All Blogs
Cambridge Analytica scandal: How India can save democracy from Facebook
Hegemonic incumbents like Google and Facebook need to be tackled with regulation; govt should use procurement power to fund open source alternatives.
Chromebook for the Project Tiger- How it is helping me to contribute actively on Wikimedia projects!
Project Tiger is a collaboration project of Wikimedia Foundation with Centre for Internet and Society, Wikimedia India and other affiliates of India to improve and create high-quality content in Indic languages like Odia, Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali, Punjabi etc.This project helps the active and experienced Wikipedia editors by supporting them with Internet charges for 6 months and Laptops to 50 volunteers to address existing Wikipedia content gaps.
NPAs & Bad Banks
Correcting misinformed impressions about NPAs, and the Swedish model for setting up a Bad Bank.
Digital Native: A new road to justice
Making the List takes courage and strength. It involves the formation of a new collective of care.
Digital native: Our lonely connected lives
Even as the UK last month announced the appointment of Minister of Loneliness, which sounds more like the title of the next Arundhati Roy novel, it is worth examining why we are so alone in the age of hyperconnectivity.
On World Water Day - Open Data for Water Resources
Lack of open data for researchers and activists is a key barrier against ensuring access to water and planning for sustainable management of water resources. In a collaboration between DataMeet and CIS, supported by Arghyam, we are exploring the early steps for making open data and tools to plan for water resources accessible to all. To celebrate the World Water Day 2018, we are sharing what we have been working on in the past few months - a paper on open data for water studies in India, and a web app to make open water data easily explorable and usable. Craig Dsouza led this collaboration, and authored this post.
Analysis of ICANN revenue shows ambiguity in their records
We, The Centre for Internet and Society, have been instrumental in having ICANN become transparent about their revenue with our persistent requests for their sources of revenue.
People Driven and Tech Enabled – How AI and ML are Changing the Future of Cyber Security in India
On the 27th of February, Peter Sparkes the Senior Director, Cyber Security Services, Symantec conducted a webinar on the ‘5 Essentials of Every Next-Gen SOC’. In this webinar, he evaluated the problems that Security Operations Centers (SOCs) are currently facing, and explored possible solutions to these problems. The webinar also put emphasis on AI and ML as tools to improve cyber security. This blog draws key insights from the webinar, and explains how AI and ML can improve the cyber security process of Indian enterprises.
Groundbreaking disability rights activist Javed Abidi dies at 53
The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) expresses profound regret at the demise of Mr. Javed Abidi, a groundbreaking disability rights activist.
Marathi Language Day events by CIS-A2K in February 2018
Marathi Language day is celebrated all over world on 27th February. Dnyanpeeth award winning writer V.V.Shirwadkar alias Kusumagraj was born on this date. Various events and activities were conducted in collaboration with community, institutions and government departments.
Mini Train the Trainer 2018
A mini train the trainer 2018 (Mini TTT 2018) program was organized by CIS-A2K at Jnana Prabodhini & Bhave High School, Sadashiv Peth, Pune on 24 and 25 February 2018. Total 19 active editors from Marathi community participated. Experienced editors from community were also involved in the program.
Digital Native: AI Manifesto
Our intention and government action will determine our relationship with AI.
A Series of Op-eds on Data Protection
I wrote a short series of three op-eds for Asia Times this week.
The Fundamental Right to Privacy - A Visual Guide
Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves, or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively. This visual guide to the story of privacy law in India and the recent judgement of the Puttaswamy v. Union of India case is developed by Amber Sinha (research and content) and Pooja Saxena (design and conceptualisation).
Unpacking Data Protection Law: A Visual Representation
This visual explainer unpacking data protection law was developed by Amber Sinha (research) and Pooja Saxena (design), and published as part of the Data Privacy Week celebrations on the Privacy International blog. Join the conversation on Twitter using #dataprivacyweek.
AI and Manufacturing and Services in India: Looking Forward
This Report provides an overview of the proceedings of the Roundtable on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Manufacturing and Services: Looking Forward (hereinafter referred to as ‘the Roundtable’), conducted at The Energy Resource Institute (TERI), in Bangalore on January 19, 2018.
Open Data and Land Ownership - Environment Scan
The State of Open Data is an ambitious research project reflecting on 10 years of action on open data and providing a critical review of the current state of the open data movement across a range of issues and thematic areas. This environment scan represents the first step in gathering information to support a review of the state of open data with regard to land ownership, and in refining the focus of a chapter. The lead author for this chapter is Sumandro Chattapadhyay.
Internet Researchers' Conference 2018 (IRC18): Offline, February 22-24, Sambhaavnaa Institute
We are proud to announce that the third edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference series will be held at the Sambhaavnaa Institute, Kandbari (Himachal Pradesh) during February 22-24, 2018. This annual conference series was initiated by the Researchers@Work (RAW) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. The *offline* is the theme of the 2018 edition of the conference (IRC18), and the conference agenda will be shaped by nine sessions selected by all the teams that submitted session proposals, and an independent paper track consisting of six presentations.
CIS Submission to the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India
This submission presents comments by the Centre for Internet and Society, India (“CIS”) on the ‘White Paper of the Committee of Experts on a Data Protection Framework for India’ (“White Paper”) released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The White paper was drafted by a Committee of Expert (“Committee”) constituted by the Ministry. CIS has conducted research on the issues of privacy, data protection and data security since 2010 and is thankful for the opportunity to put forth its views. The submission was made on January 31, 2018.
Matching Realities and Aspirations
Leaving aside fixing the 'mountains' such as land acquisition, NPAs etc, here are some thoughts on systemic focus and action.
