All Blogs
Ten Telugu Books Re-released Under CC-BY-SA 3.0 License
For the first time in the history of Indian books, 10 Telugu books by a single author were released under Creative Commons license (CC-BY-SA 3.0) on June 22, 2014 at 10 a.m. at Golden Threshold, Abids, Hyderabad.
IANA Transition: Suggestions for Process Design
With analysis of community-input and ICANN processes, Smarika Kumar offers concrete suggestions for process design. She urges the Indian government to take a stronger position in matters of IANA transition.
CIS Policy Brief: IANA Transition Fundamentals & Suggestions for Process Design
In March 2014, the US government announced that it would transfer oversight of IANA functions to an as-yet-indeterminate global multi-stakeholder body. This policy brief, written by Smarika Kumar and Geetha Hariharan, explains the process concisely.
Understanding IANA Stewardship Transition
Smarika Kumar describes the process of the IANA stewardship transition, and enumerates what the NTIA announcement does and does not do.
Odia Language gets a new Unicode Font Converter
Recently, I worked on designing a font encoding converter with a fellow Wikimedian Manoj Sahukar. We worked by taking the code of a converter that was made three years back and made it work for two fonts AkrutiOriSarala99 and AkrutiOriSarala that are used by the media industry for printing and publishing.
WSIS+10 High Level Event: A Bird's Eye Report
The WSIS+10 High Level was organised by the ITU and collaborative UN entities on June 9-13, 2014. It aimed to evaluate the progress on implementation of WSIS Outcomes from Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005, and to envision a post-2015 Development Agenda. Geetha Hariharan attended the event on CIS' behalf.
Free Speech and Source Protection for Journalists
Gautam Bhatia explores journalistic source protection from the perspective of the right to freedom of speech & expression. In this post, he articulates clearly the centrality of source protection to press freedoms, and surveys the differing legal standards in the US, Europe and India.
UN Human Rights Council urged to protect human rights online
63 civil society groups urged the UN Human Rights Council to address global challenges to freedom of expression, privacy and other human rights on the Internet. Centre for Internet & Society joined in the statement, delivered on behalf of the 63 groups by Article 19.
Living in the Archival Moment
The archive has been and continues to be a key concept in Digital Humanities discourse, particularly in India. The importance of the archive to knowledge production in the Humanities, the implication of changes in archival practice with the advent of electronic publishing and digitisation, and the focus on curation as a critical and creative process are some aspects of the debate that this blog post looks at.
This Twitter Account Puts a Face to the Unsung Volunteer Editors Behind Wikipedia
The life of a Wikipedia editor is an interesting one. Globally, about 100,000 editors edit the collaborative online encyclopedia's 30 million articles in 287 languages, including over 4.5 million in the English Wikipedia.
Vodafone Report Explains Government Access to Customer Data
Vodafone Group PLC, the world’s second largest mobile carrier, released a report on Friday, June 6 2014 disclosing to what extent governments can request their customers’ data.
Multi-stakeholder Models of Internet Governance within States: Why, Who & How?
Internet governance, for long a global exercise, has found new awareness within national frameworks in recent times. Especially relevant for developing countries, effective national IG mechanisms are important to raise awareness and ensure multi-stakeholder participation at technical, infrastructural and public policy levels.
FOEX Live: June 8-15, 2014
A weekly selection of news on online freedom of expression and digital technology from across India (and some parts of the world). Please email relevant news/cases/incidents to geetha[at]cis-india.org.
A Review of the Functioning of the Cyber Appellate Tribunal and Adjudicatory Officers under the IT Act
Tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies are a regular feature of the Indian judicial system, as they provide for easier and less onerous methods for dispute resolution, especially disputes which relate to technical areas and often require technical knowledge and familiarity with specialised factual scenarios.
Content Removal on Facebook — A Case of Privatised Censorship?
Any activity on Facebook, be it creating an account, posting a picture or status update or creating a group or page, is bound by Facebook’s Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. These contain a list of content that is prohibited from being published on Facebook which ranges from hate speech to pornography to violation of privacy.
Twitter weekly Curation WeAreWikipedia brings one Wikipedian Every Week
WeAreWikipedia is an initiative to bring in voices of Wikipedia contributors (known as Wikipedians). One Wikipedian curates the Twitter based handle for a week and tells interesting stories from his/her communities that are unheard to the rest of the globe. Started as a personal project by our program officer Subhashish Panigrahi it has brought 18 Wikipedians across the globe including 6 Indic language communities.
Not a Goodbye; More a ‘Come Again’: Thoughts on being Research Director at a moment of transition
As I slowly make the news of my transition from being the Research Director at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, to taking up a professorship at the Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany, there is a question that I am often asked: “Are you going to start a new research centre?” And the answer, for the most part, is “No.”
Free Speech and Contempt of Courts – II: Article 19(1)(a) and Indian Law
Gautam Bhatia continues his examination of free speech implications of the law of contempt: the power that equips courts to "protect the dignity of the Bench".
Comments to ICANN Supporting the DNS Industry in Underserved Regions
Towards exploring ideas and strategies to help promote the domain name industry in regions that have typically been underserved, ICANN published a call for public comments on May 14, 2014. In particular, ICANN sought comments related to existing barriers to Registrar Accreditation and operation and suggestions on how these challenges might be mitigated. CIS contributed to the comments on this report, which will be used to determine next steps to support the domain name industry in underserved regions.
CIS Comments: Enhancing ICANN Accountability
On May 6, 2014, ICANN published a call for public comments on "Enhancing ICANN Accountability". This comes in the wake of the IANA stewardship transition spearheaded by ICANN and related concerns of ICANN's external and internal accountability mechanisms. Centre for Internet and Society contributed to the call for comments.
