We are anonymous, we are legion

International Conference on Cyberlaw & Cybercrime

praskrishna — 2014-04-04T08:56:42Z

The International Conference on Cyberlaw and Cybercrime will take place on March 13, 2014. The event is organized by Cyberlaws.net and Pawan Duggal Associates. Sunil Abraham is participating in the event as a panelist.

Read more on the conference on cybercrime.com. For speakers list click here.

The objectives of the International Conference on #Cyberlaw & #Cybercrime are as follows:

To identify the emerging #Cyberlaw trends and jurisprudence impacting #cyberspace in today’s scenario.
To create far more awareness about the newly emerging kinds of #cybercrimes that are impacting all stakeholders in the digital and mobile ecosystem.
To identify the areas in #cyber crimes where #Cyberlaw needs to be further evolved so as to meet with the expectation and needs of the relevant stakeholders of the digital and #mobile ecosystem.
To work in the direction of creating an international network of #cybercrimes and cyber-legal law professionals which could then be an important voice in the further development of #cybercrimes and #Cyberlaw jurisprudence across the world.

The International Conference on #Cyberlaw & #Cybercrime will look at the emerging legal, policy and regulatory issues pertaining to cyberspace and #cybercrimes.

Cyber crimes are now beginning to impact corporates in their new avatar. What are the major international Cyberlaw and #Cybercrime trends? What kind of new manifestations of #cybercrimes are beginning to emerge that corporate need to be careful of? What international best practices need to be kept in mind by corporates for protecting themselves from being victims of #cybercrimes? What kind of overall anti-cybercrime strategies do corporates need to have in place? These and a variety of other issues are sought to be addressed in the International Conference on #Cyberlaw & #Cybercrime.

Agenda

8:00 am – 9:00 am	Registration/Collection of Badges
9:00 am – 10:15 am	Pavan Duggal President, Cyberlaws.Net & Advocate, Supreme Court of India Inaugural of the Conference and Inaugural Address: Hon’ble Mr. Justice Madan B Lokur, Hon’ble Judge, Supreme Court of India Address: P K Malhotra, Secretary, Ministry of Law & Justice, Government of India Prof. Antonino Zichichi President of World Federation of Scientists (WFS) Steve Crocker, Chairman, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers (ICANN)
10:15 am – 10:30 am	Networking Tea
10:30 am – 11:45 am	Session I- What You Need To Know About Cyberlaw Today? (Cyberlaw-Existing Cyber Legal Issues, Regimes & Challenges) Pavan Duggal President, Cyberlaws.Net & Advocate, Supreme Court of India Dr. Henning Wegener, Chairman, Permanent Monitoring Panel on Information Security, World Federation of Scientists, Geneva Shri T A Khan, Controller of Certifying Authorities
11:45 am to 1:15 pm	Session II- Is Cyber Security A Fad or Do We Need To Be Concerned? (Cyber Security- Cyberlaw & Cybercrime) Dr. Gulshan Rai Director General, CERT-In Jagdish Mahapatra, MD, India & SAARC McAfee Prof. Rajat Moona Director General, C-DAC Vijay Sethi, CIO & Vice President Information Systems, Hero MotoCorp Ltd Prasanto Roy, Chief Editor of the ICT group of CyberMedia Subramanian Chandrasekhar Group Director Government Affairs Microsoft India Aditya Mishra, Inspector General Border Security Force Ram Mohan Executive Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Afilias Limited Subimal Bhattacharjee, Former Country Head, General Dynamics & Cyber Security Professional
1:15 pm to 2:00 pm	Networking Lunch & Luncheon Addresses
	Session III- Cybercrime, Cybercrime Everywhere, Not Many Convictions in Sight (Cybercrime In The Digital And Mobile Ecosystem – Issues concerning Detection, Investigation And Prosecution Of Cybercrimes) Laurel G. Bellows, Immediate Past President, American Bar Association Navneet R Wasan, Additional Director General at National Investigation Agency Loknath Behra, IGP Bureau of Police Research and Development, India Muktesh Chander, Joint Commissioner of Police Alok Vijayant, Director, IDG, NTRO Dr. Arun Mohan, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India Rajiv Prakash Saxena Deputy Director General NIC Dr. Raymond Choo, PhD in Information Security Roland Trope, Partner- Trope and Schramm LLP. Felix Mohan, Former CISO, Airtel
3:15 pm to 3:30 pm	Networking Tea
3:30 pm to 4:45 pm	Session IV- As Corporates & Intermediaries, How Much Are We Liable Today For Third Party Data? (Liabilities of Intermediaries, Service Providers and Corporates in today’s scenario- The Current and Future Paths) Hon’ble Mr. Justice (Retd.) Rajesh Tandon, Former Chairperson, Cyber Appellate Tribunal Rajesh Agarwal, IT Secretary, Govt. of Maharashtra Rajesh Chharia President ISPAI Abhilash Nair, Northumbria University Sunil Abraham Executive Director the Centre for Internet and Society Dr. H K Hirve, CGM DIT, Reserve Bank of India, (RBI) Anja Kovacs, researcher and activist, and Director of the Internet Democracy
4:45pm to 5:55pm	Address by Mr. Mohan Parasaran, Solicitor General of India
4:55 pm to 6:25 pm	Session V- Crystal Gazing All To The horizon – What we need to be prepared regarding Cyberlaw & Cybercrime (Emerging Trends Concerning Cyberlaw & Cybercrime – The Way Forward) Prof. (Dr.) Ranbir Singh, Founder Vice-Chancellor of National Law University, Delhi Giancarlo Frosio, SJD, Intermediary Liability Fellow, Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School Markus Kummer Vice President, Public Policy Elizabeth T. Ploshay, Manager of Communications at Bitcoin Magazine Dhrupad Mathur, Director, Industry Interface and Associate Professor, Information Technology S P Jain School of Global Management – Dubai, Singapore, Sydney Dr. Hemant Darbari, Executive Director, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Prof. Rajni Jindal, Dean, Research and Collaboration and Head, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women (IGDTUW) Dr. Govind, CEO, National Internet Exchange of India Jagdish Mahapatra, MD, India & SAARC McAfee Saket Modi, CEO, Lucideus Tech Private Limited Usha Ramanathan, Independent Law Researcher and Magsasay Award Winner R M Aggarwal, DDG DOT Tulika Pandey Additional Director, Government of India, Ministry of Communications & Department of Information Technology Prasanto Roy, Chief Editor of the ICT group of Cyber Media Navin Chopra, CEO Agile Group Deepak Maheshwari, Public Policy professional Pavan Duggal President, Cyberlaws.Net & Advocate, Supreme Court of India
	Summing up of the Conference – Mr. Pavan Duggal President, Cyberlaws.Net & Advocate, Supreme Court of India Valedictory Address by Shri J. Satyanarayana, Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Government of India
6:45 pm to 7:30 pm	Vote of Thanks & High Tea

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/intl-conference-cyberlaw-crime

How to Engage in Broadband Policy and Regulatory Processes

praskrishna — 2014-04-03T06:07:04Z

LIRNEasia with the support of the Ford Foundation offered a four-day course in Gurgaon from March 7 to 10, 2014. Sunil Abraham taught on Surveillance and Privacy.

Click to see Sunil Abraham's presentation on Surveillance and Privacy. Also read it on LIRNE asia website here.

Goal

To enable members of Indian civil-society groups (including academics and those from the media) to marshal available research and evidence for effective participation in broadband policy and regulatory processes including interactions with media, thereby facilitating and enriching policy discourse on means of increasing broadband access by the poor.

Outcomes

The objective of the course is to produce discerning and knowledgeable consumers of research who are able to engage in broadband policy and regulatory processes. The course will benefit those working in government and at operators as well.

At the end of the course attendees will:

Be able to find and assess relevant research & evidence

Be able to summarize the research in a coherent and comprehensive manner
Have an understanding of broadband policy and regulatory processes in India
Have the necessary tools to improve their communication skills
Have some understanding of how media function and how to effectively interact with media

Participants will be formed into teams on day1. Both group assignments are connected.

The first assignment requires each group to research on a National Broadband Network (NBN) assigned to them (one of US, Singapore, Hong Kong, Brazil, South Africa, Korea or Colombia) and writing it up based on a template that will be provided. Each team will have to present their findings about the NBN at the end of day 2.

The second assignment is to be performed by teams. It is an oral presentation, accompanied by a policy brief of two pages max. at a mock public hearing at which the Indian Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is seeking input on the question of subsidizing fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) as the second phase of the current INR 20,000 Crore (USD 4 Billion) National Optical Fiber Network initiative. Each team will be assigned a role and they should present the recommendations from the point of view of the assigned ‘role’. All presentations must be evidence based. It is expected that participants will use what they learnt about other NBNs on day 2 to support their argument. Additional research must be conducted on Days 3 and 4.

	Day1 (March 7)	Day2 (March 8)	Day3 (March 9)	Day4 (March 10)
09.00 10.30	S1 Introduction (Rohan Samarajiva RS)	S5 Interrogating supply-side indicators (RS & RLG)	S8 Indian broadband policy & regulatory environment in relation to comparator countries (Satyen Gupta SG)	S13 Lessons from Mexico (Ernesto Flores EF)
10.30 11.00	Break	Break	Break	Break
11.00 12.00	S2 Research on significance of broadband/Internet (Payal Malik PM)	S6 Assessing & summarizing research (RS & NK)	S9 Research on subsidies in broadband eco system (PM)	S14 Spectrum policy debates (Martin Cave (MC)
12.00 13.00	S3 Finding research (Nilusha Kapugama NK)	S7 The art of media interaction (RS)	S10 Making policy & doing regulation (SG & Rajat Kathuria RK) panel discussion	S15 Framing issues (RS)
13.00 14.00	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
14.00 15.00	A1 Group formation; Assignments explained and introduction of Broadband Website (Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne RLG)	A2 Rewriting research summaries & preparing presentations	S11 Surveillance and Privacy (RS & Sunil Abraham SA)	A5 Mock public hearing (RS & panel)
15.00 15.30	Break	Break	Break	Break
15.30 17.00	S4 Demand-side research (NK)	A3 Presentation & critique of research summaries (RS & Panel)	S12 International policy debates on Internet and broadband (RS)	A5 Mock public hearing & critique (RS & panel)
17.00 onwards	Group work	Group work	Group work	Certificate dinner

Faculty

Rohan Samarajiva, PhD
Rohan Samarajiva, was the founding CEO (2004 - 2012) and Chair (2004 – onwards) of LIRNEasia.

Previously he was the Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology (2002-04) responsible for infrastructure reforms, including participation in the design of the USD 83 million e Sri Lanka Initiative. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka (1998-99), a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (2003-05), Honorary Professor at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka (2003-04), Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-03) and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000). He was Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh (2007-09).

He serves as Senior Advisor to Sarvodaya (Sri Lanka’s largest community based organization) on ICT matters. Samarajiva is a Board Member of Communication Policy Research south, an initiative to identify and foster policy intellectuals in emerging Asia. He serves on the editorial boards of seven academic journals.

His full CV can be found at http://lirneasia.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/CVApril1long.pdf

Martin Cave, PhD
Martin Cave is a regulatory economist specialising in competition law and in the network industries, including airports, broadcasting, energy, posts, railways, telecommunications and water. He has published extensively in these fields, and has held professorial positions at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, UK, and the Department of Economics, Brunel University, UK. In 2010/11, Martin held the BP Centennial Chair at the London School of Economics, based in the Department of Law. He is now Visiting Professor at Imperial College Business School.

He is a Deputy Chair of the Competition Commission from January 2012. He has provided expert advice to governments, competition authorities, regulators and firms around the world, focussing particularly upon the communications industries. This work has included reviews of spectrum policies for the Governments of Australia, Canada and the UK; advice on market analysis and access remedies to a large number of regulators in Asia, Australia, Europe and Latin America, including the European Commission. He has provided advice and expert testimony in competition and sector-specific regulatory proceedings to a number of major international firms in Asia, Australasia and Europe. He has also advised UK ministers on matters relating to the water sector, housing, legal services and airports, and advised regulators in the railway and energy sectors. He was a founder member of the Academic Advisory Committee of the Brussels-based think tank, the Centre for Regulation in Europe (www.cerre.eu). In 2009 he was awarded the OBE for public service.

His full CV available on http://www.martincave.org.uk/index.php

Payal Malik
Payal Malik is a Senior Research Fellow of LIRNEasia and an Associate Professor of Economics at the Delhi University. She is currently on deputation to the Competition Commission of India. She is also associated with National Council of Applied Economic Research and Indicus Analytics. She received her Master of Philosophy (M.Phil.), and MA in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and BA in Economics from Lady Shriram College, University of Delhi. She also has a MBA in Finance from the University of Cincinnati.

She has several years of research experience on the issues of competition and regulation in network industries like power, telecommunication and water. In addition, she has done considerable research on the ICT sector. Recently she has been actively engaged in competition policy research. At LIRNEasia, she has led research on measuring India’s telecom sector and regulatory performance, including a study on Universal Service Instruments. She has written both for professional journals as well as for the economic press. Currently she is a regular columnist for the Financial Express, India and a referee for the Information Technologies and International Development journal published by University of Southern California, Annenberg. Click here to download a detailed version of CV.

Satyen Gupta
Satyen Gupta is the founder and Secretary General, NGN Forum, India. Previously he was the chief of Corporate Affairs, Sterlite Technologies Ltd and headed the Regulatory and Govt. Affairs for BT global Services for SAARC Region and handled Licencing, Regulation, compliance, competition and Industry Advocacy issues. He is also a member, Advisory Board of Creation and Implementation of National Optical Fibre Network for the government of India (2011 onwards). From 2000-2006 he served as the Principle Advisor, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India at the level of additional secretary to the government of India and headed the fixed network division. He is the author of “Everything Over IP-All you want to know about NGN” (2011).

He has conducted and taught many courses on telecommunication technologies, policy and regulation. He is also a Govt. Affairs and Regulatory advocate. He graduated with Hons, in Engineering in 1979 from NIT, Kurukshetra University, INDIA and went on to complete his post graduate studies in Electronics Design Technology at CEDT, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Rajat Kathuria, PhD
Rajat Kathuria is Director and Chief Executive at Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), New Delhi. He has over 20 years experience in teaching and 10 years experience in economic policy, besides research interests on a range of issues relating to regulation and competition policy. He worked with Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) during its first eight years (1998-2006) and gained hands on experience with telecom regulation in an environment changing rapidly towards competition. The role entailed analysis of economic issues relating to telecom tariff policy, tariff rebalancing, interconnection charges and licensing policy. Market research and questionnaire development and analysis formed an integral part of this exercise. It also involved evaluation of macro level initiatives for transforming the telecom industry. He wrote a number of consultation papers which eventually formed the basis of tariff and interconnection orders applicable to the industry. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephens College, a Masters from Delhi School of Economics and a PhD degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Ernesto Flores, PhD
Ernesto M. Flores-Roux majored in Mathematics from the National University of Mexico (UNAM), obtained partial credits in a Masters in Economics (ITAM), and received his PhD in Statistics from The University of Chicago (1993). From 1993 to 2004, he worked for McKinsey & Co., Inc. (Mexico, Brazil), one of the most prestigious international consulting firms, first as a Consultant, then as Partner, and finally as the Partner in charge of McKinsey's Rio de Janeiro office. He specialized in several aspects of the telecommunications industry, including regulation, planning, strategy, and marketing. He assisted the governments of Mexico and Brazil in their deregulation and privatization processes. In 2004, he joined Telefonica, first as Director of Marketing and Strategy in Mexico and then transferring to Telefónica's operations in Peru, China (Beijing), and Brazil. In 2008 he joined the Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) in Mexico as Chief of Staff of the Deputy Minister of Communications. In 2009 he joined CIDE (Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, Mexico City) as an associate professor of CIDE's telecommunications program (Telecom CIDE). He has published several papers in telecommunications policy and has written reports for the IDB, GSMA, UN/CEPAL , Ahciet, CAF, OECD, as well as other publications in industry and academic journals. In 2011 he became a member of the Advisory Council of the Mexican telecommunications regulator (Cofetel – Comisión Federal de Telecomunicaciones).

Sunil Abraham
Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of Bangalore based research organization, the Centre for Internet and Society. He founded Mahiti in 1998, a company committed to creating high impact technology and communications solutions. Today, Mahiti employs more than 50 engineers. Sunil continues to serve on the board. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was also granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Nilusha Kapugama
Nilusha Kapugama is a Research Manager at LIRNEasia and manages the electricity component of the 2012-2014 IDRC Project on ‘Achieving e-inclusion by improving government service delivery & exploring the potential of “big data” for answering development questions’.

She is also working on a systematic review looking at the economic impacts of mobile phones. Previously she managed the Knowledge Based Economy project at LIRNEasia, which looked at the information and knowledge gaps in agriculture supply chains. She also worked on CPR south, LIRNEasia’s capacity-building initiative to develop Asia-Pacific expertise and knowledge networks in ICT policy regulation. She has also done research on broadband quality indicators and national regulatory authority (NRA) website indicators. She has also worked on LIRNEasia’s Virtual Organization Project. She has experience organizing international conferences and training courses.

She holds a master’s degree in development economics and policy from the University of Manchester, UK.

Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne
Roshanthi is a Research Manager at LIRNEasia and is currently managing the Ford Foundation Funded project on Giving Broadband Access to the Poor in India.

She is also contributing to the IDRC Customer Lifecycle Management Practices Project by conducting research on customer lifecycle management practices in telecommunication sector in Bangladesh.

Before joining LIRNEasia, Roshanthi worked at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Geneva, Switzerland as a Strategic Information Officer. She contributed to the process of defining the Global Fund Key Performance Indicators, and also worked on improving the performance measurements of their grants. Prior to that, she worked as a telecom project manager at Dialog Telecom, and Suntel Ltd in Sri Lanka. As Suntel she managed the design and implementation of corporate customer projects.

She holds a MBA from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK and a BSc. Eng (Hons) specializing in Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Resource Materials

Bauer, Johannes M.; Kim, Junghyun; & Wildman, Steven S. (2005). An integrated framework for assessing broadband policy options. MICH. ST. L. REV. 21, pp. 21-50. http://www.msulawreview.org/PDFS/2005/1/Bauer-Kim.pdf

Broadband Commission (2012). The state of broadband 2012: Achieving digital inclusion for all. http://www.broadbandcommission.org/Documents/bb-annualreport2012.pdf

Government of India, Department of Telecommunications (2012). National Telecom Policy 2012. http://www.dot.gov.in/ntp/NTP-06.06.2012-final.pdf

Government of India, Department of Telecommunications (2004). Broadband policy. http://www.dot.gov.in/ntp/broadbandpolicy2004.htm

Junio, Don Rodney (2012). Does a National Broadband Plan Matter? A Comparative Analysis of Broadband Plans in Hong Kong and Singapore http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2146566

InfoDev. Broadband strategies toolkit. http://broadbandtoolkit.org/en/toolkit/contents

Samarajiva, Rohan (2010). Leveraging the budget telecom network business model to bring broadband to the people, Information Technology and International Development, 6, special edition: 93-97. http://itidjournal.org/itid/article/view/630/270

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/how-to-engage-in-broadband-policy-and-regulatory-processes

Girls just wanna have... a voice

praskrishna — 2014-04-01T11:21:47Z

Many Indian women have taken to Twitter, the micro-blogging site, to air their views. And some of them have become social media celebrities by virtue of their wise and witty tweets. Prasun Chaudhuri looks at the women who matter in India’s Twitterverse.

The article was published in the Telegraph on March 8, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

Everyone knows that movie stars like Priyanka Chopra and Deepika Padukone, media celebs like Barkha Dutt and Sagarika Ghose have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media who hang on to their every word. But Malini Agarwal, Priyanka Sachar? Vidyut Kale? You may not have heard of them otherwise, but these women are rockstars of India’s Twitterverse too — not because they are famous in their day jobs, but because their tweets have that special something that keeps the followers coming.

Take Malini Agarwal (@MissMalini), a former radio jockey and head of digital content for Channel V in India, who has over 2,00,000 followers on Twitter. In fact, she has a larger-than-life presence on virtually all social media platforms. Agarwal tweets about Bollywood, the fashion world and the Page 3 circuit. Her Twitter bio says: “She who controls the spice, controls the universe. Bollywood, Fashion & Lifestyle with a Desi Girl Twist.” This “desi girl” with the insider’s take on the glamour world is now an industry of sorts. She has her own website called missmalini.com in which she has employed nine enthusiastic young bloggers — “a happy mix of Bollywood Junkies, Fashionistas and Party Animals” representing “the young, modern (and pretty!) face of India”.

Far removed from the glamour circuit is Vidyut Kale (@Vidyut), a stay-at-home mom raising an infant with cerebral palsy. She has over 14,000 followers for her unusual takes on “issues of socio-political interest”. Says Kale, who describes herself as an “intellectual anarchist”, “Twitter is just amazing because I can actually comment on something and get instant replies. I think I get followed mainly because I say what many will tiptoe around, and that can feel like a big relief when an issue is bugging you badly.”

Her “firebrand” tweeting — on women’s issues, politics, and indeed, pretty much everything under the sun — has turned her into quite a celebrity and she often gets invited to speak at events. Even though she avoids most of these “real-life” gatherings, sometimes her fans force her to attend them. She says, “I have been paid travel expenses to attend an event when I said I couldn’t afford the travel. I have been interviewed, I have had people make an effort to understand a [social] cause if I bring it up.”

Clearly, a social media platform like Twitter has become a fantastic forum for women — a section of society that has traditionally been voiceless. Those who shine on it, says Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet and Society (a Bangalore-based organisation that researches the impact of digital media), do so by virtue of their “authentic voice”. He adds, “Unlike in the traditional media, there’s no editor to moderate their views and they don’t have any guidelines to follow.” In other words, what their fans get to read or see are unfiltered views — something that’s often missing in mainstream media. Besides, their tweets are often edgy and politically incorrect. And men — and women — fed on the traditional image of women propagated by the mainstream media, find that refreshing and engaging.

Adds social media enthusiast and avid blogger Harsh Ajmera, “People appreciate the bold and politically incorrect approach of these Twitter stars, as opposed to the sugar-coated comments aired in news channels and various other media outlets.” Agrees Kale, “Unlike in lengthy blog posts or newspaper columns, it is easier to make comments on news or challenge views through Twitter. It also enables direct interaction with readers.”

Ask Chinmayi Sripada (@chinmayi), a Chennai-based singer whose bold and frank tweets have earned her more than 2,40,000 Twitter followers. And a fair number of trolls and abusive enemies too. When she spoke out in support of Tamil Nadu fishermen who were attacked by the Sri Lankan Navy, she was flooded with abusive tweets that were tantamount to sexual harassment. But she took on her abusers (one of them was a professor at a top fashion institute) head on. “I filed a case under Section 66A of the IT Act and they were in jail for about two weeks. That was when I saw the full extent of cyber bullying on the basis of caste and community.”

Of course, Sripada doesn’t owe her fame to Twitter alone. She is a popular playback singer in south India and got famous across India for her recent Bollywood hit in Chennai Express. “I haven’t become famous because of social media. I am recognised primarily as a singer.”

Actress and former Miss India Gul Panag (@GulPanag) is yet another Twitter star who was already a celebrity. But with a staggering 7,84,000 followers, and with tweets that are unfailingly sharp and intelligent, maybe her Twitter stardom outshines her Bollywood one. A recent survey by an agency named her as one of the most influential persons on the micro-blogging site. News anchor Barkha Dutt — one of the country’s top media celebrities — also boasts a whopping 12.3 lakh followers.

But Kaveri Ahuja (@ikaveri) is a regular wife and mom who has gone on to become a Twitter celeb. A cancer survivor, her takes on everyday life and the stories of her battle against colorectal cancer (“I love a good fight. How else would I have kicked the big C’s butt?”) attract over 25,000 followers. She even runs a separate Twitter handle for her fan club (@ikaverifc). “Being recognised on Twitter has expanded my offline social circle as well. I can count many online friends as my real-life friends now,” she says.

One of India’s earliest Twitter stars was Priyanka Sachar. If her real name doesn’t ring a bell, her Twitter handle, @TwilightFairy, might. This erstwhile IT professional and part-time wedding photographer left her day job riding on the fame earned by her 140-character tweets. Her quirky takes on a wide range of topics — ranging from everyday outrages (“Bought passionfruit cake for parents’ anniversary from jaypeehotels and got long human hair baked in it for free. Never again!”) to instant reaction to news (“Sahara boss gets ink on his face. Reminds me of school time ink pen wars!”) — are lapped up by her 21,000+ followers.

Thanks to her fame on Twitter, she is often recognised by strangers. “It is a strange experience and I really don’t know how to react, except to say ‘yes, that’s me, how did you know!’… Twitter has made sure that so many interesting (and seemingly inaccessible) people are accessible instantly.” Apart from these “life-altering changes”, she keeps getting invited to some activity or the other, organised by brands that regularly invite “influencers”. “The recognition on Twitter/social media has affected me in massive ways. I left my IT industry job in order to figure out if I can take up a different profession and be a freelancer. And the moment I left my job, an opportunity landed straight in my lap, simply because of my Twitter id! I got offered a job as a social media consultant at a digital media agency,” she says.
So have social media platforms such as Twitter really done wonders for women’s empowerment? Yes and no.

According to Sachar, Twitter did offer unprecedented freedom of speech in its early days. But now that a lot of politicians and political parties have come on board and the Indian IT laws are being tweaked, tweets can be misused by anyone in power. “Even though one can say what one wants, people do tread a tad more cautiously compared to, let’s say, two year back,” says Sachar.

Chinmayi agrees. “There is nothing called total freedom of speech. Even if one chooses that path, the trolls are waiting to see who can be cut to size. I am guarded about what I write on social media.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-march-8-2014-girls-just-wanna-have-a-voice

Institute for Internet & Society 2014, Pune

samantha — 2014-04-07T11:31:23Z

Last month, activists, journalists, researchers, and members of civil society came together at the 2014 Institute for Internet & Society in Pune, which was hosted by CIS and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Institute was a week long, in which participants heard from speakers from various backgrounds on issues arising out of the intersection of internet and society, such as intellectual property, freedom of expression, and accessibility, to name a few. Below is an official reporting summarizing sessions that took place.

Day One

February 11, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 9.40 a.m.	Introduction: Sunil Abraham, Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society
10.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.	Introduction of Participants
10.15 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.	Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham
12.00 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.	Tea-break
12.30 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.	Keynote: Bishakha Datta, Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, CIS

This year’s Internet Institute, hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), kicked off in Pune to put a start to a week of learnings and discussions surrounding internet usage and its implications on individuals of society. Twenty two attendees from all over India attended this year, from backgrounds of activism, journalism, research and advocacy work.

Attendees were welcomed by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Program Officer for Media Rights & Access at the Ford Foundation, the event’s sponsor, who started off the day by introducing the Foundation’s initiatives in pursuit of bridging the digital divide by addressing issues of internet connectivity.

Internet Governance & Privacy, Sunil Abraham
The Institute’s first session was led by Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of CIS, and engaged with issues of internet governance and privacy with reference to four stories: 1) a dispute between tweeters from the US and those in South Africa over the use of hashtag #thingsdarkiesays, which is said not to be as racially derogatory as it is in the US; 2) Facebook’s contested policies on photos featuring users breastfeeding, 3) a lawsuit between Tata and Greenpeace over the organization’s use of Tata’s logo in a video game created for public criticism of their environmentally-degrading practices, and lastly, 4) the case of Savita Bhabhi, an Indian pornographic cartoon character which had been banned by India’s High Court and which had served as a landmark case in expanding the statutory laws for what is considered to be pornographic.

Each of these stories has one major thing in common: due to their nature of taking place over the internet, they are not confined to one geographic location and in turn, are addressed at the international level. The way by which an issue as such is to be addressed cuts across State policies and internet intermediary bodies to create quite a messy case in trying to determine who is at fault. Such complexity illustrates how challenging internet governance can be within today’s society that is no longer restricted to national or geographic boundaries.

Sunil also goes on in explaining the relationship between privacy, transparency, and power, summing it up in a simple formula; privacy protection should have a reverse relationship to power—the more the power, the less the privacy one should be entitled to. On the contrary, a direct correlation goes for power and transparency—the more the power, the more transparent a body should be. Instead of thinking about these concepts as a dichotomy, Sunil suggests to see them as absolute rights in themselves—instrumental in policies and necessary to address power imbalances.

The Web We Want, Bishakha Datta
The Institute’s kickoff was also joined by Indian filmmaker and activist, Bishakha Datta, who had delivered the keynote address. Bishakha bridged together notions of freedom of speech, surveillance, and accessibility, while introducing campaigns that work to create an open and universally accessible web, such as the Web We Want and Sexuality and Disability. Bishakha stresses how the internet as a space has altered how we experience societal constructs, which can be easily exhibited in how individuals experience Facebook in the occurrence of a death, for example. Bishakha initiated discussion among participants by posing questions such as, “what is our expectation of privacy in this brave new world?” and “what is the society we want?” to encompass the need to think of privacy in a new way with the coming of the endless possibilities the internet brings with it.

Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet, Nishant Shah
CIS Research Director, Nishant Shah, led a session examining internet as a technology more broadly, and our understandings of it in relation to the human body. Nishant proposes the idea that history is a form of technology, as well as time, itself, for which our understanding only comes into being with the aid of technologies of measurement. Although we are inclined to separate technology from the self, Nishant challenges this notion while suggesting that technology is very integral to being human, and defines a “cyborg” as someone who is very intimate with technology. In this way, we are all cyborgs. While making reference to several literary pieces, including Haraway’s Cyborg: Human, Animus, Technology; Kevin Warwick’s Living Cyborg; and Watt’s small world theory, Nishant challenges participants’ previous notions of how one is to understand technology in relation to oneself, as well as the networks we find ourselves implicated within.

Also brought forth by Nishant, was the fact that the internet as a technology has become integral to our identities, making us accessible (rather than us solely making the technology accessible) through online forms of documentation. This digital phenomenon in which we tend to document what we know and experience as a means of legitimizing it can be summed in the modern version of an old fable: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest, and nobody tweets it, has it fallen?”

Nishant refers to several case studies in which the use of online technologies has created a sense of an extension of the self and one’s personal space; which can then be subject to violation as one can be in the physical form, and to the same emotional and psychological effect—as illustrated within the 1993 occurrence referred to as “A Rape in Cyberspace.”

Attendee Participation
Participants remained engaged and enthusiastic for the duration of the day, bringing forth their personal expertise and experiences. Several participants presented their own research initiatives, which looked at issues women face as journalists and as portrayed by the media; amateur pornography without the consent of the woman; study findings on the understandings of symptoms of internet addiction; as well as studies looking at how students engage with college confession pages on Facebook.

Day Two

February 12, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, Independent Consultant
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Practical Lab: Kingsley John
4.45 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.	Wrap-up: Sunil Abraham

Day Two of the Institute entailed a more technical orientation to “internet & society” across sessions. Participants listened to speakers introduce concepts related to wired and wireless internet connectivity devices and their networks, along with the network of internet users and how one may secure him or herself while “online.”

Wireless & Wired Technology, Ravikiran Annaswamy
Senior industry practitioner, Ravikiran Annaswamy had aimed to enable the Institute’s participants to “understand the depth and omnipresent of telecom networks” that we find ourselves implicated within. Ravikiran went through the basics of these networks—including fixed line-, mobile-, IP-, and Next Generation IP-networks—as well as the technical structuring of wired and wireless broadband. Many participants found this session to be particularly enriching as their projects aimed to provide increased access to internet connectivity to marginalized areas in India, and had been without the know-how to go about it.

Network, Threats and Securing Yourself, Kinglsey John
An instructional session on how to protect oneself was given by Kingsley John, beginning with a lesson on IP Addresses—what they are and the different generations of such, and how IP addresses fit into a broader internet network. Following, Kingsley demonstrated and explained email encryption through the use of software, Kleopatra, and how it may be used to generate keys to encrypt emails through Thunderbird mail client.

Evening Discussion

A handful of participants voluntarily partook in an evening discussion, looking at the role of big players in the global internet network, such as Google and Facebook, how they collect and utilize users’ data, and what sorts of measures can be taken to minimize the collecting of such. Due to the widely varying backgrounds of interest among participants, those coming from this technical orientation towards the internet were able to inform their peers on relevant information and types of software that may be found useful related to minimizing one’s online presence.

Day Three

February 13, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Chairperson, Free Software Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Data: Nisha Thompson, Independent Consultant
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society

The third day of the Internet Institute incorporated themes presented by speakers ranging from free software, to freedom of expression, to copyright.

Free Software, Prof. G. Nagarjuna
Chairman on the Board of Directors for the Free Software Foundation of India, Professor G. Nagarjuna shared with the Institute’s participants his personal expertise on software freedom. Nagarjuna mapped for us the network of concepts related to software freedom, beginning with the origins of the copyleft movement, and also touching upon the art of hacking, the open source movement, and what role software freedom plays in an interconnected world.

Nagarjuna looks at the free software movement as a political movement in the digital space highlighting the user’s freedoms associated to the use, distribution, and modification of software for the greater good for all. This is said to distinguish this movement from that of Open Source—a technical and more practical development-oriented movement. The free software movement is not set out to compromise the fundamental issues for the sake of being practical and in that sense, ubiquitous. Instead, its objective is “not to make everybody use the software, but to have them understand why they are using the software,” so that they may become “authentic citizens that can also resonate why they’re doing what they’re doing. We want them to understand the ethical and political aspects of doing so,” Nagarjuna says.

Open Data, Nisha Thompson
Participants learned from Nisha Thompson on Open Data; what it is, its benefits, and how it is involved in central government initiatives and policy, as well as civil society groups—generally for uses such as serving as evidence for decision making and accountability. Nisha explored challenges concerning the use of open data, such as those pertaining to privacy, legitimacy, copyright, and interoperability. The group looked at the India Water Portal as a case study, which makes accessible more than 300 water-related datasets already available in the public space for use from anything from sanitation and agriculture to climate change.

Freedom of Expression, Bhairav Acharya
Bhairav Acharya, a constitutional lawyer, traced the development of the freedom of speech and expression in India. Beginning with a conceptual understanding of censorship and the practice of censorship by the state, society, and the individual herself, Bhairav examines the limits traditionally placed by a nation-state on the right to free speech.

In India, modern free speech and censorship law was first formulated by the colonial British government, which broadly imported the common law to India. However, the colonial state also yielded to the religious and communitarian sensitivities of its subjects, resulting in a continuing close link between communalism and free speech in India today. After Independence, the post-colonial Indian state carried forward Raj censorship, but tweaked it to serve to a nation-building and developmental agenda. Nation-building and nationalism are centrifugal forces that attempt to construct a homogenous 'mainstream'; voices from the margins of this mainstream (the geographical, ethnic, and religious peripheries) and of the marginalised within the mainstream (the poor and disadvantaged), are censored.

Within this narrative, Bhairav located and explained the evolution of the law relating to press censorship, defamation, obscenity, and contempt of court. Free speech law applies equally online. Broadly, censorship on the internet must survive the same constitutional scrutiny that is applied to offline censorship; but, as technology develops, the law must innovate.

Copyright, Nehaa Chaudhari
CIS Programme Officer, Nehaa Chaudhari examined the concept of Copyright as an intellectual property right in discussing its fundamentals, purpose and origins, and Copyright’s intersection with the internet. Nehaa also explained the different exceptions to Copyright, along with its alternatives, such as opposing intellectual property protection regimes, including the Creative Commons and Copyleft. Within this session, Nehaa also introduced several cases in which Copyright came into play with the use of the internet, including Hunter Moore’s “Is Anyone Up?” website, which had showcased pornographic pictures obtained by submission bringing rise to the phenomenon of “revenge porn.” Instances as such blur the lines of what is commonly referred to as intellectual property, and what specific requirements enables one to own the rights to such.

Day Four

February 14, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, Union Bank
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Fieldwork Assignment

Day Four of the Internet Institute introduced concepts of eAccessibilty and Inclusion on the internet for persons with disabilities, along with patents as an intellectual property right. Participants were also assigned a fieldwork exercise as a hands-on activity in which they were to employ what they’ve learned to initiate conversation with individuals in public spaces and collect primary data while doing so.

eAccessibility and Inclusion, Prashant Naik

Prashant Naik started off the day with his session on E-Accessibility and Inclusion. Prashant illustrated the importance of accessibility and what is meant by the term. Participants learned of assistive technologies for different disability types and how to create more accessible word and PDF documents, as well as web pages for users. Prashant demonstrated to participants what it is like to use a computer as a visually impaired individual, which provided for an enriching experience.

Patents, Nehaa Chaudhari
Nehaa Chaudhari led a second session at the Internet Institute on intellectual property rights—this one looking at patents particularly and their role within statutory law. Nehaa traced the historical origins of patents before examining the fundamentals of them, and addresses the questions, “Why have patents? And is the present system working for everyone?” Nehaa also introduced notions of the Commons along with the Anticommons, and perspectives within the debate around software patents, as well as different means by which the law can address the exploitation of patents or “patent thickets”—such as through patent pools or compulsory licensing.

Fieldwork Assignment, Groupwork
Participants were split into groups and required to carry out a mini fieldwork assignment in approaching individuals in varying public spaces in Pune in attempts to collect primary data. Questions asked to individuals were to be devised by the group, so long as they pertained to themes examined within the Internet Institute. Areas visited by groups included the Pune Central Mall, MG Road, and FC Road.

Day Five

February 15, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, Vice President, eGovernments Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Market Concerns: Payal Malik, Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Digital Natives: Nishant Shah
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Fieldwork Presentations

Day Five of the Internet Institute brought with it sessions related to themes of e-governance, market concerns of telecommunications, and so called “Digital Natives.”

eGovernance, Manu Srivastava
Vice President of the eGovernments Foundation, Manu Srivastava led a session on eGovernance—the utilization of the internet as a means of delivering government services communicating with citizens, businesses, and members of government. Manu examined the complexities of the eGovernance and barriers to implementation of eGovernance initiatives. Within discussion, participants examined the nuanced relationship between the government and citizens with the incorporation of other governing bodies in an eGovernance system, as well as new spaces for corruption to take place.

Market Concerns, Payal Malik
Payal Malik, Advisor of the Economics Division of the Competition Commission of India shared her knowledge on market concerns of the telecommunications industry, and exclaimed the importance of competition issues in such an industry as a tool to create greater good for a greater number of people. She demonstrated this importance by stating that affordability as a product of increased access can only be possible once there is enough investment, which generally only happens in a competitive market. In this way, we must set the conditions to make competition possible, as a tool to achieve certain objectives. Payal also demonstrated the economic benefits of telecommunications by stating that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, increase in GDP of 1.3%. She also examined the broadband ecosystem in India and touched upon future possibilities of increased broadband penetration, such as for formers and the education sector.

Digital Natives, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah shed some light on one of the areas that the Centre for Internet & Society looks at within their research scope, this being the “Digital Native.” As referred to by Nishant, the Digital Native is not to categorize a specific type of internet user, but can be said for simply any person who is performing a digital action, while doing away with this false dichotomy of age, location, and geography.

Nishant examines varying case studies in which “the digital is empowering natives to not merely be benefactors of change, but agents of change,” from the Blank Noise Project’s “I NEVER Ask for it…” campaign in efforts to rethink sexual violence, to Matt Harding’s foolish dancing with groups of individuals from all over the world.

As occurrences in the digital realm, however, these often political expressions may be rewritten by the network when picked up as a growing phenomenon, in order to make it accessible to online consumers by the masses. In doing so, the expression is removed from its political context and is presented in the form of nothing more than a fad. For this reason, Nishant stresses the need to become aware of the potential of the internet in becoming an “echo-chamber”—in which forms of expression are amplified and mimicked, resulting in a restructuring of the dynamics surrounding the subject—whether it be videos of boys lipsyncing to Backstreet Boys in their dorm room going viral, or a strong and malicious movement to punish the Chinese girl who had taken a video of her heinously and wickedly killing a kitten after locating her using the Human Flesh Search Engine.

Fieldwork Presentations, Groupwork

To end off the day, participant groups presented findings collated from the prior evening’s fieldwork exercise, in which they were to ask strangers in various public places of Pune questions pertaining to themes looked at from within this year’s Institute. Participants were divided into four groups and visited Pune’s FC Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Central Mall.

Groups found that the majority of those interviews primarily accessed the phone via the mobile. There was also a common weariness of using the internet and concern for one’s privacy while doing so, especially with uploading photos to Facebook and online financial transactions. People were also generally concerned about using cyber cafes for fear of one’s accounts being hacked. Generally people suspected that so long as conversations are “private” (i.e. in one’s Facebook inbox), so too are they secure. Just as well, those interviewed shared a sense of security with the use of a password.

Day Six

February 16, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Access: Muthu Madhan (TBC)
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Case Studies Groupwork
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Case Studies Presentations

As the Institute came closer to its end, participants got the opportunity to hear from speakers on topics pertaining the Wikipedia editing in addition to Open Access to scholarly literature. Participants also worked together in groups to examine specific case studies referenced in previous sessions, and then presented their conclusions.

Wikipedia, Dr. Abhijeet Safai
The Institute was joined by Medical Officer of Clinical Research at Pune’s Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, who led a session on Wikipedia. Having edited over 3700 Wikipedia articles, Dr. Abhijeet was able to bring forth his expertise and familiarity in editing Wikipedia to participants so that they would be able to do the same. Introduced within this session were Wikipedia’s different fundamental pillars and codes of conducts to be complied with by all contributors, along with different features and components of Wikipedia articles that one should be aware of when contributing, such as how to cite sources and discuss the contents of an article with other contributors.

Open Access, Muthu Madhan
Muthu Madhan joined the Internet Institute while speaking on Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature. Within his session, Muthu examined the historical context within which the scholarly journal had arisen and how the idea of Open Access began within this space. The presence of Open Access in India and other developing nations was also examined in this session, and the concept of Open Data, introduced.

Case Studies, Groupworks

Participants were split up into groups and assigned particular case studies looked at briefly in previous sessions. Case studies included #thingsdarkiessay, a once trending Twitter hashtag in South Africa which had offended many Americans for its use of “darkie” as a derogatory term; the literary novel, The Hindus, which offers an alternative narrative of Hindu history had been banned in India for obscenity; a case in which several users’ avatars had been controlled by another in a virtual community and forced to perform sexual acts, referred to as A Rape Happened in Cyber Space; and lastly, a pornographic submission website, Is Anyone Up?, for which content was largely derived from “revenge porn.” Each group then presented on the various perspectives surrounding the issue at hand.

The Cyborg, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah led an off-agenda session in the evening looking more closely at the notion of the human cyborg. Nishant deconstructs humanity’s relationship to technology, in suggesting that we “think of the human as produced with the technologies… not who produces technology.” Nishant explores the Digital Native as an attained identity for those who, because of technology, restructure and reinvent his or her environment—offline as well as online. Among other ideas shared, Nishant refers to works by Haraway on the human cyborg in illustrating our dependency on technology and our need to care for these technologies we depend on.

Day Seven

February 17, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Internet Activism: Laura Stein, Associate Professor, University of Texas and Fulbright Fellow
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, Research Director
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Hot Question Challenge

The last day of the week-long Internet Institute examined concepts of Internet Activism and Domestic and International Bodies. Some participants led presentations on topics of personal familiarity, before a final wrap-up exercise, calling upon individuals to share any new formulations resulting from the Institute.

Internet Activism, Laura Stein

Associate Professor from the University of Texas, Laura Stein, spoke on activism on the internet. Laura examined some grassroots organizations and movements taking place on the online and the benefits that the internet brings in facilitating their impact, such as its associated low costs, accessibility and possibility for anonymity. Despite the positive effects catalyzed by the internet, Laura stresses that the “laying field is still unequal, and movements are not simply transformed by technology.” Some of the websites exemplifying online activism that were examined within this session includes the It Gets Better Project, which aims to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, and the national election watch by the Association for Democratic Reforms. Additionally, Laura spoke on public communication policy, comparing that of the US and India, and how this area of policy may influence media content and practice.

Domestic and International Bodies, Chinmayi Arun
As the Internet Institute’s final speaker, Research Director for Communication Governance at National Law University , Chinmayi Arun, explores the network of factors that affect one’s behavior on the internet—these including: social norms, the law, the markets, and architecture. In referring to Lawrence Lessig’s pathetic dot theory, Chinmayi illustrates how individual’s—the pathetic dots in question—are functions of the interactions of these factors, and in this sense, regulated, and stresses the essential need to understand the system, in order to effectively change the dynamics within it. It is worth noting that not all pathetic dots are equal, and Google’s dot, for example, will be drastically bigger than a single user’s, having more leveraging power within the network of internet bodies. Also demonstrated, is the fact that we must acknowledge the need for regulation by the law to some extent, otherwise, the internet would be a black box where anything goes, putting one’s security at risk of violation.

Hot Question Challenge
The very last exercise of the Institute entailed participants asking each other questions on demand, relating back to different themes looked at within the last week. Participants had the chance, here, to bridge together concepts across sessions, as well as formulate their own opinions, while posing questions to others that they, themselves, were still curious about.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune

“The Internet and Controls: A Disturbing Scenario”

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T12:09:11Z

Prof. Mohan SundaraRajan, a renowned science writer will give a talk at the Bangalore International Centre in TERI on March 7, 2014 at 6.30 p.m. Sunil Abraham will chair and moderate the session.

See the invite below. Event details are also posted on the website of Citizen Matters.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-internet-and-controls-a-disturbing-scenario

‘Mobile’ voters may sway polls

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:55:24Z

BABALAL Patel’s tiny tea stall in Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.

The article by Avantika Chilkoti was published in BDlive on March 5, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

But one night this month, this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the hi-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with politician Narendra Modi as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.

Similar "tea parties" were held across India, designed to ram home Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. The nationwide event, organised by using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, signals a shift in Indian politics.

For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of cellphones mean this year’s battle is playing out equally fiercely online.

"We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media," says Arvind Gupta, head of information technology and social media for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

"Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground."

These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of North Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election that must be held in the next three months, and of which the outcome many believe will be close.

Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a "postmodern election" for up to 160 — largely urban — seats out of a total of 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communications for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.

India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, exceeded 200-million. While that is a fraction of the 1.3-billion population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time.

"Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies, but for urban constituencies, because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class are very much glued into the election and showing interest," says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.

Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4-million Twitter followers and more than 10.6-million "likes" on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs.

By contrast, Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.

Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national "tea parties", but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most important in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in the press. The audience could speak directly to Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.

"While answering each question, Modi has a point of view," says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grandfather’s tea shop. "He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing — this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking."

Social media provide swathes of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analysis used by US President Barack Obama’s campaigns.

From its offices in suburban Mumbai, digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks social media discussions at constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or "social radar", which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.

Sceptics argue, however, that social media have insufficient traction in India to affect results of the coming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. Educated, influential Indians use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.

"The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites," says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. "It’s an indirect route to the vote."

However, an adviser to the Obama campaign warns that, given differences in funding and the environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year, a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the cellphone.

"Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff," says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. "But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model.… No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office."

India’s version is markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.

"I have never attended a political rally in my entire life," says Patel, who helped to organise Modi’s nationwide "tea party". "If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via e-mail."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bd-live-avantika-chilkoti-march-5-2014-mobile-voters-may-sway-polls

India’s ballot battle will also run through Facebook

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:49:29Z

Facebook on Tuesday launched its widely awaited “election tracker” for the upcoming general elections, a move that signals the growing importance of social media as a political tool in a rapidly urbanizing India.

The article by Zia Haq was published in the Hindustan Times on March 4, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

India’s 2014 ballot battle will run through the social-media world, which could likely influence electoral outcomes by swinging 3-4% votes, as more and more young Indians go online to make sense of politics, according to two new surveys.

In these mostly urbanising seats, social-media usage is now “sufficiently widespread” to influence politics, according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). An offline study conducted by market research firm TNS and Google India suggested similar shifts.

The Facebook tracker (http://on.fb.me/1g6ZJ3k) will help India’s 93 million Facebook users to see which parties and candidates as well as issues are trending.

Social-media platforms are likely to be influential in 160 of India’s 543 Parliament constituencies, making Facebook and Twitter users the nation’s newest voting bloc, according to the IAMAI survey.

These are constituencies where 10% of the voting population uses social media sites such as Facebook, or where the number of social media users is higher than the winning candidate’s margin of victory at the last election.

Research shows that social media is more persuasive than television ads. Nearly 100 million Indians, or more than Germany’s population, use the Internet each day. Of this, 40 million have assured broadband, the ones most likely to have at least one social media account.

“Unlike Obama who used social media directly for votes, Indian politicians have tended to use it more to mould public discourse,” says Sunil Abraham, the CEO of The Centre for Internet and Society.

“I think these trends are over-hyped and the impact, if any, would only be marginal,” said Communist Party of India MP, Gurudas Dasgupta, who created a Facebook account only last month.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-zia-haq-march-4-2014-india-s-ballot-battle-will-also-run-through-facebook

India: Privacy Bill will likely reflect EU Directive

praskrishna — 2014-03-05T11:45:37Z

The Indian Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) called for comments - on 25 February 2014 - on a draft Privacy Protection Bill ('the Bill'). The draft Bill comes after a series of roundtable discussions in 2013. The last CIS roundtable on the Bill, on 19 October 2013, included Jacob Kohnstamm, Chairman of the EU Article 29 Working Party and the Dutch data protection authority, and Christopher Graham, the UK Information Commissioner.

The article was published in DataGuidance on March 3, 2014.

"In its eventual form, I expect [the Bill] will be modelled to a great extent on the European Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC)," Rodney Ryder, Partner at Scriboard, told DataGuidance. "The European Directive is an important model as India moves forward." Data protection in India is currently regulated by the Information Technology Act 2011, however, if enacted, the Bill would introduce the country's first comprehensive privacy regime. In 2013, the European Commission assessed India's data protection regime and decided not to award adequacy recognition at that time.

"If the Bill is introduced in the Winter Session, […] it is likely to […] come into effect either at the end of the year or early in the next year"

The draft Bill regulates collection, storage and processing of personal data, with both monetary and penal penalties yet to be determined for anyone who 'collects, receives, stores, processes or otherwise handles any personal data [except in conformity with the provisions of the Act].' It also establishes an Indian Data Protection Authority (DPA), with the power to investigate data processing and to 'give such directions or pass such orders as are necessary.'

"[Moving forward,] we expect more clarity on the role and functioning of the DPA," Ryder stated. "In the past, the Government of India has not been clear on the role of the DPA. Will this 'authority' have the independent powers and stature of the European Privacy Commissioners? [Additionally,] the complaint mechanism under the Bill requires greater clarity, precision and structure."

Divya Sharma, Legal Director at Bird and Bird LLP, commented, "Considering that India has parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in April 2014, this bill is unlikely to progress further until a new Government takes office in May 2014. […] Any legislation of this nature is unlikely to progress during this Government's tenure."

"If the Bill is introduced in the Winter Session, after due consideration, it is likely to be passed by the end of the Year and come into effect either at the end of the year or early in the next year," said Ryder.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/data-guidance-march-3-2014-india-privacy-bill-will-likely-reflect-eu-directive

Internet Governance Round-table at British High Commission

praskrishna — 2014-04-01T10:32:04Z

A Internet Governance Round-table was hosted at the residence of the British High Commissioner in Delhi on March 4, 2014. Geeta Hariharan participated in the round-table.

The event aimed to bring together stakeholders from government, industry and the non-governmental sectors in India to discuss issues of Internet governance, and forms part of the UK’s commitment and interests in cyber-engagement with India.

The panel included the following members:

Julian Evans, the Acting British High Commissioner to India
Jonathan Cook, Second Secretary, Foreign Security Policy Team, British High Commission
Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India
Rahul Jain, Principal Consultant, Data Security Council of India
Vikram Tiwathia, Associate Director General, Cellular Operators Association of India
Dr. Govind, Senior Director heading the E-Infrastructure & Internet Governance Division, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India
Narayanan, NIXI
Dr. Sundeep Oberoi, TCS
M.P. Gupta, Professor & Chair, Information Systems and Centre for Excellence in E-Gov, IIT Delhi
Somnath Mitra, Xchanging
Mahima Kaul, Observer Research Foundation

The British government’s views on cyber-engagement and Internet governance were touched upon, voicing their support for a free, open and secure Internet, upholding human rights. The UK supports a multi-stakeholder approach to Internet governance. However, their position on the Sao Paolo meeting is as yet not officially clear.

Five broad issues were raised for discussion:

Balancing the role of government and non-government stakeholders, and the limits of governmental regulation Internet for development
Free speech and privacy v. security
Practical model of Internet governance (multi-stakeholder or multilateral)
India’s contribution, presence or expectations of the Sao Paolo meeting

The speakers raised concerns about the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder model in light of international law built on the Westphalian model, where governments are effectively the only real law-makers and regulators. In considering whether non-governmental stakeholders (such as NGOs and think-tanks, industry and corporations, individuals) should have an equal voice in IG, concerns were raised about the representativeness of such actors, and accountability that they would have. In this regard, the future and desirability of the ICANN (and the US’ stake in it), and fora like the IGF and the UN-WGEC as platforms for participation were discussed.

While civil society involvement is imperative, government initiatives are necessary to create access to the Internet, and to ensure that the Internet is made safe and utilized for development. This obviously creates tensions between privacy and liberty, and security concerns; one of the speakers spoke of Snowden as the “elephant in the room”. Not only was a common concept of privacy non-existent at the international level, it would also be difficult to achieve (except a namesake ‘lowest common denominator’ definition), as states must account for their experiences with terrorism as well as cultural differences. For instance, the way the UK deals with privacy/security concerns in comparison with India would be very different. Finally, the possibilities and potential outcomes of the Sao Paolo meeting were touched upon without elaborate discussion on the same.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ig-round-table-british-high-commission

RightsCon 2014

praskrishna — 2014-04-08T05:04:09Z

RightsCon Silicon Valley 2014 was an incredible mixture of more than 700 attendees from more than 65 countries and 375 institutions. Pranesh Prakash and Malavika Jayaram were speakers at this event organized by RightsCon at San Francisco on March 3 and 4, 2014.

This incredible union of expertise has led to real outcomes, many of which are viewable here or as a PDF report here. Missed a session? A special thanks to all our speakers and sponsors who made 2014 so smart and productive.

Missed a session in San Francisco? Many of the videos are available for viewing. To learn more about past RightsCon conferences, head here.

Even as we continue to work diligently on the the work generated from RightsCon Silicon Valley 2014, we are looking ahead to 2015 and Southeast Asia, where we will convene civil society and key decision-makers in this rapidly evolving region. Click here to learn more about the planning for RCSEA2015.

Pranesh was invited to be on five panels, and spoke in three.

He spoke in the following sessions:

March 3 from 14:00-15:15 - Nicolas Seidler's panel on "Localizing the Global Internet: Data Centers, Traffic Rerouting, and the Implications of Post-Surveillance Policy Proposals"

March 4 from 12:00-13:15 - Paul & Bertrand's panel on "Internet and Jurisdiction: How Can Heterogenous Laws Coexist in Cross-Border Online Spaces?"

March 4 from 14:30-15:45 - Amie Stepanovich's panel on "The NSA Strikes Back: Who Really Won the Crypto Wars?"

He was also invited to the following panels:

"Toward Accountability: Reflecting on ICT Industry Action To Protect User Rights"

"Policy Laundering: Hacking the International Innovation Policy Machine"

For more info on the conference, click here. For the full list of speakers, see here.

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rights-con-2014

Comparison of Section 35(1) of the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and Section 4 of the Identification Act Revised Statute of Canada

elonnai — 2014-03-03T08:20:55Z

A comparison of section 35(1) of the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill, section 4 of the Identification Act, Revised Statute of Canada, and a review of international best practices.

In continuance of research around the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill that has been drafted the Department of Biotechnology, this blog entry reviews best practices for the communication of DNA profiles from the DNA Bank Manager to law enforcement and the police, compares the section 35(1) of the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and section 4 of the Identification Act Revised Statute of Canada, and recommends a revision of the present provision in the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill.

Indian Provision

35 (1) “On receipt of a DNA profile for entry in the DNA Data Bank, the DNA Bank Manager shall cause it to be compared with the DNA profiles in the DNA Data Bank in order to determine whether it is already contained in the DNA Data Bank and shall communicate, for the purposes of the investigation or prosecution in a criminal offence, the following information to a court, tribunal, law enforcement agency or DNA laboratory in India which the DNA Data Bank Manager considers is concerned with it, appropriate, namely –

(a) As to whether the DNA profile received is already contained in the Data Bank; and

(b) Any information, other than the DNA profile received, is contained in the Data Bank in relation to the DNA profile received.

(2) The information as to whether a person’s DNA profile is contained in the offenders’ index may be communicated to an official who is authorized to receive the same as prescribed.”

Canadian Provision vs. Indian Provision

According to the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 35(1) was adopted from the DNA Identification Act Revised Statute of Canada section 4. The provision found in the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill is different in three ways:

The Canadian statute limits the communication of whether a DNA profile is contained in the Data Bank or not to law enforcement agencies or other DNA laboratories, where as the provision in the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill allows the communication to law enforcement agencies, other DNA data banks, and courts and tribunals.
The Canadian statute limits the comparison of any DNA profile to that as entered in the convicted offenders index or the crime scene index with those DNA profiles that are already contained in the databank, where as the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill allows for any received profile to be compared with the other profiles in the DNA Data Bank.
The Canadian statute defines four types of information that may be communicated to law enforcement or another DNA databank including:

(a) if the DNA profile is not already contained in the data bank, the fact that it is not;
(b) if the DNA profile is already contained in the data bank, the information contained in the data bank in relation to that DNA profile;
(c) if the DNA profile is, in the opinion of the Commissioner, similar to one that is already contained in the data bank, the similar DNA profile; and
(d) if a law enforcement agency or laboratory advises the Commissioner that their comparison of a DNA profile communicated under paragraph (c) with one that is connected to the commission of a criminal offence has not excluded the former as a possible match, the information contained in the data bank in relation to that profile.

While the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill provides for communication of only (a) and (b) by the DNA Data Bank Manager.

Concerns with 35(1) and Best Practices

The Centre for Internet and Society finds 35(1) problematic because a DNA profile is never a complete match, and is instead a scientific and statistical based probability. There are a number of steps that go into the analysis of a DNA profile. According to the US National Institute of Justice, these include: “1) the isolation of the DNA from an evidence sample containing DNA of unknown origin, and generally at a later time, the isolation of DNA from a sample (e.g., blood) from a known individual; 2) the processing of the DNA so that test results may be obtained; 3) the determination of the DNA test results (or types), from specific regions of the DNA; and 4) the comparison and interpretation of the test results from the unknown and known samples to determine whether the known individual is not the source of the DNA or is included as a possible source of the DNA.”

Though it is common for DNA Banks to communicate responses such as “match”, “no match”, or “partial match” or “inclusion”, “exclusion”, or “inconclusive” to inquiries received from law enforcement and other DNA Banks, this is not the case for communications to courts and tribunals. For example in England and Wales guidelines for presenting DNA evidence in court were laid out in the rule Rv. Dohemy and Adams (1997) 1 Cr. App. R. 396. Along with comprehensive guidelines on how experts should conduct themselves in court to prevent bias, the guidelines require the following information to be presented when DNA material is used as evidence in a case:

“The scientist should adduce the evidence of the DNA comparisons between the crime stain and the defendant’s sample together with the calculations of the Random Match Probability.
Whenever DNA evidence is adduced the Crown should serve on the defence details as to how the calculations have been carried out which are sufficient to enable the defence to scrutinize the basis of the calculations.
The Forensic Science Service should make available to a defence expert, if requested, the databases upon which the calculations have been made.
The expert will, on the basis of empirical statistical data, five the jury the random occurrence rations - the frequency with which the matching DNA characteristics are likely to be found in the population at large.
Provided that the expert has the necessary data, it may then be appropriate for him to indicate how many people with the matching characteristics are likely to be found in the United Kingdom...”

Recommendations

Given the influential weight that DNA evidence can have in a case, it is critical that the evidence is accurately presented to the court and other key stakeholders. The Centre for Internet and Society recommends that the Bill should distinguish the DNA Bank Manager’s response to law enforcement and other DNA Laboratory’s and the DNA Bank Manger’s response to courts and tribunals as below:

Response to Law enforcement agency and DNA Laboratory: The DNA Bank Manger should respond to a request from law enforcement or a DNA laboratory with either: "match" or "partial match" .
Response to Court and tribunal: When DNA evidence is used in a court of law, the Bill should provide that the presentation should include:

The random match probability: The probability that the profile is in the sample from the individual tested if the individual tested has been selected at random.
The frequency with which the matching DNA characteristics are likely to be found in the population at large.
The probability of contamination.

The Bill should also provide for the database upon which the calculations were based to be made available when requested. In addition, the Bill should provide for rules to be made prescribing the procedure for presentation.

[]. http://nij.gov/topics/forensics/evidence/dna/basics/Pages/analyzing.aspx

[2]. http://www.medicalgenomics.co.uk/pdf/Barrister_vol32-2007.pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/comparision-of-draft-human-dna-profiling-bill-and-identification-act-revised-statute-of-canada-provisions

Spreadsheet data on sample of 50 security companies

maria — 2014-02-28T16:13:39Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/data-on-surveillance-technology-companies

Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State

maria — 2014-02-28T10:35:09Z

In India, surveillance is on the rise by the state to tackle crime and terrorism, and private companies are eager to meet the demand.

This article by Maria Xynou was published by OpenDemocracy on 10 February 2014.

Worried about the secret, mass surveillance schemes being carried out by the NSA? While we should be, some of the surveillance schemes in the world's largest democracy, India, are arguably in the same league.

Surveillance is being globalised to the extent that even India, a country with huge poverty issues, is investing millions of dollars in creating an expansive surveillance regime. However, why would communications monitoring interest Indian authorities, when the majority of the population lives below the line of poverty and only 17% of the population has access to the Internet?

The official political motivation behind surveillance in India appears to be the government's determination to tackle terrorism in the country. The 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks were arguably a similar landmark to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, and both governments officially announced their intention to carry out surveillance as a counter-terrorism measure. However, unlike in the west, terrorist attacks in India are much more common, and the National Security Adviser reported in 2008 that 800 terrorist cells were operational in the country. With India’s history of major terror attacks in India over the last 25 years, it's easy for one to be persuaded that terrorism is actually a major threat to national security.

India's surveillance schemes

India’s surveillance programs mostly started following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. That was when the Ministry of Home Affairs first proposed the creation of a National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), which will give 11 intelligence and investigative agencies real-time access to 21 citizen data sources to track terror activities. These citizen data sources will be provided by various ministries and departments, otherwise called “provider agencies”, and will include bank account details, telephone records, passport data and vehicle registration details, among other types of data.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has sought over Rs. 3,400 crore (around USD 540 million!) for the implementation of NATGRID, which aims to create comprehensive patterns of intelligence by collecting sensitive information from databases of departments like the police, banks, tax and telecoms to supposedly track any terror suspect and incident.

But NATGRID is far from India's only data sharing scheme. In 2009 the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the creation and implementation of the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network & Systems (CCTNS), which would facilitate the sharing of databases among 14,000 police stations across all 35 states and Union Territories of India, excluding 6,000 police offices which are high in the police hierarchy. Rs. 2,000 crore (around USD 320 million) have been allocated for the CCTNS, which is being implemented by the National Crime Records Bureau under the national e-governance scheme. The CCTNS not only increases transparency by automating the function of police stations, but also provides the civil police with tools, technology and information to facilitate the investigation of crime and detection of criminals.

But apparently, sharing data and linking databases is not enough to track criminals and terrorists. As such, in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, the Indian government also implemented various interception systems. In September 2013 it was reported that the Indian government has been operating Lawful Intercept & Monitoring (LIM) systems, widely in secret. In particular, mobile operators in India have deployed their own LIM systems allowing for the so-called “lawful interception” of calls by the government. And possibly to enable this, mobile operators are required to provide subscriber verification to the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TERM) cells of the Department of Telecommunications.

In the case of Internet traffic, the LIM systems are deployed at the international gateways of large Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and expand to a broad search across all Internet traffic using “keywords” and “key-phrases”. In other words, security agencies using LIM systems are capable of launching a search for suspicious words, resulting in the indiscriminate monitoring of all Internet traffic, possibly without court oversight and without the knowledge of ISPs.

India has also automated and centralized the interception of communications through the Central Monitoring System (CMS). This project was initially envisioned in 2009, following the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks and was approved in 2011. The CMS intercepts all telecommunications in India and centrally stores the data in national and regional databases. The CMS will be connected with the Telephone Call Interception System (TCIS) which will help monitor voice calls, SMS and MMS, fax communications on landlines, CDMA, video calls, GSM and 3G networks. Agencies which will have access to the CMS include the Intelligence Bureau (IB), the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) and the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Unlike mainstream interception, where service providers are required to intercept communications and provision interception requests to law enforcement agencies, the Central Monitoring System will automate the entire process of interception. This means that the CMS authority will have centralized access to all intercepted data and that the authority can also bypass service providers in gaining such access. Once security agencies have access to this data, they are equipped with Direct Electronic Provisioning, filters and alerts on the target numbers, as well as with Call Details Records (CDR) analysis and data mining tools to identify the personal information of target numbers.

Given that roughly 73% of India's population uses mobile phones, this means that the Central Monitoring System can potentially affect about 893 million people, more than double the population of the United States! However, how is it even possible for Indian authorities to mine the data of literally millions of people? Who supplies Indian authorities with the technology to do this and what type of technology is actually being used?

India's surveillance industry

India has the world's second largest population, consisting of more than a billion people and an expanding middle class. Undoubtedly, India is a big market and many international companies aspire in investing in the country. Unfortunately though, along with everything else being imported into India, surveillance technologies are no exception.

Some of the biggest and most notorious surveillance technology companies in the world, such as ZTE, Utimaco and Verint, have offices in India. Even FinFisher command and control servers have been found in India. However, in addition to allowing foreign surveillance technology companies to create offices and to sell their products and solutions in the country, local companies selling controversial spyware appear to be on the rise too.

Kommlabs Dezign is an Indian company which loves to show off its Internet monitoring solutions at various ISS trade shows, otherwise known as “the Wiretapper's Ball”. In particular, Kommlabs Dezign sells VerbaNET, an Internet Interception Solution, as well as VerbaCENTRE, which is a Unified Monitoring Centre that can even detect cognitive and emotional stress in voice calls and flag them! In other words, Kommlabs Dezign makes a point that not only should we worry about what we text and say over our phones, but that we should also worry about what we sound like when on the phone.

Vehere is another Indian company which sells various surveillance solutions and notably sells vCRIMES, which is a Call Details Records (CDR) analysis system. VCRIMES is used to analyse and gather intelligence and to unveil hidden interconnections and relations through communications. This system also includes a tool for detecting sleeper cells through advanced statistical analysis and can analyse more than 40 billion records in less than 3 seconds.

Paladion Networks is headquartered in Bangalore, India and sells various Internet Monitoring Systems, Telecom Operator Interception Systems, SSL Interception and Decryption Systems and Cyber Cafe Monitoring Systems to law enforcement agencies in India and abroad. In fact, Paladion Networks even states in its website that its customers include India's Ministry of Information Technology and the U.S Department of Justice.

ClearTrail Technologies is yet another Indian company which not only sponsors global surveillance trade shows but also sells a wide range of monitoring solutions to law enforcement agencies in India and abroad. ComTrail is a solution for the centralised mass interception and monitoring of voice and data networks, including Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, BlackBerry, ICQ and GSM voice calls. Furthermore, ComTrail is equipped to handle millions of communications per day, correlating identities across multiple networks, and can instantly analyse data across thousands of terabytes.

ClearTrail also sells xTrail, which is a solution for the targeted interception, decoding and analysis of data traffic over IP networks and which enables law enforcement agencies to intercept and monitor targeted communications without degrading the service quality of the IP network. Interestingly, xTrail can filter based on a “pure keyword”, a URL/Domain with a keyword, a mobile number or even with just a user identity, such as an email ID, chat ID or VoIP ID.

Apparently, some the biggest challenges that law enforcement agencies face when monitoring communications include cases when targets operate from public Internet networks and/or use encryption. However, it turns out that ClearTrail's QuickTrail solution is designed to gather intelligence from public Internet networks, when a target is operating from a cyber cafe, a hotel, a university campus or a free Wi-Fi zone. This device can remotely deploy spyware into a target's computer and supports protocol decoding, including HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and HTTPS.

Additionally, QuickTrail can identify a target machine on the basis of metadata, such as an IP address, and can monitor Ethernet LANs in real time, as well as monitor Gmail, Yahoo and all other HTTPS-based communications. ClearTrail's mTrail is designed for the passive 'off-the-air' interception of GSM communications, including the interception of targeted calls from pre-defined suspect lists and the monitoring of SMS and protocol information. MTrail also identifies a target's location by using signal strength, target numbers, such as IMSI, TIMSI, IMEI or MSI SDN, which makes it possible to listen to the conversation of so-called “lawfully intercepted” calls in near real-time.

In short, it looks like India is reaching the top league when it comes to surveillance technologies, especially since many of its companies and their products appear to be just as scary as some of the most sophisticated spying gear sold by the West. India may be the world's largest (by population) democracy, but that means that it has a huge population with way too many opinions...and apparently, the private and public sectors in India appear to be joining forces to do something about it.

So do Indians have nothing to hide?

A very popular rhetoric in both India and the west is that citizens should not be concerned about surveillance because, after all, if they are not terrorists, they should have nothing to hide. However, privacy advocate Caspar Bowden has rightfully stated that this rhetoric is fundamentally flawed and that we should all indeed “have something to hide”. But is privacy just about “having something to hide”? Jacob Appelbaum has stated that this rhetoric is merely a psychological copying mechanism when dealing with security.

It's probably rather comforting and reassuring to think that we are not special or important enough for surveillance to affect us personally. But is that really up to us to decide? Unfortunately not. The very point of data mining is to match patterns, create profiles of individuals and to unveil hidden interconnections and relations. A data analyst can uncover more information about us than what we are even aware of and it is they who decide if our data is “incriminating” or not. Or even worse: in many cases it's up to data mining software to decide how “special” or “important” we are. And unfortunately, technology is not infallible.

The world's largest democracy, which is also one of the most corrupt countries in the world, is implementing many controversial surveillance schemes which lack transparency, accountability and adequate legal backing, and which are largely being carried out in secret. And to make matters worse, India lacks privacy legislation. Over a billion people in a democratic regime are exposed to inadequately regulated surveillance schemes, while a local surveillance industry is thriving without any checks or balances whatsoever. What will this mean for the global future of democracy?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-democracy-big-surveillance-indias-surveillance-state

February 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-04-07T07:27:46Z

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

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Highlights
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We published revised chapters for the states of Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, as part of our National Resource Kit project.
In the concluding blog post of a three-part study Ananth Padmanabhan looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.
Telugu Wikipedia celebrated its 10^th anniversary. An event was co-organized in Vijaywada to celebrate the same.
The second Institute on Internet and Society was held in Pune from February 11 to 17. The proceedings from the workshop are captured in a blog post.
CIS announced an Open Call for Comments for the latest draft of the Privacy Bill, 2013 prepared by Bhairav Acharya.
Forbes India published its “30 Under 30 List”. Pranesh Prakash is featured in the list.
As part of the Making Change Project, Denisse Albornoz wrote a blog post that compares the production behind a performance with the process of storytelling.
Beli gives an introduction to spectrum sharing. The post looks at GSM and CDMA, and touches upon LTE, and how they might share spectrum.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the post of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge): http://bit.ly/1fnydB0. There are two vacancies for this post and it is 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 Mizoram, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 35 states.

Based upon discussion with the office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities (CCPD) the following chapters were revised:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Mizoram Chapter (by CLPR, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1eUSvxW
The Dadra & Nagar Haveli Chapter (by CLPR, February 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1mv3YhJ
The Haryana Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 10, 2014): http://bit.ly/1dVOiKI
The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 12, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jSk03x

► Other

# Participation in Events

National Consultation on Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities in Development Process (organized by CBM India in collaboration with United Nations Solution Exchange for Gender Community, WHO Regional office for South-East Asia, New Delhi, February 12, 2014). Anandhi Viswanathan participated in a panel discussion. She made a presentation on the National Resource Kit project: http://bit.ly/OlkHVq.
Zero Project Conference on Accessibility: Innovative Policies and Practices for Persons with Disabilities (organized by Essl Foundation, the World Future Council and the European Foundation Centre, United Nations Office, Vienna, February 27 and 28, 2014). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Affordable Text-to-Speech Software from India: http://bit.ly/1czo32s. Nominations on e-speak were recognised as examples of innovative practices and policies from India. Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker on Copyright Exception for Accessible Formats: http://bit.ly/1l8HRth.

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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.

# Analyses

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cddoKm. Analyses the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement.
Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3) (by Ananth Padmanabhan, February 5, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g35mDg. Analyses the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act.

# Participation in Events

2nd International Conference on Managing Intellectual Property Rights and Strategy (MIPS 2014) (organized by Shailesh J. Mehta School of Management, IIT Bombay with support from the Ministry of Human Resources Development IPR Chair Project, Government of India): http://bit.ly/PsPEbq.
Consultation on Institutional Arrangements for IP management under MHRD (organized by the Planning Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development, New Delhi, February 21, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this consultation: http://bit.ly/1fTCoar.
National Conference on Use of Technology in Higher Education (organized by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development and Planning Commission in partnership with Microsoft Research and British Council, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/P6u78i. Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the event as a panelist in the session on "Future of Content Creation".

# Media Coverage

Pranesh Prakash: Influencing India's IP Laws (by Samar Srivastava, Forbes India, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBzLMq.

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 / Blog Entries

Odia Language's Presence in Digital Media and Wikipedia's Role (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, March 2, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ieF3sC.
Indian Wikimedia community coordinates Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain and Jeph Paul, Wikimedia Foundation, March 6, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cyRfqf,

# Events Co-organized

Cinemathon2014 Bangalore (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CIS, Bangalore, February 8-9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRkZz.
Tewiki 10th Anniversary (organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, February 15, 2014): http://bit.ly/1iI2Pxs. T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaikh were speakers at the event.
Cinemathon2014 Mumbai (organized by Pad.ma and CIS-A2K, CAMP Studio, Mumbai, February 15-16, 2014): http://bit.ly/P5YGL8.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (organized by Roshini Nilaya and CIS-A2K, Mangalore, February 26, 2014). Dr. U.B.Pavanaja gave a presentation on Wikipedia with a special focus on students and women.

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

# Media Coverage

Father-son duo promote Punjabi online (by Jatinder Preet, Sunday Guardian, February 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/1l87b2h.
୧୦ ବର୍ଷରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ୱିକିପିଡିଆ (Rabibara Sambad (Sunday supplement of Odia newspaper The Sambad), February 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/1igMynn. This is a feature about Odia Wikipedia's 10th anniversary and the story of a dead volunteer community reviving after 8 years.
Wikipedia Mangalore Workshop (Prajavani, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gVMG6f.

# Participation in Event

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.

Event Organized

Wiki Women's Workshop (ICG – Dona Paula, Goa, March 9, 2014): http://bit.ly/MRRJLy. The event is being organized as part of the commemoration of the International Women's Day.

Openness

# Event Organised

Bitcoin & Open Source with Aaron Koenig (CIS, Bangalore, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbN6mP.

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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. Bhairav Acharya prepared an updated version of the Privacy Protection Bill which was published for comments.

# Call for Comments

The Privacy Protection Bill, 2013 (by Bhairav Acharya, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1g3TwIX. CIS announced an Open Call for Comments to the latest version of the bill.

# Articles

The Internet Way (by Nishant Shah, Biblio Vol. 19 No.8 (1&2), January – February 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBp9gJ. Dr. Nishant Shah's review of the book “The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon” by Bantam Press/Random House Group, London can be found on page 16.
Surveillance and the Indian Constitution - Part 3: The Public/Private Distinction and the Supreme Court’s Wrong Turn (by Gautam Bhatia, Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kBosnw. This was originally published on Indian Constitutional Law and Philosophy Blog.
Big Democracy, Big Surveillance: India's Surveillance State (by Maria Xynou, Open Democracy, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1nkg8Ho.
Will You be Paid to Post a Picture? (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, February 18, 2014): http://bit.ly/P65d8L.

# Blog Entries

February 11: The Day We Fight Back Against Mass Surveillance (by Divij Joshi, February 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/1e7drCV.
Calcutta High Court Strengthens Whistle Blower Protection (by Divij Joshi, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cG8v7t.
CIS Welcomes 52nd Report on Cyber Crime, Cyber Security, and Right to Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1oviMJ4.
UIDAI Practices and the Information Technology Act, Section 43A and Subsequent Rules (by Elonnai Hickok, February 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fbSfep.

# Events Organized

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.
Counter Surveillance Panel: DiscoTech & Hackathon (co-organized by CIS, MIT Centre for Civic Media Co-Design Lab, Tactical Technology Collective, Hackteria.org, and Shristi School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, March 1, 2014): http://bit.ly/NCGMyH

# Participation in Events

First Meeting of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for India Internet Governance Forum (organized by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, New Delhi, February 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham participated in this meeting: http://bit.ly/1fKu5xz.
Internet Intermediary Liability: Towards Evidence-based Policy and Regulatory Reform to Secure Human Rights on the internet (organized by Association for Progressive Communications, The Wedgewood, Melville, Johannesburg, February 10-11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fMAEK2. Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.
Towards an Equitable and Just Internet (organized by IT for Change, New Delhi, February 14-15, 2014). Bhairav Acharya was a speaker: http://bit.ly/1cz9EDt.
Workshop on Media Law & Policy Curriculum Development (organized by the Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, Delhi and University of Oxford in support with the International Higher Education-Knowledge Economy Partnerships Programme of the British Council, February 16, 2014, National Law University, Delhi): http://bit.ly/1ovoT00. Bhairav Acharya was a speaker.
The Changing Role of the Media in India: Constitutional Perspectives (organized by School of Law, Christ University, February 28, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lB2nTO. Snehashish Ghosh moderated a session at this conference.

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

The Dangers of Birdsong (by Namrata Joshi, Outlook, January 25, 2014): http://bit.ly/1kB8J7L.
A Tale of Two Internet Campaigns (by Deepa Kurup, The Hindu, February 11, 2014): http://bit.ly/1lDdRZy.
Dark days for the creative class in India: Siddiqui (by Haroon Siddiqui, thestar.com, February 16, 2014): http://bit.ly/1gdtgbC.
The Forbes India 30 Under 30 List (by Abhilasha Khaitan, Forbes India, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ovnvKM. Pranesh Prakash features in the list.
India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology (by Avantika Chilkoti, Financial Times, February 26, 2014): http://bit.ly/1cGfOMm.

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Digital Humanities
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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 Entries

Defending the Humanities in the Digital Age (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1czdZqg.
Digital Humanities in India- Mapping Changes at the Intersection of Youth, Technology and Higher Education (by Sneha PP, February 21, 2014): http://bit.ly/1qd6xo4.

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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 Entries

Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 1 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/1jX4qBb.
Storytelling as Performance: The Ugly Indian and Blank Noise 2 (by Denisse Albornoz, February 27, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fKwQil.

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Telecom
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Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

# Newspaper Column

Centre- or State-Driven Development? (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, February 5, 2014, Observer India Blogspot, February 7, 2014): http://bit.ly/1ceuWFS.

# Blog Entry

An Introduction to Spectrum Sharing (by Beli, February 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/NZlknd.

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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.

►Event Organized

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/1fpTdDS. Bishakha Datta, Ravikiran Annaswamy, Kingsley John, Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Nisha Thompson, Prashant Naik, Nehaa Chaudhari, Bhairav Acharya, Manu Srivastav, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, Payal Malik, Nishant Shah, Laura Stein, Sunil Abraham, Madan Muthu and Chinmayi Arun taught at the institute.

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About CIS
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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, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC and 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.

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

India ‘tea parties’ enable politicians to woo urban youth with technology

praskrishna — 2014-03-06T12:13:36Z

Babalal Patel’s tiny tea stall in southern Mumbai is a long way from Silicon Valley. It is not even that close to Bangalore, the Indian equivalent.

The article by Avantika Chilkoti was published in the Financial Times on February 26, 2014. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

But one night this month this ramshackle shop became the venue for a social media experiment that highlights the high-tech face of electioneering in India, the world’s largest democracy. A crowd gathered outside to watch two television screens showing a live broadcast with Narendra Modi, prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bharatiya Janata party, as he answered questions the audience submitted by text message.

Similar “tea parties” were held across the country, designed to ram home Mr Modi’s humble background as a tea seller and his technological credentials. But the nationwide event, organised using mobile technology more commonly seen in US presidential campaigns, also signals a shift in Indian politics.

For decades, political campaigns in India have centred around colossal rallies and billboard advertising. But a growing population of young people, rising internet use and the ubiquity of mobile phones mean the 2014 battle is playing out equally fiercely online.

“We are moving far ahead of saying that we are building ‘likes’ on social media,” says Arvind Gupta, head of IT and social media for the BJP. “Organisation is being done using digital. So if I’m going to tell everybody there’s an event tomorrow, it can be posted on Facebook, websites, on SMS, on WhatsApp, though the real meeting is happening on the ground.”

These techniques, which became familiar during the Arab uprisings of northern Africa, are an increasingly important part of communication strategy ahead of a national election, which must be held in the next three months, and which many believe will be close.

Mr Gupta believes parties are fighting what he calls a “postmodern election” for up to 160 - largely urban - seats of the total 543. More than half the 50-strong team working on communication for the BJP are dedicated to digital campaigning.

India’s internet user base reached a point of inflection last year, passing 200m. While that is a fraction of the 1.3bn population, prompting many to question the power of social media, use is far greater among urban and young voters, millions of whom will be eligible to vote for the first time this year.

“Social media is suddenly becoming important, not for all constituencies but for urban constituencies because for the first time the urban youth and the educated class is very much glued into the election and showing interest,” says Rajeeva Karandikar, a statistician and election analyst.

Mr Modi, chief minister of Gujarat, has adapted particularly quickly to the changing environment. He captured the public imagination by using holograms to address rallies and Google Hangouts to interact with the diaspora. He has 3.4m Twitter followers and more than 10.6m “likes” on his Facebook page, thanks in part to a slick social media team led by high-profile technology entrepreneurs. Meanwhile Rahul Gandhi, the reticent, undeclared candidate for the incumbent Congress party, does not even have a verified Twitter account.

Some were disappointed by low attendance at the national “tea parties”, but the events were lauded for being interactive and, perhaps most importantly in a country where newspaper readership remains high, grabbed column inches in local media. The audience could speak directly to Mr Modi at venues with a two-way video link and the footage was immediately available on YouTube.

“While answering each question Mr Modi has a point of view,” says Pratik Patel, 28, a chartered accountant who organised the event at his grand- father’s tea shop. “He doesn’t have two ways of looking at the same thing - this helps him to be more decisive and forward thinking.”

Social media also provides swaths of information to India’s political parties, as they copy the sophisticated data analytics used by US president Barack Obama’s campaigns.

From its offices in suburban Mumbai, the digital marketing group Pinstorm tracks what social media users are discussing at the constituency level and identifies significant supporters or critics. It describes the service as an early warning system or “social radar”, which allows parties to mobilise workers rapidly to oppose or support a point of view.
Sceptics argue, however, that social media has insufficient traction in India to affect results of the forthcoming poll. But the size of the user base does not reflect its full power. It is educated influential Indians who use these digital networks and the online debate shapes views in traditional media that reach a wider audience.

“The theory is that since the elites are connected and have more time to spare on social media, let us use social media and the internet more generally to influence discourse through these elites,” says Sunil Abraham, executive director for the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. “It’s an indirect route to the vote.”

An adviser to the Obama campaign warns, however, that, given differences in funding and the local environment, India’s politicians should be wary of using the US presidential race as a model. This year a simpler technology may prove the best tool for campaigns in India: the mobile phone.

“Folks look to the Obama campaign for this sort of stuff,” says Ethan Roeder, who worked on data for the 2008 and 2012 US presidential campaigns. “But a lot of these international campaigns would do best looking elsewhere for a model . . . No campaign in the history of the world has ever spent that much money to elect a single individual to a single office.”

India’s version is, of course, markedly cheaper, thanks to the roadside chai-wallahs and armies of volunteers, pulling in the new breed of voters.

“I have never attended a political rally in my entire life,” says Mr Patel, who helped organise Mr Modi’s nationwide “tea party”.

“If people want to connect with me they need to connect with me on social media or via email.”

Modi’s digital army

The team building the digital campaign for India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata party mixes entrepreneurs and veterans from the technology industry, rather than individuals with experience of electioneering alone.

Rajesh Jain, working on electoral technology, is well known in the industry since setting up successful businesses in online news and digital marketing. These include IndiaWorld Communications, a collection of websites which was bought in 1999 by Satyam Infoway, then India’s largest internet service provider.

He has the archetypal curriculum vitae, with a degree from one of the eminent Indian institutes of technology followed by a master’s degree from Columbia University in New York.

Arvind Gupta, who heads the BJP’s IT and social media cell, has a remarkably similar educational background - with an added stint in Silicon Valley to his name.

At the last count, the party had recruited more than 2m volunteers, who are organised online and will provide support in different ways. But there is also a younger generation of advocates who have given up good jobs to join the digital effort. Citizens for Accountable Governance is a non-profit youth organisation co-ordinating nationwide “tea parties” ahead of this year’s national election, where Narendra Modi, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, interacts with audiences at tea stalls via video link.

About 100 young professionals lead the operation and all come with impressive credentials, including jobs at prominent global consulting groups such as McKinsey, and banks such as JPMorgan.

Beyond that, Mr Modi has had a team working for him personally since he took over as chief minister of Gujarat more than a decade ago.

It is a discreet IT set-up that still functions independently of the party’s operations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/financial-times-february-26-2014-india-tea-parties-enable-politicians-to-woo-urban-youth-with-technology