steps before litigation.
4. Where ever possible chief examination to be made by affidavits
5. Recording of trials-
a. help review, revision and appeal judges to better appreciate oral evidence,
b.help to preserve the "lost evidence"
c.promote quality of trials
d.provides additional resource for legal education
6.Digitisation of entire court records-
a.help transfer of trial record seamless, and gives an efficient back up mechanism.
b. helps better space management of courts
7. E filing to be made mandatory-
a.promotes access to justice to lay litigants from far off places
b.helps simplify litigation process
c.reduce paper load and storage space required in courts
8. Make court room furniture litigant friendly
a. more room for litigants and public
b. separate seats for witnesses who are public spirited citizens, and deserve better treatment in courts.
c. witness boxes to be removed and instead witness seats to be given,from where witnesses can give evidence in a friendly atmosphere.
8. Law colleges to be made permanent seats of arbitration and mediation-
a. helps sharpen the mediation and arbitration skills in lawyers at early stages
b. instills firm belief in utility of arbitration methods in young lawyers
c.makes real term clinical legal education a reality
d. clinical methodology can be imparted without much efforts.
9.Expertise of law teachers to be utilised for improving efficiency in administration of justice-especially since Indian constitution provides that jurists of eminence can be appointed as Supreme Court judges and jurists interalia includes law teachers and the qualification of law teachers interalia includes those required for a judge.
10. Legal education systems to be strengthened to create an ethical bar and a sensitive and academic bench. Value education to be made compulsory topic of legal education in the opening semesters.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Free Online Law books in India
Some free online law books:
ebookee.com/law.html
sites.google.com/site/gyanendrasinghchauhancom/
indiankanoon.org/
judis.openarchive.in/ (scc)
judis.nic.in/
judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp (SCC)
supremecourtcaselaw.com/ (SCC)
indiacode.nic.in/
lobis.nic.in/mhc/srjud.php (MP HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT)
legalserviceindia.com/
dictionary.law.com/
lectlaw.com/def.htm (law dictionary online)
books.google.co.in/books?q=law
vakilno1.com/
gigapedia.com/
answeringlaw.com (scc)
gunaccessories.com/ (ARMS)
indiabook.com/Government/Law/index.html
indianlawcds.com/Free_indian_bare_Acts.htm
india.gov.in/govt/acts.php
legalhelpindia.com/cause-lists.html
lawzonline.com/
legalindia.in/
legalapproach.net/
lawguru.com
indlegal.com/
rtiindia.org/
indlii.org
loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/india.php
forensic.jouwbegin.nl/
divorcelawyerindia.com/
stpl-india.in/
ebookee.com/law.html
sites.google.com/site/gyanendrasinghchauhancom/
indiankanoon.org/
judis.openarchive.in/ (scc)
judis.nic.in/
judis.nic.in/supremecourt/chejudis.asp (SCC)
supremecourtcaselaw.com/ (SCC)
indiacode.nic.in/
lobis.nic.in/mhc/srjud.php (MP HIGH COURT JUDGEMENT)
legalserviceindia.com/
dictionary.law.com/
lectlaw.com/def.htm (law dictionary online)
books.google.co.in/books?q=law
vakilno1.com/
gigapedia.com/
answeringlaw.com (scc)
gunaccessories.com/ (ARMS)
indiabook.com/Government/Law/index.html
indianlawcds.com/Free_indian_bare_Acts.htm
india.gov.in/govt/acts.php
legalhelpindia.com/cause-lists.html
lawzonline.com/
legalindia.in/
legalapproach.net/
lawguru.com
indlegal.com/
rtiindia.org/
indlii.org
loc.gov/law/help/guide/nations/india.php
forensic.jouwbegin.nl/
divorcelawyerindia.com/
stpl-india.in/
Monday, November 23, 2009
My Lessons as a Seminar Organiser..what i didnt learn before and learnt after!
1. Never under estimate your capabilities. You can achieve what ever you want if you work with single minded devotion.
2. A good support system is a must to be a good organiser. Bank on your friends.
3. It is not enough to give your students a great lunch! You have to beg to them to come and have it or else they will try to defeat you by not eating the lunch!.
4. Law students of this generation have not even heard of a concept called direction-especially if they are studying in a University which tries to take away even the small direction the teachers try to give by unscientific examination system!
5. There are a few good students, among all lots.Keep eye on them alone and leave the rest behind..u will succeed!
2. A good support system is a must to be a good organiser. Bank on your friends.
3. It is not enough to give your students a great lunch! You have to beg to them to come and have it or else they will try to defeat you by not eating the lunch!.
4. Law students of this generation have not even heard of a concept called direction-especially if they are studying in a University which tries to take away even the small direction the teachers try to give by unscientific examination system!
5. There are a few good students, among all lots.Keep eye on them alone and leave the rest behind..u will succeed!
Saturday, October 3, 2009
New Challenges in Legal Education:
Nothing is static-nor is legal education. Law being an instrument and creation of social change at the same time, legal environment changes with the change in the society. And society changes with the advancement of time. It would not be wrong to say that every second the legal system goes through some change or other. Some changes are made by courts, some by legislature, but most by the natural forces-human behaviour, perceptions about law, natural climate etc. do have some or other bearing on the legal system of the country.
As some realists say law is like a living organism. Its growth-whether direct or collateral is as amazing as the development of the Universe. Along with the growth of law, the legal professional also needs to equip himself with new tools for survival. Traditionally law is regarded as a self study subject. What ever be the jurisdiction, law schools could never boast that they teach the students a-z of law. Nor could they boast that the entire basics of law could be imparted during the students tenure in law school. What the best of the law schools can claim is that they are able to equip the students with an outlook which would help the students to understand the law, if they have time to devote for law.
This is exactly where the legal education differs from other education streams. A doctor get most of his training from the medical school, and engineer or a science/arts/history student gets his basics from the engineering school or basic graduate school, but a lawyer never gets any skill from the law school. What he gets is an approach and an aptitude for law, which he has to horn himself. Perhaps this is what many law students do not understand while undergoing a law course. Most of the students join law courses with an intention to learn law-which many law schools try to deliver, but fail miserably because of the ever changing facet of law.
As some realists say law is like a living organism. Its growth-whether direct or collateral is as amazing as the development of the Universe. Along with the growth of law, the legal professional also needs to equip himself with new tools for survival. Traditionally law is regarded as a self study subject. What ever be the jurisdiction, law schools could never boast that they teach the students a-z of law. Nor could they boast that the entire basics of law could be imparted during the students tenure in law school. What the best of the law schools can claim is that they are able to equip the students with an outlook which would help the students to understand the law, if they have time to devote for law.
This is exactly where the legal education differs from other education streams. A doctor get most of his training from the medical school, and engineer or a science/arts/history student gets his basics from the engineering school or basic graduate school, but a lawyer never gets any skill from the law school. What he gets is an approach and an aptitude for law, which he has to horn himself. Perhaps this is what many law students do not understand while undergoing a law course. Most of the students join law courses with an intention to learn law-which many law schools try to deliver, but fail miserably because of the ever changing facet of law.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Report of the Legal Education Review Committee
Finally a copy of the report is out. While one should appreciate the academic initiatives suggested in the report including increasing work efficiency, which aims at improving the standard of legal education, and has some stains of a genius mind working on it, when one reads through the other suggestions, including the draft bill, it reminds of the story of a hard working ant forwarded to me by a friend.
The story goes like this:
Once there was a hard working ant which was working very productively without much supervision.The owner of the factory, lion was very happy with ant's work and thought that if the ant can be so productive without supervision, how much more productive she can become with a little supervision. So lion recruited a fox to supervise the ant, whose first task on the job was to get a posh office for herself.Fox was very good in preparing reports and making presentations, and hence started demanding from ant all types of reports to be forwarded to lion. Ant got depressed in her work as more of her time was devoted to preparation of reports and less on productive things. When the reports become numerous, fox appointed a secretary, then a work flow manager and purchased several computers to analyse the work. It was revealed in the reports that the factory has suddenly become un productive and the company decided to appoint a commission to enquire into the reasons for unproductive work. The commission identifies one employee as the root cause for the loss, as she was a low motivated and an un productive employee- guess who was recommended for termination-----the ANT.
Well, till I read the report, I thought this story was just a fiction,and it cannot affect me. Now I understand that the Legal Reform Education Committee has just done the same- Dismissing the ant called Government Law Colleges.
What I decipher from the report is:
The major maladies that face the law education in Kerala are:
1. Government Law Colleges- so reduce them as Undergraduate institutions!
2. Law Students- so make them pay higher fees and throw them out!
3. Law Teachers- Dismiss them-er abolish the posts! or be a slave to the principal(Director) of the law college!
The result will be:
Only people who have money need study law- (when you have cake why should you eat bread!)
Law teachers can be selected by Principal- (Well relatives of Politicians and Principal's children should also live and eat!)
Law teachers would have to work like slaves of Principal, or Members of the Board of Legal Education- (Well lawyers should not have ego and so law teachers, should not have back bone!)
Establish a legal education board- (Well some secretariat employees, who joined as assistants need a deputation posting at a convenient place to rule over law teachers!)
While I do not question the stature of the eminent members who were members of the commission, including my teachers, what I do not understand is: Why has the Government not included a representative from Government Law College as all the previous governments did, when a commission to reform the legal education sector was constituted? Or was the Government also wanted to do away with the law colleges in the government sector?
Secondly, when the commission is assuming that most of the law college teachers would join the Board for better emoluments, why was not there a single question in the long questionnaire prepared for teachers, whether they are willing to opt for the alternate service?(Obviously to avoid conflicts in the commission sittings!)
After reading through the entire report, what I feel is that the commission has utterly failed to discharge its task in understanding the problems faced by legal education infrastructure in Kerala in its socio- political and economic context. If one reads the entire report, it can be seen that the report has not mentioned how it has come to the conclusion that the present method of appointment of law teachers through Public Service Commission and their functioning as government servants is the reason for the low standards of legal education. It has also failed to note that the students who are joining the elite institutions like National Law Schools are selected by a national level test and interview, by law teachers themselves under the guise of CLAT, there are no quality checks for the standard of questions or chareterists tested through the questions prepared for Kerala LLB Entrance. I am giving an open challenge- give functional autonomy to Government Law Colleges including conduct of examinations, give us the students selected in CLAT, and give us four year-we can show how cost effectively we can improve the quality of law colleges!If you have good students, and a good infrastructure with committed non teaching staff, we can show how far better we can make our students than any student of National Law Schools. Instead of concentrating on the issues of functional autonomy and student development what the commission did was to concenrate on closing down the Government Law Colleges and throwing out government law college teachers and that too without even asking a single question to law college teachers on the acceptablity of serivce conditions. The whole report is made on a misconception that Government Law College teachers have a different scale of pay and they do not get the UGC scale of pay, while the reality is that there is no real pay scale difference, except in some fringe benefits, which would otherwise be available in their status as government servants. So the bottomline is- while it is undisputable that Shri Madhava Menon is a doyan of "Indian elite legal education" what the Government Law Colleges is planning to do in the country is to provide accessible legal education to all, which objective was never seen by any member of the Legal Reform Committee. In fact if the committee had reported regarding the change in curriculum, increasing the new subjects, making Kerala Law Colleges globally competitive, all the while making it less expensive by allowing private participation in specific projects, and taking up consultative arrangements for private enterprenuers, and giving incentives to faculty members who would actively participate in the income generating projects, without sacrificing academic duties, it would have been much more acceptable. But perhaps that is more acceptable to level headed people- but may be not to those people who want to head the "Legal Education Board" and ensure that all the teachers bow before them!! What every one is forgetting or failing to forget is that if one takes the list of best law colleges in the country, Government Law College, Mumbai stands prominently and without losing any government character! So the bottom line is- it is not the government character, but the curriculum and initiative for teachers and students to indulge in academic activities is much more important in developing a global legal educational standard. The bottom line there fore is that the part of the report regarding changing the government nature of Government law colleges and making law college teachers bow before The so called under ground players who want to get into plum postings in the board, is thoroughly misconceived.
Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed here in are not meant to hurt any one, including Dr Menon and other members of the Legal Education Reform Committee, whom I consider as my teachers and honourable persons, and this blog is intended just to kick off an academic debate.
The story goes like this:
Once there was a hard working ant which was working very productively without much supervision.The owner of the factory, lion was very happy with ant's work and thought that if the ant can be so productive without supervision, how much more productive she can become with a little supervision. So lion recruited a fox to supervise the ant, whose first task on the job was to get a posh office for herself.Fox was very good in preparing reports and making presentations, and hence started demanding from ant all types of reports to be forwarded to lion. Ant got depressed in her work as more of her time was devoted to preparation of reports and less on productive things. When the reports become numerous, fox appointed a secretary, then a work flow manager and purchased several computers to analyse the work. It was revealed in the reports that the factory has suddenly become un productive and the company decided to appoint a commission to enquire into the reasons for unproductive work. The commission identifies one employee as the root cause for the loss, as she was a low motivated and an un productive employee- guess who was recommended for termination-----the ANT.
Well, till I read the report, I thought this story was just a fiction,and it cannot affect me. Now I understand that the Legal Reform Education Committee has just done the same- Dismissing the ant called Government Law Colleges.
What I decipher from the report is:
The major maladies that face the law education in Kerala are:
1. Government Law Colleges- so reduce them as Undergraduate institutions!
2. Law Students- so make them pay higher fees and throw them out!
3. Law Teachers- Dismiss them-er abolish the posts! or be a slave to the principal(Director) of the law college!
The result will be:
Only people who have money need study law- (when you have cake why should you eat bread!)
Law teachers can be selected by Principal- (Well relatives of Politicians and Principal's children should also live and eat!)
Law teachers would have to work like slaves of Principal, or Members of the Board of Legal Education- (Well lawyers should not have ego and so law teachers, should not have back bone!)
Establish a legal education board- (Well some secretariat employees, who joined as assistants need a deputation posting at a convenient place to rule over law teachers!)
While I do not question the stature of the eminent members who were members of the commission, including my teachers, what I do not understand is: Why has the Government not included a representative from Government Law College as all the previous governments did, when a commission to reform the legal education sector was constituted? Or was the Government also wanted to do away with the law colleges in the government sector?
Secondly, when the commission is assuming that most of the law college teachers would join the Board for better emoluments, why was not there a single question in the long questionnaire prepared for teachers, whether they are willing to opt for the alternate service?(Obviously to avoid conflicts in the commission sittings!)
After reading through the entire report, what I feel is that the commission has utterly failed to discharge its task in understanding the problems faced by legal education infrastructure in Kerala in its socio- political and economic context. If one reads the entire report, it can be seen that the report has not mentioned how it has come to the conclusion that the present method of appointment of law teachers through Public Service Commission and their functioning as government servants is the reason for the low standards of legal education. It has also failed to note that the students who are joining the elite institutions like National Law Schools are selected by a national level test and interview, by law teachers themselves under the guise of CLAT, there are no quality checks for the standard of questions or chareterists tested through the questions prepared for Kerala LLB Entrance. I am giving an open challenge- give functional autonomy to Government Law Colleges including conduct of examinations, give us the students selected in CLAT, and give us four year-we can show how cost effectively we can improve the quality of law colleges!If you have good students, and a good infrastructure with committed non teaching staff, we can show how far better we can make our students than any student of National Law Schools. Instead of concentrating on the issues of functional autonomy and student development what the commission did was to concenrate on closing down the Government Law Colleges and throwing out government law college teachers and that too without even asking a single question to law college teachers on the acceptablity of serivce conditions. The whole report is made on a misconception that Government Law College teachers have a different scale of pay and they do not get the UGC scale of pay, while the reality is that there is no real pay scale difference, except in some fringe benefits, which would otherwise be available in their status as government servants. So the bottomline is- while it is undisputable that Shri Madhava Menon is a doyan of "Indian elite legal education" what the Government Law Colleges is planning to do in the country is to provide accessible legal education to all, which objective was never seen by any member of the Legal Reform Committee. In fact if the committee had reported regarding the change in curriculum, increasing the new subjects, making Kerala Law Colleges globally competitive, all the while making it less expensive by allowing private participation in specific projects, and taking up consultative arrangements for private enterprenuers, and giving incentives to faculty members who would actively participate in the income generating projects, without sacrificing academic duties, it would have been much more acceptable. But perhaps that is more acceptable to level headed people- but may be not to those people who want to head the "Legal Education Board" and ensure that all the teachers bow before them!! What every one is forgetting or failing to forget is that if one takes the list of best law colleges in the country, Government Law College, Mumbai stands prominently and without losing any government character! So the bottom line is- it is not the government character, but the curriculum and initiative for teachers and students to indulge in academic activities is much more important in developing a global legal educational standard. The bottom line there fore is that the part of the report regarding changing the government nature of Government law colleges and making law college teachers bow before The so called under ground players who want to get into plum postings in the board, is thoroughly misconceived.
Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed here in are not meant to hurt any one, including Dr Menon and other members of the Legal Education Reform Committee, whom I consider as my teachers and honourable persons, and this blog is intended just to kick off an academic debate.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Report of the Legal Education Reform Committee
The Legal Education Reform Committee headed by Hon'ble Shri N R Madhava Menon has submitted its report to the Government of Kerala on Saturday, July 25, 2009, The committee has rightly identified that the legal education in Kerala needs reforms, and has advised the government for reform in the legal education sector. The full report of the commission is yet to be made available to the public, but as per press reports, the salient features of the report titled: "Reforming Legal Education System in Kerala: Goals, Strategies and Management" are:
1.A Legal Education Board should be established in the state, and all law colleges should be bought under the board.
2. More self-governing powers to be given to the law colleges, which would be gradually upgraded to universities. Curriculum, appointment should be done by law colleges themselves.
3. Exam system to be completely internalised, and curriculum development to be left to individual colleges.
4. More refresher courses for law teachers.
5. Accountablity for law teachers, with assessment of teachers by students.
6. Each law College to come out with a vision statement
7. Law Colleges to offer paralegal courses and non law courses.
8. Legal education from class 10th.
There are conflicting reports regarding how the report has dealt with the LLM education. While some reports say the committee recommended removal of LLM from the law colleges, other reports suggest that LLM should continue in the present manner.
While its is preliminary to comment on the report without seeing the full report, it is worthwhile to note that no one would disagree with the committee that there is an urgent need for reform in legal education.
While an analysis of the positives and negetives can wait till the full report is made available, there are some concern areas in the committee report(as reported in the press) which has to be examined in detail before the committee report is implimented. Some of this are:
1. Autonomy in appointments: Currently the appointment to law colleges in Kerala is being done by Public Service Commission, which is an independent body. As a result there had been lesser(one can even say nil complaints) of favouritism in the law college recruitment system, which is more merit oriented than the selection for the posts in University departments.(In the recent past there have been reports of political interferrence in the selections made in at least three university departments- (When the ranked list for selection of lecturers were out in Kerala, M G and CUSAT, the top rank "incidentally" went to a candidate who happened to be the wife of a "journalist political leader" of the ruling party, whose "relative merit" might have helped her selection!What is known is that all these appointments are currently being challenged in courts). Further selection for lecturership in the university departments are known for nepotism and political interferrence and giving autonomy to the law colleges in selection of lecturers without proper guidelines would only add to the nefarious reputation of legal education in Kerala.
2. LlM Education: Some reports have suggested that the LlM education is to be dissociated from law colleges and confined to university departments. If this is correct, it would be a retrograde step, as the aim should be the spread of quality legal education and not the restriction of education to a few university departments. Instead if the suggestion was to strengthen the Llm education in the law colleges by raising the infrastructure and ensuring quality, the long term goal would have been met.
Since these are just preliminary comments, without seeing the contents of the report, there may be misconceptions, which will be corrected once the report is available. However, it is suggested that the government should involve all the stake holders including law college teachers and students before finally acting on the report.
It would be interesting to read the following materials along with this blogport(blog report):
1. Report of the Legal Education Reform Committee appointed by National Knowledge Commission, where in Dr Menon was a member( Available for download from :http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/legaleducation.asp.)
2.C Rajkumar, "Global Legal Education In India: Opportunities And Challenges", Halsbury's Law Monthly(http://www.halsburys.in/global-legal-education-in-india.html)
3. Law Commission Report on Reform of Legal Education:(lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/184threport-PartI.pdf)
4. Bar Council of India Rules on Legal Education:(http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/legal-education/rules-legal-edu.php)
1.A Legal Education Board should be established in the state, and all law colleges should be bought under the board.
2. More self-governing powers to be given to the law colleges, which would be gradually upgraded to universities. Curriculum, appointment should be done by law colleges themselves.
3. Exam system to be completely internalised, and curriculum development to be left to individual colleges.
4. More refresher courses for law teachers.
5. Accountablity for law teachers, with assessment of teachers by students.
6. Each law College to come out with a vision statement
7. Law Colleges to offer paralegal courses and non law courses.
8. Legal education from class 10th.
There are conflicting reports regarding how the report has dealt with the LLM education. While some reports say the committee recommended removal of LLM from the law colleges, other reports suggest that LLM should continue in the present manner.
While its is preliminary to comment on the report without seeing the full report, it is worthwhile to note that no one would disagree with the committee that there is an urgent need for reform in legal education.
While an analysis of the positives and negetives can wait till the full report is made available, there are some concern areas in the committee report(as reported in the press) which has to be examined in detail before the committee report is implimented. Some of this are:
1. Autonomy in appointments: Currently the appointment to law colleges in Kerala is being done by Public Service Commission, which is an independent body. As a result there had been lesser(one can even say nil complaints) of favouritism in the law college recruitment system, which is more merit oriented than the selection for the posts in University departments.(In the recent past there have been reports of political interferrence in the selections made in at least three university departments- (When the ranked list for selection of lecturers were out in Kerala, M G and CUSAT, the top rank "incidentally" went to a candidate who happened to be the wife of a "journalist political leader" of the ruling party, whose "relative merit" might have helped her selection!What is known is that all these appointments are currently being challenged in courts). Further selection for lecturership in the university departments are known for nepotism and political interferrence and giving autonomy to the law colleges in selection of lecturers without proper guidelines would only add to the nefarious reputation of legal education in Kerala.
2. LlM Education: Some reports have suggested that the LlM education is to be dissociated from law colleges and confined to university departments. If this is correct, it would be a retrograde step, as the aim should be the spread of quality legal education and not the restriction of education to a few university departments. Instead if the suggestion was to strengthen the Llm education in the law colleges by raising the infrastructure and ensuring quality, the long term goal would have been met.
Since these are just preliminary comments, without seeing the contents of the report, there may be misconceptions, which will be corrected once the report is available. However, it is suggested that the government should involve all the stake holders including law college teachers and students before finally acting on the report.
It would be interesting to read the following materials along with this blogport(blog report):
1. Report of the Legal Education Reform Committee appointed by National Knowledge Commission, where in Dr Menon was a member( Available for download from :http://www.knowledgecommission.gov.in/recommendations/legaleducation.asp.)
2.C Rajkumar, "Global Legal Education In India: Opportunities And Challenges", Halsbury's Law Monthly(http://www.halsburys.in/global-legal-education-in-india.html)
3. Law Commission Report on Reform of Legal Education:(lawcommissionofindia.nic.in/reports/184threport-PartI.pdf)
4. Bar Council of India Rules on Legal Education:(http://www.barcouncilofindia.org/legal-education/rules-legal-edu.php)
Monday, July 6, 2009
National ID Project
Recently the government has announced the prestigious National ID project,appointed Mr Nandan Nilekeni, Former CEO, Infosys as the chairperson of Unique Identification Authority,and allocated Rs 150 Crore in the Central Budget 2009-10 for the project. The Unique ID Authority of India (UIDAI), under the aegis of the Planning Commission, is aimed at providing a unique identity Card to every citizen in the country.
Some of my thoughts in this regard is as follows:
1. National ID is one of the most progressive project proposed by the Country in recent years, which can have wide spread impact in population management.
2. It is not a project unique to India, as many countries across the world have already gone ahead with similar project. But what makes the Indian project different is the huge population involved making it logistically and physically impossible to reach each and every citizen of India, and the UIDAI, should take steps to overcome this hurdle.
3. As per the initial reports, UID is going to be biometric enabled photo smart card. If the card is biometric enabled ie the finger print of every citizen is captured in the card, why can't the card be a replacement of all the current national ID's including passport, pan card,ration card etc. In addition, if a law can be brought in to include all major events in the persons life, including date of birth, date of marriage, spouses name, spouses' date of birth, parents name & date of birth,physical details like blood group, distinguishing marks etc. as well as all medical records,credit history and scorings etc so that the card can be used as a complete encyclopedia about a citizen,it will be of advantage in the following manner:
a. It can serve as a one point reference point about a person,which can be the basis of every commercial transaction with the person.
b. If the card be made in such a way that it is ATM enabled, all bank accounts (Credit and debit) can be linked to the UID card, which will dispense with the need of multiple plastic cards to hold the credit and debit information of the person. Since the data can be decrypted only with the finger print of the holder of the card, which would make it the most private card ever made available in the country and at the same time the most comprehensive record of the monetary transactions of a person. On a citizen front it would save the citizen from hazzles of keeping multiple records of his monetary transaction. Slowly it can become the starting point of moving into plastic currency, which is fully accountable. Such a step would end the menace of black money market as well.
Some of my thoughts in this regard is as follows:
1. National ID is one of the most progressive project proposed by the Country in recent years, which can have wide spread impact in population management.
2. It is not a project unique to India, as many countries across the world have already gone ahead with similar project. But what makes the Indian project different is the huge population involved making it logistically and physically impossible to reach each and every citizen of India, and the UIDAI, should take steps to overcome this hurdle.
3. As per the initial reports, UID is going to be biometric enabled photo smart card. If the card is biometric enabled ie the finger print of every citizen is captured in the card, why can't the card be a replacement of all the current national ID's including passport, pan card,ration card etc. In addition, if a law can be brought in to include all major events in the persons life, including date of birth, date of marriage, spouses name, spouses' date of birth, parents name & date of birth,physical details like blood group, distinguishing marks etc. as well as all medical records,credit history and scorings etc so that the card can be used as a complete encyclopedia about a citizen,it will be of advantage in the following manner:
a. It can serve as a one point reference point about a person,which can be the basis of every commercial transaction with the person.
b. If the card be made in such a way that it is ATM enabled, all bank accounts (Credit and debit) can be linked to the UID card, which will dispense with the need of multiple plastic cards to hold the credit and debit information of the person. Since the data can be decrypted only with the finger print of the holder of the card, which would make it the most private card ever made available in the country and at the same time the most comprehensive record of the monetary transactions of a person. On a citizen front it would save the citizen from hazzles of keeping multiple records of his monetary transaction. Slowly it can become the starting point of moving into plastic currency, which is fully accountable. Such a step would end the menace of black money market as well.
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