10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011- Day 2 (Part -II)

Let me start reporting the afternoon session of day 2.The session was started with Jeffrey M.Aresty presentation on the topic ODR in developing world.He stated that increasing numbers of mobile phone user and Internet usage would pave way for widening the scope of ODR.Also discussed the procedural aspect of taking justice online and using law to empower musicians.

Then it was invincible Rahul who emphasised the need for improving technologies which will help physically challenged persons to access the available online facilities.Also he elaborated about the screen reading software which helps the visually impaired to read and type in computer.He also gave a good example that online shopping  would be more beneficial to differently-abled persons and also ODR for that matter if there is any dispute.To know more about this technology and Rahul visit this website : inclusive planet. 

Later it was Aura Esther who threw some light on the existing ODR schemes and various international conventions which support ODR and the countries which have platform for the development of ODR.On the whole she gave a glimpse on global aspect of ODR.Then it was John singer who talked about the goals and working of International consumer protection and enforcement network (ICPEN).He also explained about the website econsumer.gov which is a platform for consumers to report complaints..This portal can be used by anyone in the world to file consumer complaints.Though India is not a member it ranked 6th among other countries in filing consumer complaints.He was keen enough to see India soon becoming a member of ICPEN and kept on insisting that India should become member soon.

Then it was CORE (Consumer Online Resource and Empowerment Centre)  group who explained widely the prevailing condition of consumer protection in India.This online resource has been established exclusively to resolve consumers complaints.The final speaker for the day was Rodney Ryder who gave us legal background which supports ODR in India.Thereafter he discussed about UDRP ,INDRP and cited some case laws that dealt with cyber squatting.

 Finally , the day ended with Plenary Panel Speed Session where they discussed about the UNCITRAL Working Group.Their last meet was in July 2010.The below snap is the panel session consisting of 4 members.

From left to right: Colin Rule, Louis F.Del Duca, John Singer,Zbynek Loebl.

The day winded up interestingly with lot of exposures in various topics related to ODR.I  thank my friend once again to help to report in filling this space about the sessions.Also I apologise for the delay of this report.The Third part will be posted tomorrow as soon as possible.Till then Happy Sessions.

10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011- Day 2 (Part -I)

The day 2 of the conference kick started with the same pace as of day 1.It was also rightly pointed out by the conference organizer Chittu Nagaraj that today being Day 2 is the most interesting day for this conference.Before starting to report the day's sessions I must thank my friend in deed to help me writing in this space about Day-2 as I was sluggish and lazy enough to concentrate.

The day's session started off with Father of ODR i.e Ethan Kash and Leah Wing  who spoke on "ODR and Government".He focused on the significance of maintaining Health records in electronic format for the benefit of both individual and the society and also mentioned ODR as an alternate to reduce case backlogs.Leah spoke about "supporting social deliberative skills in online".She discussed the overlapping of Technology with ODR and explained in brief about the govt. sponsored interdisciplinary projects in US.

Chintake spoke on "Enforcement of Online Consumer Arbitration Awards:A New Approach".He discussed the need of ODR in today's business world and focused on the working of e-courts and also about consumer arbitration award.Then Dr.Vijayakumar , VC of Tamilnadu Ambedkar Law University spoke about his personal expereinces with regard to challenge faced by ODR and emphasised the need for including ODR as a subject in the Law Schools.

Later,Mr.Tripathi, Inspector General Of Police enumerated the policies enforced in Tamilnadu with the help of online technology.After that Mr.Vasimalai and Anushya of the Dhan Foundation explained elaborately about the existing grass root level problems in the society especially about the micro-finance project which helps the people to stabilise their financial position.She also explained the need for spreading micro-finance project worldwide with the help of online technologies.Then Jin Ho spoke on Micro justice and justice to the poor.He stated that an online platform with legal information package must be made available to the public in the grass root level and also explained the various methods through which micro-justice can be delivered to the people.

After the above presentations it was time for lunch.By this I am completing the part -I and will post the afternoon sessions in part-II.So keep watching for further presentations as to what speakers intended to impart.

10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011- Day 1 (Part III)

This is the third  and final part of day 1.Yes I tried to put all stuff that I could understand on day 1 of the conference which made me to split in three parts.But this part is really interesting and which melted my heart too. The presentation was by Sanjana Hattotuwa .After his presentation I could understand that online dispute resolution and technologies are not only for e-commerce or business but it can also change the concept of humanity.Thus it was evident from his speech that information,communication,technology can be used for peace building too. You can go here to view the ppt of Sanjana Hattotuwa. Then he also mentioned about the pc user against mobile user and clearly pictured that than computer, mobile was owned and widely used by the society at large.Mobile users are tremendously increasing day by day due to proliferation of telecom cos and the additional features they offer.Finally he added that since mobile is widely used , there is necessity to create non-smart phone applications where even non-smart phone users can access the technology for business purpose.

Later, Leah Wing , threw some light on murals and its archives.By this the day 1 presentations were winded up and I attempted to express all those that I could understand.Moreover, I have elaborately expressed those presentations which impressed me :)

Leah Wing,the Final presenter for day 1.

What next, I will be posting the sessions of day 2.Will try to concise and highlight the themes of presenters.Until then happy peacebuilding :) through technologies .

10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011- Day 1 (Part II)

This is part-II of Day 1 where there were interesting presentations.After Colin rule it was Johnston S.Barkat, Asst. Secretary-General, UN, Ombudsman and Mediation Services who delivered keynote speech.He has 15yrs of experience in mediation and is working for ODR in UN.He started his speech by quoting a small story where his daughter and her friends had made rules of who all will use the fort.Thus with the help of story he made us clear that conflict arises when there is violation of trust and he meant ODR is concerned,"not with adjudication but with resolution".

Indian scenario of ODR

Prathamesh Popat and Naavi Vijayashankar made exclusive presentations about ODR under Indian context with lots of suggestion and also gave solutions to the existing problems.They pointed out the advantages of ODR over normal court procedure and threw some light on enforcement issues and its implementation.As a suggestion for authenticity of Identity in online, Mr.Naavi enumerated the significance of digital signatures. Digital Signatures help in sending and receiving e-documents and such e-documents are  now valid in Indian court of law submitted through Digital Signature Certificate which is provided under Information Technology Act,2000.To understand the concept of Digital signature go here.

Online Dialogue

It was about online dialogue presented by Beth Fascitelli, Head of consulting, Meta-Culture who emphasised that there should be a focused and productive conversation to resolve conflicts.This doesn't mean to be a  debate but a unique way to resolve disputes and conflicts.She also insisted that students must hone their communication skills and engage in meaningful conversation.Also pointed out the technological barrier,accessibility barrier and political challenges for an effective dialogue.Thus in her concluding remarks she stressed upon communication skills and thinking skills for an effective online dialogue apart from language barriers that persists.

Thereafter , a sketch about ODR in Italy was  presented by Irene Sigismondi.Followed by her it was Pablo Cortez from UK who gave some guidelines for growth of fair and effective ODR systems.Then it was Orna Rabinovich who dealt with ODR and the blurring of traditional boundaries.

Thus this is end of part II and by part III ,I would be completing the events that happened on Day 1 in the conference.

10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011- Day 1 (Part I)

The 10th International Online Dispute Resolution Conference 2011 (7th-9th Feb)" that was organised by ebay and paypal was held today in Chennai in The Trident hotel.The conference had started today with great enthusiasm and it is held for another two days . This Conference is conducted in India for the first time. There were eminent speakers who had come from different parts of the world like Italy,Europe,Srilanka and so on. There were also participants from various cities of India which made the conference even more interesting to proceed.Lets go down and explore the interesting presentations for the Day-1.

The Conference was welcomed and addressed by the conference co-ordinator Chittu nagaraj and followed by her other speakers made presentation on various topics of ODR(Online Dispute Resolution). Ethan Katsh was the very first speaker to expose opening remarks on ODR.He is also called as the father of ODR as he had discovered and recognised the impact of new information technologies that had on law.He is also an author of the Book- Online Dispute Resolution : resolving conflicts in cyberspace.

Followed by him the son of ODR :) i.e Colin Rule (about Colin Rule) explained briefly the necessity of ODR.He stated that ODR was recognized by paypal and ebay at large than any other organization had implemented and further said that," information communication technology (ICT) is widely increasing in every industry and the human society is moving online".In such case how should people resolve their disputes in cyberspace was the question raised by him? He made us think why really ODR is necessary in today's online world? It is necessary because court procedure sucks and people are against the time consuming process.Then he displayed some video presentations in which it showed some of the active personalities who were working for the betterment of ODR.There after in a ppt presentation he explained and listed out how to manage conflicts? The conflicts can be managed by:

1.Emails
2.Discussion Boards
3.Chats
4.Instant Messaging
5.Audio and Video Conferencing.

It is to be noted that in a year almost 60 million disputes are resolved through ODR at ebay.Then he explained how to file a dispute in paypal and other stuff etc.He mentioned about ebay where it has community court and this court was indian born innovation :) To conclude he stressed upon UNCITRAL which has a permanently working group exclusively for ODR. Finally, what ODR means for you?
- ODR is growing by leaps and bounds
-Keep aware of ODR and educate yourself about it.
-Lastly, to resolve disputes online.



conference hall on day1.

Thus, this is part-I of the Day-1 session.There were still more presentations that will be posted in part-II.You can also watch the webcast of this conference in this site tndalu.ac.in .

Need of Foot over Bridge in the entrance of Adyar Bridge

I was just going through today's newspaper TOI to find any interesting news other than this 2G scam and other boring stuffs.While crawling the paper I was glad to see news about some key proposals of tamilnadu govt like setting up parks in the chennai city,banning plastics in parks etc. I was even more interested to see a key proposal about setting up of 3 foot over bridges (FOB) in chennai.It is a notable feature that the bridges will be set up with lifts for pedestrians.

The first and foremost FOB with lift was set up in sterling road which I have a look at it everyday while going in the bus.It is good that one who cannot climb stairs can use lift and is helpful especially for elders.Apart from this, the key proposal says that 3 other foot over bridges with lifts are yet to be set up in the chennai city.It is fine that the govt. is doing the needy as elections are approaching :)

I thought it would be helpful for the pedestrians if a foot over bridge is set up in the entrance of Thiru vi ka bridge or Adyar bridge.The road that connects that bridge is Durgabai Deshmukh road where Mylapore, Mandaiveli,R.A.Puram residents and other public often access to reach places like Adyar and Besant nagar.This road is one of the busiest roads I have seen as I go by this way everyday.And pedestrians find it very difficult to cross the road all the time as the road never sleeps.

On either side of the road there is Andhra Mahila Sabha Hospital and MGR Janaki College and bus stops too.So the pedestrians like patients, visitors, college students and generally public people find it difficult to cross the road.I myself find hard to cross road inspite of Traffic police manning there.At times he is absent in that place where sometimes pedestrians give hardships to the two wheeler and four wheelers. To control the traffic there is another bridge being under constrution parallel to adyar bridge where public can use it.Hope this bridge eases traffic congestion.Though it would ease traffic, there is still a need of bridge for pedestrians.

Thus as a pedestrian I humbly request the Govt to act wisely and set a foot over bridge in the entrance of adyar bridge too which will be helpful to the public.

Why has internet not reached villages yet?

I was just wondering why has internet not reached villages at a larger level????????????Or it has been initiated but not successful in implementing it??????? I am trying to find out the reasons why it hasnt reached??????

For that matter I have created a poll which can be seen to your right.Kindly cast your vote and let me know if you have any suggestions...........And if there has been any successful implementation that internet has reached please throw some light on it and let the world know about it.

10 Things to do as exams are nearing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This time my brother is giving his board exams or public exam what ever it may be called.I wrote him a letter as , what to do and not when exams are nearing.Now I thought why not I share with the rest of brothers and sisters who are going to appear for their exams.I am just sharing this letter with everyone which I wrote in some 15 mins. The letter goes like this:

Hi brother,
i was about to sleep this afternoon but suddenly ur thoughts flashed in my mind and finally i landed here.Its high time now for u as exams r nearing.try to take care of ur health and from now on wards stop taking outside food.
-Not even juices,puffs etc.
-Take fresh fruits,if it is in fridge keep it outside and have after its coolness is gone.
-A BIG NO to cool items or freezed items which means no ice creams,chocoloates etc.
-Take light bf,lunch and dinner.
-Avoid oily foods for the next 30 days.
-Have good sleep and have fresh breathe.
-Discuss but Do not discuss too many topics with friends to avoid confusions in concepts.u know but still i want to tell.
-keep urself hydrated i.e drink lots of water and juices made in house.
-be calm and keep smiling instead of stuffing things all time.
-write with ur pen daily for atleast half an hour so that the pen is comfortable during exams too.

wat else.We all have lots of hope on you and i want u to come out in flying colors :) Try to keep up ur parents expectations and may be more also.Bcoz i know how much effort and sacrifices they have made for u.sorry for this big letter :P .I know u will rock in ur exams.all the best da.And s we will have lots of fun after ur exams :) :) :)

ALL THE BEST FOR UR EXAMS :) :) :)

from ur loving sister.



These are wholly my personal views and not necessary that you should stick to this.Its fine if you take more efforts also.Happy exams....................