We are anonymous, we are legion

John Doe order in Viacom 18 Motion Pictures v. Jyoti Cable Network and Ors.(movie Bloody Money)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T21:00:57Z

This is the case filed by Viacom 18 Motion Pictures, producer of movie 'Blood Money' against Jyoti Cable Network and other unknown cable operators restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

CS(OS) 785/2012

VIACOM 18 MOTION PICTURES

..... Plaintiff

Through Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Harshvardhan Jha, Adv. for the Plaintiff.

versus

JYOTI CABLE NETWORKS AND ORS ..... Defendants

Through

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. PATHAK

O R D E R

26.3.2012

I.A. No. 5598/2012 (under Section 151 CPC)

In view of the law laid down in Aktiebolaget Volvo and Ors. vs. R. Venkatachalam and Anr. 160 (2009) Delhi Law Times 100, plaintiff is permitted to place on record the photocopies of the documents, subject to producing original thereof at the time of admission/denial of the documents. Application is disposed of.

I.A. No. 5597/2012 (under Order 26 Rule 9 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Disposed of as not pressed.

CS(OS) No. 785/2012

Plaint be registered as Suit. Summons be issued to the defendants in ordinary manner, registered A.D. post and courier service, returnable for 12th July, 2012. Process fee etc. be filed within a week.

I.A. No.5596/2012 (under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Notice for the date fixed.

Plaintiff is engaged in the business of production and distribution of cinematograph films and other entertainment businesses. Plaintiff is the co-producer of cinematograph film ?BLOOD MONEY? along with Vishesh Films Pvt. Ltd. Plaintiff has copyright over the said film. In view of the past experience plaintiff apprehends that by using advanced technology, the movie ?BLOOD MONEY? would be copied and distributed in the market on DVDs/CDs as also exhibited on cable and internet by defendant nos. 1 to 5 and other unknown persons who have been impleaded as defendant nos. 6 to 30 in the assumed name Ashok Kumar. In case the film is shown on cable, internet and/or through any other medium by the persons, who are not being authorized by the plaintiff to do so, cine goers may not go to theaters to watch the film, resulting in huge financial losses to the plaintiff. Factum of copying and distributing the film by such unscrupulous persons on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs and through various other mediums has been noticed in the past in respect of new releases not only by the plaintiff but other producers as well. It is contended that with regard to such unknown persons "John Doe" practice has to be resorted to, which is otherwise well recognized not only in India but in various other countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Australia. I do find force in this contention.

In Taj Television vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. 2003 FSR 22 at page 407 principles of "John Doe" order has been recognized and followed forpassing appropriate
directions against such unknown and unscrupulous cable operators. A Single Judge of this Court in CS (OS) No. 821/2011 titled UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors., has noted that court has jurisdiction to pass an order in nature of a "John Doe" injunction order against unknown persons in the circumstances, as has been pleaded by the plaintiff in the present case. Past practice of unauthorized persons indulging in such illegal activities of copying the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs and distributing the same has also been taken note in the said order. One can also not lose sight of the fact that film piracy in respect of such new release is not uncommon and judicial note of this fact can be taken.

In the facts of this case as detailed above, in my view plaintiff has succeeded in making a, prima facie, case in its favour. Plaintiff has exclusive copyright over the film "BLOOD MONEY" which is yet to be released. In case, CDs/ DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs are made and the film is copied by using any other device and uploaded on internet by the defendant nos. 1 to 5 and other unidentified persons and distributed and shown on cable TV, DTH, internet, MMS, Tapes and CAS, plaintiff will indubitably suffer irreparable loss and injury. Balance of convenience also lies in favour of the plaintiff.

For the forgoing reasons, defendants, their partners, proprietors, directors, shareholder, officers, servants, agents, representatives, franchisees, nominees and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from communicating without license or displaying, releasing showing, uploading, downloading, exhibiting, playing, and/or defraying the movie ?BLOOD MONEY? in any manner without a proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the plaintiff's copyright in the said cinematograph film "BLOOD MONEY" through different mediums like CD, DVD, Blue-ray disc, VCD, Cable TV, DTH, Internet services, MMS, Pen drives, Hard drives, Tapes, CAS or in any other like manner.

Compliance of Order 39 Rule 3 be made within a week.

Copy of the order be given Dasti under the signatures of Court Master.

A.K. PATHAK, J.
MARCH 26, 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-viacom-18-v.-jyoti-cable-network-and-ors.-movie-blood-money

John Doe order in Reliance Big Entertainment v. Multivision Network and Ors. (movie Don 2)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T11:18:44Z

This is the case filed by Reliance Big Entertainment, producer of movie 'Don 2' against Multivision Network and other unknown network operators restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

CS(OS) 3207/2011

RELIANCE BIG ENTERTAINMENT PVT LTD ..... Plaintiff

Through Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Rishi Agrawal and Mr.M.Mehta, Advs. for the Plaintiff.
versus

MULTIVISION NETWORK AND ORS ..... Defendants

Through

CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. PATHAK

ORDER

19.12.2011

I.A. No. 20512/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)
Typed and clear copies of dim annexures be filed within 4 weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.

I.A. No. 20511/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)
Original copies be filed within 4 weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.
CS(OS) No. 3207/2011

Plaint be registered as Suit. Summons be issued to the defendants through ordinary manner, registered A.D. post and courier service, returnable for 19th April, 2012 before Joint Registrar. Process fee etc. be filed within a week.

I.A. No.20510/2011 (under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Notice for the date fixed.

Plaintiff is engaged in the business of production and distribution of cinematograph films and other entertainment businesses. Plaintiff is the producer of cinematograph film "DON2". Plaintiff has copyright over the said film. In view of the past experience plaintiff apprehends that by using advanced technology, the movie ?DON2? would be copied and distributed in the market on DVDs/CDs as also exhibited on cable and internet by defendant nos. 1 to 15 and other unknown persons who have been impleaded as defendant nos. 16 to 36 in the assumed name Ashok Kumar. In case the film is shown on cable, internet and/or through any other medium by the persons, who are not being authorized by the plaintiff to do so, cine goers may not go to theaters to watch the film, resulting in huge financial losses to the plaintiff. Factum of copying and distributing the film by such unscrupulous persons on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs and through various other mediums has been noticed in the past in respect of new releases not only by the plaintiff but other producers as well. It is contended that with regard to such unknown persons ?John Doe? practice has to be resorted to, which is otherwise well recognized not only in India but in various other countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Australia. I do find force in this contention. In Taj Television vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. 2003 FSR 22 at page 407 principles of ?John Doe? order has been recognized and followed for passing appropriate directions against such unknown and unscrupulous cable operators. A Single Judge of this Court in CS (OS) No. 821/2011 titled UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors., has noted that court has jurisdiction to pass an order in nature of a ?John Doe? injunction order against unknown persons in the circumstances, as has been pleaded by the plaintiff in the present case. Past practice of unauthorized persons indulging in such illegal activities of copying the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs and distributing the same has also been taken note in the said order. One can also not lose sight of the fact that film piracy in respect of such new release is not uncommon and judicial note of this fact can be taken.

In the facts of this case as detailed above, in my view plaintiff has succeeded in making a, prima facie, case in its favour. Plaintiff has exclusive copyright over the film "DON2" which is yet to be released. In case, CDs/ DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs are made and the film is copied by using any other device and uploaded on internet by the defendant Nos. 1 to 15 and other unidentified persons and distributed and shown on cable TV, DTH, internet, MMS, Tapes and CAS, plaintiff will indubitably suffer irreparable loss and injury.

For the forgoing reasons, defendants and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from copying, recording or allowing camcording or communicating or making available or distributing, or duplicating, or displaying, or releasing, or showing, or uploading, or downloading, or exhibiting, or playing, and/or defraying the movie "DON2" in any manner without a proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the plaintiff?s copyright in the said cinematograph film "DON2" through different mediums like CD, DVD, Blue- ray disc, VCD, Cable TV, DTH, Internet services, MMS, Pen drives, Hard drives, Tapes, CAS or in any other like manner.

Compliance of Order 39 Rule 3 be made within a week.

Copy of the order be given Dasti under the signatures of the Court Master.
A.K. PATHAK, J.
DECEMBER 19, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-reliance-entertainment-v.-multivision-network-and-ors.-movie-don-2

John Doe order in Reliance Big Entertainment v. Multivision Network and Ors. (movie Singham)

praskrishna — 2012-05-26T10:03:52Z

This is the case filed by Reliance Big Entertainment, producer of movie 'Boduguard' against Jyoti Cable Network and other unknown network operators restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

20.07.2011
Present: Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Nikhil Rohatgi and Mr. Akshay Ringe, Advs. for the Plaintiff.

I.A. No. 11242/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)

Exemption allowed, subject to filing of original documents, as mentioned in the application, by the plaintiff within 4 weeks.
Application is disposed of.
I.A. No. 11243/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)
Allowed, subject to all just exemptions.
Application stands disposed of.
CS(OS) No. 1724/2011

Plaint be registered as Suit. Summons be issued to the defendants through ordinary manner, registered A.D. post and courier service, returnable for 30th September, 2011.
I.A. No. 11241/2011 (under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Notice for the date fixed. Plaintiff is the producer of cinematograph film "Singham". Plaintiff apprehends that the said movie will be copied and DVDs/CDs thereof will be prepared, distributed in the market as also shown on TV by the cable operators, thereby causing huge financial losses to the plaintiff. In case the film is shown on cable and internet, by the persons who are not being authorized by the plaintiff to do so, cine goers may not go to theaters to see the film, resulting in huge financial losses to the plaintiff. It is contended that copying and distributing the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCD, etc., by such unscrupulous persons has been noticed in respect of new releases in recent past. Such films are shown by the cable operators. It is further contended that plaintiff is able to find out the names of defendant nos. 1 to 5 who had been indulging in such activities. Apart from them, many unknown persons may also indulge in similar activity. Since names and addresses of such cable operators/persons are not known, they have been collectively arrayed as defendant nos. 6 to 30 in the assumed name of "Mr. Ashok Kumar". It is contended that in this regard "John Doe", practice may have to be resorted which is well recognized not only in United States of America, Canada, England and Australia but also in India. Reliance has been placed on Taj Television vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. 2003 FSR 22 and order passed by a Single Judge of this Court in CS (OS) No. 821/2011 in UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors.

Perusal of the orders, reliance whereupon has been placed by the plaintiff, shows that such unknown unauthorized persons can be arrayed as defendant nos. 6 to 30 and "John Doe" order may be passed against such persons enabling plaintiff to serve order upon such persons when their identity is disclosed. Past practice of unauthorized persons indulging in such illegal activities of copying the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray disc and distributing the same has also been recognized in the judgment relied upon by the plaintiff.

In the facts of this case as detailed above, in my view plaintiff has succeeded in making a prima facie case in its favour. Plaintiff has exclusive copyright over the film "Singham" which is yet to be released. In case, CD, DVD, Blue-ray, VCD are made by unidentified persons and distributed and shown on cable TV, DTH, internet, MMS, Tapes and CAS, plaintiff will indubitably suffer irreparable loss and injury. For the forgoing reasons, defendants and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from communicating or making available or distributing, or duplicating, or displaying, or releasing, or showing, or uploading, or downloading, or exhibiting, or playing, and/or defraying the movie "Singham" in any manner without proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the plaintiff's copyright in the said cinematograph film "Singham" through different mediums like CD, DVD, Blue-ray, VCD, Cable TV, DTH, Internet, MMS, Tapes, Conditional Access System or in any other like manner.

Compliance of Order 39 Rule 3 be made within a week. Copy of the order be given Dasti under the signatures of the Court Master.

A.K. PATHAK, J.
July 20, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-reliance-entertainment-v-multivision-network-and-ors.-movie-singham

John Doe order in Reliance Big Entertainment v. Multivision Network and Ors. (movie Bodyguard)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T10:34:59Z

This is the case filed by Reliance Big Entertainment, producer of movie 'Boduguard' against Jyoti Cable Network and other unkown network operators restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

26.08.2011
Present: Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Rishi Agrawal and Ms. Shikha Sarin, Advs. for the Plaintiff.

I.A. No. 13476/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)

Typed and clear copies of dim annexures be filed within 4 weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.
I.A. No. 13475/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)
Original copies be filed within 4 weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.
CS(OS) No. 2066/2011

Plaint be registered as Suit. Summons be issued to the defendants through ordinary manner, registered A.D. post and courier service, returnable for 30th September, 2011. Process fee etc. be filed within a week.
I.A. No. 13474/2011 (under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Notice for the date fixed.
Plaintiff is engaged in the business of production and distribution of cinematograph films and other entertainment business. Plaintiff is the producer of cinematograph film "Bodyguard". Plaintiff has copyright over the said film. In view of the past experience plaintiff apprehends that by using advanced technology, the movie "Bodyguard" would be copied and distributed in the market on DVDs/CDs as also exhibited on cable and internet by defendant nos. 1 to 9 and other unknown persons who have been impleaded as defendant nos. 10 to 30 in the assumed name Ashok Kumar. In case the film is shown on cable, internet and/or through any other medium by the persons, who are not being authorized by the plaintiff to do so, cine goers may not go to theaters to watch the film, resulting in huge financial losses to the plaintiff. Factum of copying and distributing the film by such unscrupulous persons on CDs/DVD /Blue-ray discs/VCDs and through various other mediums has been noticed in the past in respect of new releases not only by the plaintiff but other producers as well. It is contended that with regard to such unknown persons "John Doe" practice has to be resorted to, which is otherwise well recognized not only in India but in various other countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Australia. I do find force in this contention. In Taj Television vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. 2003 FSR 22 at page 407 principles of "John Doe" order has been recognized and fo llowed for passing appropriate directions against such unknown and unscrupulous cable operators. A Single Judge of this Court in CS (OS) No. 821/2011 titled UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors., has noted that court has jurisdiction to pass an order in nature of a "John Doe" injunction order against unknown persons in the circumstances, as has been pleaded by the plaintiff in the present case.

Past practice of unauthorized persons indulging in such illegal activities of copying the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs and distributing the same has also been taken note in the said order. One can also not lose sight of the fact that film piracy in respect of such new release is not uncommon and judicial note of this fact can be taken. In the facts of this case as detailed above, in my view plaintiff has succeeded in making a, prima facie, case in its favour. Plaintiff has exclusive copyright over the film "Bodyguard" which is yet to be released. In case, CDs/ DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs are made and the film is copied by using any other device and uploaded on internet by the defendant Nos. 1 to 9 and other unidentified persons and distributed and shown on cable TV, DTH, internet, MMS, Tapes and CAS, plaintiff will indubitably suffer irreparable loss and injury.

For the forgoing reasons, defendants and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from communicating or making available or distributing, or duplicating, or displaying, or releasing, or showing, or uploading, or downloading, or exhibiting, or playing, and/or defraying the movie "Bodyguard" in any manner without a proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the plaintiff?s copyright in the said cinematograph film "Bodyguard" through different mediums like CD, DVD, Blue-ray disc, VCD, Cable TV, DTH, Internet services, MMS, Tapes, Conditional Access System or in any other like manner. Plaintiff is permitted to publish the "John
Doe" injunction order passed today in the local newspapers.

Compliance of Order 39 Rule 3 be made within a week.

Copy of the order be given Dasti under the signatures of the Court Master.

A.K. PATHAK, J.
August 26, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-reliance-entertainment-v.-multivision-network-and-ors.-movie-bodyguard

John Doe order in Creative Commercials Media & Entertainment Limited v.BSNL (movie Dhammu)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T08:30:11Z

This is the case filed by Creative Commercials Media & Entertainment Ltd, producers of movie 'dhammu' against BSNL and other ISP's restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS

(Ordinary Original Civil Jurisdiction)

C.S. No. 294of 2012

M/s. Creative Commercials Media & Entertainment Ltd. Plaintiff

-Vs-

Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited and 44 others Defendants

Ashok Kumar,

Unknown Person,

India.

Defendant Nos. 39 to 44

The plaintiff above named have instituted the above suit for permanent injunction restraining various unknown persons from infringing their copyright in the cinematograph film / motion picture "DHAMMU" by copying, recording, reproducing or allowing camcording or communicating or allowing others to communicate or make available or distributing or duplicating or displaying or releasing or showing or uploading or downloading or exhibiting or playing and / or in any manner communicating plaintiff's movie "DHAMMU" in any manner without a proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate / infringe the plaintiff's copyright in the said cinematograph film "DHAMMU" through different mediums including CD, DVD, Blu-ray disc, VCD, cable TV, Direct to home services, internet services, multimedia messaging services, pen drives, hard drives, tapes, Conditional Access Systems or in any other like manner whatsoever and for such other consequential reliefs.

The application being O.A. No. 358 of 2012 for interim injunction in respect of infringement of copyright came up for hearing on 25th April 2012 before Hon'ble Mr. Justice R.Subbiah and the Hon'ble Judge was pleased to grant interim injunction as prayed for and ordered notice to you returnable by 7th June 2012.

Please take notice that the obove matter will bo listed for further hearing on 7th June 2012 or soon thereafter and make it convenient to appear before the court either personally or through counsel as and when the matter is listed for hearing, failing which the matter will be heard and decided in your absence.

M/s. A.A. MOHAN, BRINDA MOHAN, N. KARTHIKEYAN, S. DIWAKAR & ARUN C. MOHAN

Counsel for Plaintiff

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-creative-commercials-v.-bsnl-movie-dhammu

John Doe order in Viacom 18 Motion Pictures v. Jyoti Cable Network and Ors. (movie Loot)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T09:48:34Z

This is the case filed by Viacom 18, producer of movie 'Loot' against Jyoti Cable Network and other unkwon cable operators restraining them from infringing their copyrights and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

CS(OS) 2652/2011

VIACOM 18 MOTION PICTURES ..... Plaintiff

Through: Mr. Rajiv Nayar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Kunal Tandon, Adv.

versus

JYOTI CABLE NETWORK and ORS ..... Defendants

Through :

CORAM:

HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE A.K. PATHAK

O R D E R

24.10.2011

I.A. No. 17044/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)

Typed and clear copies of dim annexures be filed within four weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.
I.A. No. 17043/2011 (under Section 151 CPC)
Certified/original copies of documents be filed within four weeks.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.
I.A. No. 17045/2011 (under Section 148 r/w Sec. 151 CPC)
Deficient court fee be made good within one week.
Application is disposed of with the above direction.

I.A. No. 17042/2011 (under Order 26 Rule 9 r/w Section 151 CPC {appointment of Local Commissioner)

Disposed of as not pressed.

CS(OS) No. 2652/2011

Plaint be registered as Suit. Summons be issued to the defendants through ordinary process, registered A.D. post and courier service, returnable for 20th January, 2012 before the Joint Registrar. Process fee etc. be filed within one week.

I.A. No. 17041/2011 (under Order 39 Rules 1 and 2 r/w Section 151 CPC)

Notice for the date fixed.

Plaintiff is engaged in the business of production and distribution of cinematograph films and other entertainment business. Plaintiff is the producer of cinematograph film "Loot". Plaintiff has copyright over the said film. In view of the past experience plaintiff apprehends that by using advanced technology, the movie ?Loot? would be copied and distributed in the market on DVDs/CDs as also exhibited on cable and internet by defendant nos. 1 to 5 and other unknown persons who have been impleaded as defendant nos. 6 to 30 in the assumed name Ashok Kumar. In case the film is shown on cable, internet and/or through any other medium by the persons, who are not being authorized by the plaintiff to do so, cine goers may not go to theaters to watch the film, resulting in huge financial losses to the plaintiff. Factum of copying and distributing the film by such unscrupulous persons on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs and through various other mediums has been noticed in the past in respect of new releases not only by the plaintiff but other producers as well. It is contended that with regard to such unknown persons ?John Doe? practice has to be resorted to, which is otherwise well recognized not only in India but in various other countries such as United States of America, Canada, England and Australia. I do find force in this contention. In Taj Television vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. 2003 FSR 22 at page 407 principles of "John Doe" order has been recognized and followed for passing appropriate directions against such unknown and unscrupulous cable operators. A Single Judge of this Court in CS (OS) No. 821/2011 titled UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors., has noted that court has jurisdiction to pass an order in nature of a "John Doe" injunction order against unknown persons in the circumstances, as has been pleaded by the plaintiff in the present case. Past practice of unauthorized persons indulging in such illegal activities of copying the film on CDs/DVDs/Blue-ray discs and distributing the same has also been taken note in the said order. One can also not lose sight of the fact that film piracy in respect of such new release is not uncommon and judicial note of this fact can be taken.

In the facts of this case as detailed above, in my view plaintiff has succeeded in making a, prima facie, case in its favour. Plaintiff has exclusive copyright over the film "Loot" which is yet to be released. In case, CDs/ DVDs/Blue-ray discs/VCDs are made and the film is copied by using any other device and uploaded on internet by the defendant Nos. 1 to 5 and other unidentified persons and distributed and shown on cable TV, DTH, internet, MMS, Tapes and CAS, plaintiff will indubitably suffer irreparable loss and injury.

For the forgoing reasons, defendants and other unnamed and undisclosed persons, are restrained from communicating or making available or distributing, or duplicating, or displaying, or releasing, or showing, or uploading, or downloading, or exhibiting, or playing, and/or defraying the movie "Loot" in any manner without a proper license from the plaintiff or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the plaintiff's copyright in the said cinematograph film "Loot" through different mediums like CD, DVD, Blue-ray disc, VCD, Cable TV, DTH, Internet services, MMS, Tapes, Conditional Access System or in any other like manner. Plaintiff is permitted to publish the "John Doe" injunction order passed today in the local newspapers.

Compliance under Order 39 Rule 3 CPC be made within one week.

Copy of the order be given Dasti under the signatures of the Court Master.

A.K. PATHAK, J
OCTOBER 24, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-viacom-18-v.-jyoti-cable-network-and-ors.-movie-loot

John Doe order in UTV Software Communications Limited vs. Home Cable Network Ltd. and Ors. (movie 7 Khoon Maaf)

praskrishna — 2012-05-26T20:09:27Z

This is the case filed by UTV Software Communication against Home cable Network and other uknown network operators. restraining them from infringing the copyrights under Section 14(1) and Section 16 of the Copyright Act, 1957 for its movie '7 Khoon maaf' and 'Thank You' and the Court granted an interim injunction called 'john doe' order under Order 39 Rule 1 and Rule 3 of CPC, 1908.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI

CS(OS) No. 821/2011

UTV SOFTWARE COMMUNICATIONS LIMITED ..... Plaintiff
Through Mr. Vikas Singh, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Ravi
Prakash, Mr. Varun Pathak, Adv. ,
Ms. Avni Singh, Adv.

versus

HOME CABLE NETWORK LTD and ORS ..... Defendants
Through

CORAM:
HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE GITA MITTAL

O R D E R
04.04.2011

IA No.5384/2011

Exemption allowed subject to just exceptions.
CS(OS) No.821/2011
Subject to the plaintiff taking steps within one week, issue summons in the suit to the defendants by ordinary process, registered cover and through approved courier, returnable on 14th July, 2011 before the Joint Registrar.
The summons to the defendants shall indicate that a written statement to the plaint shall be positively filed within four weeks of the receipt of the summons. Liberty is given to the plaintiff to file replicationand rejoinder within two weeks of the receipt of the advance copy of the written statement and reply.
In case the written statement is not filed within the time stipulated above, the same shall be taken on record only subject to imposition of heavy costs.
The parties shall file all original documents in support of their respective claims alongwith their respective pleadings. In case parties are placing reliance on a document which is not in their power and possession, its details and source shall be mentioned in the list of reliance which shall be also filed within the pleadings.
Admission/denial of documents shall be filed on affidavit by the parties within two weeks of the completion of the pleadings. The affidavit shall include the list of the documents of the other party. The deponent shall indicate its position with regard to the documents against the particulars of each document.
Learned counsel for the plaintiff submits that without prejudice to its rights, contentions and claims in the suit, his client would be willing to explore the possibility of settlement by recourse to mediation.
The summons shall indicate that it is open to the parties to access the facility of negotiating a settlement with the other side before the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre in the court complex. In case the defendants are so desirous of pursuing negotiations, it shall be open to them to do so. Such participation in the mediation shall be without prejudice to their rights and contentions in the suit.
In such eventuality, the defendant shall inform the plaintiff as well as his counsel of the same by a written notice. Such written notices shall be treated as consent of the parties to the mediation process.
The plaintiff and/or defendants may then approach the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre for facilitating mediation in the matter. Any or both of the parties shall place the copy of this order as well as the written notice before the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre which shall proceed in accordance with the rules of the Centre.
During the course of mediation, it shall be open to the mediator to join any other person(s) considered necessary for effective mediation and dispute resolution.
The Registry shall enclose the information brochure published by Samadhan the Delhi High Court Mediation and Conciliation Centre with the summons.
The parties shall appear before the Joint Registrar for marking of exhibits on 14th July, 2011.
The matter shall be fixed before the court for reporting outcome of the mediation/framing of issues on 15th September, 2011.
The schedule fixed by this order shall not be interdicted by the pendency of the matter in mediation. IA No. 5383/2011 (Under Order 39 Rule 1 and 2 CPC).
Issue notice, returnable on 15th September, 2011.
The plaintiff is the producer/co-producer/distributor of several movies detailed in the plaint including the film "7 Khoon Maaf" which has been recently released. It is asserted that the latest film produced by the plaintiff titled "Thank you" is to be released on 8th April, 2011.
The suit has been necessitated for the reason that the plaintiff has experienced large scale violation of its copyright in earlier films produced by it by several known and unknown cable operators who telecast pirated version of the films of the plaintiff on cable networks, violating rights of the plaintiff and causing irreparable loss and damage. A single telecast by the defendants and other operators would simultaneously reach several hundred thousand homes. As a result, the loss which results to the plaintiff is irreparable and cannot be computed in terms of money.
The plaintiff also complains that additionally the quality of the film which is telecast by these cable operators is inferior and impacts its reputation. Loss to the exchequer by way of collection of entertainment tax, etc. has been also pointed out.
Based on its past experience, it is urged by Mr. Vikas Singh, learned senior counsel for the plaintiff that an investigation was undertaken into the business being run by the defendant no.1 and extensive positive information with regard to the violation of the plaintiff?s copyright in the plaintiff's film "7 Khoon Maaf", has been received. The investigation report obtained by the plaintiff has been placed on record.
It has also been urged at great length that apart from the cable operators who have been arrayed as defendants, there are several other cable operators in the field who operate in an identical manner to cause violation of the plaintiff?s copyright. The plaintiff is not able to establish the full particulars of these persons which have consequently not been placed in the plaint. Such persons have been collectively arrayed as defendant nos.19 to 50 named as ?Mr. Ashok Kumar?. The plaintiff urges that these defendants are unknown identities who would also telecast the unauthorizedly and illegally telecast pirated version of the plaintiff's films by their network without any licence.
The plaintiff invokes the inherent power of this court under Section 151 of the CPC to evolve a fair and reasonable procedure to address the peculiar facts and circumstances over the pleaded violations by the defendants including defendant nos.19 to 50. In this regard, reliance is placed on the internationally adopted "John Doe" practice obtaining in USA, Canada, UK, Australia and other jurisdictions as well as this country's obligation under the TRIPPS agreement to effectively enforce IPR rights of parties including those as in the present one. It is urged that a similar order deserves to be passed in the present case.
In support of this submission, my attention has been drawn to a judgment dated 14th June, 2002 passed in CS(OS) No. 1072/2002 Taj Television Ltd. and Ors. vs. Rajan Mandal and Ors. reported at 2003 FSR 22 on similar facts, this court had noticed the following submissions of counsel for the plaintiff seeking a John Doe order:- 11. Mr. Anand submitted that conduct of various unscrupulous cable channel companies/distributors such as the defendants is well known. The aspect of channel is being illegally aired on the local cable networks has almost taken on a regular feature. He prayed that in the facts and circumstances apart from giving necessary directions be also given for defendant Nos. 7 to 20, in other words, the court may pass "John Doe" orders.

Mr. Anand placed reliance on Trade Marks Law of Canada in which it is mentioned that John Doe? orders enabling the order to be served upon persons whose identity is unknown to the plaintiff at the time the action was commenced, but whose activity falls within the scope of the action. This form of naming a party is considered a mere "misnomer", and as long as the "litigating finger" is pointed at such person then the misnomer is not fatal. This proposition has been taken from Jackson v/s Bubels (1972) 28 DLT. (3d) 500 (B.C.C.A.) and Dukoff vs.Teronto General Hospital (1986),54,O.R.(2d) 50(H.C.).

Mr. Anand submitted that ?John Doe? orders are passed by American, English, Canadian and Australian Courts frequently. He further submitted that this court also possesses enormous inherent powers to formulate the orders which are necessary to meet the peculiar facts and peculiar situations., In the first U.S. Federal "John Doe" order, Shaw vs Various John Does, No 80 Civ,722 (S.D.N.Y.Fe,6,1980) the court held that a court of equity was always free to fashion a decree in keeping with the needs of the litigants. Similarly, in Billy Joel vs. Various John Does, 1980 U.S. Dist LEXIS 12841 the Court held:

Were the Injunction to be denied, Plaintiffs would be without any legal means to prevent what is clearly a blatant infringement of their valid property rights. While the proposed remedy is novel, that in itself should not weigh against its adoption by this court. A court of equity is free to fashion whatever remedies will adequately protect the rights for the parties before it.

Mr. Anand placed reliance on the judgment of the Supreme Court in Manohar Lal Chopra vs. Rai Bahadur Rao Raja Seth Hiralal, AIR 1962 SC 527. The Court held that the inherent powers of the Court are in addition to the powers specifically conferred on the Court by the Code. They are complementary to those powers and therefore, it must be held that the court is free to exercise them for the purposes mentioned in Section 151 of the Code when the exercise of those powers is not in any way in conflict with what has been expressly provided in the Code or against the intentions of the legislature. Mr. Anand placed reliance on EMI Records Ltd . v. Kudhail and others (1985) FSR 36, (1983) Com LR 280.

Mr. Anand , Learned counsel for the plaintiffs, has made references to a large number of Canadian, Australian, English and American cases but I would not like to burden this order with all the judgments on which reliance has been placed at this stage. Since ?John Doe? orders are passed in the court of Canada, America, England, Australia and in some other countries. The judicial systems of all these countries have basic similarity with our judicial system. Therefore, looking to the extra ordinary facts and circumstances of the case, in the interest of justice the courts in India would also be justified in passing "John Doe" orders. It is noteworthy that after such finding keeping in view the peculiar facts of the CS(OS) No. 1072/2002, a John Doe order was not passed.
My attention has also been drawn to an order dated 24th November, 2006 in CS(OS) No. 2189/2006 wherein the court has granted an injunction order in terms of the above observations. This court as such has the jurisdiction to pass an order in the nature of a John Doe order injunction unknown persons in circumstances as have been pleaded by the plaintiff in the present case. Mr. Vikas Singh, learned senior counsel for the plaintiff has placed reliance on the following observations of the court in Tej Television (Supra) in the context of cable operators:-
I have carefully considered the relevant documents, averments of the application and judgments of various courts. Undoubtedly, the cable operators in India have a long history of violating copyrights. A very large number of court orders are testimony to this. The cable operators are encouraged owning to the unique nature of cable piracy and the unstructured nature of the cable industry, the speed with which any trace of infringement can be erased by the cable operators, enforcement of rights in conservative nature is unlikely to effectively redress the plaintiffs' grievance.
The plaintiff has approached this court seeking protection of its valuable rights against such unwarranted, unauthorized and illegal actions of the defendants nos. 1 to 18 as well as the Mr. Ashok Kumars arrayed as defendant nos. 19 to 50 which have violated and diluted the exclusive copyright vested with the plaintiff in respect of the films "7 Khoon Maaf". The plaintiff has expressed apprehensions that the defendants would violate the plaintiff's rights in its film "Thank You".
The plaintiff has asserted violation of its rights and violations of the Copyright Act, 1957, the Cable Network (Regulation) Act, 1995 before this court. The material placed before this court would show that the plaintiff has copyright in the films produced by it and only authorized licensees can telecast the films.
The plaintiff has specifically averred that the defendants in the suit have not signed any agreement with regard to the film. As such telecast of these films is violative of section 14(1)(d) and 16 of the Copyright Act.
It is urged that unauthorized cable transmission of the plaintiff's films shall result in irreparable loss and damage to the plaintiff. It would also encourage other cable operators who have currently procured licenses/entered into agreements with the plaintiff and possess valid license/agreements, to also telecast the films without making necessary payments. In support of the grievance that the damage would be irreparable, it is pointed out that the cable industry has an unstructured composition and it would be impossible to assess the damages which may result on account of unauthorized telecast/broadcast/distribution.
The modus operandi adopted by unauthorized cable operators is to prepare poor copies of the films when they are being screened in the picture hall and telecast the same on their network to cable homes attached to them. It would appear that public interest would also suffer on account of poor programme quality. There is prima facie substance in the plaintiff's contention that the same would impact the plaintiffs reputation as well.
In view of the foregoing, it would prima facie appear that unlicensed broadcast of the reproduction rights vested in the plaintiff by telecasting the plaintiff's films "7 Khoon Maaf" and the forthcoming film "Thank You" in the foregoing manner is illegal, unfair and deserves to be prohibited. Consequently, unless injunction as prayed for is granted by this court, the business of the plaintiff herein would be irreparably impacted. Balance of convenience and interest of justice are in favour of the plaintiff and against the defendants.
It is accordingly directed as follows :-
(i) that the defendants/their agents, representatives, franchisees, sub-operators, head ends and/or anyone claiming under them are hereby restrained from telecasting or in any other manner communicating to the viewing pubic/subscribers either by means of wireless diffusion or by wire a pirated version of the films "7 Khoon Maaf" and "Thank You" and/or in any other manner infringing the copyright of the plaintiff therein.
(ii) It is further directed that till the present order is vacated or modified, the direction shall operate against the defendants, their agents,representatives, franchises, sub-operators or any person claiming under them an injunction.
(iii) Further injunction in terms of serial no. (i) above is passed against un-named and undisclosed persons who may be likewise committing breach of the rights of the plaintiff in a similar manner.
(iv) The SHO/Superintendent of the concerned police station(s) are directed to render assistance to the plaintiff should any be required for purposes of enforcement of the present order as it is the obligation of the police authorities and the State to enforce judicial orders passed.
(v) The plaintiff is permitted to publish the John Doe injunction order issued today in local newspapers in all states where it has expressed apprehensions of violation of its rights. Consequences in accordance with law would thereafter follow.
(vi) The plaintiff shall comply with the provisions of the proviso to rule 3 of order 39 of the CPC within a period of ten days from today.

Copy of this order be given dasti as well as dasti under the signatures of the court master of this court.

GITA MITTAL, J
APRIL 04, 2011

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-utv-communications-v.-home-cable-network-and-ors.-movie-7-khoon-maaf

John Doe order in R.K. Productions Pvt. Ltd. V.BSNL,MTNL, Bharti and Ors. (movie 3)

Jai Anand — 2012-05-26T13:43:20Z

This is the 'John Doe' order obtained by R.K. Productions Pvt. Ltd. , the producers of movie '3' against 14 ISPs and other unknown entitties restraining them from infringing their copyrights of the movie.

In the High Court of Judicature at Madras
(Ordinary Original Jurisdiction)
Thursday, The 29th Day of March 2012
The Hon’ble Ms Justice K.B.K. Vasuki
O.A. No. 230 of 2012
in
C.S No. 208 of 2012

M/s R K Productions Private Limited,
16/5, Rajamannar Street,
T. Nagar, Chennai – 600017                                                  …….. Applicant/Plaintiff

Versus

1.    Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited
Bharat Sanchar Bhawan
Harish Chandra Mathur Lane,
Janpath, New Delhi – 110 001
2.    Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited,
Jeevan Bharti Tower-I
124, Connaught Circus,
New Delhi – 110 001
3.    Bharati Airtel Limited,
Bharti Crescent,
1, Nelson Mandela Road,
Vasant Kunj, Phase II,
New Delhi – 110 070
4.    Aircel Cellular Limited
5th Floor, Spencer Plaza,
769, Anna Salai, Chennai – 600 002
5.    Hathway Cable and Datacom Limited,
4th Floor, “Rahejas”
Main Avenue, Sanatacruz(W),
Mumbai – 400 054
6.    Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited
MTS Tower, 3, Amrapali Circle,
Vaishalinagar, Jaipur – 302 021
7.    Vodafone India Limited
Peninsula Corporate Park
Ganpatrao Kadam Marg,
Lower Parel, Mumbai – 400 013
8.    Idea Cellular Limited
Suman Tower, Plot No. 18,
Sector – II, Gandhinagar,
Gujrat – 382 011

9.    Reliance Communications Limited
Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City,
Navi Mumbai – 400 709
10.    Tata Teleservices Limited
Jeevan Bharati Tower I,
10th Floor, 124, Connuaght Circus,
New Delhi – 110 001
11.    Tata Teleservices Limited
2A, Old Ishwar Nagar,
Main Mathura Road,
New Delhi – 110 065
12.    O-Zone Networks Private Limited
Ground Floor, C-45,
Green Park, New Delhi – 110 016
13.    Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited,
3A, 3rd Floor, ‘Corpora’, L.B.S. Marg,
Bhandup(West), Mumbai – 400 078
14.    BG Broadband, India Private Limited
Plot No. 54, Marol Industrial Cooperative Area,
Off Andheri Kurla Road,
Andheri (East), Mumbai 400 059
15.    Sify Technologies Limited,
2nd Floor, “TIDEL PARK”,
No.4, Canal Bank Road,
Chennai – 600 113
16.    Ashok Kumar
Unknown Person, India
17.    Ashok Kumar
Unknown Person, India
18.    Ashok Kumar
Unknown Person, India
19.    Ashok Kumar
Unknown Person, India
20.    Ashok Kumar
Unknown Person, India                                           ………. Respondents/Defendants

Original Application praying that this Hon’ble Court be pleased to grant an order of temporary, Interim, ad-interim, injunction restraining the respondents/ defendants and other unknown persons by themselves, their partners/proprietor, heirs, representatives, successors in business, assigns, distributors, agents or any one claiming through them from in any manner infringing the applicant’s copyright in the cinematographic film/motion picture “3” by copying, recording, reproducing or allowing camcording or Communicating or allowing others to communicate or making available or distributing or duplicating or displaying or releasing or showing or uploading or downloading or exhibiting or playing and/or in any manner communicating the applicant’s movie “3” in any manner without a proper license from the applicant or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the applicant’s copyright in the said cinematographic film “3” through different mediums including CD,DVD, Blu-ray disc, VCD, cable TV, Direct to home services, internet services, multimedia messaging services, pen drives, hard drives, tapes, conditional access systems or in any other like manner whatsoever pending disposal of the suit.

This original application coming on this day before this court for hearing in the presence of Mr. A. A. Mohan, Advocate for the applicant herein, and upon reading the Judges summons and the affidavit of L H Harish Ram, filed herein and the plaint, it is ordered as follows:-

That 1. Bharath Sanchar Nigam Limited, Bharat Sanchar Bhavan, 2. Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited, Jeevan Bharti Tower – 1, 3. Bharti Airtel limited, Bharti Crescemt, 4. Aircel Cellular Limited, 5. Hathway cable & Datacom Limited, 6. Sistema Shyam Teleservices Limited, 7. Vodafone India Limited, 8. Idea Cellular Limited, 9. Reliance Communications limited, 10. Tata Teleservices Limited, Jeevan Bharati Tower – 1, 11. Tata Teleservices Limited, 12. O-Zone Networks Private Limited, 13. Tikona Digital Networks Private Limited, 14. BG Broadbank India Private Limited, 15. Sify Technologies Limited, 16.Ashok Kumar, 17. Ashok Kumar 18. Ashok Kumar 19. Ashok Kumar, 20. Ashok Kumar the respondents/defendants herein, and other unknown persons by themselves, their partners/proprietor, heirs, representatives, successors in business, assigns distributors, agents or any one claiming through them be and are hereby restrained by an order of interim injunction until further orders of this court from in any manner infringing the applicant’s copyright in the cinematographic film/motion picture “3” by coping, recording, reproducing or allowing camcording or communicating or allowing others to communicate or making available or distributing or duplicating or displaying or releasing or showing or uploading or downloading or exhibiting or playing and /or in any manner communicating the applicant’s movie “3” in any manner without a proper license from the applicant or in any other manner which would violate/infringe the applicant’s copyright in the said cinematographic film “3” through different mediums including CD, DVD, Blu-ray disc, VCD, cable TV, Direct to home services, internet services, multimedia messaging services, pen drives, hard drives, tapes, conditional access systems or in any other like manner whatsoever.

2. That the private notice of this original application is ordered to the respondents for the hearing on 18.04.2012.

3. That the applicant/plaintiff herein, be and is hereby permitted to publish the John Doe injunction order passed today, in the newspapers both Tamil and English having wide circulation so as to make all the concerned aware of this order.

4. That this O.A. No. 230 of 2012 be posted on 18.04.2012.

Witness the Hon’ble Thiru M. Yusuf Eqbal, The Chief Justice, High Court At Madras Aforesaid, This The 29th Day of March 2012.

Order Dated – 29.03.2012

The HON’BLE MS.JUSTICE
K.B.K. VASUKI

Approved On – 29.03.2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/john-doe-order-r.k.-productions-v.-bsnl-mtnl-and-ors.-movie-3

Jindal varsity's international affairs students shine in job market

Admin — 2018-06-26T01:06:11Z

Turning a common perception on its head, international affairs students of O.P. Jindal Global University here have shown that pursuing a so-called "conventional" course can also open several doors of recruitment including in multinational companies, think tanks and international NGOs.

The article was published in Economic Times on June 19, 2018.

This year, Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC), Care India and Development Alternatives led the recruitment for the students of the Jindal School of International Affairs (JSIA), the university said in a statement on Monday.

The corporate and non-profit institutions which recruited JSIA's students include KPMG, Grant Thornton, Justice and Care, Deloitte, CREA, ESSAR Foundation, CRY, Godrej Culture Lab, Akshaya Patra Foundation, Atma Foundation, Sattva Consulting, The Centre for Internet and Society, and Global Trust.

"In the past, the study of international affairs was seen as leading only to civil service jobs or higher education ending in academic jobs," said C. Raj Kumar, Vice Chancellor, O.P. Jindal Global University.

"JSIA has diversified the field significantly and showed the path to a variety of full-time positions for its graduating students," he added.

JSIA combines the scholarly weights of three inter-related disciplines -- international relations, international law and international business.

"We expect several domestic and international non-profit and for-profit entities to hire from our future graduating batch as several organisations have signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) with our university for offering internships to our students," Sreeram Chaulia, Dean of JSIA.

More than 40 organisations have led JSIA to achieve 95 per cent internship placements in diversified fields this year, the statement said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-june-19-2018-jindal-varsitys-international-affairs-students-shine-in-job-market

January 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-03-03T16:34:21Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of its e-Newsletter for 2019.

The CIS newsletter aims to highlight developments in copyright and patent, free speech and expression, privacy, cyber security, telecom, etc. as well as Industry 4.0, big data, additive manufacturing and so on which are revolutionizing and moving the digital world forward. Through this newsletter we look to engage you with our research and build a strong bond by bringing you insightful articles and blog posts which will be beneficial for you and your business. Throughout the year we will send you stories and insights from our board, staff and community leaders. We welcome your feedback, suggestions or comments regarding our newsletter or any other aspect of our research.

Welcome to r@w blog!

CIS researchers@work programme (RAW) is delighted to announce the launch of its new blog hosted on Medium. The RAW blog will feature works by researchers and practitioners working in India and elsewhere at the intersections of internet, digital media, and society. The blog will also feature highlights and materials from ongoing research and events at the researchers@work programme.

Highlights for January 2019

Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi have produced a research paper that contextualises the narrative around Industry 4.0 and the future of work with reference to the female labour force in India.
Gurshabad Grover, Nikhil Srinath and Aayush Rathi (with inputs from Anubha Sinha and Sai Shakti) presented a response to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services. CIS appreciates the continual efforts of TRAI to have consultations on the regulatory framework that should be applicable to OTT services and Telecom Service Providers (TSPs).
Pranesh Prakash, Karan Saini and Elonnai Hickok authored a policy brief that recommends several changes pertaining to current legislation, policy and practice to the Government of India regarding coordinated vulnerability disclosure (“CVD”) for improving the overarching information and cyber security posture of the country.
The Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace, a multi-stakeholder initiative comprised of eminent individuals across the globe opened a public comment procedure to solicit comments and obtain additional feedback. Arindrajit Basu, Gurshabad Grover and Elonnai Hickok responded to the public call-offering comments on all six norms and proposing two further norms.

CIS and the News

The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in January:

How to make EVMs hack-proof, and elections more trustworthy (Pranesh Prakash; Times of India; December 9, 2018).
Registering for Aadhaar in 2019 (Sunil Abraham; Business Standard; January 2, 2019).
The DNA Bill has a sequence of problems that need to be resolved (Shweta Mohandas and Elonnai Hickok; Newslaundry; January 15, 2019).
India should reconsider its proposed regulation of online content (Gurshabad Grover; Hindustan Times; January 24, 2019). Akriti Bopanna and Aayush Rathi provided feedback for the article.
India’s proposed new internet bill is as repressive as the worst of Chinese laws (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 27, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:

Creeped out by Netflix's 'You'? Here's how you can avoid online stalkers, data thieves (Sanyukta Dharmadhikari; The News Minute; January 10, 2019).
Civic activism over WhatsApp and stories of and from cab drivers are part of a new narrative in Bengaluru (Sowmya Rajaram; Bangalore Mirror; January 13, 2019).
They know where you are (Tini Sara Anien; Deccan Herald; January 17, 2019).
Oyo Hotels’ Real-Time Digital Record Database Sparks Privacy Fears (Nishant Sharma; Bloomberg Quint; January 16, 2019).
Is the viral #10YearChallenge just another sneaky way for tech firms to gather users’ personal data? (Devarsi Ghosh; Scroll.in; January 18, 2019).
Google Gives Wikimedia Millions—Plus Machine Learning Tools (Wired; January 22, 2019).
New movies lose out due to piracy (Surupasree Sarmmah; Deccan Herald; January 23, 2019).
Submitted Your Biometrics for Aadhaar? Here’s How You Can Lock/Unlock That Data (Vidya Raja; Better India; January 24, 2019).
India’s largest bank SBI leaked account data on millions of customers (Zack Whittaker; Tech Crunch; January 30, 2019).
Open standards can disrupt Facebook’s messaging monopoly (Abhimanyu Ghoshal; The Next Web; January 30, 2019).
Conmen seed fake phone numbers in Google to trap people looking for customer care details (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; January 30, 2019).
Amazon and Walmart are about to take a big hit in India (Q13 Fox; January 31, 2019).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Cyber Security

Submission

Response to GCSC on Request for Consultation: Norm Package Singapore (Gurshabad Grover, Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; January 22, 2019).

Policy Brief

Leveraging the Coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Process to Improve the State of Information Security in India (Pranesh Prakash; Karan Saini and Elonnai Hickok; January 23, 2019).

Privacy

Submission

CIS Submission to UN High Level Panel on Digital Co-operation (Aayush Rathi, Ambika Tandon, Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; January 30, 2019).

Gender

Research Paper

A Gendered Future of Work (Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi; December 19, 2018).

Event Organized

RFCs We Love meetup (Organized by CIS and India Internet Engineering Society; CIS, Bangalore; January 19, 2019).

Events Participated / Partnered In

Webinar on the draft Intermediary Guidelines Amendment Rules (Organized by CCAOI and the ISOC Delhi Chapter; New Delhi; January 10, 2019). Gurshabad Grover was a discussant in the panel.
MediaNama roundtables on intermediary liability rules (St. Marks Hotel, Bangalore; January 25, 2019). CIS was a community partner. Gurshabad Grover participated in the meeting.
DSCI's Bangalore chapter meet (Organized by Data Security Council of India; Bangalore; January 29, 2019). Karan Saini and Gurshabad Grover participated in the meet.

Telecom

The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions.

Submission

Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services (Gurshabad Grover, Nikhil Srinath and Aayush Rathi with inputs from Anubha Sinha and Sai Shakti; January 10, 2019).

Researchers at Work (RAW)

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Announcement

Internet Researchers' Conference 2019 (IRC19): #List, Jan 30 - Feb 1, Lamakaan (P.P. Sneha; January 9, 2019).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
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► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-19-newsletter

January 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-03-01T01:35:56Z

January 2018 Newsletter

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
The paper titled "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products" has been published in the latest issue of the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. It is one of the outputs of the Pervasive Technology project and has been authored by Prof. Jorge L. Contreras, Paxton M. Lewis, and Rohini Lakshané. CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on mobile patents. CIS offered its assistance on matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare in India is increasing with new startups and large ICT companies offering AI solutions for healthcare challenges in the country. The report by by Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari seeks to map the present state of AI in the healthcare sector in India. About 27% of India's population is still illiterate or barely literate. Most privacy policies and terms of services for web and mobile applications are in English and therefore it is only 10% of us who can actually read them before we provide our consent. The article by Sunil Abraham was published in Deccan Herald on January 20, 2018. CIS made a submission to TRAI Consultation on inputs to the National Telecom Policy. CIS in its submission also recommended what all should be the main objectives of TRAI while drafting the next edition of National Telecom Policy. Under a research grant from the Azim Premji University CIS has initiated a study of the ongoing updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India. The 2G judgment of December 2017 provides a critique of how no proper evidence was presented on existence of an FCFS policy and its improper implementation, wrote Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard which was published on January 3, 2018.

Highlights

The paper titled "Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products" has been published in the latest issue of the NYU Journal of Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law. It is one of the outputs of the Pervasive Technology project and has been authored by Prof. Jorge L. Contreras, Paxton M. Lewis, and Rohini Lakshané.
CIS made a submission to the Department of Industrial Planning and Promotion on mobile patents. CIS offered its assistance on matters aimed at developing a suitable policy framework for SEPs and FRAND in India, and, working towards sustained innovation, manufacture and availability of mobile technologies in India
The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in healthcare in India is increasing with new startups and large ICT companies offering AI solutions for healthcare challenges in the country. The report by by Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari seeks to map the present state of AI in the healthcare sector in India.
About 27% of India's population is still illiterate or barely literate. Most privacy policies and terms of services for web and mobile applications are in English and therefore it is only 10% of us who can actually read them before we provide our consent. The article by Sunil Abraham was published in Deccan Herald on January 20, 2018.
CIS made a submission to TRAI Consultation on inputs to the National Telecom Policy. CIS in its submission also recommended what all should be the main objectives of TRAI while drafting the next edition of National Telecom Policy.
Under a research grant from the Azim Premji University CIS has initiated a study of the ongoing updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and the resultant reform of citizen identification infrastructure in India.
The 2G judgment of December 2017 provides a critique of how no proper evidence was presented on existence of an FCFS policy and its improper implementation, wrote Shyam Ponappa in his article in the Business Standard which was published on January 3, 2018.

The following articles were written by CIS members:

Digital native: Memory card is full (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 3, 2018).
The 2G Judgment of December 2017: What Was It About? (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 3, 2018).
Fixing Aadhaar: Security developers' task is to trim chances of data breach (Sunil Abraham; Business Standard; January 10, 2018).
Another Step towards Privacy Law (Elonnai Hickok; Governance Now; January 15, 2018).

Data Protection: We can innovate, leapfrog (Sunil Abraham; Deccan Herald; January 20, 2018).

CIS in the News:

From net neutrality to IBC & Aadhaar, how Vidhi is framing key government legislation (Surabhi Agarwal and Samanwaya Rautray; Economic Times; January 4, 2018).
UIDAI denies any breach of Aadhaar database (Komal Gupta; Livemint; January 7, 2018).
Token security or tokenized security? (Manasa Venkataraman and Ajay Patri; Livemint; January 9, 2018).
UIDAI introduces new two-layer security system to improve Aadhaar privacy (Economic Times; January 11, 2018).
Hammered government offers Virtual ID firewall to protect your Aadhaar (New Indian Express; January 11, 2018).
Virtual Aadhaar ID: too little, too late? (Yuthika Bhargava; Hindu; January 11, 2018).
India To Introduce Virtual ID For Aadhaar To Strengthen Privacy (Bloomberg Quint; January 11, 2018).
UIDAI's Virtual ID, limited KYC does little to protect Aadhaar data already collected, say critics (Business Today; January 12, 2018).
Aadhaar Body Talked About Virtual ID 7 Years Ago, Put It Off: UIDAI Chief (Sukriti Dwivedi; NDTV; January 13, 2018).
Bengaluru gives data safety tips to panel (Deccan Herald; January 14, 2018).
Is your personal information under lock and key? (Sravanthi Challapalli; Hindu Businessline; January 16, 2018).
Aadhaar-privacy debate: How the 12-digit number went from personal identifier to all pervasive transaction tool (First Post; January 18, 2018).
Paytm Payments Bank woos corporates with digital incentives (Komal Gupta and Remya Nair; Livemint; January 24, 2018).
Aadhaar's new security measures are good, it is still work in progress (Alnoor Peermohamed; Business Standard; January 25, 2018).

-----------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------
Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Wikipedia

Blog Entries

Government of Odisha adopting Creative Commons License to Promote Transparency and Access to Knowledge (Sailesh Patnaik; January 17, 2018).
Experience and Learning outcome from Wikipedia Education Program (Lakshmi Karlekar; January 30, 2018).

Events Organized

Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dept. of Mass Communication, Solapur University (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dept of Mass Communication, Solapur University; Solapur; January 2, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dayanand College, Solapur (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dayanand College, Solapur; Solapur; January 3, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Willingdon College, Sangli (Organized by CIS-A2K and Willingdon College; Sangli; January 5, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Govt.Science & Arts College, Aurangabad (Organized by CIS-A2K and Govt.Science & Arts College; Aurangabad; January 9, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada Vidyapeeth (Organized by CIS-A2K and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University; Aurangabad; January 10, 2018).
Marathi Wikipedia Workshop at Shivaji University, Kolhapur (Organized by CIS-A2K and Shivaji University; Kolhapur; January 15, 2018).
Wikidata Workshop (Organized by CIS-A2K and Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada; January 20 - 21, 2018).
Train the Trainer 2018 (Organized by CIS-A2K; Mysore; January 26 - 28, 2018).

►Pervasive Technologies

Research Paper

Patent Working Requirements and Complex Products (Jorge L. Contreras, Rohini Lakshané and Paxton M. Lewis; JIPEL NYU Journal of Intellectual Property & Entertainment Law, Vol. 7 - No.1 on January 16, 2018).

Submission

Submission to DIPP at Meeting with IP Stakeholders (Anubha Sinha; January 1, 2018). The submission was made in December 2017 but it was published on the website in January 2018.

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Artificial Intelligence and the Healthcare Industry in India (Yesha Paul, Elonnai Hickok, Amber Sinha and Udbhav Tiwari (Ecosystem mapping by Shweta Mohandas, Sidharth Ray and Elonnai Hickok. Designed by Saumyaa Naidu under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License; January 26, 2018).

Events Organized

Roundtable on A.I. and Manufacturing and Services (TERI, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018).

null Bangalore Meet: Special Session on Digital Identity and Privacy (CIS, Bengaluru; January 19, 2018). Sunil Abraham gave a talk.

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

Internet Governance Forum Report 2017 (Shweta Mohandas; January 11, 2018).

Mobile net ban during peaceful protest leaves farmers confused (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).

‘Hurt sentiments’ cost Udaipur internet access for four days (Shruti Jain; January 19, 2018).

-----------------------------------

Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Submission to TRAI Consultation on "Inputs for Formulation of National Telecom Policy - 2018" (Pranesh Prakash; January 25, 2018).

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Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Blog Entry

Life of a Tuple: National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Reform of Citizen Identification Infrastructure in Assam (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; January 22, 2018). All posts related to the study can be found here.

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/Qjanuary-2018-newsletter

January 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-03-01T06:00:37Z

Welcome to the January 2017 newsletter of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

We are pleased to bring you the Centre for Internet & Society's January newsletter. Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPD) Act, which was passed in December 2016, seeks to give effect to the rights and obligations enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities, which India signed and ratified nearly a decade ago. Nirmita Narasimhan in a blog entry has summarized the key provisions of the Act relating to digital accessibility. The latest judgment in the matter of Super Cassettes v. MySpace is a landmark and progressive ruling, which strengthens the safe harbor immunity enjoyed by Internet intermediaries in India. CIS was one of the intervenors in the case, and has been duly acknowledged in the judgment. Meena Gayathri became the first South Indian Wikiwoman to complete 100 Wikidays challenge. The challenge required Wikipedians to create one new article per day for one hundred days in a row. Gayathri's contribution and passion towards Telugu language and culture have transcended into a "knowledge revolution". The Committee on Digital Payments constituted by the Ministry of Finance and chaired by Ratan P. Watal, Principal Advisor, NITI Aayog, submitted its report on the "Medium Term Recommendations to Strengthen Digital Payments Ecosystem" on December 09, 2016. The report was made public on December 27, and comments were sought from the general public. CIS submitted its comments. The comments were authored by Sumandro Chattopadhyay. ICANN sought community input on the Proposed ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy on 7 November 2016. In response to this CIS submitted its comments. The comments were authored by Padma Venkataraman, Rohini Lakshané, Sampada Nayak and Vidushi Marda. The eleven sessions selected for the Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) to be held at the IIIT Bangalore campus during March 3-5, 2017 has been announced. The conference is being organised by the Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy (CITAPP) at IIIT Bangalore and CIS.

CIS in the news

India’s Digital ID Rollout Collides With Rickety Reality (Gabriele Parussini; Wall Street Journal; January 13, 2017).
Millions of Indians move from cash to digital payments. But some ask whether it’s safe (Rama Lakshmi; Washington Post; January 14, 2017).
Sunil Abraham on Aadhaar's misuse during demonetisation (Economic Times; January 14, 2017)
The soon-to-be launched Aadhaar Pay will let you make purchases using your fingerprint (Indulekha Aravind; January 15, 2017).
Lost your phone? Here's how you can make your mobile theft-proof (Sanjay Kumar Singh; Business Standard; January 16, 2017).
The Dangers Of Aadhaar-Based Payments That No One Is Talking About (Mayank Jain; Bloomberg; January 17, 2017).
Supreme Court issues notice to WhatsApp, Centre on data privacy (MJ Antony, Ayan Pramanik and Apurva Venkat; Business Standard; January 17, 2017).
Demonetisation: Cost Vs Benefit (NDTV; December 24, 2016). Sunil Abraham took part in the Big Fight programme aired by NDTV. The video was published on January 17, 2017.
For India’s complaints department, visit Facebook Live (Amy Kazmin; Financial Times; January 23, 2017).

CIS members wrote the following articles:

Cashlessness Needs Connectivity (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 4, 2017).
Digital Native: The Dream of the Cyborg (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 8, 2017).
Digital transitions in the newsroom: How are Indian language papers adapting differently? (Zeenab Aneez; London School of Economics and Political Science; January 16, 2017).
Digital native: Back at it Again (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; January 22, 2017).

Jobs

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

-------------------------------------
Accessibility & Inclusion
-------------------------------------
India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Blog Entry

Digital accessibility in the Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act 2016 (Nirmita Narasimhan; January 23, 2017).

Participation in Event

Workplace Solutions Champions Consultative Workshop (Organized by Enable India, January 21 - 22, 2017; Ecumenical Christian Centre, Bangalore). Nirmita Narasimhan attended the workshop.

►Copyright and Patent

Blog Entry

Super Cassettes v. MySpace (Redux) (Anubha Sinha; January 16, 2017).

Event Organized

Seminar on Rethinking Copyright and Licensing for Digital Publishing Today (Organized by Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan New Delhi, and CIS; New Delhi; January 23, 2017). Anubha Sinha attended the event.

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

WikiSangamotsavam 2016 (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia Stall at Hyderabad Book Fair (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Telugu Wikipedia Stall at Rajahmundry Book Fair (Manasa Rao; January 18, 2017).
Mini Workshop on Tools: Wikipedia Monthly Meetup, Hyderabad (Manasa Rao and Pavan Santhosh; January 18, 2017).
Meet Telugu Wikipedian Surampudi Meena Gayathri – the first South Indian Wikiwoman completing 100 Wikidays Challenge (Ting-Yi Chang; January 23, 2017).

Event Organized

Odia Wikipedia and Orientation Training Programme (Organized by CIS-A2K team; Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal; January 31, 2017).

►Openness

Participation in Event

CBGA - Consultation on Opening Up Access to Budget Data in India (Organized by CBGA; January 27, 2017; New Delhi). Sumandro Chattapadhyay was a speaker.

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Submission

Comments on the Report of the Committee on Digital Payments (Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha; January 12, 2017).

Blog Entries

The Design & Technology behind India’s Surveillance Programmes (Udbhav Tiwari; January 20, 2017)
Workshop on ‘Privacy after Big Data’ (Amber Sinha; January 27, 2017).

Events Organized

Discussion on Ranking Digital Rights in India (India Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi; January 7, 2017).
Rankathon on Digital Rights (CIS office, New Delhi; January 8, 2017).

Participation in Events

Global Governance Futures 2027 - Session 3 (Organized by Global Public Policy Institute and supported by Robert Bosch Stiftung; New Delhi; January 17, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay joined Ankhi Das (Facebook) and Arun Mohan Sukumar (Observer Research Foundation) to discuss the "data governance" scenarios developed by the GGF 2027 Fellows.
CPDP (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection) 2017 (Organized by Privacy International; Brussels, January 26, 2017). Amber Sinha participated as a panelist.

►Big Data

Blog Entry

New Media, personalisation and the role of algorithms (Amber Sinha; January 2, 2017).

Participation in Events

Training programme for Chairs, Convenor and Experts for International Standardization Work (Organized by National Institute of Training for Standardization, under the Bureau of India Standards; January 19 - 20, 2017; NOIDA). Udbhav Tiwari attended the training programme.
Seminar on Understanding Financial Technology, Cashless India, and Forced Digitalisation (Centre for Financial Accountability; New Delhi; January 24, 2017). Sumandro Chattapadhyay spoke on the emerging architecture of FinTech in India.

►Free Speech & Expression

Submission

Comments on the Proposed ICANN Community Anti-Harassment Policy (Padma Venkataraman, Rohini Lakshané, Sampada Nayak and Vidushi Marda; January 13, 2017).

Blog Entry

Social Media Monitoring (Amber Sinha; January 13, 2017).

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Cashlessness Needs Connectivity (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; January 4, 2017 and Organizing India Blogspot; January 5, 2017).

Event

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selected Sessions (Organized by Centre for Information Technology and Public Policy and CIS; IIIT, Bangalore; March 3 - 5, 2017). Eleven sessions have received 10 or more nominations.

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2017-newsletter

January 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-02-26T17:02:23Z

Our newsletter for the month of January can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of the newsletter (January 2015). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Highlights

Forbes India in an article titled “Minds that (should) matter” names Sunil Abraham as one of the Thinkers who best explain a rapidly-changing India to the world (and the world to India).

Subhashish Panigrahi won the 2015 Opensource.com Community Awards under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS team as Research Director. Sumandro has replaces Nishant Shah who stepped down from the position.
Rishika on behalf of CIS prepared an analysis of the disability exceptions in Copyright Legislations . The blog post provides in detail the country-wise exceptions in copyright legislations.
NVDA team conducted a training programme on Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA in Thiruvananthapuram on January 24 and 25, 2015. Chakshumathi's main trainer Akhil M. took eSpeak Malayalam classes and Dr. Homiyar took classes on NVDA and accessible equipment.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India invited comments on the First Draft of India's National IPR Policy. CIS made its submission.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Nehaa Chaudhari has produced a research methodology document which maps the existing literature around questions of competition law intersecting with intellectual property law on the specific issue of enabling access to sub hundred dollar mobile devices .
Maggie Huang, an intern at CIS as part of the Pervasive Technologies project has written a blog entry which documents, synthesizes, and analyses learnings from attending various music industry trade conferences.

CIS-A2K team on December 28, 2014 organized a MediaWiki hackathon event for Telugu Wikimedia community members to enhance their skills and understanding of technical matters related to MediaWiki usage. The theme of the workshop was “Mediawiki, its extensions and tools to work around” and it aimed at allowing Wikipedians to use MediaWiki tools more effectively.

Subhashish Panigrahi authored an op-ed that highlights the need for taking Odia language to the international fora instead of keeping it confined in the books. The op-ed was published in the Samaja on January 30, 2015.

A journal article by Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran the steps taken by scientists and librarians in the West to reclaim ease of access to research findings with what is happening in India along with a few suggestions was published by the Indian National Science Academy Journals.
The Supreme Court, in Sabu George v. Union of India and Ors. (WP (C) 341/2008), is looking into the presence of material regarding pre-natal sex determination on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo that has been falling foul of section 22 of the Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques Act, 1994 as amended in 2002. Geeta Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian analyse this in their blog post.
As part of its Making Methods for Digital Humanities project, CIS-RAW organized two consultations on new figures of learning in the digital context. For a proposed journal issue on the theme of 'bodies of knowledge' which draws upon these conversations, participants were invited to write short sketches on these figures of learning. Tejas Pande wrote an abstract which examines the figure of the visual designer, and emerging practices of mapmaking.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

January 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; January 31, 2015).

Event Organized

Training of Malayalam eSpeak with NVDA (Co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Thiruvananthapuram; January 24-25, 2015).

Other

Blog Entries

Disability Exceptions in Copyright Legislations (Rishika; January 12, 2015).
Response to RTI Applications from Different States on Accessibility (Anandhi Viswanathan; January 31, 2015).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Pervasive Technologies

As part of the Pervasive Technologies project, Maggie Huang conducted interviews with fabless semiconductor industry professionals in Taiwan. The findings from the samples are highlighted in four part series. The third and fourth parts have been published:

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies Project Working Document Series: Document 2 Literature Review on Competition Law + IPR + Access to < $100 Mobile Devices (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 1, 2015).
Relationship between App Developers and App Platforms: An Intellectual Property Perspective (Anubha Sinha; January 7, 2015).
Beyond Alcohol and Angel Investors: Building Business Models in an Age of Mobile Music Streaming (Conference Learnings) (Maggie Huang; January 20, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: The Development of the National IPR Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 22, 2015).
RTI Responses - MHRD IP Chairs: Details of Funding & Expenditure (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).
National IPR Policy Series: CIS Comments to the First Draft of the National IP Policy (Nehaa Chaudhari; January 31, 2015).

Participation in Events

Global Intellectual Property Convention (Organized by ITAG Solutions; Mumbai; January 15 - 17, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.
Library and Information Professionals Summit (LIPS) 2015 (Organized by Society for Library Professionals, National Law University Delhi with UN Information Centre for India & Bhutan and Special Library Association (USA), Asian Chapter; January 23 - 24, 2015; New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari was on a panel discussing Internet Technology and Challenges for Libraries in IPR Regime. She made a presentation on Technology (Internet?), Libraries and the Law (?).

Upcoming Event

Announcing the Institutional Partner for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Organized by the National Law School of India University; New Delhi; December 2015).

Wikipedia

Op-ed

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ପାଇଁ ଅନ୍ତର୍ଜାତୀୟ ପ୍ରକଳ୍ପ (Subhashish Panigrahi; The Samaja, January 31, 2015).

Blog Entries

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015).

Telugu Wikimedia Hackathon 2014 (Rahmanuddin Shaik; January 31, 2015). The event was conducted on December 28, 2014. However, the blog post was published in January 2015.

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Works of Veerasalingam Pantulu on web (Hans India; January 1, 2015).
Centre should partner local communities in 'Digital India': Expert (IANS and mirrored in Zee News; January 9, 2015).
Musician donates Gwalior Gharana songs to free e-library (Times of India; January 20, 2015).

Announcement

2015 Opensource.com Community Awards : Every year, Opensource.com awards people from our community who have excelled in contributing and sharing stories about open source. Subhashish Panigrahi from the CIS-A2K team won the award under the category 'People's Choice Awards'.
CIS-A2K team also published the Telugu Wikipedia Stats tables. Most metrics have been collected from a partial dump (aka stub dump), which contains all revisions of every article, meta data, but no page content.

Participation in Event

Citizen Media Summit 2015 (Organized by Global Voices; January 24 - 25, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

Openness

Journal Article

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: The Intransigenc of STM Publishers (Subbiah Arunachalam, Perumal Ramamoorthi and Subbiah Gunasekaran; Indian National Science Academy Journals, Proc Indian Natn SciAcad 80 No. 5 December 2014 pp. 919-929).

Internet Governance

Articles and Blog Entries

Indians Plead for #NetNeutrality as Airtel Raises Data Charges (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; December 30, 2014). The article was published in the month of December but mirrored on CIS website in January.
Indian Netizens Criticize Online Censorship of 'Jihadi' Content (Subhashish Panigrahi; Global Voices; January 6, 2015).
Security and Surveillance - Optimizing Security while Safeguarding Human Rights (Elonnai Hickok; January 19, 2015).
Search Engine and Prenatal Sex Determination: Walking the Tight Rope of the Law (Geetha Hariharan and Balaji Subramanian; January 29, 2015).

Event Co-organized

Security, Governments, and Data: Technology and Policy (Organized by CIS and Observer Research Foundation; January 8, 2015, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this event.

Participation in Events

Symposium on Human Rights and the Internet in India (Organized by the Center for Communication Governance at National Law University, Delhi in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg; New Delhi; January 17, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a panelist.
Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection (Organized by the Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow; Delhi; January 19 - 23, 2015). Bhairav Acharya was a facilitator.
ASSOCHAM National Council on IT / ITes (Organized by ASSOCHAM; New Delhi; January 30, 2015). Geetha Hariharan participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Overview of the Constitutional Challenges to the IT Act (Pranesh Prakash; December 15, 2014).
Reply to RTI filed with BSNL regarding Network Neutrality and Throttling (Tarun Krishnakumar; December 22, 2014).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Government blocks 32 websites to check ISIS propaganda (Kim Arora; The Times of India; January 1, 2015).
Internet users fume as govt blocks 32 sites (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; January 1, 2015).
India 'jihadi' web blocking causes anger (BBC; January 2, 2015). This was also mirrored in Puffington Post.
Govt cracks down on cyber jehad network, blocks access to 32 websites (India Today, January 1, 2015).
Indian Government still blocks 20+ websites - Indian Censorship on Internet (Times of Assam; January 2, 2015).
350% surge in Cyber crimes in last 3 years (Devanik Saha & Indiaspend.org; Hindustan Times; January 20, 2015).
TOI literary festival kicks off today (The Times of India; January 31, 2015).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Staff Movement

Sumandro Chattapadhyay has joined CIS as Research Director. His academic interests span over topics of history and politics of informatics in India, new media and technology studies, and data infrastructures and economies. He is also keenly interested in questions and techniques of digital humanities. Recently, Sumandro has completed a study on policy and practices of open data in India as part of the Open Data Research Network managed by the World Wide Web Foundation. He is an involved member of DataMeet, a leading community of open data and data science enthusiasts from India. Sumandro studied economics in Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan, and in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He has variously worked on topics of urban development, information technology in governance, data visualisation, and early electronic governance in India with MOD Institute, Azim Premji University and the Sarai Programme at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Blog Entry

Figures of Learning: The Visual Designer (Tejas Pande; January 30, 2015).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2015-bulletin

January 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:09:59Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the first issue of its newsletter (January) for the year 2014:

-------------------------------
Highlights
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Amba Salelkar provides an analysis of the three stages of the Rights for Persons with Disabilities 2013 since it was initially commissioned.
We published revised chapters for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the first of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block websites.
The second Institute on Internet and Society is being held in Pune from February 11 to 17.
CIS signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences for furthering Odia Wikipedia.
Dr. Nishant Shah co-authored a chapter on video games in a book published by Palestinian Art Court-al Hoash.
Sneha gives an overview of the research enquiry in the field of Digital Humanities in her blog post on Mapping Digital Humanities in India.
In the first of the insightful seven part series, Gautam Bhatia looks at surveillance and the right to privacy in India from a constitutional perspective, tracing its genealogy through Supreme Court case law and compares it with the law in the USA.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0 and Program Officer (Internet Governance): http://bit.ly/1aA57K6. There are two vacancies each for these posts and these are full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org), Nirmita Narasimhan (nirmita@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories.

Based on the feedback and comments received from our readers the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

Andhra Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lzUFcG.
Chhattisgarh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fY4NZ0.

# Blog Entry

The Right of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2013 and the Lack of Access to Accessibility Rights (by Amba Salelkar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1diSg40.

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Access to Knowledge
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The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

# Analysis

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 1) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, January 30, 2014). Ananth looks at the theory behind John Doe orders and finds that it would be wrong for Indian courts to grant "John Doe" orders against ISPs: http://bit.ly/1nteYaK.

# Blog Entries

Open Letter to the Vatican: Request for Holy See to Comment on IPR (by Samantha Cassar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dGN7OS.
The Game of IPR: Insights from the 6th Global Intellectual Property Convention in Hyderabad (by Samantha Cassar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fY5qS6.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we organised 4 workshops in the month of January, published an article in DNA, and signed a memorandum of understanding with KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences to further the development of Odia Wikipedia:

►Wikipedia

# Articles / Newspaper Columns

Odia Wikipedia: Three Years of Active Contributions Gives Life to a Ten Year Old Project (by Subhashish Panigrahi, HASTAC, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jvxD8r.
WikiSangamotsavam 2013 brings Indian Wikimedians together (by Netha Hussain and Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, January 14, 2014). The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane: http://bit.ly/1jvynKP.

# Announcement

CIS-A2K, KIIT University and Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences sign MoUs (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 11, 2014): KIIT University, Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoUs) for furthering Odia Wikipedia: http://bit.ly/1j1qtFv.

# Blog Entries

Wikipedia Editing as Assessment Tool in the Indian Higher Education Classroom (by Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana, Ashwin Kumar A.P. and T. Vishnu Vardhan, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1m5QHMD.
Wikipedia at Forefront in Christ University (by Syed Muzamiluddin, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/LTFA8E.

# Events Organised

Odia WikiMeetup (Bhubaneswar, January 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBkFJi.
Introductory talk about "Wikipedia in Academics" (KIIT School of Technology, Bhubaneswar, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1yv1f.
Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary @ KISS (Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences, Bhubaneswar, January 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsqkJC.
Odia Wikipedia 10th anniversary (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dGRBoy.

# Event Participated In

The Dynamics of Education to Employment Journey: Opportunities and Challenges (organized by KIIT School of Management, KIIT University, Bhubaneswar, February 21-22, 2014). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1ePwqHc.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Digitising contest to preserve rare books in Malayalam (The Hindu, January 4, 2014): http://bit.ly/NBtVgz.
‘With Internet in every pocket, power to the people’ (by Shubhadeep Chaudhury, The Tribune, January 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ojb1IZ. Shubhadeep interviews T. Vishnu Vardhan on internet and social media.
ଆଦିବାସୀଭାଷାରଉନ୍ନତିକଳ୍ପେଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆ(Odishan.com, January 12, 2014):http://bit.ly/1kAWJmG.
KIIT University to lead building free knowledge repository initiative (India Education Diary.com, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1Rzwk.
Odisha: KISS to create tribal languages and heritage repository (Odisha Diary Bureau, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1bLBhmB.
FDC recognition for the Centre for the Internet and Society (Wikimedia Foundation, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fYdxOz. Wikimedia Foundation published a resolution declaring CIS eligible for funding through the Annual Plan Grants program.
Tech-savvy students given tips to enter IT field (The Times of India, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j1QvIX.
Odia Wikipedia (Sanchar, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ePwAON.

Openness

# Event Organised

What is happening in South America and how Openness is an opportunity to Social, Political and Activist Movements? (Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, January 17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1bnZaq0.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. Gautam Bhatia gives an analysis of the right to privacy from a constitutional perspective and Elonnai Hickok analyses a public report published by GNI.

# Analyses

Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 1: Foundations (by Gautam Bhatia, January 13, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ntqsen.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 2: Gobind and the Compelling State Interest Test (by Gautam Bhatia, January 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dH3meL.

# Newspaper Columns / Book Chapter

Big Brother is Watching You (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, January 3, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGpg0K.
Making the Powerful Accountable (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nvzSpC.
Video Games: A Case Study of a Cross-cultural Video Collaboration (by Larissa Hjorth and Nishant Shah, January 31, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eTaXLX. A new book focusing on Palestinian artists’ video, edited by Bashir Makhoul and published by Palestinian Art Court- al Hoash, 2013, includes a chapter co-authored by Larissa and Nishant.

# Blog Entries

Letter requesting public consultation on position of GoI at WGEC (by Snehashish Ghosh, January 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g66bL7.
Electoral Databases – Privacy and Security Concerns (by Snehashish Ghosh, January 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/Mb4ktM.
GNI Assessment Finds ICT Companies Protect User Privacy and Freedom of Expression (by Elonnai Hickok, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mjbpmL.
Interview with Mathew Thomas from the Say No to UID campaign - UID Court Cases (by Maria Xynou, January 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eT9XHv. Maria interviewed Mathew Thomas on UID.
India's Central Monitoring System (CMS): Something to Worry About? (by Maria Xynou, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsM4oQ.

# Events Organized

Biometrics or Bust? Implications of the UID for Participation and Inclusion (CIS, Bangalore, January 10, 2014). Malavika Jayaram gave a talk: http://bit.ly/1lJZhuK.
Digital Citizens: Why Cyber Security and Online Privacy are Vital to the Success of Democracy and Freedom of Expression (CIS, Bangalore, January 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/KucEU5. Michael Oghia gave a talk.
Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.

# Events Co-organised

CPDP 2014 Reforming Data Protection: The Global Perspective (organised by CPDP, Brussels, January 22 – 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/KsgCws. CIS is one of the sponsors for this event. Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.
The Future of the Internet, Who Should Govern It and What is at Stake for You? (organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Cellular Operators Association of India, Internet Democracy project, Media for Change, SFLC and CIS, India International Centre, January 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eqkSUu. Chinmayi Arun moderated a session. Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event as a speaker.

# Events Participated In

Seminar on "Hate Speech and Social Media" (organized by NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad and British Deputy High Commission, Hyderabad, January 4 – 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dmcEkT. Chinmayi Arun was one of the speakers.
Multistakeholders Consultation on International Public Policy Issues (organized by the Department of Electronics & Information Technology, New Delhi, January 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/Mbfkao. Snehashish Ghosh participated in this meeting.
Internet Governance and India: The Way Forward (organized by Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, January 22, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ePFueY. Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event.
Data Privacy Day 2014 (organized by Data Security Council of India, Infosys, Bangalore, January 28, 2014). Elonnai Hickok was a panelist: http://bit.ly/1ePFfk8.
TACTIS Symposium 2014 (organized by Tata Consultancy Service, TCS Siruseri, Chennai, January 28 and 29, 2014): http://bit.ly/1bo9y0R. Sunil Abraham gave the keynote address.

--------------------------------
News & Media Coverage
--------------------------------
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Inventions that will make a difference (by Geeta Padmanabhan, The Hindu, January 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/MKwmfu.
Rise of the bot: all you need to know about the latest threat online (by Danish Raza, Hindustan Times, January 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dHgNex.
Despite apex court order, IOC proceeds with Aadhaar-linked DBT (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, January 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g6ffjn.
Worldwide: International Privacy - 2013 Year in Review – Asia (by Gonzalo S. Zeballos, James A. Sherer and Alan M. Pate, Mondaq Yearly Review, January 8, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iOaYRO.
Election panel rejects Google’s proposal for electoral services tie-up (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, January 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gpaGjF.
Social Notworking - 'Murder by Twitter'(by Malini Nair, The Times of India, January 19, 2014): http://bit.ly/1j2kT63.
The net is taking over (by Veenu Sandhu and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, January 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1hb4eQL.
The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
Is Bhutan selling its soul to Google? (by Lucky Wangmo from Thimphu and Pema Seldon form Bangalore, Business Bhutan, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fYl3sO.
What is net neutrality and why it is important (The Times of India, January 30, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ePFZ8P.

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Digital Humanities
--------------------------------
CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

# Blog Entry

Mapping Digital Humanities in India (by Sneha PP, January 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsQEEQ.

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Digital Natives
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CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia:

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entry

Creative Activism - Voices of Young Change Makers in India (UDAAN) (by Denisse Albornoz, January 20, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cxXAMI.

►Other
# Newspaper Column

10 Ways to Say Nothing New (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, January 19, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gsONjn.

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Knowledge Repository on Internet Access
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CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Ongoing Event

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/180mQi9.

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About CIS
-----------------------------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter:https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2014-bulletin

January 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-06-11T11:56:35Z

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the first issue of our newsletter for the year 2013. This issue brings you an overview of our research programs, events organised and participated, news and media coverage, and videos of recent events.

Jobs

CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge — Indic Language Initiatives), Developer (NVDA Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org. For our Privacy project, we are seeking applications for the post of Researcher, Technology/Security Expert, Graphic Designer as well as for internships. To apply for these posts, please send in your resume to Elonnai Hickok (elonnai@cis-india.org).

Accessibility

CIS is carrying out two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. The first one is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and the second one is for developing a screen reader and text to speech synthesizer for Indian languages. We are also working with the World Blind Union to develop the Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons, and assisting in the negotiations at WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Shruti Ramakrishnan has left the project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapter on Haryana:

The Haryana Chapter (by Anandi Viswanathan, January 31, 2012): The state implements the provisions under the central laws, particularly the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 and the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act 1999.

Submission / Notification

Making Public Libraries Accessible to People with Disabilities (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013): CIS was one of the 20 disability rights groups that wrote to the Ministry of Culture.
Government of Madhya Pradesh initiates ICT Accessibility in Public Communication (by Nirmita Narasimhan, January 31, 2013): CIS with Daisy Forum of India member Arushi in Bhopal submitted a request for a notification mandating that all communication by the Government of Madhya Pradesh should be accessible to persons with disabilities.

Report

Accessible Broadcasting in India (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, January 11, 2013): The abridged version of ITU’s report "Making Television Accessible" which was initially put up for comments last year has been updated once again.

Blog Entry

Linking Commercial Availability and Exceptions in the Treaty for Visually Impaired/Persons with Disabilities (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

In partnership with the International Development Research Centre we are doing a project on Pervasive Technologies examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The Wikimedia Foundation’s India Program to support and develop free knowledge in India is now being executed by us. We are also supporting the Iraq government in developing an eGovernment Interoperability Framework:

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval.

New Project Director

T. Vishnu Vardhan is the new Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and also worked as Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society.

New Distinguished Fellow at CIS

Tejaswini Niranjana, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is joining our team as an Adviser to the 'Access to Knowledge' project. She will guide the A2K team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.

Reports

Access to Knowledge Report — September to December 2012 (by Noopur Raval, January 31, 2013): The report covers an overview of the activities done by the Access to Knowledge team under the grant provided by the Wikimedia Foundation from September 2012 to December 2012.
Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012 (by Shiju Alex, January 21, 2013): A statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012 providing perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.

Wiki Event Reports
CIS organised a series of Wiki workshops in Goa in the month of December 2012, we bring you the reports from those events.

Note: The workshops were held in the month of December 2012 but the reports were published only in the month of January.

Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013).
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).
Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).

CIS also organised a Wiki workshop in Ghaziabad:

A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013).

Wiki Event Participated

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Wikipedia News Coverage

First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal (Odisha Diary Bureau, Dhenkanal, January 27, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media (Sambad, January 30, 2013).

Wiki Events Organised

Odia Education Program (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia 9th Anniversary Celebration (Academy of Media Learning, Samantha Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, January 29, 2013).

Pervasive Technologies

The Pervasive Technologies project carries out research on the intellectual property implicated in the hardware, software and content available in low-cost mobile devices.The long-term outcome of this project is to create a legitimate, legal space for these technologies to exist on the Indian market.

Events Participated

Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place — A Presentation by Sunil Abraham (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, December 15, 2012).
Fifth International IPR Conference (GIPC 2013) (organised by ITAG Business Solutions, Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore, January 30, 2013): Snehashish Ghosh made a presentation on the Pervasive Technologies Project.

Other Openness Updates

Blog Posts / Columns

The Violence of Knowledge Cartels (by Nishant Shah, Hybrid Publishing Lab, January 17, 2013).
Remembering Aaron Swartz, Taking Up the Fight (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, January 24, 2013).

Interview

Aaron Swartz: The First Martyr of the Free Information Movement: Prabir Purkayastha interviewed Lawrence Liang on Newsclick, January 19, 2013. The video is published.

Media Coverage

Bangalore hackers write code as tribute to Aaron Swartz (by Deepa Kurup, Hindu, January 21, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

HasGeek
HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru.
Event Organized Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight (CIS, Bangalore, January 19 – 20, 2013): Aaron’s collaborators such as Anand Chitipothu and A S L Devi participated in the event.

Internet Governance

With Privacy International, London we signed an agreement to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. In this month we have blog posts on data retention, international principles of surveillance and human rights and comparitive analysis of Indian legislation vis-à-vis draft of the International Principles on Surveillance of Communications by Ellonai Hickok, and columns by Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah:

Privacy Research

Data Retention in India (by Elonnai Hickok, January 30, 2013): The post provides an insight into the data retention mandates from the Government of India and data retention practices by service providers.
Draft International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights (by Elonnai Hickok, January 16, 2013): These principles were developed by Privacy International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and seek to define an international standard for the surveillance of communications.
A Comparison of Indian Legislation to Draft International Principles on Surveillance of Communications (by Elonnai Hickok, January 31, 2013): The principles, first drafted in October 2012 and developed subsequently seek to establish an international standard for surveillance of communications in the context of human rights. CIS is contributing feedback to the drafting of the principles.

Columns/Op-eds

Web of Sameness (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, January 18, 2013).
TV versus Social Media: The Rights and Wrongs (by Sunil Abraham, The Tribune, January 20, 2013).

Statement

Statement of Solidarity on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Internet Users in Bangladesh (by Pranesh Prakash, January 15, 2013): This is a statement on the violent attack on blogger Asif Mohiuddin by the participants to the Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression.

Blog Entries

No Civil Society Members in the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee (by Pranesh Prakash, January 10, 2013).
Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs (by Chinmayi Arun, January 28, 2013): The author discusses the five major questions that have been the subject of debate after the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT).

Upcoming Event

DML Conference 2013 (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).

Event Organized

An Introduction to Bitfilm and Bitcoin – A Discussion by Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, January 23, 2013): Aaron Koenig, Managing Director, Bitfilm Networks of Hamburg, Germany gave a talk.

Events Participated

Panel Discussion on E-Commerce at NLSIU (organised by National Law School of India University, Bangalore, January 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Mobile Broadband: Leveraging for Business Transformation (Chancery Pavilion, Bangalore, January 9, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist in this event.
Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression (organized by Internet Democracy Project, Voices for Interactive Choice & Empowerment and Global Partners & Associates, Dhaka, January 14 – 15, 2013): Pranesh Prakash moderated the session on "Understanding cyber security and surveillance in South Asia”.
Is Freedom of Expression under Threat in the Digital Age? (organized by Editors Guild of India, Index on Censorship and Sage, India International Centre, New Delhi, January 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist at this event.
7th India Digital Summit 2013 (organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Lalit Hotel, New Delhi, January 16 – 17, 2013): Sunil Abraham was the moderator for Plenary Session 3: Discussion on Social Media – Freedom, Moderation or Regulation.

Upcoming Event

9th International Asian Conference (organised by ITechLaw, February 14 – 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham will be participating as a panelist in the session on “Censorship of Online Content”.

Media Coverage

2012 in Review: Biometric ID Systems Grew Internationally...and So Did Concerns about Privacy (by Rebecca Bowe, Right Side News, January 1, 2013)
Cool Jobs | Parmesh Shahani, Head, Godrej India Culture Lab (LiveMint, January 4, 2013).
Clash of the cyberworlds (by Latha Jishnu, Dinsa Sachan and Moyna, Down to Earth, January 15, 2013 issue). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Is freedom of expression under threat in digital age? (originally published by Indo Asian News Service, January 16, 2013 and also covered in the Business Standard, Vancouver Desi, DNA, and Tech2). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Is freedom of expression under threat in the digital age? (by Mahima Kaul, Index on Censorship, January 18, 2013).
Internet Freedom in India – Open to Debate (by Kirsty Hughes, Index on Censorship, January 22, 2013). CIS research on censorship is quoted.
Cyber security, surveillance and the right to privacy: country perspectives (by Richa Kaul Padte, Internet Democracy Project).
Surveillance Camp: Privatized State Surveillance (by Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 28, 2013). Elonnai Hickok is quoted.
An innovative concept comes to the fore (Deccan Herald, January 29, 2013).

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository
In partnership with Ford Foundation, CIS was tasked to produce and disseminate modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, as on November 9, 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. Currently, we are working on building a knowledge repository on “Internet Access”. This new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for such policy formulation. For this purpose we will be hosting a new website: www.internet-institute.in.
We are also organizing an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registrations and relevant details will be soon announced on our website.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.:

Column by Shyam Ponappa

What's Needed Is User-Centric Design, Not Good Intentions (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, January 3, 2013 and Organizing India Blogpost, January 6, 2013).

Event(s) Participated

21^st Convergence Conference Conference India 2013 (organized by Exhibitions India Group, January 16 – 17, 2013, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi). Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University:

Habits of Living Workshop

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

About CIS
CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.
CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2013-bulletin

We are anonymous, we are legion

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Jindal varsity's international affairs students shine in job market

January 2019 Newsletter

Welcome to r@w blog!

Highlights for January 2019

CIS and the News

CIS in the News

Cyber Security

Privacy

Gender

Event Organized

Events Participated / Partnered In

Submission

January 2018 Newsletter

January 2017 Newsletter

January 2015 Bulletin

NVDA and eSpeak

Other

Pervasive Technologies

Wikipedia

Openness

January 2014 Bulletin

January 2013 Bulletin

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Pervasive Technologies

Other Openness Updates

HasGeek

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository

Follow us elsewhere

Support Us

Request for Collaboration