All Blogs
Telecom Path-Breaker?
Does the draft National Telecom Policy-2011 reflect true brilliance or smoke-and-mirrors? It will be a game-changer if a shared network is implemented effectively, writes Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on November 3, 2011.
The 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series — A Post-event Report
The Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), organised the 2nd IJLT-CIS Lecture Series on the 21st and 22nd of May 2011 at the National Law School of India University, Nagarbhavi, Bangalore. The main theme for this year was Emerging Issues in Privacy Law: Law, Policy and Practice.
Professor Balaram talks Open Access
Last week Tom Dane spoke with Professor P Balaram, Director of the Indian Institute of Science, about his thoughts on the Open Access movement. A podcast of the interview is available for download in the audio player within this post.
CIS Comments on Finance Committee Statements to Open Letters on Unique Identity
We from the Centre for Internet and Society had sent six open letters to the Parliamentary Finance Committee on the UID. The Committee responded through an email on 12 October 2011. Our response to the points raised is reproduced below.
Comments on the National Policy of Information Technology
The NPIT 2011 has the laudable goal of making India a ‘knowledge economy with a global role’ by developing and deploying ICT solutions in all sectors to foster development within India and at a global level. The policy identifies several praiseworthy goals such as the promotion of open standards and open technologies, accessibility for persons with disabilities, affordable ICT services, transparency, accountability, technology development for Indian languages, placing data in public domain for use and value addition, using social media to engage with citizens and investing in indigenous R&D and capacity building. We deeply appreciate this initiative of the Department of Information Technology and offer below brief comments to strengthen the draft.
TRAI urged to take action against P2P throttling and DNS hijacking
On 4 November 2010, Anand had sent a complaint letter to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) regarding unethical practices adopted by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), particularly Airtel. The letter was sent by post and through an e-mail. It was addressed to the Advisor, CN & IT, TRAI. Anand got no help from the ISP and the reply from TRAI (No. 340-1\2010-CA/VOLv) stated that he contact the nodal officer. We have reproduced below the complaint letter that Anand sent to TRAI.
Sources of CIS Funding
CIS's donors' names and the amount of the grants they've provided are being published in an effort to be absolutely transparent and to make it clear that our donors do not dictate the policy and research positions we espouse.
Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries: Formulating the Cyborg as a Translator
In this peer reviewed article, Nishant Shah explores the possibility of formulating the cyborg as an author or translator who is able to navigate between the different binaries of ‘meat–machine’, ‘digital–physical’, and ‘body–self’, using the abilities and the capabilities learnt in one system in an efficient and effective understanding of the other. The article was published in the European Journal of English Studies, Volume 12, Issue 2, 2008. [1]
e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities (Russian Version)
The e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities is based upon the online ITU-G3ict e-Accessibility Policy Toolkit for Persons with Disabilities (www.e-accessibilitytoolkit.org) which was released in February 2010. This is the Russian translation of the same.
Once Upon A Flash
It was a dark and stormy evening. A young man in a dark blue Adidas jacket, collar turned up, eyes under green-black shades, hopped off a motorbike, tucked his thumbs into the front pockets of his low-slung retro jeans and surreptitiously made his way through a road thronging with rush-hour traffic and irate pedestrians yelping on their cellphones. He skipped across death traps with skilled ease: leaping over potholes, jumping over halfdug trenches, avoiding the occasional pair of doggy jaws that longed to mate with his ankles, ignoring the bikers who were using the pavements as new lanes for driving towards a honking traffic jam bathed in an orange and red neon that made the road look like a piece of burnt toast with dollops of vicious jam on it.
Of Jesters, Clowns and Pranksters: YouTube and the Condition of Collaborative Authorship
The idea of a single author creating cinematic objects in a well-controlled scheme of support system and production/distribution infrastructure has been fundamentally challenged by the emergence of digital video sharing sites like YouTube, writes Nishant Shah in this peer reviewed essay published in the Journal of Moving Images, Number 8, December 2009.
On Fooling Around: Digital Natives and Politics in Asia
Youths are not only actively participating in the politics of its times but also changing the way in which we understand the political processes of mobilisation, participation and transformation, writes Nishant Shah. The paper was presented at the Digital Cultures in Asia, 2009, at the Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan.
CIS Comments on the Draft National Policy on Electronics
These were the comments submitted by CIS to the request for comments put out by the Department of Information Technology on its draft 'National Policy on Electronics'.
India's Statement Proposing UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy
This is the statement made by India at the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, in which its proposal for the UN Committee for Internet-Related Policy was presented.
Analysis of DIT's Response to Second RTI on Website Blocking
In this blog post, Pranesh Prakash briefly analyses the DIT's response to an RTI request on website blocking alongside the most recent edition of Google's Transparency Report, and what it tells us about the online censorship regime in India.
Text of DIT's Response to Second RTI on Website Blocking
CIS had filed a request under the Right to Information Act with the government, asking a number of questions relating to blocking of content under the IT Act. We have reproduced below the response we got from the government.
Open Access Week begins in Bangalore
On Monday 24 October, the National Aerospace Laboratories in Bangalore held an event to mark the beginning of Open Access Week 2011
Facing up to Moral Hazard
Systems upholding the law and standards help navigate the grey areas of moral hazard and adverse selection writes Shyam Ponappa in this article published in the Business Standard on October 6, 2011.
Barriers to Access in a Connected World
Accessibility is an imperative to achieve a truly inclusive and participatory society writes and every individual, corporation, organization and government has a crucial role to play in nurturing it, writes Nirmita Narasimhan in this article which was published by Hans Foundation in their Annual Review 2011.
Privacy & Sexual Minorities
Danish Sheikh examines the status of sexual minorities in the light of privacy framework in India. Culling out some real life examples based on various studies, media reports and judgments from the Supreme Court and the High Courts of Delhi and Allahabad, the research brings to light the privacy violations being committed by both individuals as well as state authorities. The research concludes by saying that privacy doesn’t necessarily encompass a one-size-fits-all approach, and can raise as many questions as it answers.
