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Cyber Security of Smart Grids in India
An integral component of the ambitious flagship programme of the Indian Government- Digital India, which paves way for a digital data avalanche in the country, is a well-designed digital infrastructure ensuring high connectivity and integration of services, the potential areas being smart cities, smart homes, smart energy and smart grids, to list a few. Likewise, the 100 Smart Cities Mission envisions changing the face of urbanization in India, to manage the exponential growth of population in the cities by creating smart cities with ICT driven solutions, along with big data analytics. Smart grid technologies are key for both these schemes.
Call for Proposal: Big Data for Development – Initial Field Studies
The Centre for Internet and Society, as part of a project with the University of Manchester and University of Sheffield, is inviting calls from researchers to undertake a brief initial study of a specific instance of use of big data for development in India. This is an exercise to build preliminary understanding of the landscape of big data for development in India, identify key research questions and priorities, and start developing connections with researchers interested in the field. The studies will be 6 weeks long - running from May to June 2016 - and the researchers are expected to produce a 3,000 words long report. We will support three field studies.
MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from Tezpur University
This post provides a factual description about the operation of Ministry of Human Resource Development IPR Chair’s Intellectual Property Education, Research and Public Outreach (IPERPO) scheme in Tezpur University. The author has analysed all the data received under various heads such as income, grants from MHRD, planned and non planned expenditure, nature and frequency of programmes organised and the allocation of funds for the same.
Summary of CIS Comments to DIPP’s Discussion Paper on SEPs and their availability on FRAND terms
This blog post summarises CIS’ responses to DIPP’s Discussion Paper on SEPs and their availability on FRAND terms. The response made specific recommendations regarding adequacy of Indian law to determine SEP litigation, remedies for FRAND assured SEPs, FRAND royalty rates, SSO’s policies, parties’ non-disclosure agreements and transparency, and essentiality of SEPs and their declassification.
The Aadhaar Act is Not a Money Bill
While the authority of the Lok Sabha Speaker is final and binding, Jairam Ramesh’s writ petition may allow the Supreme Court to question an incorrect application of substantive principles. This article by Amber Sinha was published by The Wire on April 24, 2016.
Buying into the Aakash Dream - A Tablet’s Tale of Mass Education
The low-cost Aakash tablet and its previous iterations in India have gone through several phases of technological changes and ideological experiments. Did the government prioritise familiarity and literacy about personal technological devices over the promise of quality mass education generated by low-cost devices? This article by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey (India Institute, King's College London) was published by EPW in the Web Exclusive section. Here is the unabridged version of the article.
Can the Matters Dealt with in the Aadhaar Act be the Objects of a Money Bill?
In this infographic, we highlight the matters dealt with in the Aadhaar Act 2016, recently tabled in and passed by the Lok Sabha as a money bill, and consider if these can be objects of a money bill. The infographic is designed by Pooja Saxena, based on information compiled by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha.
Can the Aadhaar Act 2016 be Classified as a Money Bill?
In this infographic, we show if the Aadhaar Act 2016, recently tabled in and passed by the Lok Sabha as a money bill, can be classified as a money bill. The infographic is designed by Pooja Saxena, based on information compiled by Amber Sinha and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
Introducing Odia Wikipedia to students of Utkal University, Bhubaneswar
A four-hour-long workshop was organised at Utkal University, Bhubaneswar, Odisha on February 25, 2016 for the students of Master of Computer Applications (MCA) and Master in Arts, Department of Odia-language.
Responses to the DIPP's Discussion Paper on SEPs and their Availability on FRAND Terms
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), Government of India, requested comments through its "Discussion Paper on Standard Essential Patents and Their Availability on FRAND Terms" on March 1, 2016. This post is a compilation of various comments submitted in response to it.
RTI regarding Smart Cities Mission in India
Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) had filed an RTI on 3 February 2016 before the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) regarding the Smart Cities Mission in India. The RTI sought information regarding the role of various foreign governments, private industry, multilateral bodies that will provide technical and financial assistance for this project and information on Government agreements regarding PPP’s for financing the project.
The Last Chance for a Welfare State Doesn’t Rest in the Aadhaar System
Boosting welfare is the message, which is how Aadhaar is being presented in India. The Aadhaar system as a medium, however, is one that enables tracking, surveillance, and data monetisation. This piece by Sumandro Chattapadhyay was published in The Wire on April 19, 2016.
Celebrating the 13th anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia
The Kannada-language Wikipedia, arguably the largest online encyclopedia in Kannada language, celebrated its 13th anniversary on February 14, 2016 in Mangalore.
Online Censorship on the Rise: Why I Prefer to Save Things Offline
As governments use their power to erase what they do not approve of from the web, cloud storage will not be enough.
Edit-a-thon organised at Christ University Bangalore to celebrate Women’s Day
A day-long edit-a-thon was organised at Christ University Bangalore on March 12, 2016 to celebrate the Women’s Day and grow the women-related articles on Kannada Wikipedia.
Aadhaar Act and its Non-compliance with Data Protection Law in India
This post compares the provisions of the Aadhaar Act, 2016, with India's data protection regime as articulated in the Information Technology (Reasonable Security Practices and Procedures and Sensitive Personal Data or Information) Rules, 2011.
FAQ on the Aadhaar Project and the Bill
This FAQ attempts to address the key questions regarding the Aadhaar/UIDAI project and the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016 (henceforth, Bill). This is neither a comprehensive list of questions, nor does it contain fully developed answers. We will continue to add questions to this list, and edit/expand the answers, based on our ongoing research. We will be grateful to receive your comments, criticisms, evidences, edits, suggestions for new answers, and any other responses. These can either be shared as comments in the document hosted on Google Drive, or via tweets sent to the information policy team at @CIS_InfoPolicy.
Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals in India: Availability and Openness of Data (Part II)
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an internationally agreed upon set of developmental targets to be achieved by 2030. There are 17 SDGs with 169 targets, and each target is mapped to one or more indicators as a measure of evaluation. In this and the next blog post, Kiran AB is documenting the availability and openness of data sets in India that are relevant for monitoring the targets under the SDGs. This post offers the findings for the last 10 Goals. The first 7 has already been discussed in the earlier post.
Surveillance Project
The Aadhaar project’s technological design and architecture is an unmitigated disaster and no amount of legal fixes in the Act will make it any better.
A Large Byte of Your Life
With the digital, memory becomes equated with storage. We commit to storage to free ourselves from remembering.
