Business Law

Misuse of Science
and Technology

F.Y.BMS - A
 Group Members
Student’s name: Roll No.:
1. Mansi Dave 111
2. Santosh Derber 112
3. Ankita Gabani 113
4. Shivangi Pandey 149
5. Sagar Parekh 150
 ACKNOWLEGMENT

NAGINDAS KHANDWALA COLLEGE, MALAD

(WEST).MUMBAI- 400064.

This is to certify that the presentation of BUSINESS LAW

related to the topic MISUSE OF SCIENCE AND
TECHNOLOGY IN THE ENVIRONMENT OF LAW assigned
by prof. NUTAN has been performed by all the group members
with great enthusiasium. We are highly privileged to receive this
presentation which enhanced our knowledge.

DATE: 13-09-2010

Prof’s.Signature,

Introduction:
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY means an organized
knowledge especially when obtained by observation and testing
of facts, about the physical world, natural laws and society.
In simple words it is a body of knowledge which is
developed through reasoning, observation and experimentation
of ideas and facts.
Many of the achievements of science and technology have held
so much potential. This has especially the case during the last
few centuries. Certainly good that has been done by science
and technology could fill volumes. However, the title above,
"science and technology does more harm than good",

Misuses in different fields:

1.Sonography
Medical sonography is an ultrasound based diagnostic imaging
technique used to visualize and internal organs, their size.
Structures and possible pathological or lesions. Obstetric
sonography is commonly used during pregnancy and is widely
recognized by the public.

How it is misused ?
In most of the states of India there is a craze for the male
child in the society. Many women consider themselves
complete only when they have a male child. Many woman
consider it is better not to have a child rather than having a
female child. There are so many misconceptions in the society
in this regard. These misconceptions are due to superstitions,
poverty and illiteracy and dowry. Some religious rites also add
to this problem e.g. only sons can perform the last rites on the
dead body. Discrimination with the females in the society add
to the woes of the females and even females do not want to
have female children, perhaps they think that what they have
suffered, their female progeny should not suffer the same.

With the advancement in the science now the sex of the

fetus can be determined in the womb only with the help of the
amniocentesis(after 15 weeks), ultra-sonography (after 12
weeks) and chorion villous sampling (after 9-12 weeks) and
levels of MSHCG (16 days after conception) higher level
indicates female fetus is present (under research).
 All these tests and investigations were developed to know
the diseases and abnormalities of the fetuses. These tests were
gradually employed to know the sex of the fetus in those
females who were having many female children and were very
keen to have a male child. Then these tests were gradually
misused and after determining the sex, if it happened to be
female, people started them getting aborted and misuse of
sonography is done.

THE PRE-NATAL DIAGNOSTIC TECHNIQUES

(PNDT) ACT & RULES
The Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and
Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1994, was enacted and brought into
operation from 1st January, 1996, in order to check infancy fetus
rate.  Rules have also been framed under the Act.  The Act
prohibits determination and disclosure of the sex of foetus .  It
also prohibits any advertisements relating to pre-natal
determination of sex and prescribes punishment for its
contravention.  The person who contravenes the provisions of
this Act is punishable with imprisonment and fine.

Recently, PNDT Act and Rules have been amended keeping in

view the emerging technologies for selection of sex before and
after conception and problems  faced in the working of
implementation of the ACT and certain directions of Hon’ble
Supreme Court after a PIL was filed in May, 2000 by CEHAT and
Ors, an NGO on slow implementation of the Act.  These
amendments have come into operation with effect from 14 th
February, 2003.

Punishment:
The Health Ministry has announced tougher measures against
sex determination.

The proposed steps include a five lakh rupee fine for violating
the law against the tests, up 10 times from the earlier Rs
50,000.

Any doctor involved in these tests could face seven years in jail.
The earlier prison term was five years. The ministry has also
proposed incentives for informer

The proposals will have to be passed in Parliament to amend

the existing law against sex determination
Alarmed over falling sex-ratio in the country, the Union Health
Ministry on Wednesday also recommended stringent
punishment for those guilty of female foeticide by enhancing
the prison term and monetary penalty.

2. CYBER CRIME:
Cyber crime refers to unauthorized access to computer systems
or networks. This activity is commonly referred to as hacking. It
involves theft of information contained in electronic form. This
includes information stored in computer hard disks, removable
storage media etc.

The various forms of cyber crime are :

a) Email bombing-Email bombing refers to large
number of emails to the victim resulting in the victim’s
email account (in case of an individual) or mail servers
(in case of a company or an email service provider)
crashing. One foreign national decided to take his
revenge. Consequently he sent thousands of mails to
the Simla Housing Board and repeatedly kept sending e-
mails till their servers crashed.
b) Salami attacks- These attacks are used for the
commission of financial crimes. The key here is to make
the alteration so insignificant that in a single case it
would go completely unnoticed. E.g. a bank inserts a
program. Into the bank’s servers, that deducts a small
amount of money (say Rs. 5 a month) from the account
of every customer. No account holder will probably
notice this unauthorized debit, buy the bank employee
will make a sizable amount of money every month. An
employee in a bank had introduced a logic bomb inti the
bank’s system to take revenge.
c) Mail Related Crimes- Emails has fast emerged as
the world’s most preferred form of communication.
Billions of email messages traverse the globe daily. Like
any other form of communication, email is also misused
by criminal elements. The ease, speed and relative
anonymity of email has made it a powerful tool for
criminals.
Some major email related crimes are:
1. Email spoofing- a spoofed email is one that
appears to originate from one source but has actually
emerged from another source. Falsifying the name
and / or email address of the originator of the email
usually does email spoofing.
2. Email bombing- Email bombing refers to sending
a large amount of emails to the victim resulting in the
victim’s email account (inn case of an individual) or
servers (in case of a company or an email service
provider) crashing. A simple way of achieving this
would be to subscribe the victim’s email address to a
large number of mailing lists.
3. Sending threatening emails- Email is a useful
tool for technology savvy criminals thanks to the
relative anonymity offered by it. It becomes fairly
easy for anyone with even a basic knowledge of
computers to become a blackmailer by threatening
someone via e-mail.
4. Defamatory emails- as has been discussed
earlier cyber-defamation or even cyber-slander as it is
 called can prove to be very harmful and even fatal to
the people who have been made its victims.
5. Email frauds- Email spoofing is very often used to
commit financial crimes. It becomes a simple thing
not just to assume someone else’s identity but also to
hide one’s own. The person committing the crime
understands that there is very little chance of his
actually being identified.
CYBER CRIME PREVENTION ACT OF 2009.
The cybercrime prevention act may be used to protect the
people’s right to privacy & right against unreasonable searches.

PUNISHMENT:
If anybody is found doing hacking, playing with the security
systems of a company, or an organization will be fine for rupees
3 lakhs and imprisonment of 5 year.

Even his licence may be cancelled.

3. Nuclear power:
Low levels of radiations occur naturally from several sources.
Some of the radioactive elements occur as natural minerals in
the earth’s crust. Uranium is mined for the use of atomic energy
and weapons are one of the common radio isotopes.
USES AND MISUSE:
 Radioisotopes –uranium: A radio isotope is a form of a
chemical element that spontaneously undergoes
radioactive decay. During this process it emits radiations.
There are alpha, beta rays and gamma radiations and
neutron ray. Alpha and beta rays are generally harmful
only if swallowed, inhaled or absorbed through direct
contact. Major radiations hazards are result of exposure
to gamma, X-rays or neutron rays.
 X-RAYS: Man has been using radiation technology for the
health care and energy. Patients and radiologist get
exposed to X-ray during X-ray photographic analysis.
Infants and pregnant women are more sensitive to the
effect of X-ray. Much higher exposure is very harmful.
Professional radiologists are likely to suffer from aplastic
anemia, leukemia and certain types of cancers.
 Weapons and Explosive device: Explosion of a nuclear
device will result in release of radiations in the
atmosphere which will cause extensive deaths as
 happened in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Alpha, beta
emitters can contaminate air, water and soil along with
food supplies. Some of the nuclear fallout will result in
being pulled by the air currents in the atmosphere and
remain there for decades. This will cause slow effect for a
considerable period of time.
The nuclear fuel is being used increasingly worldwide. The
nuclear fuel cycle stars with the mining process, extraction,
purification and other steps. Though the reactors are designed
in such a manner that they cannot explode however no nuclear
plant is safe.
3. Insecticides and Pesticides:
Increase in global agricultural production has been achieved
due to the adoption of high-input farming systems. Pesticides
and chemicals are used to eliminate pests. The term pesticide is
a broad one. It includes mainly insecticides – chemicals used in
killing unwanted insects, herbicides – for killing wild herbs and
weeds.

Uses:
The main uses of insecticides / pesticides are :
1. To control the insect pest which would otherwise reduce
the yield of agricultural crops. About one third of the food
is destroyed by the pests. Hence increase in application of
pesticides has resulted in more food production.
2. To stop the spoilage of food crops during storage by
controlling insects and pests.
3. To protect forest produce. Gypsy moth defoliate hemlock
trees, tussock moth attacks fir trees. These pests are
eliminated by aerial sprays in the forest regions.
4. To kill disease carrying pests and insect vectors. Many
insects spread diseases. Sleeping sickness, bubonic plague,
malaria are spread through insect vector. The
 effectiveness of insecticides against a wide range of
vectors has eradicated many diseases.

Misuse:
The pesticides are misused by its excessive use causing severe
strain on the environment. Some of the important effects are :
1. Biomagnifications – Pesticides and insecticides tend to
concentrate in the fatty tissue of various organisms. Such
substances show poisoning effect even though they are
relatively non-toxic. DDT gets accumulated in the tissue
and has been proved to be hazardous to man and animals
and fish. Substances that get stored in the fatty tissues
undergo biomagnifications. Their concentration goes on
increasing in the food chain.
2. Broad Spectrum Effects – Most of these insecticides
possess a broad spectrum action. They kill a large variety
of insects. This means they not only destroy insect pests
but also eliminate the natural predators of insect pests
and hence interfere with the natural mode of pest control.
3. Resistance – excessive, unrestricted use of pesticides has
resulted in gaining resistance by the pests. Many pests
 have become resistant to lower concentration of the
pesticide.
4. Birds – There are reports that pesticides have caused
toxicity and reproductive problems in birds.
Organochlorines are the main cause of it. The birds of prey
show accumulation of pesticides. There are hormonal
changes in birds due to pesticides in the tissues. The eggs
are easily damaged and survival rate of offsprings decline.
5. Fish – The wide spread use of insecticides make it
inevitable that a part of these reach water bodies. These
travel from crop lands or forests to rivers and stream.
There they affect fish and flora fauna of the water body.
DDT has been shown to be highly toxic to fish. Even the
traces of DDT has caused death in trout and salmons.
6. Human health - Organochlorines and other pesticides
have shown to be toxic to human beings. When present in
human diet this elicit deleterious effect. Pesticides can
enter in child’s body by breast feeding. The workers are
also prone to health hazards when exposed pesticides.
Hence it is desirable to use pesticides only in such
concentrations that will not affect the environment. Other
options have to be studied such as use of bio pesticide.
Genetically Modified Foods:
The development of engineered plants, animals and foods
has sometimes been controversial fears that these novel
organisms might pose risk to the environment have led to
federal policy requiring that thorough analysis of ecological risk
be conducted. Before bioengineered plant or animal or the
product can be commercialized, scientist must ensure that
scientifically sound, experimental methods are developed to
assess the ecological risks.
Genetically engineered varieties of cotton, alfalfa, maize,
oilseed, rape, cauliflower have been produced. Potato with on
insect resistance and a virus resistant yellow crookneck squash
are some of the genetically engineered crops. A cotton resistant
to the herbicide bromoxynil, soybean resistant glyphosate are
sold in the market.
The primary public fear above the genetically modified
foods or plants was that genetically engineered plant might
produce unexpected results. Plants may produce secondary
metabolites which may be toxic to humans or livestock or may
alter quality of food. Some of these secondary metabolic are
present in normal plants but the GM plant may have a higher
concentration. Many people may be allergic to these
substances.
CONCLUSION:
As is the case with many of the achievements of
mankind, the results of the misuse of science and technology
has resulted in grave harm. The new technological invention of
the spear is used against a rival tribe resulting in death! And so
the story goes.

Science and Technology by themselves, so to speak, have

only been able to do harm with the approaching of the
industrial age. Now, through no wrong intention, people cause
harm through the use of science and technology because they
have no alternative. How can this be so ?
Bibliography:

We got the information from-

 www.electroschematics.com

 www.yahoo.com

 Google
 Foundation course-II (Dilip Kamat, Michael vaz)
 Computer Book(BMS)
 Newspaper
Suggestions:
 Mansi Dave-111
According to me there both uses and misuses of
science and technology. But through this I got to learn
that there are more misuses of it. And government is
making laws against it but it not implemented.
 Santosh Derber-112
We encourage people to eat natural food
because genetical modified food can cause side
effects which may lead to various human
disease. This may disturb the normal process of
a human life.
And
 Ankita Gabani-113
I think that though females are given equal
rights today, but still in remote areas of India
people have a thought that females are burden.
 Shivangi Pandey-149
This presentation made me to gain
knowledge about the various science and
technologies, its uses and misuses and the
various acts which are made by our government
 for our benefits. I was highly privileged to do
this presentation with great team spirit.
 Sagar Parekh-150
According to me we should use science and
technologies in right manner which will lead our
country to reach great height.

We are very thankful to prof. nutan to give us this

presentation.

Thank You.
INDEX:
1. Introduction
2. Sonography
 Act
 Case study
3. Cyber Crime
 Types
 Act
4.Nuclear power.
5. Insectiside and pesticide.
6.Genetically modified foods.