All Blogs
Policy Shaping in the Indian IT Industry: Recommendations by NASSCOM on Transfer Pricing, 2014-2016
This is the final part of a series of three blog posts, authored by Pavishka Mittal, tracking the engagements by NASSCOM and iSPIRT in suggesting and shaping the IT industry policies in India during 2006-2016. This post aims to explain the law of transfer pricing in India, and the suggestions made by NASSCOM regarding the same. Transfer pricing is regarded as one of the most controversial operations of multinationals resulting in tax avoidance and arbitrage.
Letter to MPs on Concerns on Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
The Centre for Internet and Society sent a letter to Members of Parliament on July 27, 2016 to appeal to re-examine the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
DIDP Request #17 - How ICANN Chooses their Contractual Compliance Auditors
At a congressional hearing on internet governance and progress, then President of ICANN Fadi Chehadi indicated that the number of people working on compliance audits grew substantially—from 6 to 24 (we misquoted it as 25)— in the span of a few years.
DIDP Request #16 - ICANN has no Documentation on Registrars’ “Abuse Contacts”
Registrars on contract with ICANN are required to maintain an “abuse contact” - a 24/7 dedicated phone line and e-mail address to receive reports of abuse regarding the registered names sponsored by the registrar.
DIDP Request #15: What is going on between Verisign and ICANN?
During a hearing of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce on “Internet Governance Progress After ICANN 53,” President and CEO of ICANN - Mr Fadi Chehade indicated that ICANN follows up with registries and registrars on receipt of any complaint against them about violations of their contract with ICANN.
DIDP Request #14: Keeping track of ICANN’s contracted parties: Registrars
In September 2016, we filed two separate DIDP requests regarding ICANN’s Contractual Compliance Goals.
DIDP Request #13: Keeping track of ICANN’s contracted parties: Registries
On multiple occasions, Fadi Chehade, then President and CEO of ICANN has emphasized the importance of conducting audits (internal and external) to ensure compliance of ICANN’s contracted parties. At a US congressional hearing, he spoke about the contract monitoring function of ICANN.
DIDP Request #9 - Exactly how involved is ICANN in the NETmundial Initiative?
The importance and relevance of knowing ICANN’s involvement in the NETmundial Initiative cannot be overstated.
DIDP Request #10 - ICANN does not know how much each RIR contributes to its Budget
In an effort to understand the relationship between the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) and ICANN, we requested current and historical information on the contract fees paid by the five RIRs (AfriNIC, ARIN, APNIC, LACNIC and RIPE NCC) to ICANN annually.
Submitted Comments on the 'Government Open Data Use License - India'
The public consultation process of the draft open data license to be used by Government of India has ended yesterday. Here we share the text of the submission by CIS. It was drafted by Anubha Sinha, Pranesh Prakash, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
One Pokémon to Rule Them All
America’s head start on the augmented reality game Pokémon Go shows that the interweb is not an egalitarian space.
The Gay Pride Charade
For most of the milllenials, news is formed by trends, what goes viral, and often open to speculation, projection, manipulation and deceit.
Digital Transition in Newspapers in India: A Pilot Study
This pilot study situates itself at the intersection of global trends in news and journalism, and emergent practises of legacy print media in India. Our aim is to explore how legacy print newspapers are transitioning to the online space. The study will address questions in two thematic clusters: 1) the work of journalism, and 2) how the emergence of the digital, both as a source of news, and the medium of distribution, is shaping the work of newspaper journalists.
Edit-a-thon at DSERT Bengaluru to improve Science-related articles in Kannada Wikipedia
We have been working with the Department of State Educational Research and Training of Karnataka (DSERT), a Government of Karnataka-run research and training institution headquartered in Bengaluru. With the hope of expanding the reach of Science-related content in Kannada Wikipedia, we organised an edit-a-thon spanning over three days from the 11th January through the 13th.
New Approaches to Information Privacy – Revisiting the Purpose Limitation Principle
Article on Aadhaar throwing light on privacy and data protection.
No, India did NOT oppose the United Nations move to “make internet access a human right”
Last Friday, the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) passed a resolution titled “The promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet.”
Trans Pacific Partnership and Digital 2 Dozen: Implications for Data Protection and Digital Privacy
In this essay, Shubhangi Heda explores the concerns related to data protection and digital privacy under the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement signed recently between United States of America and eleven countries located around the pacific ocean region, across South America, Australia, and Asia. TPP is a free trade agreement (FTA) that emphasises, among other things, the need for liberalising global digital economy. The essay also analyses the critical document titled ‘Digital 2 Dozen’ (D2D), which compiles the key action items within TPP addressing liberalisation of digital economy, and sets up the relevant goals for the member nations.
Online edit-a-thon on incidents in Telugu
A week-long online edit-a-thon was organised by the Telugu Wikipedia community to cover popular social, political and other events on the Telugu Wikipedia.
RBI and Regulation of Digital Financial Services in India, 2012-2016
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) published its first guideline on mobile banking in 2008, and the conversation on integrating Aadhaar numbers with bank account numbers on one hand and mobile numbers on the other started as soon as UIDAI was established. However, it is the post-2010 period, with rapid growth of the e-commerce sector in India, that saw rise of digital financial services and intermediaries, and hence the demand for regulatory intervention in the sector. This essay by Shivalik Chandan tracks RBI policies and guidelines responding to and shaping the regulatory framework of the digital financial sector in India, including both mobile banking and online transactions.
