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Technical Aspects of UID: A Public Talk

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:23:15Z

Prof. K Gopinath from Indian Institute of Science and Sunil Abraham from the Centre for Internet and Society will give a lecture on the technical aspects of UID on 20 October 2010 at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore.

Prof. Gopinath and Sunil Abraham will give a lecture on the technical challenges in realizing UID-like systems. Given the publicly available information, the speakers will evaluate the realizability of an online pan-India UID system and identify some issues that may need to be addressed.

About Prof. K Gopinath

K Gopinath is a professor in computer science and automation at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore. His research interests are in operating systems and related systems such as security. To know more about Prof. Gopinath, visit his homepage.

About Sunil Abraham

Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS),in Bangalore. He is the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. For three years, 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.

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/technical-aspects-of-uid

Techies mapping change

radha — 2011-04-04T06:51:49Z

A group of 40 Bangaloreans, including techies and social activists, are creating digital maps that will be used to bring social change in India - an article in the Bangalore Mirror by Renuka Phadnis - Monday, December 07, 2009.

Here is an example of how technology can be misused and used. A year ago, following the Mumbai blasts, everyone was talking about how terrorists had misused information from Google maps. Now, a group of 40 people in Bangalore including activists and techies, are creating digital maps that will be used to bring social change in India.

Called “Maps for Making Change” the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, a social organisation that studies the connection between the Internet and society, and the NGO Tactical Tech Collective (Bangalore and UK) are creating a map of India that will show hotspots where social change can be brought about.

Individuals working with groups and organisations working for social change across India, including grassroots activists, NGO workers, artists and researchers, sent in 70 high quality and detailed additions to the digital map. These places across India highlighted issues such as: the socio-economic aspects and consequences of the construction of Bangalore’s Metro, fighting for clean rivers, people’s rights to livelihoods in the Himalayas, monitoring the national implementation of Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act (2005), mobilising slum dwellers to engage with Mumbai’s new Development Plan, human rights violations in Kashmir, identifying land where internally displaced people can be resettled in the North East.

“You don’t have to be a professional cartographer. With new technologies such as GPS and the Net, anyone can easily add to digital maps,” says Dr Anja Kovacs, fellow, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Bangalore Angle

In a city like Bangalore, the potential of using digital maps is tremendous. For instance, such maps could be used to show which Metro routes and stations Bangaloreans want. Or, it could show how BBMP’s reserved wards are delineated (example, the population profile in Bellandur or Girinagar). The maps could tell us where migrant labour (masons, carpenters, plumbers) enter the city, where they live and where they move on (information that could be useful for Unique Identification Authority of India too!). It can also show where marginalised people live in Bangalore in slums, along railway tracks, by the lakes.

Says Bangalorean techie B V Pradeep, who provided technical support to the map team, “In a map, every person draws what is important to him. One person may draw a mall, another may mark the school and hospital. This map will give visibility to invisible people.”

Bangalorean Rekha Shenoy, who has been involved in rehabilitating earthquake-affected people in Kutch for the past eight years, says, “Such digital maps are a good resource of marking places and social issues that other people know nothing of.”

Any one can access Maps for Making Change. See email list (http://groups.google.co.in/group/maps-for-making-change). The wiki will be up and running in a few days time (maps4change.cis-india.org), said Dr Kovacs. To follow on Twitter, use the hash tag #maps4change.

Link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/techies-mapping-change

Tech transformation: how agriculture is being redefined through digital innovation and startups

Admin — 2018-07-06T15:39:53Z

At a recent YES Bank panel and digital startup competition, it was evident that India’s digital boom was lending the Indian startup ecosystem a distinctly agri-flavour.

The blog post was published in Your Story on June 29, 2018. CIS was mentioned in the report.

The convergence of mobile networks, broadband internet, cloud platforms, IoT, AI and open data is helping transform one of the world’s oldest professions. This is of great significance as agriculture and related sectors like dairy production form the backbone of the Indian workforce. Today, tradition is merging with technology as the IT services sector is helping open up new opportunities for both seasoned and emerging entrepreneurs.

New fronts are opening up across the sector from organic farming and hydroponics to drones and agri apps. Startups are also playing a key role in transforming agriculture, which accounts for half of India’s workforce, but only about 13 percent of its GDP.

Entrepreneurship trends

An interesting trend to watch for is the rise of the number of agri-entrepreneurs, many of whom have no background in agriculture. There is more interest now in this sector compared to even five or ten years ago. Another indicator is the number of agri-tech competitions, awards and investors that are emerging. India’s demographic dividend is also attracting more youth segments to the agricultural sector, with cross-fertilisation across states, economic sectors, and scientific fields.

The challenges seem formidable, but need to be acknowledged and tackled. Thousands of farmers commit suicide each year due to debt problems, as documented by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). This is a sad reality in states such as Maharashtra, Odisha, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and others.

Many issues being tackled by startups relate to productivity and distribution, according to Sahil Kini, Vice President, Aspada Investment. There are large yield gaps in Indian farming as compared to its global counterparts, due to inadequacies in domains ranging from farm inputs and equipment to farming practices and retail connects. Multiple intermediaries, poor refrigeration during transportation, small farm sizes, and lack of fairness in financial stakeholders are other challenges.

Agri-tech startups

Today, the agri-tech sector is witnessing a number of startups in India disrupting everything from organic farming and equipment rentals to connected supply chains and cloud-based analytics. The startups in this report showcase the diversity in the sector, followed by an analysis of the broader ecosystem. Some cover pricing of produce, others include equipment marketplaces; still others cover digital workflow and smart supply chains.

Farms2Fork offers farmers water monitoring solutions that ensure better productivity by reducing water wastage. The solution includes IoT wireless soil sensors, AI support, and real-time analytics. While earlier agri-tech solutions were based on batch processing of data, Farms2Fork operates on real-time data.

Agribolo, founded in 2015, is a farming services platform spanning activities such as information dissemination, quality input procurement, market linkages, irrigation facilities and farming equipment. The franchise network, launched in Rajasthan, uses the aggregator model to connect farmers to experts, development institutions, financial services, and training institutes.

AgroWave, founded by an IIT Delhi alumna in 2017, aims to optimise agriculture supply chain using research, analytics, and technology. Demand and supply analytics connect farmers in Panipat, Sonipat, Harpur, and Rajasthan to caterers, retail shops, restaurants, and canteens.

Truce, founded by an IIT Bombay alumnus, is a B2B web and mobile platform that directly connects farmers and suppliers to wholesalers and retailers. The app is available in Hindi, English, Marathi and Gujarati, and enables tracking quotes and orders.

Farm Again has converted 2,500 acres of land into organic farms, along with tech tools to trace the product’s origin, when sold in outlets such as Reliance Retail, Big Bazaar, and More. IoT devices are used to monitor and record moisture content and soil conditions, with pipes for water and fertiliser inputs.

Crofarm, a Delhi-headquarted agri-supply chain startup founded in 2016, buys fresh produce directly from farmers and supplies them to online and offline retailers. It supplies nearly 8-10 tonnes of fruits and vegetables from its two distribution centres in Delhi NCR, and connects 100 retailers to more than 5,000 farmers.

Aibono improves farm yields by using AI on a cluster of parameters like weather and soil condition. The testing and measurement services indicate parameters such as crop stress, along with recommendations on the right fertiliser mix to be used based on the soil condition.

Gold Farm, founded in 2012, helps farmers book farm equipment such as solar-powered pumps in districts of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Beneficiaries have included over 25,000 farmers on ground, who tap the services of 250 booking agents and over 500 tractor owners connected via a mobile app. The equipment is also tracked with IoT devices, resulting in rich data sets for analysis and forecasting.

Earthy Tales, founded in NCR in 2016, works with farmers across 11 states to provide chemical-free fruits, vegetables, groceries, and dairy products. These include snacks, jams, preserves, and pickles, provided direct to consumers. Other services include mentoring for farmers and farm cooperatives.

ONganic Foods works with small farmers to boost their organic produce. Based on contract farming, it identifies higher-priced grains and spices and gives quality inputs to farmers to increase their yield. It connects farmers to various government schemes as well as e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Spencer’s Retail.

Oxen Farm Solutions offers agricultural equipment on rent using a ‘Farming as a Service’ (FaaS) model. The platform connects farmers, farm equipment manufacturers, and government schemes. Access to such machinery can boost farm productivity in an affordable manner. The company operates in Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Odisha, and connects to corporates such as PepsiCo and Yes Bank.

Farmizen is a mobile-based platform that lets users grow vegetables and fruits on mini-farms, and monitor the process of growing food on a real-time basis. Located in the outskirts of Bengaluru, users get pictures and live videos of their farm plots. The startup also provides recommendations based on real-time inputs from the field as well as pre-defined schedules for over 50 different types of crops.

Harvesting, founded by in 2016, has offices in California and Bengaluru, and offers smart farming solutions based on analytics and AI. It also uses farmer profiles to build creditworthiness profiles for financial organisations. The idea is to provide both increased farm productivity and better financial services.

SatSure uses IoT and Big Data to provide financial security to farmers, via its 15-year database of satellite images. It makes recommendations clustering techniques for farmers to get an estimate of the total agriculture production, and provides this data to agri-insurance companies as well.

Organic Thelawala enables a transparent pricing mechanism so that the consumer knows the price of the produce as well as how much of the selling price actually goes to the farmer. It is s assisting 13,000 farmers to switch to organic farming, thereby, creating a positive impact on bio-diversity, soil contamination, water, and air pollution. Further, by providing free thelas (pushcart), the team promotes micro-entrepreneurship among pushcart vendors and farmers.

Earth Food, based in Pune, provides chemical-free produce at market price. It has collaborated with Reliance Fresh and Nature Fresh. It uses a healthy mix of traditional methods and innovation to keep pollution and wastage to a minimum, thereby benefitting both consumers and the environment.

Jayalaxmi Agrotech, founded by alumni of IIMB and VEC helps farmers minimise crop loss and improve productivity via its many crop- specific mobile applications in local languages that provide timely information on agriculture and animal husbandry.

Gramophone, based in Indore, is a platform that combines both advisory and sale of inputs under a single roof. Farmers can access mentors for help with everything from crop selection to land productivity and more.

Triton Foodworks, based in Delhi, is a hydroponics startup growing fruits and vegetables. It has reportedly set up more than 2 lakh sq ft of hydroponic farms across three locations in India, and produces more than 700 tons of fruits and vegetables each year.

vDrone, based in Bengaluru, uses drones and thermal imaging to increase yield. It analyses areas of the farm that need attention, and helps the farmer cater to these needs. Parameters include soil, cropping pattern, and use of fertilisers.

Ninjacart, based in Bengaluru, enables retailers and merchants to source fruits and vegetables directly from farmers without resorting to middlemen. It connects 2,500 farmers and handles 14,000 tons of fruits and vegetables, accounting for revenue of around Rs 4 crore every month.

BigHaat, based in Bengaluru, is an online agro e-store for farmers that lets them buy seeds, crop protection nutrients and solutions, and agro instruments. Last-mile connectivity is enabled via logistics partners like India Post and Ship Rocket. The footprint spans 50,000 farmers across 20 states.

Ravgo is an agri-equipment rental marketplace based on the model of the sharing economy. It is solving the farm mechanisation problem among India farmers who cannot afford to buy the farm machinery. The target market is currently small farmers based in Punjab.

Kisanmade, launched in Moradabad, UP is an e-commerce platform set up in Moradabad to empower farmers by eliminating the intermediary between the farmer and the consumer. It also aims to increase the farmer’s income and decrease the kitchen’s expense by 10-15 percent.

FlyBird Innovations, founded in Bengaluru, uses sensors in the soil to detect moisture content and control irrigation in farms across South India. The information is used to optimise irrigation practices, improve crop yield, and save water, time, and labour. It claims 25-30 percent savings of water and improvement of crop yield by 10-15 percent.

Kamal Kisan reduces labour costs with innovative agri-equipment, with reported savings of up to 50 percent. Tools include sugarcane planters, versatile mulch layers, bed makers, vegetable handy planters, and power weeders.

farMart connects farmers who own machinery with those who need it but don’t have access to it. Large farmers put underutilised agri-machinery up for rent on the farMart platform, and are connected to farmers who need such machinery; they can then book it via app or call centre. The database includes 300 villages and 1,500 farmers.

AgroStar, a Pune-based m-commerce startup, sells agricultural inputs directly to farmers. The platform can be accessed online or giving the company’s 1800 number a missed call. Products are sourced from national and multinational brands, and include seeds and nutrients.

CropIn leverages GIS and data science to deliver a range of services apps to farmers and other players in the agri chain. It feeds real-time data and advice on practices related to a range of crops.

Other notable agri startups are NubeSol (soil fertility maps) and Sree Sai Aerotech Innovations (drones for monitoring crop health). Some industry players are also leveraging the platform model – such as Trringo, launched in 2016 by India’s largest tractor maker company, Mahindra and Mahindra. The franchisee network enables farmers to access tractors at an affordable price. Over 100,000 farmers have signed up, from West and South India.

There are also international players in the Indian agri market, such as PEAT. The German startup is working with 30,000 farmers across India to help mitigate crop damage. It identifies patterns of plant diseases, pests, or nutrient deficiencies via crop images.

Ecosystem

The broader agri startup ecosystem includes a number of think tanks, research labs, incubators and accelerators. For example, ONganic is supported by the Technology Development Board, Government of India and Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprise and incubated at the Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata.

Goa has an agri-focused incubator called Centre for Innovation and Business Acceleration (CIBA). TiE Bangalore and NUMA have held startup showcases in collaboration with Villgro, featuring agri-entrepreneurs.

At the recent YES Bank Transformation Series (YBTS) speakers and panelists included Ramanathan Ramanan, Mission Director, Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog; Raju Kapoor, Head, Corporate Affairs, Dow AgroSciences India; Hemendra Mathur, Venture Partner, Bharat Innovations; Nitin Puri, Senior President, Food and Agribusiness Strategic Advisory and Research, YES Bank; and Amardeep Sibia, CEO, SatSure.

At the 2017 edition of YBTS three agri-tech winners were awarded out of 15 finalists. Winners included teams from IIM Shillong (Rs 5 lakh for a smart soil sensor proposal), IIM Bangalore (Rs 3 lakh for a solar-powered drip technology proposal), and ISB Hyderabad (Rs 2 lakh for IoT-based SIM-enabled farm data sensors).

The Government of India is also catalysing agri- entrepreneurship with programmes like the Agri-Udaan Accelerator and the Agri Grand Challenge. Government-backed funding agencies like the Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) is incentivising banks to lend at highly affordable rates to startups.

Incubators in this space include Villgro, a-IDEA, ABI-ICRISAT, Startup Oasis, IIMC Innovation Park, IIT Kanpur SIIC, KIIT TBI, and CIIE, IIMA. They provide mentorship and connects to farmer cooperatives, NGOs, channel partners, and individual farmers in some cases.

Indigram Labs Foundation (ILF), supported by Department of Science and Technology via the National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board, Government of India, is a technology-based incubator founded in 2015 to promote creativity and innovation in agriculture, renewable energy, and rural healthcare industry. Its host organisation is Indian Society of Agribusiness Professionals (ISAP).

ISAP has set up more than 1,800 agri-based ventures through its Agri-Clinics and Agri-Business Centres (ACABC) programme and has around 50 agri-business experts in various verticals who help in mentoring incubates, according to Manisha Acharya, CEO, Indigram Labs Foundation.

It has graduated 18 startups, such as New Leaf Dynamic Technologies(refrigeration system powered by farm waste), Intello Labs (AI-based deep-tech solution for crop inspection and agricultural products grading), Sainhun Ventures(honey by-products), Nutrelis Agro Foods (organic groceries, beverages), and Innosapiens Agro Technologies (phenomics device for pre-detection of pests).

Indigram takes an equity of up to 5 percent in the startup. In the long run, agri incubators need support in areas like trained manpower, pilot testing costs, rural outreach, and patent advisory services, according to Acharya.

International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) hosted an agri-business investors camp in Hyderabad on June 12. The camp addressed three themes: agri-technology, agri-engineering and food processing.

IIM Ahmedabad’s technology business incubator, Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE), has launched a food and agri-business accelerator in partnership with a-IDEA, the business incubator at Indian Council of Agricultural Research’s (ICAR) National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM). Top teams are provided seed investment of up to Rs 30 lakhs each. CIIE also has a sustainability focused fund called Infuse Ventures.

Funding

Recent reports have tracked the investment line-up for Agricx Lab (Ankur Capital, CIIE), Agrostar (IDG Ventures, Aavishkaar Venture Management), Agrowave (Daffodil Software), Airwood (StartupXseed Ventures), Arya Collateral (Aspada), Farm Taaza (Epsilon Venture Partners), Farmizen (Venture Highway), FarmLink (Pioneering Ventures, Syngenta), Gobasco (Matrix Partners India), KisanHub (Notion Capital, IQ Capital, Calibrate Management), KrishiHub (INVENT accelerator, Villgro Innovation Fund), NinjaCart (Trifecta Ventures), RML AgTech (IvyCap Ventures), Utkal Tubers (CapAleph Indian Millennium SME Fund, Zephyr Peacock India), and VillFarm (Unitus Seed Fund, Rianta Capital).

Crofarm has received funding from angels such as Rajan Anandan (MD, Google India) and Jitendra Gupta (MD, PayU India). Gold Farm raised funds from Infuse Venture and the Mahindra Group. Truce was funded by 3one4capital, Beenext, FreeCharge founders, Snapdeal founders and Anupam Mittal, CEO, People Group. CropIn, raised funds from Ankur Capital; Agrostar received investments from Aavishkar. Other active agri-focused funds include Omnivore Partners and Rural Agri Ventures; Germany development agency GIZ has also roped in international partners for further cooperation.

Among Indian states, Karnataka formalised an agri-startup fund in 2017 through K-BITS with a corpus of Rs 10 crore, with an additional Rs 8 crore planned for 21 agri-startups this year. A centre of excellence for agriculture is also planned, where startups will work with farmers.

Other government initiatives, according to Sahil Kini of Aspada Investment include Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008; and Money Lending (Regulation) Act, 2008.

Entrepreneur tips

A number of mentor panels and pitch jurors have offered guidance for agri-entrepreneurs. These include, for example, the importance of customer immersion. Here are some of the tips they have shared.

On-the-ground realities in emerging economies are shifting rapidly, and founders should have a finger on the pulse of effective trends and aspirations.
Disciplines like design thinking offer useful and actionable frameworks.
Metrics should be holistic and include activity, business, and social impacts. There should be one or two key success metrics for primary focus, and the rest should be supporting or complementary metrics. This helps founders monitor their progress and assists investors in assessing the long-term viability of the venture.
Founders should build a well-rounded team, with a mix of engineering, design, and social science backgrounds. Sometimes founders get too carried away with the technology; having a holistic mix in the core team will help contextualise the offerings, use and impact.
India’s social problems call for bold and ambitious innovators who can tackle challenges at scale. The social cost of failure is high for social enterprises (as compared to merely pivoting an app design); hence collaborative partnerships are important.
Social entrepreneurs should learn how to work with partners who are not social enterprises. They should be clear about their offerings, values, and philosophy. Partnerships are an art and a science. Partners should be picked carefully, and the relationship should evolve over time.
Founders will frequently need to pitch to funders, investors, partners, regulators, customers, and employees. The pitch should focus less on product features and more on problem resolution. Techniques like storytelling are effective here.
Founders should enumerate the range of risks involved, eg. regulatory and lack of ecosystem trust. Secondary impacts should also be assessed, since some risks are more indirect than others.

The road ahead

This is a great time to integrate different domains of knowledge and skills in agri-innovation. In addition to fresh farm produce, there are lucrative opportunities in processed products such as pickles, papads, chutneys, and murabbas. This calls for effective post-harvest management infrastructure such as storage, preservation, cold chain and refrigerated transportation.

New models such as the FaaS model can lead to more sustainable paths to profitability. The platform model can leverage data analytics to identify emerging business trends and opportunities and thus attract more venture capital, according to a report published by Bain and Company in partnership with Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Such models are also getting significant corporate backing, such as Trringo by Mahindra and Mahindra for tractor rentals and John Deere (with EM3 Agri Services) for harvester fleets.

Smartphones powered by affordable mobile broadband networks are helping improve workflow of farms and dairies. This opens the door to new pay-per-use business models and innovation stacks, connecting the farm to the fridge and fork. Banks and financial organisations also need to step up to the challenge and offer more creative models of financing for farmers, entrepreneurs, incubators, and accelerators.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a target for farmers’ incomes to be doubled by 2022, India’s 75th year of Independence. Schemes like the government’s Startup Agri India scheme, the Digi Gaon (Digital Village) initiative, and Bharat Net project can all work together towards making this a reality. Initiatives like agri-hackathons can also bring together aspiring entrepreneurs from diverse sectors.

However, there are certain challenges:
Pricing decisions should be made more transparent and less politically driven (particularly before elections), with sufficient market validity and testing. This includes setting the price of onions and sugar, and promising ‘free’ electricity for farmers.
Increased promotion and adoption of open data are other trends to watch for. An open data ecosystem can grow India’s GDP by $22 billion by 2020, according to report by YES Bank and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). India’s Open Government Data (OGD) platform can step up to this challenge.
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is pushing for these initiatives to reach ordinary people and marginalised communities. Other sources of data include rural internet kiosks, community e-centres, and online agricultural systems.
Agri-tech entrepreneurs can go beyond incremental change to truly effect exponential change, and transform the agricultural sector while also giving back to society. Successful agri-preneurs in India can also take their innovations global.

The agricultural sector is now shedding its rustic persona to emerge as a trendy space to be in. Inclusive, sustainable, and scalable solutions are the way ahead.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/your-story-june-29-2018-tech-transformation-agriculture-redefined-digital-innovation-startups

Tech Law Form @ NALSAR

praskrishna — 2015-04-03T16:36:01Z

The event was organized by NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad on March 7 and 8, 2015. Geetha Hariharan participated as a speaker. She gave a lecture on Perspectives on Internet Governance.

For more info on the event click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/tech-law-forum-at-nalsar

Tech companies like Gmail, WhatsApp may be asked to store user information

praskrishna — 2016-10-14T01:12:14Z

The government is moving to formulate rules that will require technology ‘intermediaries’— including email services like Gmail, chat apps such as WhatsApp and Snapchat or even ecommerce firms like Amazon — to retain user information, a development that is expected to be met with determined opposition.

The article by Surabhi Agarwal was published in Economic Times on October 14, 2016. Pranesh Prakash was quoted.

What the government is looking to do now is draft rules for Section 67C of the Information Technology Act, and this will be done by a committee that has been set up for the purpose. The rules — whose drafting has been waiting since 2008 — will spell out what type of data has to be stored, in which format, and for how long, according to three members of the newly-formed committee. All this so that law-enforcement agencies can access the information if they need it.

Sharing of information between foreign firms and the Indian government has been a contentious issue, and experts said the mandate may be impossible to implement for firms such as WhatsApp that promise end-to-end encryption. Or for Snapchat – a chat app where messages disappear within seconds and are not even stored on the company’s servers.

Firms may also oppose the diktat, especially since most of them are not governed by Indian laws and also due to the high cost of data retention.

The committee is headed by additional secretary in the ministry of electronics and IT (MEITY), Ajay Kumar, and has one representative each from the ministry of home affairs, department of telecom, department of personnel and training, Nasscom, Internet Service Provider Association of India (ISPAI), along with an advocate specialising in cyber law and a few officers from MEITY. The first meeting of the committee took place in the last week of September.

“This is a fairly complex issue, compounded by the general lack of understanding of mobile apps and over the top service providers,” said a person on the committee who did not wish to be identified. This person said that most technology players are based in the United States and they have always been at loggerheads about sharing of information with the government. “Even if it is for national security reasons, how much are these companies answerable to the Indian security establishment? And we do know how Apple refused to unlock the phone even for FBI."

Google and Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

‘Huge balancing act’

Supreme Court lawyer and cyber law expert Pavan Duggal said the section has been drafted in very “broad” terms and the move may be driven by the realisation that these companies are huge data repositories – some of which might be relevant to law enforcement investigations. “It will have to be a huge balancing act and will be interesting to see what this committee decides,” added Duggal.

While Section 67C refers to the obligation of the service providers to retain information, the nature of the data to be retained and the time period is not specified. Companies which do not comply with the law can be levied fine and its officers sent to jail.

Another member on the committee said the ambit of this task is huge. “In the last meeting we argued that the rules should be the same for everybody and there should be no differential treatment for foreign companies such as Google or Microsoft,” he said. This person said that ambiguity is rampant as various government arms have different sets of rules for data retention.

For instance, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) asks for data to be stored for six months, while the Registrar of Companies mandates some information to be retained for one year while the income-tax rules mandate data storage for six-seven years. “There has only been one meeting so far. It is a long procedure and will require several rounds of consultation,” said a third person on the committee.

Privacy activists like Pranesh Prakash of the Centre for Internet and Society said that one of the principles that’s frequently cited while discussing international practices on surveillance is that data retention should not be required of service providers.

And internationally too, there is no standard on this issue. “There were norms at the European Union-level regarding data retention, but they were struck down in 2014 by the European Court of Justice as being violative of human rights,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-october-14-2016-surabhi-agarwal-tech-companies-like-gmail-whatsapp-may-be-asked-to-store-user-information

Teaching at Shristi Interlude

Admin — 2018-12-05T02:53:15Z

Shweta Mohandas is participating as a mentor for Srishti Interlude (a set of workshops that help the design students to produce outputs on a given theme) the theme of this year is Privacy. The course would end on December 7, 2018.

1. Aravani Art Project

Is LGBTQ desire only public at a queer pride parade?

How private is my bedroom?

How does an insult unfold in ‘public view’ ?

2. Padmini Ray Murray

Is LGBTQ desire only public at a queer pride parade?

How private is my bedroom?

“Move fast and break things.” Do you trust Facebook with your privacy?

3. Joshua Muyiwa

Is LGBTQ desire only public at a queer pride parade?

How private is my bedroom?

Profits should be private, risks should be public and art should be beautiful?

4. Roshan Sahi

Profits should be private, risks should be public and art should be beautiful?

“Move fast and break things.” Do you trust Facebook with your privacy?

How does an insult unfold in ‘public view’ ?

5. Shweta Mohandas

“Move fast and break things.” Do you trust Facebook with your privacy?

Is caste “Sensitive Personal Data”? How does an insult unfold in ‘public view’?

6. Suresh Kumar

Is caste “Sensitive Personal Data”?

Profits should be private, risks should be public and art should be beautiful?

How does an insult unfold in ‘public view’?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/teaching-at-shristi-interlude

Taxes in the Time of Internet Shutdown

Avijit Sarkar — 2017-12-20T15:49:31Z

Strap: Darjeeling businesses buckle under a bandh, network ban, and GST

Darjeeling, West Bengal: In mid-June, SC Sharma, a tax lawyer in Darjeeling, was in a fix. Thanks to street protests, he had not left his house for a week. There was an internet shutdown across the district. As a third assault, the finance minister was announcing a new tax regime that confused him. A combination of these factors made Sharma anxious: many of his clients were going to miss the tax deadline and be saddled with a huge fine.

Spurred by the West Bengal government’s new language policy that sidelined minority interests, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, a political party that campaigns for a separate state for Nepali-speaking Gorkhas, had called for a bandh from June 12 across the northern hills. Schools and offices were closed. Public transport stopped. Banks would be closed for 104 days. GJM activists and the police clashed everywhere.

The state administration shut the internet down in the Darjeeling hills on June 18. A fortnight later, with the lockdown still in place, the central government rolled out the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), a pan-India single tax to replace several state-level indirect taxes.

“My clients were jittery because of the penalty issues,” Sharma says. “There was no way I could study the GST, as there was no internet. We were crippled from all sides.” He had also heard reports of GST filing website crashing repeatedly even in regions with regular network services. “Everything was already a mess, and then GST is launched with all the fanfare.”

Since the GST was a new concept, it had to be studied before returns were filed. With no internet, most businessmen were in the dark. Even advisors like tax lawyers and chartered accountants were in a soup as they were unable to use the internet or go down to the plains in Siliguri to address the issue.

Girish Sharda, owner of Nathmulls Tea, an online-cum-retail business of high value tea, felt lost when the GST was introduced. “We tried to solve the GST issues but we could not go online and find a solution.So we just sat around as all shops were shut too, and waited for the bandh to be declared open. It has been a terrible time for all of us in business.”

The June-July season was one for second flush tea, the darker, stronger variety that constitutes 21% of Darjeeling tea exports, and 41% of its revenue. Losses of Rs 250 crores ($39 million) in the season from the triple attack trickled down to the 55,000 permanent and 15,000 temporary workers in the 87 tea gardens in the region.

Ranjeev Pradhan, who runs a construction company in Darjeeling, says those weeks were nightmarish, “The bandh, the internet shutdown, the voice call drops, the sudden introduction of the GST – all this has really taken a toll on me and several others who run small businesses in Darjeeling. Things are still not right. All we need is some peace of mind which is missing right now.”

Only small-scale businessmen like Jeevan Sharma, who had dual offices in Darjeeling and Siliguri, managed to file GST. “If I did not have my chartered accountant based in Siliguri, it would have been impossible to file returns. Siliguri was open and the net was available, so the CA didn’t have a problem. Although the process was very slow because of technical snags in the servers.”

Businessman Gyanendra, who runs Krishna Service Apartments, was not so lucky. “I was held up in Darjeeling because of the bandh. We had practically zero business for the 108 days of forceful bandh, and yet I had to think about filing GST first. This magnitude of shutdown was unthinkable for us.”

Anjan Kumar Kahali, a prominent lawyer who deals with income tax and GST, had a harrowing time during the initial launch. “The system was not stable at all and the GST site kept on hanging after a short duration of use. Entries were taking forever to upload and results were not shown on time and taking really long to verify. The delay was hampering all my other work. Even today, the servers are still far from fast. I have heard that it is not before the end of this financial year that matters will be sorted out.”

In September, the GST council headed by the finance minister Arun Jaitley provided some relief for GST defaulters by extending the July deadline to October first, and then again to November. “I am relieved that I will be getting some extra time to file the returns without paying heavy fines,” says Kahali.

The tea and tourism industries, on which Darjeeling depends most, were severely hit by the bandh. In a politically sensitive time, the double whammy of the internet ban and GST seems to have deepened anger against the state. “The people of the hills feel betrayed, both by the centre and the state,” says Sharma. “They feel they have been taken for a ride once again like they have been several times before.”

Avijit Sarkar is a Siliguri-based journalist and a member of 101Reporters.com, a pan-India network of grassroots reporters.

Shutdown stories are the output of a collaboration between 101 Reporters and CIS with support from Facebook.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/taxes-in-the-time-of-internet-shutdown

Tata Photon unblocks Wordpress.com

praskrishna — 2012-09-03T01:53:47Z

As of yesterday, the Tata Photon service of the Internet service provider (ISP) Tata Teleservices seems to have lifted the block it had put on the Wordpress.com domain for over a week.

The post was published in tech2 on August 30, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

Tech2 had reported on Saturday that the free platform of Wordpress was put under a blanket ban across India by the ISP following government orders to block around 309 URLs carrying disruptive or inflammatory content. Directives issued by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to ISPs between August 18 and 21 state that only the URLs mentioned be blocked, not entire domains. Users could neither view Wordpress blogs nor edit or post new content on them, the first instance of which was noticed by us on August 20.

Our repeated efforts to contact Tata Teleservices' officials drew a blank. Numerous users who contacted customer service did not receive any replies or resolution. Through the course of the blockade, the ISP did not even display any message to Wordpress visitors that the domain was blocked, nor did it notify the owners of Wordpress blogs about it. Puzzled users tried resetting their Internet connections, clearing DNS caches, and calling the customer service helpline only to realise that they were experiencing an ISP-level block.

The reactions of Wordpress users ranged from annoyance to distress. Human rights activist and lawyer Kamayani Bali Mahabal commented on Tech2, "Yes, my wordpress blog is blocked and I have 4 blogs...have also written to TATA. I can access through [an] anonymous browser but I cannot log in, edit and do admin functions, I can do about 50 percent work on my blog. Dashboard not accessible[,] barely manage to post, will be suing TATA soon". In a blog post, she has described her experience of the block.

Blogger Shantanu Adhicary who goes by the nom de blog Tantanoo says, "My blogs are self-hosted [on Wordpress] so I was not affected. But it was annoying that I was unable to access, read or comment on other Wordpress blogs, especially in the absence of any message whatsoever that this site has been blocked".

The move by Tata Teleservices is being seen as ham handed; around 25 million Wordpress blogs were made inaccessible to deal with a few rotten eggs. Blogger and social media consultant Prateek Shah opines, "Blanket bans on domains because content on some of their pages is objectionable are akin to jailing a certain section of society just because some people from the community broke the law. Wordpress plays an extremely important role on the Internet and if such a site were to go down even for a few hours, it would mean mayhem for bloggers as well as readers who count on the platform to get the latest updates and information. ISPs need to mature and grow up to the fact that one can't put millions of people in jeopardy when apparently trying to protect the interests of some".

In June, the Madras High Court had granted relief to netizens in India by urging that there be no more John Doe orders. “The order of interim injunction dated 25/04/2012 is hereby clarified that the interim injunction is granted only in respect of a particular URL where the infringing movie is kept and not in respect of the entire website. Further, the applicant is directed to inform about the particulars of URL where the interim movie is kept within 48 hours.”

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director at Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), agrees the move was wrong but shares insights about the position of the ISPs. He says, "It was obviously wrong. It contravenes the government's orders to not block the base URL but individual pages. Action should be taken against them for causing inconvenience to users. This is not the first time an ISP has gone overboard in implementing censorship, be it copyright issues, piracy or inflammatory content. In 2006, the government had chastised ISPs for over-censoring content and blocking unintended websites and pages. Having said that, ISPs have numerous grouses against the government. They do not possess the technical capabilities to implement the government's orders, at times, whether about surveillance or censorship".

ISPs that are also telecom services providers, find themselves unable to decipher government notifications about shutting off content on the Internet or introducing curbs on mobile communication. Prakash's analysis of the 300-odd URLs blocked by the Indian government reveals glaring mistakes in the government directives "that made blocking pointless and effectual". When asked to opine about what ISPs and telcos should do when the orders from the government were not crystal clear, Prakash said, "They should ask for clarifications from the government. The operators sought clarifications from the Ministry of Telecommunications about the recent orders to ban bulk text messages and MMSes. The ministry was unable to resolve them, and in turn, sought further clarifications from the Home Ministry. The government should coordinate better".

Tata Teleservices was not the only ISP guilty of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Sify too reportedly imposed a blanket block on the Wordpress domain. Airtel went overboard by temporarily blocking Youtu.be URLs last week citing orders by the court or the DoT.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tech-2-in-com-aug-30-2012-tata-photon-unblocks-wordpress

Tata Communications embraces the change to IPv6

praskrishna — 2012-06-15T05:56:49Z

The Internet was operational since 1983 and at the time there was no way that one could image as to what extent it will reach. With a rapid growth and after serving nearly 2.5 billion people and 11 billion devices, the Internet is apparently running out of space. This has prompted many global organizations to embrace the change from IPv4 to IPv6 and one of these companies is Tata Communications.

This was published in tech2 on June 7, 2012

In a release, Tata Communications state that a transition does not necessarily mean migration. They add further, "However, a transition does not necessarily mean migration; or in other words, as we transition to IPv6 as the new protocol for digital and electronic communication, it does not mean that we are going to abandon the internet as we know it. In fact, for most of the users, it is going to be a transparent transition, where their devices are going to be able to harness the powers of IPv4 and 6. While there are huge benefits at the back-end, leading to better security protocols and low maintenance, there are a few advantages that the user should also celebrate."

Nishant Shah, Director-Research at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), along with Tata Communications have listed a few points of how IPv6 may benefit users:
Faster Internet: Because IPv6 will open up a huge range of IP addresses, direct routing of data becomes a possibility. As data does not have to be routed through many servers or nodes within a network, it can reach its destination faster.

More collaborative and shared Internet: With the abundance of IP addresses springing up, there is going to be more scope for multiple devices to be connected online. New platforms of collaborative knowledge production and sharing can be designed to become infinite and inclusive in their scale and architecture.

More connected devices: The inter-operability features of IPv6 ensure that more devices are able to communicate with each other with ease. Tata Communication states, “The science-fiction futuristic dream of a completely connected environment where human and artificial intelligence can work together, using a range of devices, is actually a material possibility with large scale IPv6 implementation. This can also trigger new innovation that helps reconstruct some of our existing devices in new forms and shapes.”

While affordability and the migration to new network infrastructure are the gating factors to this transition, these are diminishing costs and we are looking at more interesting internet architecture as Tata Communications' move towards IPv6. They end by stating, “Perhaps, one of the most reassuring points of this transition is that we do not need to abandon the familiar internet we are already working with; the transition is not a moving on, but a moving to, and in it are the promises of a safe, secure and speedy internet. Global technology organisations like Tata Communications have embraced this change; it’s only a matter of time before others too recognise the need for IPv6 and the huge difference it will make to our lives.”

Let us know your thoughts on various global organizations embracing the change from IPv4 to IPv6 in the comments section below.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tata-communications-embraces-the-change-to-ipv6

Targeting surveillance

praskrishna — 2014-12-30T14:10:58Z

In the fall of 2005, Scotland Yard raided a flat in west London and arrested a suspected al-Qaeda militant known by a teasing Arabic nickname, Irhabi (“Terrorist”) 007.

The article by Ajai Sreevatsan was published in the Hindu on December 28, 2014. Sunil Abraham gave his inputs.

The similarities between Irhabi 007, later identified as Younis Tsouli, and India’s Mehdi Masoor Biswas are uncanny.

Neither participated in any terror attack. Their reputation stems from an alleged involvement as cyber propagandists for proto-terror groups — Irhabi was distributing manuals and teaching online seminars on behalf of the emerging al-Qaeda faction in Iraq, while Mehdi is alleged to be an IS sympathiser. Both in their early 20s with cover identities during the day, and separated by a decade in technological evolution.

Such expertise within terror groups is hardly surprising, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society. “Any organisation engaged in a war for hearts and minds and oil fields will exploit contemporary technology to its fullest potential,” he says.

Irhabi currently serves a 16-year jail term, while Mehdi awaits his trial. What their cases highlight is that the phenomenon of young, tech-savvy armchair radicals is nothing new.

Research done at Israel’s Haifa University, which tracks the proliferation of terrorist websites, shows that the number of such sites went up from fewer than 100 in the late-1990s to more than 4,800 in just a decade. There is also credible evidence that an al-Qaeda website posted a sketched-out proposal for the 2004 Madrid bombings three months before the attack. Another macabre example is the crowd-sourcing effort launched in 2005 by the Victorious Army Group to build its website. By the competition’s rules, the winner would get to fire a rocket at an American base.

As Indian agencies gear up to respond to similar online threats in this part of the world, Mr. Abraham says India should not repeat the mistakes made by the West over the previous decade. “We should not get caught up in big data surveillance,” he says.

“Surveillance is like salt. It could be counter-productive even if slightly in excess. Ideally, surveillance must be targeted. Indiscriminate surveillance just increases the size of the haystack, making it difficult to find the needles,” Mr. Abraham says.

“Even in the case of Mehdi, his identity was uncovered not by online spying but by Channel 4 which did some old-fashioned detective work,” he says.

In any case, recent events show that the threat of online terror propaganda might be overblown. Much like online activism, it is subject to the law of diminishing returns.

A set of letters sent by newly recruited volunteers of IS was leaked to the French newspaper Le Figaro earlier this month and it shows youngsters complaining about being made to do the dishes or the Iraqi winter. One of them wrote: “I’m fed up to the back teeth. My iPod no longer works out here. I have got to come home.” Of the estimated 1,100 young French who are believed to have joined the IS, more than 100 have already returned.

The IS may have Twitter on its side. But the harsh realities of Iraq and the gruesome ideology behind the slick doctrinal videos are a lot harder to sell.

Mr. Abraham says there is no such thing as a Twitter revolution or a social media terror group. “Such statements underestimate the role of ideology and human beings,” he says.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-hindu-december-28-2014-ajai-sreevatsan-targeting-surveillance

Tangled Web

praskrishna — 2012-01-23T08:42:01Z

Government and social networking sites at loggerheads as debate rages over freedom of expression, writes Kumar Anshuman and Nikita Doval in this story published in the Week on Saturday, 21 January 2012.

Journalist-turned-activist Vinay Rai has succeeded where Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal failed—putting the fear of law in the minds of India's bloating community of bloggers, surfers, plain e-wayfarers and inter(net)lopers.

Blogs haven't yet been blocked, but a Delhi High Court bench asked 21 internet firms, including Google, Facebook and YouTube, to look at China and have stringent checks on their content on January 19. It was enough to set the net on fire. Compulsive tweeter Shashi Tharoor, who lost his ministerial berth for over-tweeting, wondered whether phone companies could "be sued if someone sends a defamatory, obscene SMS". Said IT expert Niyam Bhushan: "If you fall on the ground and hurt your nose, you can't sue gravity. At a time when people in autocratic countries are using social media to bring in democracy, a democratic country like India is trying to restrict it!"

When the summons for the case was first sent to the companies in December, a number of respondents who were based outside India failed to answer. Said cyber crime expert Pavan Duggal: "Companies are observing the IT Act more in breach than in observance."

The debate was originally kick-started by Sibal last December when he summoned the chiefs of social networking sites and showed them offensive material from their sites. However, they pleaded helplessness. Sibal's subsequent press conference drew more flak, and he retreated saying, "The government does not believe in interfering in the freedom of the press, but we have to take care of the sensibilities of our people."

It was then that Rai petitioned a Delhi criminal court, accusing 21 social networking sites of hosting objectionable and inflammatory content which would create enmity and violence among religious communities. In a sealed envelope, he presented 62 items downloaded from different web sites and got three witnesses.

Though the companies were ordered to appear before court on January 13, they challenged the order in the Delhi High Court, saying that curbing the content is technically impossible. "Human interference is not possible, and it is not feasible to check such incidents given that billions of people across the globe are posting articles and other material on their web sites," argued Mukul Rohatgi, former additional solicitor general, representing Google India. "Certain keywords can be blocked or not allowed," said Yogesh Bansal, founder and CEO of ApnaCircle.com. "However, filtering or having 100 per cent control over the content posted is technically not possible."

According to the Information Technology (Intermediaries guidelines) Rules, 2011, if the companies receive complaints about unlawful or objectionable online material, they have 36 hours to remove it, failing which the aggrieved party can approach court or the Cyber Law Appellate Tribunal. "The rules purportedly try to regulate and control the intermediaries like interactive web sites and social media sites, but, in effect, regulate content generated or posted by users," said Prasanth Sugathan, legal counsel, Software Freedom Law Center.

The 'intermediaries', as defined in the Information Technology Act, 2000, include a broad list of players ranging from internet service providers like Airtel and MTNL to blogging platforms like Blogspot and WordPress to auction sites like eBay and search engines like Google to cyber cafes. The new rules mandate the intermediaries to impose a set of rules and regulations on users.

The rules specify the terms of regulations, which include a broad list of unlawful content—information that is grossly harmful, harassing, blasphemous, defamatory, obscene, related to paedophilia, libellous, invasive of privacy, hateful, racially objectionable, disparaging, encourages money laundering or otherwise unlawful in any manner whatever.

"These are very broad terms which have not been defined very well," said Duggal. "The service provider is not even required to come to a judgment. Only after they receive a complaint or are notified by the government can they act." According to Delhi-based cyber law consultant Karnika Seth, it will be helpful if illustrations are given to explain the nature of the crime, as in the Indian Penal Code. "This is missing in the IT Act which leaves terms like 'blasphemy' and 'obscenity' open to wide interpretations."

The companies claim they stick to the rules. "We have a review committee, which decides on complaints in case of any content posted on our sites," said a representative of one of the accused companies. In the current case, the official claimed that they were not shown the content presented before court. "The current accusation is baseless," he said.

There have been several instances in the past when social networking companies acted on complaints. In 2009, a young Keralite was booked for posting offensive remarks against Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and his party on a social networking site and the material was removed. In May 2010, the controversial 'Everybody Draw Mohammed Day!' in Facebook was blocked in India, following protests from Muslims.

In August last year, the cyber wing of the Punjab Crime Branch charge-sheeted a Sunny Dhiman for allegedly uploading a pornographic video of a female student from Chandigarh on YouTube. Following complaints, the video was removed.

According to Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, the companies are over-compliant. "We did a policy sting operation wherein we sent fraudulent notices to big web sites," he said. "They never bothered to check the veracity of the complaints, but complied with everything we asked for. In one case where we asked for the removal of three comments, they removed all 13. So there is already a private censorship underway. The existing IT Act is draconian and has led to great dilution of privacy."

According to Google Transparency Report, Google received government requests for removing 358 items from its services between January and June last year. Fifty-one per cent of the requests were partially or fully complied with. "In addition, we received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 236 communities and profiles from Orkut that were critical of a local politician. We did not comply with it as the content did not violate our community standards or local law," said the report.

Both Duggal and Seth said the government's demand for pre-screening and monitoring content was not feasible. "In the IT Act there is not a single phrase which requires pre-screening or moderation under the law," said Duggal. The government has a right to stop a company from displaying content which it deems perverse to Indian standards. But, as Seth said, "How do you define Indian standards? They are ever changing."

Web sites can put certain filters in place, but even they have limitations. As the counsel for the companies argued in court, the word 'sex' even comes up in documents like ration cards and passports. So blocking them is not feasible.

Though freedom of expression is a fundamental right, it is not absolute. Article 19(2) states that the state may make a law imposing "reasonable restrictions” on the right to freedom of speech on eight grounds mentioned in Clause (2)—security of state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, contempt of court, defamation, incitement to an offence and sovereignty and integrity of India.

The evidence presented before court clearly points to violation of some of these rules. "Freedom of expression doesn't mean mutilating or morphing pictures of leaders of different religious beliefs,” said Zafaryab Jilani, a lawyer. “This is a crime and the persons responsible should be accused under Section 153(A)."

Said BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain: "Anything hurting religious sentiments should not be allowed. But the government is trying to stop certain political viewpoints, which is wrong." Senior Congress leader Shakeel Ahmed said freedom of expression should be "in a proper, democratic way without demeaning anyone."

Team Anna member Kumar Vishwas blamed social networking sites for hosting his videos without consent. "The main part of my speech has been deliberately removed and hence it doesn't present the fact which I said." Though he has complained, the videos have not been removed. However, he said that social networking was the voice of young India and it shouldn't be curbed in any way.

According to columnist and social analyst Syed Mubin Zehra, "There should be a check or verification process to have an internet identity." However, she is against a total ban. "We are not China, and think about the good things which the internet has contributed to society."

The corporate sector is increasingly using social networking sites to build stronger ties with consumers. For brands like Airtel, having a Facebook page meant reaching out to Generation Y, who spend a large amount of time with computers. "With Facebook there is dialogue, it becomes a barometer of customer satisfaction level," said Marzin Shroff, CEO (direct sales) and senior vice-president (marketing), Eureka Forbes, which started using Facebook in 2010 and has more than 1.6 lakh 'likes' on its page.

Cleartrip.com, a major online travel company, heavily uses the social networking platform. "We have always been early adopters of social media tools with a blog, customer forum, Twitter presence and a Facebook page," said Hrush Bhatt, co-founder and director (product & strategy), Cleartrip. "There are multiple cases where extremely irate customers have been vocal on their blogs or Twitter and our team has successfully reached out to them, taken care of their problems and turned them from complainers to evangelists."

Corporate honchos are worried over the ongoing controversy. "Banning social networking sites will hurt business as social media is now becoming a source of business for many," said Mohandas Pai, former director (HR) at Infosys Ltd. The worry is equally troubling a real estate company like Prestige Group. "As we have a very strong NRI customer base, such sites also make it possible for us to address their every need and give them an opportunity to clarify their queries with us,” said Uzma Irfan, executive director, corporate communications, Prestige Group. “Hence, ban of any free media such as Facebook shall only create a void in the marketing efforts of companies."

Some experts, however, are of the opinion that a ban or restriction on social networking sites will only have a short-term impact on some companies as many of them will change their online advertising strategy to deal with the situation. "Companies are smart enough to design new innovative advertising strategies," said Sridhar Ramanujam, CEO of brand-comm, a Bangalore-based brand communications consultancy. "Take, for instance, the liquor companies. Though liquor advertisements are banned in different places, such companies are doing more and more of surrogate advertising in the form of mineral water."

The only kind of censorship that can work on the net is self-imposed and, perhaps, a few guidelines in netiquette might not be out of line, said Seth. "Netiquette culture needs to be developed. The common man has to be explained what is legal and illegal. Otherwise there will be rampant cyber crime without people even realising that they are indulging in it."
with Abhinav Singh and Sharmista Chaudhury

Sunil Abraham was quoted in this story.

Read the original published in the Week

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/tangled-web

Taming the Web, are we?

praskrishna — 2012-05-24T09:01:28Z

Two decades after its advent changed our lives, the world wide web - as we know it - faces a grave threat. Not from governments alone, but also from tech companies seeking to play gatekeepers.

Sunil Abraham is quoted in this article by Javed Anwer published in the Economic Times on May 13, 2012

The /b/ section at www.4chan.org is so extreme in nature that even web veterans squirm at the thought of going through it. Anyone can post virtually any picture here. Anonymously. It doesn't matter if the pictures are obscene , graphic or gory.

Yet, 4Chan, which was started by a 15-year-old in 2003, is an integral part of the world wide web. The large community at 4Chan mirrors the virtual world - lawless and anarchic in the traditional sense, highly innovative, funny and sometimes disturbing. Barry Newstead, chief global development officer of Wikimedia that manages Wikipedia, puts it succinctly. "The internet has been giving ordinary people the voice and the ability to contribute content and ideas and opinions. Sometimes we use it to create pictures of funny cats and sometimes it's the world's largest encyclopedia ," he says.

Until recently, it seems governments just noticed the funny cats. They left the web to its own devices. At the same time, the egalitarian ethos on which the web was founded - Tim Berners-Lee developed it and gave it away for free - kept realworld barriers, which corporations and people often put around their environment, away from it. In 2012, it looks like the honeymoon is over.

'Civilizing' the Net

Perhaps the problem is that, for all its perceived flaws, the internet has worked wonderfully well."Too well," says Jeff Jarvis, author of 'Public Parts' , a book on internet culture. It has allowed people to create Google, Facebook, Hotmail, WikiLeaks, Wikipedia and thousands of other websites and services that have changed lives. Last year Jarvis was in Paris, participating in e-G 8 called by then French president Nicholas Sarkozy. He heard the Frenchman's plans to"civilize" the web. "Nobody should forget governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies," said Sarkozy.

His sentiments are shared by politicians across the world, including in India. Just three days ago, Congress MP Shantaram Naik, aghast at the "filthy" comments on a website, said in the Rajya Sabha that the internet needs to be "purified" . Different politicians and governments have different reasons. But regulation is growing. In the last few years, governments across the world have proposed or enacted laws (see box) that aim to "civilize" the web.

Why the urgency? Is the internet broken? Jarvis says it is not. "The net is operating no differently today than it was a decade ago. But we see so many efforts to fix it - to regulate it under the cloak of privacy, piracy, decency, security, and even civility," he says. "I believe legacy institutions, including governments, are waking up to the extent of the net's disruptive force... they are trying to control the net and govern the change it causes."

Sunil Abraham, director of Centre for Internet and Society, says that in the last two years governments have doubled their efforts to control the web. "During the revolutions in Arab countries last year, protesters mobilized themselves through Twitter and Facebook. Then there are Wikileaks and Anonymous. This has made governments and politicians jittery," says Abraham.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/taming-the-web

Tamil Nadu likely to hold Facebook accountable for suicide case

praskrishna — 2016-07-13T13:44:58Z

The recent suicide of a 21-year-old woman from Salem district in Tamil Nadu over her morphed pictures being uploaded on Facebook could turn into a flash-point between the state police and the world's most-popular social networking site.

The article by V. Prem Shanker was published in the Economic Times on July 13, 2016.

"We are exploring the possibility of holding Facebook accountable for the delay in responding to our requests since that was one of the factors which led to the young lady committing suicide," Salem superintendent of police Amit Kumar Singh told ET in an exclusive interaction. On June 23, the Salem police had received a complaint from the father of the 21-year-old stating that someone had uploaded her morphed nude pictures on Facebook. The father had requested the police to get the photographs removed from the site and also find and warn the perpetrator.

The police recorded the complaint the same evening and later sent what is called a 'Law Enforcement Online Request' to Facebook asking for details of the IP address from which the morphed photographs were uploaded on the website. Officials also requested Facebook to take down the objectionable photographs of the young woman.

Five days after the request was sent, Facebook responded with the IP address on June 28 and within 12 hours after that the police cracked the case and nabbed the suspect.

However, all this was a bit too late because the previous day, on June 27, the young woman had ended her life. Her morphed nude photographs were taken down only on the day of her death, according to the police.

"Apart from addressing Facebook, we also investigated the case from other angles but couldn't make headway. Thus, there was nothing we could do about the pictures still being online apart from waiting for Facebook to act," Singh said, adding "enforcement of compliance is a matter of grave concern."

Officials are considering charging Facebook with abetment to suicide and including Facebook in the chargesheet if the site is found culpable after investigations. However, the state police is said to be discussing with legal experts on how this can be done as there is no precedent for a website having been charged in a crime.

Facebook did not reply to an email seeking comment. Earlier in a communique, responding to criticisms of police inaction in this case, Singh had pointed out that "Only Facebook can block a page and it exercises this discretion as per its Facebook Community Standards and not the law of the land it is being viewed in. Facebook does not provide the police with any special powers to take down a page even if the police receive a cognizable complaint of identity theft and uploading of obscene content. There is no tool available, at least as of now, with the police to coerce or goad Facebook to act expeditiously even if the matter is very urgent and there is a flagrant violation of Indian law."

Experts point out that the disparity with which Facebook treats child abuse laws and copyright infringements as opposed to violation of women's rights is stark.

"Look at the war against child pornography. In the United Kingdom there is an independent foundation that has immunity under UK child pornography law. They generate a database and circulate it across all platforms and ensure that it is kept absolutely squeaky clean," points out Sunil Abraham, executive director of Bengaluru based research organisation, Centre for Internet and Society.

"There definitely needs to be a law to ensure that such platforms do not violate the law of the land, especially when it comes to women's rights. But in interim, the government can create an information escrow or a platform where the victims can place on record their problems and it is there for these sites to see and take action," Abraham added.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/economic-times-v-prem-shanker-july-13-2016-tamil-nadu-likely-to-hold-facebook-accountable-for-suicide-case

Talks at National University of Juridical Sciences Today

Admin — 2019-09-20T14:45:35Z

Arindrajit Basu delivered two lectures at the National University of Juridical Sciences on September 18, 2019.

The first one was part of a symposium being conducted by the soon to be set up Intellectual Property and Technology Law Centre. I spoke on "Conceptualising India's Digital Policy Vision" The other speaker today was Mr. Supratim Chakraborty (Partner, Khaitan&Co.) Tomorrow's speakers are Prof. Mahendra Kumar Bhandan and Nikhil Narendran (Partner, Trilegal)

Abstract

The past year has seen vigorous activity on the domestic data governance policy front in India. Across key issues including intermediary liability, data localisation and e-commerce, the government has rolled out a patchwork of regulatory policies that has resulted in battle lines being drawn by governments, industry and civil society actors both in India and across the globe. The Data Protection Bill is set to be tabled in the next session of Parliament amidst supposed disagreement among policy-makers on key provisions, including data localization. The draft e-commerce policy and Chapter 4 of the Economic Survey refer to the concepts of ‘community data’ and ‘data as public good’ respectively. Artifiicial Intelligence is also the new buzz word among policy-making circles and industry players alike.

The implementation of each of these concepts have important implications for individual privacy, the monetisation of data by (foreign tech companies) and the harnessing of-as the e-commerce policy puts it-India’s data for India’s development. Meanwhile, at international forums such as the G20, India has partnered up with its BRICS allies to emphasize the notion of ‘data sovereignty’ or the right of each country to govern data within its jurisdiction without external interference.
In his talk, Basu unpacked each of these policies and followed up with a discussion on what these developments meant for Indian citizens and for India’s role in the multilateral global order.

The second one was on 'Constitutionalizing Artificial Intelligence' conducted by the Constitutional Law Society. Here, I drew from some preliminary findings from a paper I am working on with Elonnai and Amber.

Abstract

The use of big data and algorithmic decision-making has been touted world over as a means of augmenting human capacities, removing bureaucratic fetters and benefiting society. Yet, with concerns arising around bias, fairness and a lack of algorithmic accountability, an entirely new domain of discourse on data justice has emerged - underscoring the idea that algorithms not only have the potential to exacerbate entrenched structural inequality but could also create and modulate new forms of injustice for the vulnerable sections of society.

There is a need for a reflexive turn in the debate on data justice that adequately considers the broader narrative and entrenched inequality in the ecosystem. Transformative constitutionalism is a new brand of scholarship in comparative constitutional law which celebrates the crucial role of the state and the judiciary in bringing about emancipatory change and rooting out structural inequality.

Originally conceptualized as a Global South concept designed as a counter-model to the individual rights-driven model of Northern Constitutions, scholars have now identified emancipatory provisions in several western constitutions such as Germany. India’s constitution is one such example. The origins of constitutional order in India were designed to “bring the alien and powerful machine like that of the state under the control of human will” and to eliminate the inequality of “status, facilities and opportunities.”

What is the relevance of India's constitutional ethos in the regulation of modern day data driven decision-making? How can policy-makers use constitutional tenets to mitigate structural injustice and transform the bearings of 21st century Indian society?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/talks-at-national-university-of-juridical-sciences-today

Talking Point: Futile Battle Against Torrents

praskrishna — 2016-09-01T14:36:01Z

Sunil Abraham spoke to Deccan Herald to clear the air about rumours surrounding a jail threat for those logging on to Torrent sites.

Video

This was originally published by Deccan Herald on August 30, 2016

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/talking-point-futile-battle-against-torrents