It may be recalled that there already exists a high-level National CyberCopCommittee which looks into the issues of internet gateway security and cybercrimes. The idea of enlarging the scope of the panel obviously has notoccurred to the government mandarins. The minister underlined the need forsuch a committee saying the matter pertained to national security, ratherthan just cyber crimes. The IT ministry has also requested the humanresources development ministry `to devise a special scheme to propogate ITeducation' in the country in view of the massive shortfall of skilled ITprofessionals, both in India and abroad.

At present, India produces one lakh IT professionals every year. Mahajansaid the presidential assent to the IT Bill was expected `any time now' andthe bill would become an Act by August 15. The government has drwan up yetanother panel to look into the technical nitty-gritty of the implementationof the bill. It will comprise Law Commission's member secretary, ITsecretary, a joint secretary in the legislative department, MIT seniordirector Gulshan Rai and Nasscom president Dewang Mehta. The panel wouldsubmit a report within 30 days. He also pointed out that the hue and crybeing raised in several quarters about the IT Bill's shortcomings wasunjustified as ``it is not the final word in cyberlaws''. ``What was moreimportant was that we had the framework first and then improved upon it.Many rules may have to be changed in keeping pace with the technology,''said Mahajan.

He indicated that the forthcoming Digital Copyrights Act and SemiconductorsBill were a step in this direction. The latter was passed by the Rajya Sabhaduring the last session of Parliament and will be introduced in Lok Sabha inthe first week of next session. Having signed an agreement with theMassachussets Institute of Technology and the IT ministry for setting up a`media lab' each in the US and India for advanced IT research, education,HRD and applications development, the IT ministry would soon approach theunion finance ministry for disbursal of required corpus for the Rs 500 croreproject spread over five years. The government would set up the lab withparticipation from the private sector, he said. Mahajan also said hisministry was preparing an agenda paper to be considered for the CabinetCommittee on IT to discuss the issue of low bandwidth and most Indiancompanies continuing to locate their servers in the USA.

``In view of the suggestions made by the NRI advisory committe to improvethe telecom infrastructure and Internet bandwidth, my ministry is working onaddressing the issue. We have also asked the NRIs to submit a report withintwo months outlining the changes they want in the Indian telecom policy,''said Mahajan.