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.