Hari's Corner

I've been working for a few days to get my site lawstudentscommunity.com up and running.

Actually I was trying to decide on the best backend system and in the end it was a tight contest between WordPress and MyBB. MyBB won out in the end because I'm far more familiar and comfortable with it than with WordPress (I've not used it in ages). Also I've always found WordPress tougher to theme as I exactly want it to be.

Here's the link: Law Students Community

Even if you're not a law student, you'd be doing me a great favour by registering and participating (particularly if you're interested in law and legal topics). So do join!

I'm still working on some of the aspects of the site, but it's good enough to go live at present. Fresh content and features underway.

Papa Hari News Service

Coming up with a novel solution to the rising inflation problem, an economic expert has suggested that people stop visiting the local barber frequently and cut down the cost of getting a haircut. According to his current theory, he has advised people to visit the local barber once every three months instead of two in order to reduce their household expenses.

Professor P.K.S.R.T. Rao of the Economics department in an prominent engineering college currently pursuing his Ph.D. on "Good Grooming and its effects on Macro Economic Policy" has come up with this stunning revelation that is sure to raise the hackles of local barbers, hairdressers and salon owners.

"See, going for thees haircut ees costly, no?" he said to curious students who mobbed him in his office, "So without two month, you go for every three months of haircut, OK? So only you reduce money to spend for the haircut. Even these days haircut saloons are raising Rs. 10 more than previous months and all. So only I found. I am saving thees Rs. 60 for thees bus charge no?"

Expanding on his theory, he laid down several suggestions for economizing haircuts:

• When you get haircut, go for the "short", not thees "medium".
• Go for the cheaper barbers.
• Use less of thees hair oil - this will have the two benefit: lower growth rate of the hair and less cost of the hair oil.

When questioned whether eating less would be a better solution, the professor said, "Eat of the food is primary hyuman need, no? I am studied thees Maslow fellow's theory and all. Having less haircut is the better solution. Comb hair nicely with wet hair after bath, so you are save on thees hair oil also."

His Ph.D. guide who wished to remain anonymous stated that he would review the research data submitted by the professor in order to study the problem deeper. "It is a novel concept, and a stunningly simple solution to an increasingly worrying inflationary trend," he said. When asked about his own bald head which was shining like a polished gold plate in the sunshine, the guide smiled and indicated that he felt that he had no personal interest in the theory himself. "None of this research has any bearing on me personally, so I feel I am an impartial reviewer."

Meanwhile angry local barbers and salon owners staged a dharna outside the gates of the engineering college and burnt the professor's effigy. The police were called in and managed to disperse the protesters. No arrests were made.

I recently had an idea for a community based website project and I immediately thought of a good domain name and purchased it. And from there, I've found the going tough - right from the starting post.

Why?

Because creating any new website from scratch is daunting. I want something between a blog and a forum, but I don't want a site that is empty to start off with. I want some content and a unique look and feel. So far, the idea is fine, but getting the right tools together to achieve the goal is a whole different story.

WordPress is a good choice for a blog, and indeed is one of the most feature rich blog platforms built (maybe apart from b2evolution), but it is still a blog. It looks, feels and works like a blog. It requires a ton of customization to make it feel and work like a community website. Many community specific features I am looking for are lacking in WordPress. I don't want to start just another blog when I'm not sure how to attract contributors in the same manner as a forum.

A proper forum seems the best choice actually, but I am not happy with most of the forum software when it comes to content presentation. Somehow, a forum lacks the simplicity and content-richness of a blog. But there is no doubt that a forum system has better community management features than a blog.

I would have explored a full-fledged CMS like Drupal or Joomla, but two things stop me from doing so: (1) the prospect of customizing a complex CMS beast doesn't appeal to me; and (2) a CMS is a heavyweight solution for a community website. A CMS might work well for organizations and large communities with a dedicated writing and editorial team, but for a new startup a CMS doesn't appear to be a good idea to attract new contributors. Certainly I've never joined a CMS based community so far and I have no idea how the whole setup works - both from a user and from an administrative point of view.

I prefer to deal in known quantities especially for new projects where the real work starts AFTER I set up the backend software.

After all this decision making, the other big task ahead of me is customizing the look and feel of the site and making it as unique as possible.

I guess I'll have to take a break for a few days to consider my options!

There is a principle in Law, established in India following the infamous Bhopal gas tragedy and the subsequent Oleum gas leak case (M.C.Mehta vs. Union of India) which imposes absolute liability on industrial units which release noxious and toxic effluents and cause hard-to-reverse (often irreversible) damage to life in the surrounding areas.

The principle of course is that the polluter must pay for the damage in proportion to the damage caused and his capacity regardless of cause and that negligence is not a necessary component to establish such liability. In other words, the exceptions of the strict liability doctrine of English Law laid down in Rylands vs. Fletcher do not apply here.

This applies to any industry or activity involving inherently hazardous materials and the liability is not limited to damages in regular tort law principles. The reason is that there must be an element of penalty as well.

I believe this is good law, because

1. The damage caused by toxic effluents in industry is usually very hard to control and reverse. Effects on the biosphere can be devastating.
2. People affected include the general public residing in nearby areas and not just those in the immediate vicinity of accidents. Pollution tends to spread rather quickly.
3. Pollution caused is continuous in nature and in some cases can render soil and water unusable for decades, if not centuries. It is not too much to say that in some instances, the very basis of human life in such areas is laid to waste.
4. The very nature of such activity demands extraordinary care and extraordinary liability when damage is caused by such industries. It goes beyond ordinary remedies and the social responsibility of such industries have to be emphasized.
5. The actual cause of accident is a minor issue when compared to the magnitude and scale of environmental pollution caused by such disasters.

For those reasons I believe there is a real difference in principle as well as in practice between ordinary industrial accidents and accidents which amount effectively to environmental disasters. There is no doubt in my mind that the legal system in India is theoritically adequate to handle environment disaster cases and compensate victims of such man-made disasters in full. The real question is the political will and the effectiveness of the system in bringing those responsible to justice in a timely manner.

The only way to make such industries safer is to make the civil and criminal liability extremely harsh and force industrialists and corporations to drastically improve the safety record of their units.

I say it is boring and dry as a student and undoubtedly most law students would find business law - for the most part - extremely dull in theory. But there can be no doubt that the law relating to business and commercial transactions form a very important aspect of our lives even as lay individuals. In fact, I feel this aspect of law is probably the most indispensable part of the legal framework of nations next in importance only to criminal law.

As I see it, business law is more about setting the legal framework under which human commercial transactions and dealings can take place within a regulatory system of checks and balances than about the actual rules governing business transactions - which is more an area for MBA graduates and managers. Unlike criminal law which deals with the exceptions of society with its focus being primarily its punitive and deterrence value, business law deals mainly with day-to-day activities and is more about setting boundaries and first principles. However, like any other field of law, commercial laws also do incorporate criminal aspects to deal with blatant abuses of the system and to punish what is popularly known as white collar crime.

Basic contract laws, of course, are the life-blood of any commercial legal framework, but in today's world, we have gone far beyond simple one-to-one contracts. Companies today not only have to worry about local laws, but also about international laws and best practices. Starting and running a business in today's economic and technological environment has becoming increasingly complex. Therefore laws relating to business have mushroomed exponentially covering everything from simple one-man proprietorship firms on tight limited budgets, to multinational corporate giants with international presence concluding mergers and acquisitions as a matter of course.

Because it's also an area of law that is dynamic rather than static, the scope of business law is tremendously wide. Lawyers who specialize in business law have not to be mere lawyers, but domain-specialists in their area of expertise apart from being sound businessmen as well. There are simply no short cuts to success. Pure criminal law is extremely simple and elementary when compared to the sheer scope and range of business law. This may explain why there is far more competition in the area of criminal law than business law. Business and commercial law is highly rewarding as a career but also requires huge depth and range of knowledge and hard work.

Aspiring law professionals who aren't too keen to deal with the nitty gritty of criminal law and the unsavoury associations it brings would find business law a good career path whether as an independent specialist consultant/practitioner or within an organization's legal department.