Dr Banusri VelpandianSenior Law Specialist Ms Pali SinghLegal ConsultantCo-author The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) Crime Report in India 2022 evinced that the number of cases registered under the six major environmental acts increased notably from previous years . This trend in increasing reporting on major violation of environmental regulations also indicates a greater enforcement activity and mainstreaming of environmental compliance into the legal system. Environmental crimes are often described as ‘Low Risk, High Reward, which makes it a highly lucrative operation for many criminals, typically because of the lack of strong legislative deterrence, fragmented regulation and lenient penal consequences as compared to other crimes. Environmental harm does not have an identifiable ‘victim’ and its adverse effects are not realised and felt immediately. But the consequences can be profound, irreversible and transnational, not only to the ecosystem but also to humans and societies dependent on them. In legal remedial terms, environmental harm can be tackled through either civil or criminal mechanisms. In the civil or regulatory jurisdiction i.e., forums like National Green Tribunal, Pollution Control Boards, Constitutional Courts (vide PILs), may direct remedies like closures, compensation/ damages, restoration, regulating license etc.; whereas in criminal persecution, wilful or gross environment violations are treated as offences punishable by imprisonment, fines, or both. While the civil environmental law focuses on various legal principles of polluter pay principle, precautionary principle etc., the criminal environmental law focuses on imposing punitive consequences against the violator, for acts that constitute offences against the environment and, by extension, against society at large. In this article, we will explore the concept of harm to nature, various legal principles, the legal and policy framework in India including Constitutional and statutory provisions along with judicial precedents, and touch upon some of the international efforts to mitigate and deal with the environmental crimes. Understanding Environmental Harm and Their Impact ‘Environmental harm or crime (or) green crime’ is a complex and evolving concept with no standard, universally accepted definition. Broadly, it encompasses unlawful acts that cause significant harm to the environment, including ecosystems such as forests, rivers, wetlands, oceans, and the wildlife and communities dependent on them. The United Nations Environment Programme and Interpol define environmental crime as “a collective term to describe illegal activities harming the environment and aimed at benefiting individuals or groups or companies from the exploitation of, damage to, trade or theft of natural resources, including, but not limited to, serious crimes and transnational organized crime.” Similarly, a notable development in international legal discourse is the push to recognise ‘ecocide’ as a core international crime in the Rome Statute, alongside genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and aggression. In fact in 2021, the Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of Ecocide proposed a legal definition of the term ecocide which means “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts.”5 While being important, the issue with such a broad definition may be to identify the exact ‘victim’ (whether a river, forest, species, single animal), defining the jurisdiction (domestic, regional, global) and determining culpability (individuals, corporations, or state actors). Persecution for such crimes may be difficult especially when environmental harm occurs in the pursuit of economic development, cultural or local practices, and animal-human conflict. According to Interpol, environmental crimes may range from ivory trafficking, overfishing, illegal logging or the dumping of hazardous waste. They are often embedded within the same routes used to smuggle weapons, drugs and people. An Interpol study ranked environmental crime as the third-largest criminal sector in the world, after drug trafficking and counterfeiting, with an estimated worth of USD110- 281 billion annually. Environmental or green crimes occur due to both structural and systemic vulnerabilities including transnational nature of crimes, poor enforcement, widespread corruption and collusion, lack of prosecution, limited international coordination and regulatory frameworks. It is also because of high demand for exotic and rare animal and plant products and poverty and economic desperation which fuel such illegal acts. A paradox is that even an effective attempt to crack down on such supply can increase black-market prices, thereby incentivising more illegal activity.7 Nevertheless, such harm is rarely isolated and is often interlinked with other criminal activities like money laundering, human trafficking, smuggling etc. Unsurprisingly, the consequences are multi-dimensional, often having ripple effects: ● Environmental Effects: Environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, climate change, damage to natural resources. ● Social Effects: Displacement of communities, cultural loss, health risks, exacerbating poverty and inequality. ● Economic Effects: Loss of government revenues, illicit depletion of natural capital, and disruption of sustainable livelihoods. ● Political and Security Effects: Cross-border smuggling, money laundering, funding armed groups, fueling conflicts, destabilizing fragile regimes. Principles of Environmental Law Environment Law principles act as guidance for policy-makers, legislators and judiciary that have emerged over the decades from international conventions, treaties, judicial pronouncements, legislations etc. Some of these are discussed below: 1. Polluters Pay: Polluters Pay is a fundamental principle which primarily means those who pollute the environment must pay the cost of such degradation, in terms of the damage and the restoration. It acts as a double-edged sword, wherein, it discourages pollution, and also holds individuals/ industries strictly liable even if pollution was unintentional. The United Nations Environment Programme and Interpol define environmental crime as a collective term to describe illegal activities harming the environment and aimed at benefiting individuals or groups or companies from the exploitation of, damage to, trade or theft of natural resources, including, but not limited to, serious crimes and transnational organized crime The principle 16 of the Rio Declaration (1992) states, “National authorities should endeavor to promote the internalization of environmental costs and the use of economic instruments, taking into account the approach that ‘the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution,’ with due regard to the public interest and without distorting international trade and investment.” The courts in India have actively applied the principle in the judicial pronouncement….

Milind Borkar MD, Systematica Suyog Security Consultants (Sr. Consultant & Security Expert) Computer storage systems have seen a massive evolution and transformation over the last 100 years or so. These changes have been dramatic in relation to the size, price and the access speed of storage. These changes have been possible due to the rapid advances in technology, which was initially slow and took years to evolve but later in the last decade it accelerated due to rapid innovations and concerted/ collaborative efforts of the industry giants. These technology advances have revolutionized the way companies, businesses and consumers use storage technologies today –y from the most ubiquitous smart phone devices and personal computers to all the way to businesses which now have come to rely more on cloud storage services. In this article we try to capture the evolution of storage technologies over the years and examine the fundamental technical reason that has accelerated storage evolution over the last decade. Storage evolution over the last 70 years relative to size, capacity and price The table below highlights the trends in storage. Initially, the advances in technology were slow, mostly led by IBM in the 60s and 70s in the Megabyte revolution. In the 80s and 90s other companies jumped on the storage bandwagon and started the Gigabyte revolution soon to be followed by the Terabyte revolution. Today there are many physical form factors of storage devices from the traditional mechanical hard disk drives (HDD) to non-volatile memory (NVM) or solid-state devices (SSD); however, the fastest and most dynamic revolution is occurring in the cloud. Storage Technology Evolution over the last 100 years (Another View) There is another view of understanding the evolution of storage technology as well. The diagram below is a pictorial representation of the other view how storage technologies have evolved over the last 100 years. The fastest growing storage technology today Today, most storage systems use some or the other form of a mechanical device for storage which is otherwise known as ‘hard disk drives’ (HDD). HDDs are the dominant technology for several reasons such as very high recording density per platter, more than one platter per HDD, higher rotational speeds up to 15000 RPM for enterprise class drives, and reduced costs due to economies of scale. However, they do have inherent disadvantages owing to further recording density increase has hit the limits of the physical space, increasing the rotational speed of the platter increases the cost exponentially, and being a mechanical device it is bound to physically fail due to all the moving parts. A single HDD with a single platter at 15000 RPM can at most deliver a transfer speed of 100MB/s for sequential block reads, and for the random reads for the same configuration, transfer speed drops down to as low as 10MB/s Given the inherent limitations of mechanical storage devices and the rapid drop in prices of non-volatile memory (NVM), NVM is the next revolution in storage. It is found in almost all mobile devices and now continues to replace mechanical devices across the board. There are several reasons for this – they are now cost competitive with HDDs per terabyte of storage capacity and this price parity will continue to erode in favor of NVM in the coming years; NVM technology is far more reliable in the longer term because it has no moving parts; NVM is over 100 times faster than HDD and has similar transfer speeds for both sequential and random reads/writes unlike HDDs; and micro-second read/ write latency compared to milli-second latency for HDDs. Companies like Intel and Samsung have now developed NVM technologies that are 3 dimensional – it means increased storage density per cubic measure of volume without any performance degradation. The first system implementations of NVM were found to be SSDs that use the Serial ATA Protocol or SATA. The reason behind this was very simple. They achieve a 100-fold increase in transfer speeds relative to HDD immediately without changing the upper level small computer systems interface (SCSI) protocol. The SCSI protocol is over 4 decades old and is used by all I/O protocols such as fiber channel etc. All major operating systems also support the SCSI protocol. So for the industry’s quick gain, it was easy to replace the HDD with an NVM based SSD. The next disruption was soon born because the SCSI protocol and its associated software stack were very heavy as far as execution time was concerned. This SCSI protocol overhead directly impacted latency of reads and writes which is detrimental to high performance applications such as high frequency trading, small transactions in banking, and numerous database applications for machine learning and artificial intelligence. Thus, an industry working group was formed to address the latency problem associated with the SCSI protocol. The industry came up with a new protocol which takes advantage of the native speed of NMV. They completely eliminated the SCSI protocol to define a new protocol called NVMe (Non-Volatile-Memory Express) protocol. In this protocol, the NVM device is directly attached to the I/O PCI express bus hence the extension ‘e’ in NVM. This eliminates the need to have the traditional hardware and firmware that resides in a host bus adapter (HBA) along with HBA itself. The following diagram illustrates this concept Latest NVM highlights ● PCIe Gen1 is 2.5 gbps per lane per direction. Today’s SSDs pack Gen3x2 or Gen3x4 (8 Gbps x 2 or 4 lanes = upto 32 Gbps) bandwidth in a very tiny M.2 gumstick form-factor. ● 3-D NAND and 3D-Xpoint NAND – DRAM-bandwidth at flash-economies – very low-latency flash (20us IO read/Write) latency compared to 200us latency for enterprise flash. ● New form-factor coming to pack TB of capacity – ‘ruler’ form factor from Intel. ● NVMe enables performance scaling with the increase in capacity – traditionally denser HDD did not bring any performance improvement. ● NVMe over TCP enables low-cost SAN deployment compared to Infiniband, RoCE, iWarp or FC. ● NVMe allows dual-ported…

As urban centers continue to expand, buildings are evolving into far more than just places of work or residence. Today, architectural facades are becoming dynamic digital canvases that captivate passers-by and spark conversation. Traditionally, large-scale LED displays were seen as costly and energy-hungry, but the global shift toward sustainability has spurred innovative solutions that balance striking visuals with eco-friendly design. Rethinking traditional building displays Older building displays were often notorious for their high energy consumption. While LEDs are generally more energy-efficient than traditional lighting like incandescent or fluorescent bulbs, early LED displays didn’t fully realize that advantage due to technical limitations. Firstly, they lacked efficient thermal management, causing excessive heat generation that wasted energy (and also shortened component lifespan). Secondly, inefficient power supplies and imprecise voltage control led to further waste, especially when static or bright-white content forced RGB diodes to run constantly at maximum intensity. As a result, early LED displays could consume up to 1,000 watts per square meter, leading to high electricity costs and a large carbon footprint. Maintenance added another layer of difficulty. Many legacy systems were large, hard to service, and required extensive time for repairs or recalibration. These concerns underscored the urgent need for solutions that could reduce operational costs while aligning with sustainability goals. Turning to green LED solutions Recent innovations in LED technology have ushered in a new era of energy-efficient, adaptable, and environmentally friendly building displays. A key innovation is in thermal design such as flip-chip COB technology, which can reduce device temperature by 5-10°C and power consumption by around 45%. This improvement stems from flip-chip COB architecture, where LED chips are mounted directly onto the substrate, eliminating traditional wire bonds. This design minimizes thermal resistance, allowing heat to dissipate more efficiently and lowering junction temperatures. These enhancements bring down heat output and energy use. Precise voltage control, enabled by common cathode setup, further enhances efficiency by powering each RGB diode individually. Compared to conventional common anode design, this new approach reduces energy consumption, all while maintaining the vibrant, high-definition visuals demanded by today’s audiences. Softwaredriven management and control offer another key path to energy savings. Smart content management systems such as Hikvision’s PixMaster intelligent engine, dynamically adjust brightness and contrast based on content and ambient light conditions. This ensures the display uses only the power it needs, optimizing energy efficiency without sacrificing visual performance. Additionally, robust aluminum shells protect components from harsh weather, ensuring long-term durability and reducing maintenance frequency. These innovations make modern LED displays a reliable investment and contribute to minimizing waste. A real-world example of sustainability in action The transformative potential of these innovations can be seen in the case of Kamir’s new office building in Croatia. Faced with an outdated system that consumed excessive energy and lacked versatility, Kamir installed a 26-square-meter outdoor LED video wall using Hikvision’s P6 Outdoor Fixel LED technology. Featuring flip-chip COB and common cathode designs, the new system is an energy- efficient display, reducing energy consumption by 45% while maintaining stunning visual clarity. The installation’s intelligent energy management system adjusted brightness in real time, optimizing power use without compromising clarity. Its robust construction ensured reliable performance across Croatia’s varied weather conditions. Besides, the commercial LED display’s dynamic content capabilities attracted sponsors and advertisers, transforming the façade into a revenue-generating platform. This upgrade not only enhanced Kamir’s brand visibility but also demonstrated its commitment to sustainability. The global pursuit of greener solutions is redefining expectations across industries, and building displays are no exception. By adopting energy-efficient LEDs, smart content management, and durable designs, leaders like Hikvision are helping property owners transform energy- intensive displays into key components of sustainable strategies. Each installation marks progress toward a future where technology not only captivates but also benefits cities and communities. As more businesses recognize the long-term advantages, sustainable displays will become a cornerstone of urban design. Explore more about our LED display solutions and sustainability-focused innovations. Read More

Major Sadhna SinghConsultant As India rapidly advances towards becoming a digital powerhouse through smart cities, public safety systems, and ambitious Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) missions like India Stack and CoWIN, the invisible foundation of this transformation is the reliability of its hardware. Among the most critical components are Hard Disk Drives (HDDs), the quiet workhorses storing vast volumes of surveillance footage, citizen data, and mission-critical system logs. But what if this very foundation is quietly being compromised? India’s backdoor hardware invasion India is witnessing a stealthy influx of used, refurbished, and end-of-life (EoL) hard drives, often mis-declared as new to evade regulatory controls. These HDDs enter through loopholes in trade classification, mostly without any quality checks, manufacturer credentials, or safety certifications. Many arrive under Harmonized System (HSN) Code 84717020, which is designated for new storage devices, thus circumventing licensing requirements under the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) and violating E-Waste Management Rules. On paper, India doesn’t prohibit refurbished HDD sales, but their import is tightly regulated. In practice, however, grey market players exploit the regulatory blind spots, resulting in a digital time bomb quietly ticking across our surveillance systems, government servers, and public sector installations. The numbers tell a troubling story ● Over 3.3 million HDDs, many suspected to be used, were imported in FY 2023-24, outnumbering imports by authorized OEMs. ● In just the first nine months of FY 2024-25, an additional 1.9 million units were imported, suggesting a thriving grey market. ● Hyderabad Air Cargo alone accounts for up to 90% of these imports in recent months, with others entering via Chennai, Kolkata, and Mumbai. ● Top source countries include Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and the US, notorious hubs for global e-waste dumping. Declared import prices, sometimes as low as USD11-20 per unit, are a fraction of the legitimate OEM cost (USD70-90). The under-invoicing not only implies massive tax evasion but also points to deep-rooted misdeclaration networks. A. Port-wise import volumes B. Country of origin National security and cyber risks These aren’t just dodgy business practices. They’re national security vulnerabilities. Unlike surveillance-grade HDDs designed for 24×7 operations, refurbished drives, typically desktop-grade and not meant for continuous workloads, fail prematurely. In sensitive environments like railway command centres, police control rooms, or border surveillance hubs, such failures could mean loss of critical footage during emergencies, be it a riot, a terrorist attack, or an industrial accident. Worse still, HDDs refurbished overseas may carry undetected firmware modifications, turning them into potential hardware backdoors. In an era where data is strategic capital, compromising hardware is equivalent to compromising sovereignty. The economic fallout Beyond the security risks, this grey market has led to: ● Crores in lost revenue due to customs duty evasion and GST shortfalls. ● Market distortion, where shady traders repackage used drives with new casings and stickers, selling them at inflated MRPs, sometimes even on government procurement platforms like GeM. ● Consumer fraud, with unsuspecting households and MSMEs believing they’ve bought new, warrantied products; when in reality, they’re buying used electronics with limited lifespan and no accountability. Environmental non-compliance The environmental cost is equally dire. India’s E-Waste Management Rules (2022) prohibit unregulated import of electronic waste. Many of these drives fail within months, turning into toxic waste streams without proper recycling mechanisms. Their import also potentially violates India’s obligations under the Basel Convention, which prohibits transboundary movement of hazardous e-waste disguised as usable goods. Storage is sovereignty In today’s world, sovereignty doesn’t just depend on borders, but on bytes. Trusted storage hardware is as vital as secure communications. From Aadhaar to AI models, from critical infrastructure to defence networks — our digital services rely on integrity at the hardware level. Allowing unknown, unverified HDDs to creep into our systems threatens confidentiality, availability, and integrity, the very pillars of cybersecurity. What needs to be done 1. Tighten the Legal Screws ● Issue clear DGFT and CBIC circulars reiterating licensing requirements for used HDDs. ● Move refurbished HDDs from ‘Restricted’ to ‘Prohibited’ category, except for OEMs under Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). 2. Impose Minimum Import Prices Introduce import price floors (e.g., USD 35 for 1TB drives) to stop under- invoicing and restore fair trade practices. 3. Mandate Labelling and Traceability Make it mandatory for all imported HDDs to: ● Be BIS registered. ● Carry labels indicating ‘Refurbished’ status, country of origin, and refurbisher’s identity 4. Secure Public Procurement Platforms like GeM should: ● Create a separate refurbished electronics category. ● Ban usage of non-certified drives in critical surveillance and defence contracts. 5. Conduct Strategic Audits Ministries such as MeitY, MHA, and MoHUA should: ● Audit existing HDDs used in police and smart city projects ● Run firmware-level forensic checks to detect possible vulnerabilities ● Involve CERT-In and NTRO in cases of national security concern Conclusion: A call for a whole-of-government response What India faces today is not just a trade irregularity, but a strategic vulnerability. The silent flood of unauthorized, potentially compromised HDDs threatens our national security, digital trust, consumer protection, and environmental goals, all at once. This calls for a coordinated response from DGFT, CBIC, BIS, MeitY, MoEFCC, MHA, and GeM to plug gaps, ensure hardware integrity, and protect the digital spine of India. In the data age, storage is infrastructure, and infrastructure is sovereignty. Let’s not allow backdoors to be built into our nation’s future, drive by drive. Read More