Saakshar Law Publications, a leading publisher of books on Information Technology Law, hosted a day-long seminar at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India, on the Law Of Business Process Outsourcing on July 21, 2004. Mr. Pavan Duggal, India's foremost legal expert on Cyberlaw, and an internationally acknowledged expert on the subject, conducted the seminar exclusively. The seminar was inaugurated by Mr. KK Jaswal, Secretary, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Department of Information Technology, Government of India. The occasion also saw Kiran Karnik, President, NASSCOM, releasing the book.

Mr. Jaswal emphatically stated that the Government of India had already initiated various measures and was actively looking at furthering the scope for more companies who would like to outsource their back office operations to India. He further pointed out that the Government's intention was to provide all possible help, systems and an enabling environment for inducing the further growth of what was generically termed the "BPO industry". Turning to practicalities on hand, he then complimented Saakshar Law Publications for putting together a seminar and for having invited Pavan Duggal, India's acknowledged legal expert on CyberLaw. He was confident that Mr. Duggal would put forward the various legal facets concerned with such a complex topic with ease. Mr Jaswal was effusive in his words and specifically thanked the organizers of the seminar for the practically oriented seminar that addressed a specific vacuum in the industry.

Kiran Karnik on the other hand stated that the outsourcing industry holds great promise for the entire Indian economy and that it is going to be the driver for further growth in India. Mr. Karnik highlighted the importance of the law impacting the entire process of business outsourcing, and was emphatic that there is a need for an enabling legal framework in order to provide a solid foundation for much of the work that is outsourced to India and the volumes that are yet to come in.

The book "Law of Business Process Outsourcing", written by Mr. Pavan Duggal, is sure to serve as a comprehensive reference to those involved with this particular area. Apart from the fact that it examines all major legal issues relating to the industry, it covers certain important legal points that in all probability would crop up in due course. Aspects covered include the legal essentials for a BPO contract, service level agreements, data protection, and certain issues of privacy in the context of BPO operations. Other important issues dealt with were the compliance with the existing law, with notable reference to the Indian, US, and EU Laws, apart from several others. Furthermore, other aspects covered in the various chapters of the book deal with details about information security legal issues and other due diligence precautions that need to be taken by BPO Service Providers.

The seminar itself saw Pavan Duggal elaborating upon the legalities and the technicalities of the law. Divided into six sessions, the seminar began with a session on general legal issues, and then touched upon the requirement of BPO contracts and service level agreements. Mr. Pavan spoke with a touch of concern, that despite the prevalence of common perception outside India, that data is not secure in India, it is actually safe. There were numerous provisions existing under the Indian cyberlaw to protect data. He, however, also underlined the need for the coming up of further provisions to provide an enabling environment for protecting data. He also made a point that Indian Service Providers needed to proactively comply with major requirements of all relevant laws in the jurisdiction to which the outsourced services were targeted.

The seminar which was attended by heads of various BPO companies and other players constituting the BPO industry, was highly interactive and saw the participants raising various important issues that were affecting the BPO industry. The other speaker along with Mr. Duggal was Mr. Deepak Maheshwari who touched upon the various telecom regulations prevalent in India and what change was needed in order to augment the progress of the BPO industry. The seminar also saw a discussion on issues like Medical Transcription and various Indian laws affecting the BPO industry. The seminar ended with a detailed session on legal issues impacting information security as well as various US laws that impact outsourcing industry.

The vote of thanks was given by Mr. Rakesh Bakshi, Legal Head, Microsoft who commended Mr. Duggal on coming up with this book and expressed his hopes that it would positively help the various BPO companies.