June 2017 Newsletter
Welcome to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for June 2017.
Dear readers,
Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.
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CIS in the news:
- Aadhaar: Ushering in a Commercialized Era of Surveillance in India (Jyoti Panday; Electronics Frontier Foundation; June 1, 2017).
- Privacy is culture specific, MNCs hit by Aadhaar, says TRAI chief (Pranav Mukul; Indian Express; June 1, 2017).
- Centre brings in new safeguards following cases of Aadhaar data leaks on government websites (Nidhi Sharma; Economic Times; June 2, 2017).
- New rules for govt agencies to ensure security of personal data (Komal Gupta; Livemint; June 2, 2017).
- Explore money apps but watch your data (Shaikh Zoaib Saleem; Livemint; June 8, 2017).
- New law to unlock data economy (Yuthika Bhargava; Hindu; June 9, 2017).
- Placements at NUJS: Class of 2017 Scores 100% (Simran Sahni; Livelaw; June 10, 2017).
- Why did Nandan Nilekani praise a Twitter troll? (Kiran Jonnalgadda; Indian Express; June 10, 2017).
- Are biometrics hack-proof? (Shaikh Zoaib Saleem; Livemint; June 11, 2017).
- GoldenEye ransomware attack hit operations at Pipavav Port, JNPT (Jyotika Sood and Utpal Bhaskar; Livemint; June 28, 2017).
CIS members wrote the following articles
- Digital Native: In digiville attention is Currency (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; June 11, 2017).
- Digital Native: On mute, the Voice of the People (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; June 24, 2017).
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Accessibility & Inclusion
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India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.
Submission
- GST - A Barrier to Human Rights for Persons with Disabilities (Nirmita Narasimhan; June 24, 2017).
Participation in Events
- WSIS Forum 2017 (Co-organized by ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP, in close collaboration with all UN agencies; Geneva; June 12 - 16, 2017). Nirmita Narasimhan was a speaker.
- Digital Accessibility (Organized by National Informatics Centre; Bengaluru; June 17, 2017). Rakesh Paladugula, a web accessibility trainer and Nirmita Narasimhan made a presentation to scientists about digital accessibility.
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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.
►Copyright
Participation in Event
- Fixing Copyright for Education (SCCR34 Side Event) (Communia, EIFL, Creative Commons, and PIJIP; June 7, 2017). Anubha Sinha was a speaker.
►Pervasive Technologies
Participation in Event
- Preliminary Findings: Working Requirements for Complex Products under the Indian Patent System (Organized by O.P. Jindal University; New Delhi; June 10 - 11, 2017). Prof. Jorge Contreras gave a talk on a forthcoming paper.
►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
- Train The Trainer 2017 (Manasa Rao; June 5, 2017).
- Thematic Edit-a-thon at J.P.Naik Centre for Education & Development, Pune (Subodh Kulkarni; June 7, 2017).
- Wiki Loves Mayabazaar (Pavan Santhosh; June 7, 2017).
- Marathi Wikipedia Symposium at Gokhale Institute Of Politics & Economics (Subodh Kulkarni; June 7, 2017).
- Digitisation, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource Orientation Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal, Pune District (Subodh Kulkarni; June 7, 2017).
Note: The workshops for the above blog posts were held earlier but the reports were published during the month of June.
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.
►Cybersecurity
Blog Entry
- Cybersecurity Compilation: Indian Context (Leilah Elmokadem and edited by Elonnai Hickok; June 18, 2017).
Participation in Events
- 2nd India Think Tank Forum (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; New Delhi; June 19 - 21, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari participated in the forum.
- Second India China Think-Tank Forum (Organized by Institute of Chinese Studies, the Indian Council of World Affairs, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; Beijing; June 22 - 27, 2017). Saikat Dutta represented an Indian think tank.
►Free Speech and Expression
Submission
- Comments from the Centre for Internet and Society on Renewal of .NET Registry Agreement (Vidushi Marda, Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash; June 6, 2017).
Participation in Events
- ISEA 2017 (Organized by the University of Caldas, Manizales; Columbia; June 11 - 16, 2017). Sharat Chandra Ram was a panelist.
- Freedom of Expression on the Internet : Possibilities and Challenges (Organized by Bolivar Technological University; Cartagena; June 29, 2017). Sharat Chandra Ram was a speaker.
►Privacy
Participation in Events
- BIS LITD 17 Privacy Panel meeting (Organized by National School of India University; Bangalore; June 21, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the meeting.
- DSCI Best Practices Meet (Organized by Data Security Council of India; Bangalore; June 22 - 23, 2017). Udbhav Tiwari attended the meeting.
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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
- Broadband Reforms for Local Manufacturing (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; May 31, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; June 5, 2017).
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Researchers at Work
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The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:
Event Organized
- CISxScholars Delhi - Harsh Gupta - FAT ML for Lawyers and Lawmakers (CIS; New Delhi; June 29, 2017). Harsh Gupta gave a talk.
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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
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- 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.
