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White Paper on RTI and Privacy V1.2
This white paper explores the relationship between privacy and transparency in the context of the right to information in India. Analysing pertinent case law and legislation - the paper highlights how the courts and the law in India address questions of transparency vs. privacy.
Central Guidelines and Schemes
The Department of Disability Affairs under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is responsible for the welfare of persons with disabilities in India. The office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities has been set up under the Ministry to safeguard the rights of persons with disabilities.
India's Statement at ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, 2014
India's Draft Resolution at the ITU Plenipot, which we have previously blogged about, was not passed following discussions at the Ad Hoc Working Group on Internet-related Resolutions. Subsequently, India made a statement at the Working Group of the Plenary, emphasizing the importance of the issues and welcoming further discussions. The statement was delivered by Mr. Ram Narain, DDG-IR, Department of Telecommunications and Head of India's Delegation at PP-14. The full text of the statement is provided below.
ನಿರಂಜನರ ಕೃತಿಗಳು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿವೆ
ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವದ ಸಂದರ್ಭದಲ್ಲಿ ನಿರಂಜನರ ಬಹುಪಾಲು ಕೃತಿಗಳು CC-BY-SA 4.0 ಪರವಾನಗಿಯೊಂದಿಗೆ ಮರುಪ್ರಕಟಗೊಳ್ಳಲಿವೆಯೆಂದು ಸಿಐಎಸ್-ಎ೨ಕೆಯ ಸಹಯೋಗದೊಂದಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಬಳಗವು ಹಂಚಿಕೊಳ್ಳಲು ಹರ್ಷಿಸುತ್ತದೆ.
Good Intentions, Recalcitrant Text – II: What India’s ITU Proposal May Mean for Internet Governance
The UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is hosting its Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-14) this year in South Korea. At PP-14, India introduced a new draft resolution on ITU's Role in Realising Secure Information Society. The Draft Resolution has grave implications for human rights and Internet governance. Geetha Hariharan explores.
DNA Database for Missing Persons and Unidentified Dead Bodies
This blog discusses the possible implications of the public interest litigation that has been placed before the Supreme Court petitioning for the establishment of a DNA database in respect to unidentified bodies.
Converting from nonUnicode (Nudi, Baraha, ...) font encoding to Unicode Kannada
People have been using computers for typing and printing Kannada text for more than 25 years. Most of the usage of Kannada on computers was limited to the DTP arena.
Tulu Wikipedia Workshop cum Editathon at Udupi
A three-day programme was held at Udupi from October 15 to 17, 2014 with an aim to increase the presence of Tulu in the online world. The first day comprised the inauguration programme and a workshop to understand the Wiki markup. The next two days were devoted to the edit-a-thon where participants added articles to Tulu Wikipedia.
Comments to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014
On behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society (“CIS”), the following are the comments and recommendations on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (“RPD Bill”). It was submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee in October 2014.
Samskrita Vaibhavam (Sanskrit Wiki Outreach Program)
To celebrate the revival of Sanskrit language, the Bangalore chapter of Samskrita Bharati organised a two-day mega event "Samskrita Vaibhavam" at VSR Kalyan Mantapa in Bangalore on August 9 and 10, 2014.
Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions: Mapping the Stakeholders' Response
The procedure and tests surrounding software patenting in India have remained ambiguous since the Parliament introduced the term “per se” through the Patent (Amendment) Act, 2002. In 2013, the Indian Patent Office released Draft Guidelines for the Examination of Computer Related Inventions, in an effort to clarify some of the ambiguity. Through this post, CIS intern, Shashank Singh, analyses the various responses by the stakeholders to these Guidelines and highlights the various issues put forth in the responses.
Good Intentions, Recalcitrant Text - I: Why India’s Proposal at the ITU is Troubling for Internet Freedoms
The UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is hosting its Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-14) this year in South Korea. At PP-14, India introduced a new draft resolution on ITU's Role in Realising Secure Information Society. The Draft Resolution has grave implications for human rights and Internet governance. Geetha Hariharan explores.
The Gujarat High Court Judgment on the Snoopgate Issue
Pranlal N. Soni v. State of Gujarat, C/SCA/14389/2014
In the year 2013 the media widely reported that a female civil services officer was regularly spied upon in 2009 due to her acquaintance with the then Chief Minister of Gujarat (and current Prime Minister of India) Mr. Narendra Modi. It was reported that the surveillance was being supervised by the current president of the BJP, Mr. Amit Shah at the behest of Mr. Modi. The case took another twist when the officer and her father said that they had no problems with such surveillance, and had repeatedly conveyed to various statutory authorities including the National Commission for Women, the State Commission for Women, as also before the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, that they never felt that their privacy was being interfered with by any of the actions of the State Authorities. Infact, para 3.5 of the petition indicated that it was at the behest of the father of the female officer that the State government had carried out the surveillance on his daughter as a security measure.
Inspite of the repeated claims of the subject of surveillance and her father, the Gujarat Government passed a Notification under the Commissions of Inquiry Act, 1952 appointing a two member Commission of Inquiry to enquire into this incident without jeopardizing the identity or interest of the female officer. This Notification was challenged in the Gujarat High Court by the very same female officer and her father on the ground that it violated their fundamental right to life and liberty. The petitioners claimed that they had to change their residential accommodation four times in the preceding few months due to the constant media glare. The print, electronic and social media, so called social workers and other busybodies constantly intruded into the private life of the petitioners and their family members. The petitioner's email accounts were hacked and scores of indecent calls were received from all over. Under the guise of protecting the petitioner's privacy, every action undertaken by the so called custodians for and on behalf of the petitioners resulted into a breach of privacy of the petitioners, making life impossible for them on a day to day basis.
After hearing the arguments of the petitioners, including arguments on technical points the Court struck down the Notification issued by the State government to enquire into the issue of the alleged illegal surveillance. However the Court also briefly touched upon the issue of violation of the privacy of the female officer in this whole episode. However, instead of enquiring into whether there was any breach of privacy in the facts of the case, the Court relied upon the statement made by the female officer that whatever surveillance was done did not cause any invasion into her privacy, rather it was the unwelcome media glare that followed the revelations regarding the surveillance which had caused an invasion of her privacy.
Thus we see that even though the whole snoopgate episode started out as one of “alleged” unwarranted and illegal surveillance this particular judgment is limited only to challenging the validity of the Inquiry Commission appointed by the State Government. In order to challenge the Notification in a PIL the female officer had to show that some fundamental right of hers was violated and in such circumstances privacy is the most obvious fundamental right which was violated.
Although this judgment talks about privacy, it does not have enough legal analysis of the right to privacy to have any significant ramifications for how privacy is interpreted in the Indian context. The only issue that could possibly be of some importance is that the we could interpret the Court’s reliance on the statement of the female officer that there was no breach of privacy rather than its own examination of facts to mean that in cases of breach of privacy, if the person whose privacy has been breached did not feel his or her privacy to have been invaded then the Courts would rely on the person’s statements rather than the facts. However this is only an interpretation from the facts and it does not seem that the Court has spent any significant amount of time to examine this issue, therefore it may not be prudent to consider this as establishing any legal principle.
Note: The details of the case as well as the judgment can be found at http://gujarathc-casestatus.nic.in/gujarathc/tabhome.jsp
Odia Wikisource Goes Live!
Odia netizens have more than one reason to celebrate this festive season.
Open access platform to save the Odia Indian language
In February 2014, the Government of India declared the South Asian language Odia as the 6th classical language of India which is one among 22 scheduled languages of India and has a literary heritage of more than 5,000 years. There are documents for more than 3,500 years, and the rest are undocumented oral histories.
Letter to the Prime Minister on Indo-US Bilateral Relations on Intellectual Property
This is a letter that many organizations sent to the Prime Minister. The Centre for Internet and Society was one of the signatories.
Odia Littérateur Ramakrushna Nanda's 4 Books Now Available Under a Creative Commons License
Children literature in Odia language went through an ennoblement after the intervention of Ramakrushna Nanda's writings.
Second Draft of Open Access Policy of the Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science released
The Department of Biotechnology and the Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India drafted an Open Access Policy (“Policy”) in consultation with several open access experts, government officials and CIS. The second draft of the Policy released last week and is open for comments till 17th November, 2014.
More Than 40 Million People Await the Launch of Odia Wikisource
Speakers of Odia will soon have mountains of books to read online in their mother tongue, following the launch of the Odia Wikisource, which will make accessible many rare books that have entered the public domain.
Rethinking Conditions of Access
P. P. Sneha explores the possibilities of redefining the idea of access through the channels of education and learning.
