Discuss the contours and significance of the Tele Law, Nyaya Mitra and Pro Bono Legal Services initiatives launched recently to ensure greater access to affordable legal aid to marginalized communities in India.

Tele Law
The significance of Tele law is to mainstream legal aid through common service centres. By this initiative an expert panel of lawyers would be stationed at the State Legal Services Authorities and provides legal advice through video conferencing at common service centres. This initiative is particularly helpful for the marginalized people at Panchayat levels and the populations which remained untouched due to geographical challenges and lack of infrastructure. The problem with this is initiative is there is no adequate number of common service centres particularly in geographical barrier areas.
Nyaya Mitra
Nyaya Mitra initiative deals with the issue of heavy pendency of cases in courts across the country. In this initiative a retired judicial or executive officer (with legal experience) designated as the ‘Nyaya Mitra. Nyaya Mitra’s responsibilities would include among others assistance to litigants who are suffering due to delay in investigations or trial, by actively identifying such cases through the National Judicial Data Grid. This initiative is significant benefits because at present, more than 2.4 crore cases are pending in the district and lower judiciary, of which nearly 10% are more than 10 years old. Though the initiative is good it is difficult to solve such number of cases and also it is not easy to provided Nyaya Mitra’s as per requirement
Pro Bono Legal Services
The ‘Pro bono legal services’ initiative is a web based platform, through which interested lawyers can register themselves to volunteer pro bono services for the underprivileged litigants, who are unable to afford it. As most of the lawyers are already dealing with their cases and it is difficult for them to work voluntarily for this service.