The National e-Governance Division (NeGD) of the ministry of electronics and information technology has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the National Law University (NLU), Delhi and the National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal, to establish a Cyber Lab for the ‘Online Capacity Building Programme on Cyber Law, Crime Investigation and Digital Forensics.’
Abhishek Singh, president and chief executive of NeGD, Srikrishna Deva Rao of NLU and V Vijayakumar of NLIU signed the MoU in Delhi o Friday.
Addressing the event, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, secretary, ministry of electronics and information technology, said that the programme is expected to receive good response from law enforcement agencies and also from the judiciary. Being an online programme, it has potential of immense scalability. With regard to expanding and strengthening of the programme, Sawhney said that other law schools will also be engaged in hub and spoke design of forensic labs.
The goal of this programme is to enable police officers, state cyber cells, law enforcement agencies, prosecutors and judicial officers to acquire requisite skills to deal with cyber forensics cases efficiently and effectively as per the Indian Cyber Law while adopting global best practices, standards and guidelines.
NeGD, in collaboration with NLIU Bhopal has taken this initiative to offer a 9-month online PG diploma to 1,000 officials through its Learning Management System (LMS). The programme enables learners to experience anytime anywhere learning on the go. The first batch started in November 2020 with a total of 579 participants approved for the course.
Each enrolled participant undergoes practical training session and personal contact programme at the designated Cyber Lab to be set up in the campus of the National Law University (NLU) Delhi for facilitating this course. The proposed cyber lab will be equipped with hybrid architecture which supports both virtual as well as physical mode of capacity building in the areas of Cyber Law, Cyber crime Investigation and Digital Forensics.
The lab will have a training room capacity of 25 users and remote connectivity for 25 users each at a given time, augmented with AR/VR features. Other law schools/universities like National Law School of India University (Bangalore), Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (Patiala) etc, will be on-boarded in hub and spoke model for future endeavors. The law schools will provide the necessary faculty members, expertise and content for the virtual classes.
The National e-Governance Division (NeGD) will develop the e-content based on the support received from faculty members. NLIU, Bhopal being the lead academic partner for the course will award the PG diploma certificate to the participants who successfully complete the course.