iPleaders, working on access to justice, and OnlineRTI, committed to transparency and accountability through use of RTI, have teamed up to announce an RTI Competition with the objective of bringing in the next level of transparency in the system.

We are informing our readers so that you have the opportunity to participate and do your bit in bringing in transparency by participating in the RTI Competition. You will need to file an RTI with a public department seeking information that is relevant for people, and write a 1500 word article based on the response, that meets the quality standards of this blog. The article will be published in your name.

All participants in the RTI Competition will get access to a free RTI course by iPleaders (upgraded version will be released by January 10, 2017) to train you on basic aspects of RTI filing and drafting. At the end of the course, you will have to take a quiz. Everyone who successfully completes it will receive Completion Certificate for the RTI Course by iPleaders. Winners will receive prizes ranging upto INR 15,000. For more details about the competition, dates and deadlines for submitting entries, visit: https://onlinerti.com/competition

Tips and ideas for writing RTIs

Topic identification is critical. By way of example, you could look at the following topics:

• Status of implementation of a specific law (how many cases filed, is the authority constituted, etc.)
• Notification on a particular area of law (there are many areas on which notifications are not published and what are not accessible online, such as, for example, rates of wages prescribed for salesmen, journalists or cinema workers. You can find tons of examples in state-level labour laws.)
• Data about the kinds of decisions passed by a specific regulator (such as the Adjudicating Officer under the Information Technology Act)
• Number of companies who made the mandatory CSR contribution, etc.
• Information on certain kinds of public bodies, charitable trusts, etc.

Effectiveness of your article is one of the criteria for winning the prize. You will need to obtain sufficient background information and data to build a relevant write-up. You can even create a group to share research and ideate about what issues to file an RTI on.

Make sure your write-up includes the following:

• The problem area and why you identified the specific problem
• Give a background of the applicable statutory and legal provisions
• The questions you asked
• Relevant part of the answers you received
• Attach the response you received

You can even formulate your own groups to research and identify interesting topics.

List of Important Dates for the Competition

• Last Date for sending RTI entries: 31st January 2017 (Every participant can send more than one RTI entry)
• Last Date for sending RTI responses: 15th March 2017
• Last Date for submitting article: 10th April 2017
• Result Announcement: 15th April 2017

In this blog post, Sandeep Thomas Chandy, a final year student at Jindal Global Law School, with interests in Taxation and Corporate Laws, writes on whether the Start-Up India Mission is a half-baked attempt or not.

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The Digital India campaign launched by the Modi government has created a buzz in cyberspace. But how is this campaign an opportunity for lawyers to grow in the field? Read to know the answer.

The Digital India campaign focuses on digitization of government-citizen interface by improving online infrastructure and by increasing Internet connectivity. Apart from technological grey areas that the campaign needs to work on, lawyers can develop themselves by working and developing themselves in the regulatory and legal challenges that campaign is opening up.

According to a study conducted by Google and A.T. Kearney, the online commerce will drive 25% of organised retail and will be of GMV of $60 billion by 2020. Also, foreign investors like Japan’s Soft Bank and China’s Alibaba are looking forward to invest in 50 start-ups, majority being e-commerce. This is a massive opportunity for lawyers to consult these companies.

The knowledge of the following will be extremely helpful for consulting-

• How will you help your ecommerce client raise foreign funding?
• How will you draft contractual clauses of this investment?
• Do you know the regulations of e-commerce in India?
• Do you know about stamp duty on e-contracts?
• How will you ensure enforcement of e-contracts when parties are at different locations?

In the Digital India campaign, the Government has created DigiLocker, a digital safe which enables citizens to digitally store their important documents like PAN card, passport, mark sheets and degree certificates. Digital Locker will provide secure access to Government issued documents. The opportunity for lawyers here is to help their client secure digital signatures and help them to use it to authenticate contracts. Apart from this, the lawyers will also have to ensure that they protect their clients from all possible data theft and leakage of confidential information.

To know more about Digital signatures please visit 

• Do you know the process of getting a digital signature?
• Do you understand the difference between electronic signature and digital signature?
• How can you handle a data theft case?
• How will you get relief for a start-up facing data security issues?
• What is the legal recourse for victims of email and phishing scams in India?

The study of cyber law in law schools are meant to train you for these aspects for you to be an extra-ordinary cyber consultant and/or an amazing lawyer but they end up teaching us Information Technology Act, 2000.

National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata is running a short certificate course in Cyber law which gives you practical training and understanding of how cyber law is integrated with business.

Why should you do this course?

1. The course trains you to deal with practical aspects of IT business.

2. If you want to practice in this area, it is imperative to acquire a range of skills and industry perspectives. This course has been created to fulfil this need. You will learn to negotiate, draft and conduct IT due diligences.

3. You will learn to draft various e-contracts like Master Services Agreement, End-User License Agreement, a payment gateway agreement or a cloud computing agreement among other things.

4. The course gives you flexibility to study along with your professional commitments.

Please click here to know more about the course.

Feel free to e-mail at [email protected] if you have any queries or feedback. We would love to hear from you.

This blogpost is written by Garima Jain, a Delhi-based lawyer. She explains the three important rules that you must consider while practising criminal litigation.

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