August 2017 Newsletter
Dear readers,
Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.
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CIS in the news:
- Privacy laws: Alternatives to consent (Livemint; August 1, 2017).
- The rise of India’s typography community (Susanna Myrtle Lazarus; Hindu, August 4, 2017).
- UNESCO Internet Universality Indicators consulted at the 8th Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (UNESCO, August 9, 2017).
- Aadhaar may be made must for market investments: Good to curb laundering but what about data security? (Bindisha Sarang; August 10, 2017).
- Privacy is now a right in India. Here's what that means for the tech industry (Rishi Iyengar, CNN Tech, August 29, 2017).
CIS members wrote the following articles
- Aadhar: Privacy is not a unidimensional concept (Amber Sinha; Economic Times; July 23, 2017).
- A New Telecom Policy that Works (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; August 2, 2017).
- Should an Inability to Precisely Define Privacy Render It Untenable as a Right? (Amber Sinha; The Wire; August 2, 2017).
- Here’s why we need a lot more discussion on India’s new DNA Profiling Bill (Elonnai Hickok; August 21, 2017).
- Infographic: The Impending Right to Privacy Judgment (Amber Sinha and Pooja Saxena; The Wire; August 22, 2017).
- Digital native: You are not alone (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; August 27, 2017).
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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.
►Pervasive Technologies
- Dataset for "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products: An Empirical Assessment of India's Form 27 Practice and Compliance" (Rohini Lakshané; August 17, 2017).
►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).
Blog Entries
- Marathi Wikipedia Workshop in Sangli, Maharashtra (Subodh Kulkarni; August 1, 2017).
- Wikipedia Workshop on Template Creation and Modification Conducted in Bengaluru (Tito Dutta; August 10, 2017).
- Telugu Wikisource Workshop (Pavan Santhosh; August 15, 2017).
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Internet Governance
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As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.
►Privacy
Blog Entries
- High Level Comparison and Analysis of the Use and Regulation of DNA Based Technology Bill 2017 (Elonnai Hickok; August 4, 2017).
Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:
Newspaper Column
- A New Telecom Policy That Works (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; August 2, 2017).
About CIS
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.
► Follow us elsewhere
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
- Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
- Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
- Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
- E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: [email protected]
- E-Mail - Researchers at Work: [email protected]
- List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers
► Support Us
Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.
► Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at [email protected] (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at [email protected] (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at [email protected].
CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.
