We are anonymous, we are legion

Woman Alleges Harassment at Major International Conference

praskrishna — 2016-03-30T17:06:10Z

A prospective lawyer's name tag was flipped, and she was asked rude questions by a CEO at a conference, where, ironically enough, she was invited to devise sexual harassment policies.

The article by Kavita Patil was published in Bangalore Mirror on March 30, 2016.

Padmini Baruah, 22, a National Law School of India University (NLSIU) student representing Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), at the ICANN55 (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) held at Marrakech, alleged that she was sexually harassed by Khaled Fattal, the chairman and CEO of The Multilingual Internet Group.

On March 2, Baruah had reached out to the conference ombudsman and expressed her concerns about the lack of a specific sexual harassment policy. She was directed to the ICANN55's Standards of Behavior, who invited her for a discussion at the conference in Marrakech.

About three hours before her meeting with the ombudsman on March 6, she had a shock. "I was, unfortunately, subjected to sexual harassment in the nature of verbal remarks and infringement of my personal space by the perpetrator in question, a man I eventually came to know was called Khaled Fattal," she recalled. "Fattal approached me, pulled at my name tag, examined it and dropped it. A little later, he lifted my name tag and flipped it back and forth asking me, "Where are you from?"

He then leaned in, lecherously looked at me and asked, "Do you know how to make a cheese sandwich?" I was taken aback and responded angrily saying, "Yes, that is why I came here, to make you cheese sandwiches." He went on to throw another lecherous look my way and said, "Well, I love veg sandwiches."

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the CIS, said, "ICANN doesn't have a special cell where complaints can be raised but they have an ombudsman. The ombudsman is investigating the case and is in touch with both Baruah and also the perpetrator." He said after she raised the sexual harassment complaint, he received many mails from women who had faced harassment at the event but never made an attempt to raise their voice. "Through CIS we have issued a public statement of support for Baruah and we are waiting for the result of the investigation," he said.

Fattal and the ombudsman were not available for comment despite repeated attempts made by BM to get a response. Baruah, meanwhile, was informed by the ombudsman that her's was the first harassment case reported in the history of ICANN.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bangalore-mirror-march-30-2016-kavita-patil-woman-alleges-harassment-at-major-international-conference

Without stringent law, threats to Mark Zuckerberg are hollow: Experts

Admin — 2018-03-25T02:24:12Z

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday warned Facebook and other social networks of tough action, if they attempted to influence the Indian elections.

The article by Alnoor Peermohamed and Karan Choudhury was published in the Business Standard on March 23, 2018.

The best way of keeping a check on the manipulation of elections through campaigns on Facebook is by introducing a strong data protection policy, said experts. After the Cambridge Analytica row, all eyes are on the use of such tools during the upcoming general election in India.

Union Law and Information Technology (IT) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday warned Facebook and other social networks of tough action, if they attempted to influence the Indian elections. However, experts said these threats are hollow because the current law protecting user data lacks teeth.

“Without a strong data protection law, we wouldn't quite be able to take any action as what has happened is not a breach. While Section 43A of the IT Act talks about lack of consent from the users, it does not spell out any consequence for violating the same,” said Pranesh Prakash, policy director at think tank The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). “Essentially, it's a toothless tiger.”

Having a data protection law might not directly stop firms from buying data from third-party developers and then deploying it for targeted users, but it is a great pre-emptive measure to stop unnecessary data collection. If users are asked to give consent for their data, it would vastly reduce the risk.

“The government's statement would be well supported, if it would be bringing a law, listening to key voices of experts and civil society. Even though the Justice Srikrishna Committee is currently examining and is expected to come out with a draft law, the timeline, transparency and willingness to safeguard user rights need to be better demonstrated,” said Apar Gupta, an independent lawyer.

Other experts have voiced their concerns over allowing tech giants to take sensitive user data out of the country. Once the data is out of India's jurisdiction, there is no way to ensure these companies are following the laws mandated by the government.

“Facebook is not an Indian company. We do not know how far it is complying with India’s IT Act. We should not be compromising on security and allow tech firms to play in the market without complying with the laws,” says Pavan Duggal, cyber law expert and Supreme Court advocate.

While both the Congress and the BJP have accused each other of working with Cambridge Analytica and denied their own affiliation with the company, the UK-based firm was already functioning in India through its partner Ovleno Business Intelligence (OBI). The OBI website, which has now been taken down, had listed the BJP, the Congress and Janata Dal (United) as its clients.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-standard-alnoor-peermohamed-and-karan-choudhury-without-stringent-law-threats-to-mark-zuckerberg-are-hollow-experts

With power, phone and internet services affected, Chennai is still recovering from Cyclone Vardah

praskrishna — 2016-12-20T16:50:27Z

Nearly a week after Cyclone Vardah rattled the city, bringing normal life to a halt for a few days, Chennai is still reeling from the aftershock of the powerful storm.

The blog post by Vinita Govindarajan and Sruthisagar Yamunan was published by Scroll.in on December 20, 2016 quoted Udbhav Tiwari

With powerful winds that blew up to the speed of 120 kmph, around one lakh trees were estimated to have have been uprooted across the city by the cyclone, causing a loss of almost one-fourth of the city’s foliage, reported The Hindu. Many of these trees fell on transmission lines, damaging them severely and cutting power supply to scores of residential areas.

Employees of Chennai’s city corporation and electricity board were seen hard at work throughout the week, clearing the streets of fallen trees and repairing electricity lines. But with frequent power cuts and sporadic phone and internet signals, the city is still on the long route to restoration.

A senior official of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board said that their personnel have been working every hour to ensure that normalcy returns to the city as soon as possible. “We have restored power to over 80% of Chennai,” he said. “The rest is also get intermittent power. By Monday morning, the whole city would be covered.”

Slow business

For Senthil Kumar, who runs a tiffin business in East Tambaram in South Chennai, there was no power from Monday, when the cyclone stuck, till Saturday morning. “For three days after the cyclone, we couldn’t open our shop,” he said. “On Friday, we decided to get the food prepared outside and bring it here. We served dosas and idlis without chutney and only sambhar. We’ve lost a week’s business. But you can’t blame the government. They have done well to restore everything so quickly.”

Local businesses depending on internet and phone lines to receive orders were also deeply affected. Moremilaga, a hyperlocal startup that delivers homemade food to customers across the city, said that even though they did not receive their usual number of orders over phone and internet, they managed to surprise their regular customers with packets of food.

“Many of the people who we give food to are elderly people,” said Ragini Murali, who is in-charge of the start-up’s operations. “We felt really bad that we could not give them food for a day because they cannot cook on their own or buy from a store. They depend on our food and were very relieved when we delivered food even when they could not reach us.”

Business is slowly coming back to normal except that now Moremilaga is receiving only 20% of its orders through internet, whereas earlier it was 50%, said Viji Ganesh, the founder of the enterprise.

Maligai Kadai, an online grocery delivery business in Chennai, was shut from Monday through Wednesday. Satish Sundaram, founder of Maligai Kadai, said that the online store hardly received any orders this week because of internet problems across the city. But he said that even delivery of orders placed prior to the storm was a problem.

“We couldn’t do anything,” said Sundaram. “We had to postpone the delivery of orders placed on Sunday because many of our customers left the city immediately after the storm. In other cases, we could not reach our customers on phone to find out if their area was accessible. If the roads were blocked with fallen trees, we would have to come back all the way.”

Why no internet?

Five days after the storm, communication signals were still erratic. Airtel subscribers across the country received messages that the cyclone in Chennai had affected one of their undersea network cables which in turn might slow down internet speeds. Subscribers to BSNL, Vodafone and other telecommunication operators were also facing similar difficulties.

The reason for this slow speed, explained Udbhav Tiwari, a policy officer at The Centre for Internet and Society, was that operators were having to reroute their traffic to other undersea cables that travel using longer, convoluted routes.

“The data takes long to travel, since it does not travel efficiently enough,” he said. “So if you search for something on the internet, it will open only after a minute because the packet had to travel the other three-fourth of the world to reach you instead of the shortest route.”

Undersea cables, Tiwari explained, are usually owned by a combination of telecom companies as well as companies whose sole job is to lay these cables and rent them to individuals who will run their traffic through them.

These companies map out a route decided by demand between certain key points, hire a ship that trawls the ocean sea floor and lays and maintains cables, he said.

For the entirety of Asia, the Singaporean and Japanese region are the main hubs for internet exchange, Tiwari said, since they are considered reliable and commercially viable.

“Undersea cables almost always end in big cites,“ Tiwari said, “because of the infrastructure required to operate them. On the eastern side of India, Chennai is one of the best places to set up an end point for an undersea cable since it is a metropolitan city and closer to hubs like Japan and Singapore.”

If one of these lines near Chennai are broken, he said, it is very likely that the data would slow down because they have to find alternative routes.

“A severe cyclone or tsunami definitely has the potential to disturb or snap these sea cables,” Tiwari said. “But if maintenance is not carried out on them regularly enough, they can break for far more mundane reasons such as high water pressure, rust, debris falling from other ships or even sea animals.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/scroll-in-vinita-govindarajan-shrutisagar-yamunan-with-power-phone-and-internet-services-affected-chennai-is-still-recovering-from-cyclone-vardah

With digitisation at the forefront, government departments need to be cautious about digital security

praskrishna — 2017-05-20T08:33:37Z

The huge leak of Aadhar data from four websites belonging to a central ministry and the Andhra Pradesh government has been on the government radar for a while. The leak, caused by poor security protocols, had left around 130 million numbers and their allied information, like bank and post office account details, open to access for several months. As the last website finally plugged loophole, violation echoed in Supreme Court.

The blog post by Manas Pratap Singh was published by NDTV on May 4, 2017.

Deliberate revelation of Aadhaar can lay people open to financial fraud and it is a punishable offence and this is what the Electronics and Information ministry has reminded all government departments.

"Aadhaar numbers and demographic information and other sensitive personal data" collected by "ministries/departments, state departments" have been published online, read a letter from the ministry dated April 24.

Such publishing, it added, "is in clear contravention of the provisions of the Aadhaar Act 2016 and constitutes an offence punishable with imprisonment upto 3 years". Such outing of financial information is also a violation of IT Act, it said.

Besides asking web managers to sensitise the ministries, the letter also said that display of such information be stopped immediately.

On May 1, a report by non-profit research organisation Centre for Internet & Society said two of the websites from where the data leak took place, belongs to the Union Ministry of Rural Development.

One stored data for the MNREGA - the mammoth Central scheme for rural employment which caters to 25.46 crore people. The other was the National Social Assistance Programme, another Central scheme under which pension is provided to the elderly people, widows and persons with disabilities.

Amber Sinha, co-author of the CIS report, told NDTV, "For portals that had not masked data, we informed the relevant authorities and asked them to take down the available information."

The Rural Development ministry has now decided to form an expert group on IT and cyber security, which will be headed by Kiran Karnik, a former chief of Nasscom. The ministry, however, is yet to comment on the data leak.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/ndtv-may-4-2017-manas-pratap-singh-government-knew-of-mega-aadhaar-leak-ministries-were-warned

WISER Lecture : Sumandro Chattapadhyay on Deregulation by Code

praskrishna — 2017-03-29T11:48:08Z

University of the Witwatersrand organized a talk by Sumandro Chattapadhyay on Derugulation by Code on March 8, 2017 in Johannesburg.

On November 08, 2017, the Government of India initiated a demonetisation process. It involved cancellation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes as legal tender, establishing of a time bound process for the notes to be returned to the banks, announcement of specific emergency services (such as hospitals and utilities) for which the canceled notes could still be used, and introduction of a new Rs. 2,000 note. While the purpose of the demonetisation move was publicly articulated in terms of removal of unaccounted wealth held in cash form, the state narrative quickly moved to being primarily focused on promotion of various forms of digital payments, especially mobile-based payments. The notion of a "WhatsApp moment" in Indian banking in particular, and in Asian banking in general, has been in circulation since 2015. Nandan Nilekani, a significant technocrat politician of India who has been CEO of Infosys (a major Indian IT company) and the Chairman of the UID/Aadhaar project, was one of the first persons to take note of this upcoming "revolution". In a lecture given by him on August 21, 2015, he described the technological and market forces, enabled by policy decision, that are going to disrupt the Indian banking landscape.

Sumandro's lecture discussed the linkages between this WhatsApp moment and the demonetisation move, and locate them in the context of institutional and technological changes happening in the Indian banking sector since 2008. The talk focused on the development and proliferation of the Unified Payments Interface - an universal, private-owned, government-backed, mobile-to-mobile payment infrastructure - as the key instrument through which the ongoing deregulation of banking in India is being driven.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/wiser-lecture-sumandro-chattapadhyay-on-deregulation-by-code

Wired state of mind

radha — 2011-04-02T13:56:55Z

Information technology is the driver of society today — the basic block of innovation and growth in organisations, the mainstay of the 21st century. The decade bygone was only an indicator of the things to come. Whether its ideas or friendships, the future indubitably belongs to linking-up on the web, writes Malvika Tegta , DNA - Digital Edition, Monday - 28th December, 2009.

Did cyberscape make us cogs on a new machinery or liberate us, empower us or make us vulnerable, enrich us with cultural diversity or homogenise us? There isnt a simple answer. Not in a diverse world digitally sewn into a remarkably new pattern. Here what is certain is what is manifest — the emergence of an information society witness to changes in organisation structure, work cultures, community life, lifestyles, medicine, governance, activism, political participation, commercial business, conventional media, spaces for those on the social fringes, emergence of support systems. And a new connected state of mind.

Increased spread of the web and an exponential increase in internet platforms and applications unleashed a world of possibility for the user like never before. You could collaboratively edit a dynamic encyclopedia, collectively write a book on an idea seeded in the US and source ideas for your art project from perfect strangers from across the globe. There were endless ways of connecting with people we never knew existed — an increased consumption of global culture.

A phenomenon that enabled linking up like never before was social networking, invented in a Harvard dorm room in 2004. The Facebook culture that it spawned was drastically going to change our world as we knew it.

Consider how your life changed. A regular college evening in 2000, which was spent on chai, sutta and long walks, was invested in collecting updates about friends living on the same hostel wing on Facebook or Twitter. You were poked if you were being lazy about parting with your current mood update. When you spread out after college, these platforms kept you perpetually in the loop. You knew whod put on weight, whose relationship status had changed, that xyz was feeling crabby today. You, in turn, made sure that you posted one good picture of you in the Jaisalmer deserts for your 369 Facebook buddies to see.

And, all that upload and download of continuous information was negotiated on multiple browser windows, deftly juggled at work, while you waited for your strawberry crop on Farmville to mature.

In short, social lives of the 15% of us (Indians) with internet access were, if not fundamentally altered, certainly uploaded and impacted over the last 10 years. We became comfortable with the idea of trading identities and data about ourselves with companies like Orkut, Facebook or Google in return for the opportunity to realise the last connection on our six degrees of separation map.

Factors that made 24*7 wired lifestyle possible were miniaturisation, therefore portability computers; the smartening up of mobile phones; better broadband and Wi-Fi connectivity, and social media boom. Laptops made way for notebooks, notebooks for netbooks, and cell phone companies rolled out browser-based phones like the Blackberry and Android handsets.

To grasp the changes in the backdrop of the colossal exchange of data was to revisit Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhans line, made famous way before the Internet got big, “The medium is the message”.

Cultural evolution
The Internet grew up fast over the past 10 years, both embodying social values like connectivity, participation, creating, collaborating and self-sufficiency, and in turn affecting them. It went from read-only sites to being driven by user generated content. The user became the creative dynamo, armed with tools like blogs, review forums, and sites like WordPress, Blogspot, Flickr and YouTube.

Then came social media: Orkut, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendster, Twitter. Peer-2-peer file sharing application BitTorrent and music sharing sites like Napster came to represent the new philosophy. Here, the user became an active supplier of movies or music without the need for an intermediary server, as was generally the case before.

“The three cultural turns that social networking has introduced have been peer-2-peer networking, collaborations and new processes of publication and dissemination. These have changed our notion of history, cultural production and consumption, and knowledge production,” says Nishant Shah, director, research, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. “Sites like Wikipedia have dismantled the processes of knowledge production and learning and introduced new forms of knowledge-sharing, like crowd sourcing. Collaborations have managed new forms of emotional bonding, creative production and interaction which propel the blogosphere and public opinion. These have an impact on questions of consumption, lifestyle patterns, etc.”

24x7 connectivity
The Internet speeded up time and we “drew gratification from speed”. You wanted to look up a breakfast place, a word meaning or answer to the first thing off the top of your head like why are men the way they are? You wanted Google to turn up an answer, and fast.

Since free social working sites became a landmine of data on consumer behaviour, trends, likes and dislikes, they needed to attract and keep the numbers. A few sites maintained a near monopoly; search was to Google, social networking meant Facebook and realtime synonymous with Twitter. Apart from constant re-invention, the sheer potential for large-scale networking was the reason. “My friends stick to Gmail, Facebook and Twitter because we dont want to manage information on too many sites,” says Saurabh Shrivastava, an MBA student.

It was reported that Facebook users woke up to water virtual crops at 4am just to stay ahead on Farmville, or sign into Twitter to see how far the world had come. Instant feedback was the expectation. The experiences and satisfactions were on multiple windows; to be out of that pattern caused anxiety. That was also in part because people fell back upon structures of social support online, which were earlier unavailable; BlackBerry/smartphones to the rescue.

Though the network grew stronger, it essentially comprised weak ties. Technology consultant Atul Chitnis feels that wider reach… reduced real-world interactions are unnatural in the social perspective, and have made social interactions more competitive. “Its more about getting more comments and reactions.”

What writer James Harkin portrayed as the new crack cocaine, professor Clay Shirky saw as not the case of information overload but of “filter failure”.

Virtual & physical
While we became human nodes spending a large part of the day on the network, the physical fed into the virtual world and vice-versa. Shortened attention spans created an attention economy, leading conventional media to get increasingly visual and in some cases sensational.

The response to crisis speeded up and social mobilisation became easier. In Tsunami-hit South and Southeast Asia, people mobilised resources for the disaster-affected. A pub attack on women in Mangalore snowballed into the nationwide Pink Chaddi campaign.

While its constantly said that the Internet connects us virtually and isolates physically, Shah says: “Contrary to popular perception, studies have shown that interface time increases peoples face time because new friendships, alliances and interests are anchored in the physical world.” The quality of interaction, however, will go down, says Chitnis, “due to current social patterns created by loss of cultural distinctiveness, and reduced real-world interaction”. This will especially be true for young adults “who will grow up not knowing a world without social networking”.

Language blends
Shah sites the change in language as the most visible and dramatic. “Easy access to writing and publishing tools has led to the development of new forms of speech and articulation. In countries, where English is not the majority first language, new blends like Singlish (Singapore), Hinglish (India) and Chinglish (China) have emerged as Western contexts, cultural products and ideas proliferated in new vocabularies on the information superhighway. These changes are associated with other changes in terms of new linguistic identities and nationalities,” he says.

Niche goes pop
The growth of the Internet revolutionised the economics of distribution of the media and the entertainment industry, a trend Chris Anderson tracked in his book, The Long Tail. Once it would have been unthinkable to get a copy of a Skinny Puppy CD in the music store because it simply wasnt worth the stocking cost — it wasnt popular enough. And if it wasnt stocked, it was as good as non-existent for a buyer who had never heard of it. That was the era of the blockbuster: what was profitable sold. The Internet changed this: with virtually no space constraints, and the low manufacturing and distribution cost of digital content, a hit became just as good as a miss. Both constituted sales: larger the number the better. Today, Google, Rhapsody, Apple iTunes and Amazon, all operate on that business model. The result: niche worlds have become much more visible and mainstream.

So, as we slow-waltz to the buzz of information, an online etiquette evolves. We gradually learn to turn noise into substance, come to terms with the blurring of private and public, mobilise in crisis, hone the skill of swimming through information to come up with the right find, and learn to direct at least some part of leisure time spent surfing and chatting to tap into the Internets true potential.

Link to the original article

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wired-state-of-mind

Winter School on Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection

praskrishna — 2015-02-07T00:37:55Z

The Centre for Communication Governance (CCG) in collaboration with the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Communication and Information at the University of Hamburg and the Hans Bredow conducted a week-long winter school on 'Privacy, Surveillance and Data Protection at National Law University, Delhi, from January 19 to 23, 2015.

The winter school focused on the law governing privacy in the EU and in India and covered issues ranging from surveillance to data protection. German and Indian members of faculty used interactive methods of teaching and group activities in each session, to help students from Germany, India and Israel contribute to the classroom and learn from each other.

Bhairav Acharya was a speaker at the event. He spoke on 'privacy theory'. More information here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/winter-school-on-privacy-surveillance-data-protection

Window on the World

praskrishna — 2012-06-15T05:49:04Z

Subsequent to the publishing of a peer reviewed essay titled Resisting Revolutions: Questioning the Radical Potential of Citizen Action, the Centre for Internet & Society has been listed as one of the global organisations working on issues of participation, citizenship and new technologies along with a list of partner organisations.

Published by Palgrave Macmillan

This issue of Window on the World lists some civil society organizations, networks and research institutes working on issues of participation, citizenship and new technologies.

American Commonwealth Partnership (ACP)

The ACP is a broad alliance of colleges, universities and civic groups, which promotes and develops ‘democracy colleges’ for the twenty-first century. It was launched in the White House convening, ‘For Democracy's Future – Education Reclaims Our Civic Mission’ in association with the Department of Education and the White House Office of Public Engagement.

ACP responds to the civic crisis in America, and the widespread sense of powerlessness. It holds that we must reinvent citizenship for the twenty-first century in the United States and around the world.

ACP develops interest and support for civic agency, including policy, legislation, media and deliberative dialogues. It also highlights several initiatives, which embody principles of civic innovation, full participation, diversity and civic agency.

Arab Forum for Alternatives (AFA)

The AFA is an organization that works for a society in which democratic culture prevails, for a society capable of protecting its rights and defending such rights through a democratic movement. This will be implemented by providing a space for experts, activists and researchers in the field of civil society who are interested in issues related to the reform/change process in the Arab region, and who have alternative visions seeking to put forward in a scientific and practical way aiming to the development of their societies based on justice, democracy and human rights values.

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS)

The Centre for Internet and Society critically engages with concerns of digital pluralism, public accountability and pedagogic practices, in the field of Internet and Society, with particular emphasis on South–South dialogues and exchange.

Through multidisciplinary research, intervention and collaboration, it seeks to explore, understand and affect the shape and form of the Internet, and its relationship with the political, cultural and social milieu of our times.

Civic explorations programme

Inspired by the knowledge explorations, HIVOS, together with Institute of Development Studies (IDS), ISS and CiS, is turning ‘The changing face of citizen action’ newsletter into a longer term ‘civic explorations’ programme. With this programme, it intends to offer a space to reflect on the changing dynamics of citizen action in a globalizing world, through research and dialogue. Its action plan for 2012 includes three regional knowledge explorations (In Central America, East Africa and South America), the continuation of the newsletter and its involvement in a number of innovative research programmes on civic action.

CIVICUS

CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is an international alliance of members and partners, which constitutes an influential network of organizations at the local, national, regional and international levels. CIVICUS has worked for nearly two decades to strengthen citizen action and civil society throughout the world, especially in areas where participatory democracy and citizens’ freedom of association are threatened. CIVICUS has a vision of a global community of active, engaged citizens committed to the creation of a more just and equitable world. This is based on the belief that the health of societies exists in direct proportion to the degree of balance between the state, the private sector and civil society.

Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)

CDRA is a South African non-governmental organization, which is a centre for organizational innovation and developmental practice.

It values people's ability to organize, and so shape the world. It fosters and promotes innovative organizational forms and practices that seek to transform power towards a just world characterized by freedom, inclusion and sufficiency.

The essence of its work and services can best be described in four words: searching (collaborative inquiry, research and learning); accompanying (consultancy services that accompany organizations through processes of learning and change); sharing (courses through which they share effective organizational practice); and promoting (courageously standing with others to advocate for new organizational forms and practices that work, and challenge those that do not).

Future citizenship

Future Citizenship is a venture to facilitate access to citizenship projects internationally.

Its initiatives include a network of scholars, seminars, conferences and an e-journal. Future Citizenship hopes this will encourage further cooperation and exchange of ideas and insights between its participants, their students and other interested parties. It also hopes to contribute to a better understanding of the problems confronting modern democracies and its growing numbers of various new citizens. Whether such understanding will contribute to addressing and solving those problems in the spirit of basic human rights could in part determine the future course and well-being of modern democracies, and of new forms of political communities.

Global voices online – The Netizen report

Global voices Online frequently produces ‘The Netizen Report’: a regular overview of recent global developments related to the power dynamics between citizens, companies and governments on the Internet. It is hoped that these regular reports can provide Netizens around the world with useful information about who is seeking to influence and shape the digital platforms and networks we increasingly depend upon, and how. Armed with information, people are in a better position to defend their rights, and to make sure the Internet evolves in a manner that is compatible with free expression and dissent.

Involve

Involve is made up of experts in public engagement, participation and dialogue. It carries out research and delivers training to inspire citizens, communities and institutions to run and take part in high-quality public participation processes, consultations and community engagement. It believes passionately in a democracy where citizens are empowered to take and influence the decisions that affect their lives. Involve has transformed how leading organizations engage, including the OECD, Communities and Local Government, the European Commission, the States of Jersey, the BBC, the UNDP, the Cabinet Office and numerous Local Authorities.

JASS (Just Associates)

JASS (Just Associates) is an International Feminist Organization driven by the partners and initiatives of its regional networks in Mesoamerica, Southern Africa and Southeast Asia. JASS is dedicated to strengthening and mobilizing women's voice, visibility and collective organizing power to change the norms, institutions and policies that perpetuate inequality and violence, in order to create a just, sustainable world for all. Founded as a learning community by a group of activists, popular educators and scholars from 13 countries in 2002, JASS generates knowledge from experience, with the intention of improving the theory and practice of women's rights, development and democracy.

LogoLink

LogoLink, the Learning Initiative on Citizen Participation and Local Governance, is a global network of practitioners from civil society organizations, research institutions and governments created to stimulate and support civil society organizations and networks to engage in citizen participation and social control of public policies at the local level.

LogoLink is engaged in animating a more participatory and inclusive relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. It means, on the one hand, to sensitize and challenge governments to implement innovative and equitable public policies oriented to assuring human rights, and to be more responsive and accountable towards the needs and concerns of citizens. On the other, it means to support citizens and civil society organizations to create participatory spaces, hold their governments accountable and exercise social control.

Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS)

MKSS is a people's organization and part of the growing non-party political process in India. The MKSS works with workers and peasants in the villages of Central Rajasthan. It was set up by the people of the area in 1990 to strengthen participatory democratic processes, so that ordinary citizens could live their lives with dignity and justice. The organization was born out of a struggle for community land held illegally by a feudal landlord. The subsequent struggle for minimum wages made it evident to the people, that transparency and accountability of systems of governance are basic to access any right. It became clear that access to relevant information is a fundamental tool for ensuring transparency and accountability of the government, and of all bodies that affect public interest.

mySociety

mySociety runs most of the United Kingdom's best known democracy Websites. It works with the public, private or third sector, and organizations which try to adapt to the new world of citizens empowering themselves through the Internet. mySociety has helped them by building sites, consulting or helping them to make plans. mySociety has two missions. The first is to be a charitable project, which builds Websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. The second is to teach the public and voluntary sectors, through demonstration, how to use the Internet most efficiently to improve lives.

Participation, Power and Social Change (PPSC)

The PPSC team at IDS works in partnership with diverse collaborators from around the world to generate ideas and action for social change. Through research, innovation and learning in rights-based and participatory approaches, it works with people to identify and implement alternative approaches to social change that respond to local situations and bridge operational practice with research and policy change. The team's work intends to help tackle the power inequalities that create crises and sustain poverty and injustices through the suppression of alternative or marginalized voices. Citizenship DRC – resources: http://www.drc-citizenship.org/

Participation research centre

The Participation Resource Centre is a collection of over 5,000 documents, many of them unpublished and practitioner-based, about participatory approaches to development. They include research reports, training manuals, workshop reports and critical reflections on Participation. Information about each document can be searched online.

The Centre particularly promotes Participatory Methodologies, sharing practical examples from development initiatives around the world in the form of case studies, guides and manuals.

The collection is held at the IDS, University of Sussex and incorporates the collection of the International Institute for Environment and Development.

Politeia

Politeia – Participation for Citizenship and Democracy in Europe – is a network of institutions and organizations throughout Europe. The general aim of the association is to promote active democratic citizenship in countries of Europe and, more specifically, political and social participation of citizens and their organizations.

The goals of Politeia are the creation of a structure that will set civic participation and education higher on the European and national agenda, the strengthening of the capacities of the partner organizations by exchanging methods and practices and a stronger presence in the European NGO scene by focusing on the promotion of European citizenship through participation.

Twaweza

Twaweza means ‘we can make it happen’ in Swahili. It is a ten-year citizen-centered initiative, focusing on large-scale change in East Africa. Twaweza believes that lasting change requires bottom-up action. It seeks to foster conditions and expand opportunities through which millions of people can get information and make change happen in their own communities directly and by holding governments to account.

Compiled by Remko Berkhout and Laura Fano Morrissey

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/window-on-the-world

Will You be Paid to Post a Picture?

nishant — 2014-03-06T11:58:41Z

The wave of free information production on the web is on the wane.

The article was published in the Indian Express on February 18, 2014

The age of volunteerism is officially over. The last decade of the mass adoption of the internet has been fuelled by endless human hours being spent in producing information which is the new currency of our times. The big transition to Web 2.0 began when the individual “user” became more than either an individual or the user. The individual found herself as a part of a collective, finding a voice and a community of others to belong to. Simultaneously, instead of being a passive consumer of the web, the user started producing data — blogs, videos, tweets, content management systems, online discussion boards, massively multiple online role-playing platforms, social network transactions — all of which became a part of the new Web’s widespread popularity.

Almost everything that we understand as the social web today is contingent upon people producing data in their interactions with the world around them. From knowledge producing websites like Wikipedia to entertainment platforms like YouTube, visualisation and data gathering spaces like Pinterest to photographs of self, food and cute animals on Instagram, political and social commentaries on Tumblr to Listicles and memes on Buzzfeed, the internet is a veritable smorgasbord of new information forms, formats and functions that are generated by the users.

What is possibly the most exciting about this burgeoning information universe has been the amount of free labour that goes into it, and often remains invisible. As digital labour scholar Trebor Schulz points out, the internet has become both a factory and a playground, where our leisure time is capitalised into producing work that sustains the new attention and information economies. For instance, the world’s largest social networking site, Facebook, does not produce any of its contents. It is, in fact, a system of information mining and sorting, which works as long as a growing user base continues to produce information on it. Tomorrow, if all of us stop producing Facebook, and only lurk on it, the platform will collapse. Which is why, Facebook continues to acquire new platforms and applications to be integrated into its universe.

Similarly, the real effort that goes into the sustenance of sites like Wikipedia, which has become the de facto reference for global knowledge systems, is carried out by unsung and invisible editors who patiently, meticulously, and without almost any expectation, continue to add, verify, strengthen and curate reliable information that we can use. When the non-profit organisation WikiMedia Foundation prides itself in running one of the least expensive websites in the top 10 most visited sites in the world, it is signalling its deep appreciation for the countless human hours that have made Wikipedia possible.

But, in recent years, there is noticeable stagnation in the wave of free information production on the Web. Oh, don’t get me wrong. We are producing an unprecedented amount of data — we are constantly being watched by surveillance technologies that detect biometric and genetic make-up of all our transactions, or we are inviting people to watch us on social network sites where we reveal some of our deepest secrets and desires, or we are watching ourselves, quantifying everything from things we ate to the number of hours we sleep. And yet, as we live in a world of Big Data, there is a definite decrease in people contributing to production of free information.

As the digital natives move from the web to mobile phones, traditional websites are already facing a crisis. News and media agencies that have celebrated the global citizen media networks have started realising that the individual user is more interested in local networks and information ecologies which are independent of mainstream conglomerates. And people are realising that their time and effort is worth money. They can be easily compensated for their online activities and gain reputation and importance.

The tension only becomes more palpable when people start realising that there are others who are being paid to work on the platforms that they are contributing to. We all knew that this model of depending on free information was not a sustainable one. But it seems the day has arrived, especially with the recent drives on Wikipedia to build specialised knowledge editors. In the last few months, we have seen people in the FemTechNet project — an academic activist feminist project that seeks to remind us of the intersections of feminism and technology in network societies — carry out “Wikistorming”, where students are adding pages of women’s contribution to technologies on Wikipedia. More recently, medicine students at University of Chicago have taken to correcting and adding accurate information to Wikipedia, which is often a source of health information.

Both of these are fantastic efforts to add to the platform that was the underdog that overthrew the mammoth encyclopaedia like The Encyclopaedia Britannica. We hope more specialised users in different locations, fields, disciplines and languages continue to edit and contribute to Wikipedia. However, it is also a signal that the generalist information producer is on the decline. We are transitioning into a new age, where people are going to need rewards, incentives and benefits for performing information transactions on the web. The user is no longer going to be available for free labour, and it is time we started thinking of “paid usership”.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-express-february-18-2014-nishant-shah-will-you-be-paid-to-post-a-picture

Will the WTO Finally Tackle the ‘Trump’ Card of National Security?

basu — 2019-05-08T14:22:14Z

The election of Donald Trump has marked a foundational challenge to the rules-based international order based on “free and fair trade”.

The article by Arindrajit Basu was published in the Wire on May 8, 2019.

From stonewalling appointments at the appellate body of the WTO’s dispute settlement body (DSB) to slapping exorbitant steel and aluminium tariffs on a variety of countries, Trump has attempted to desecrate an institution that he views as being historically unfair to America’s national interests.

Given this potentially cataclysmic state of affairs, a WTO panel report adopted last month regarding a transport restriction dispute between the Russia and Ukraine would ordinarily have attracted limited attention. In reality, this widely celebrated ruling was the first instance of the WTO mechanism mounting a substantive legal resistance to Trump’s blitzkrieg.

The opportunity arose from the Russian Federation’s invocation of the ‘national security exception’ carved into the Article XXI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT-the primary WTO covered agreement dealing with trade in goods.)

This clause has rarely been invoked by a litigating party at the DSB and never been interpreted by the panel or appellate body due to the belief among WTO member states that the exception is ‘self-judging’ i.e. beyond the purview of WTO jurisdiction sovereign prerogative to use as they see fit.

Over the past couple of years, the provision has taken on a new avatar with trade restrictions being increasingly used as a strategic tool to accomplish national security objectives. In addition to the Russian Federation, in this case, it was used by the UAE to justify sanctions against Qatar in 2017and notably by the US administration in response to the commencement of WTO proceedings by nine countries (including India) against its steel and aluminum tariffs.

India itself has also cited the clause in its diplomatic statements when justifying revocation of the Most Favoured Nation Status to Pakistan, although this has not yet resulted in proceedings at the WTO.

Even though the panel held in favour of Russia, this report lays down the edifice for dismantling the Trump Administration’s present strategy. By explicitly stating that Article XXI is not entirely beyond review of the WTO, the panel report gives a cause de celebre for all countries attempting to legally battle Trump’s arbitrary protectionist cause disguised as genuine national security concerns.

At the same time, it might act as a source of comfort for Huawei and China as it allows them to challenge the legality of banning Huawei (as some countries have chosen to do) at the WTO.

History of Article XXI

Article XXI had an uncertain presence in the legal architecture of the WTO from its very inception. It had its origins in the US proposal to establish the International Trade Organisation. The members of the delegation themselves were divided between those who wanted to preserve the sovereign right of the United States to interpret the extent of the exception as it saw fit and others who felt that this provision would be abused to further arbitrary protectionism. The delegate of Australia was also skeptical about the possible exclusion of dispute resolution through a mere invocation of the security exception.

Given this divergence, the drafters of the provision thus sought to create a specific set of exceptions in order to arrive at a compromise that “would take care of real security interests” while limiting “the exception so as to prevent the adoption of protection for maintaining industries under every conceivable circumstances”.

To attain that objective, the provision in the ITO Charter, which was reflected in Article XXI of GATT 1947 was worded thus:

Nothing in this Agreement shall be construed

to require any contracting party to furnish any information the disclosure of which it considers contrary to its essential security interests;

or to prevent any contracting party from taking any action which it considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests (i) relating to fissionable materials or the materials from which they are derived; (ii) relating to the traffic in arms, ammunition and implements of war and to such traffic in other goods and materials as is carried on directly or indirectly for the purpose of supplying a military establishment; (iii) taken in time of war or other emergency in international relations; or

to prevent any contracting party from taking any action in pursuance of its obligations under the United Nations Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security

Article XXI has been historically invoked in cases where national security is devised as a smokescreen for protectionism. For example, in 1975, Sweden cited Article XXI to justify global import restrictions it had had slapped on certain types of footwear. It argued that a decrease in domestic production of said kinds of footwear represented ” a critical threat to the emergency planning of its economic defense.” There was sustained criticism from some states, who questioned Sweden’s juxtaposition of a national security threat with economic strife, claiming that they too were suffering from severe unemployment at the time and the Swedish restrictions would be devastating for their economic position.

The Swedish problem dissipated when Sweden withdrew the restrictions but the uncertain peril of Article XXI remained.

In another instance, the US themselves had previously relied on the security exception to justify measures prohibiting all imports of goods and services of Nicaraguan origin to the US in addition to all U.S. exports to Nicaragua.It argued that Article XXI was self-judging and each party could enact measures it considered necessary for the protection of its essential security interests. In fact, it was successful in keeping its Article XXI invocation outside the terms of reference (which establishes the scope of the Panel’s report), which precluded the Panel from asserting its jurisdiction and examining the provision. It is worth noting, though, that the Panel was critical of the US for utilising the provision in this case and emphasised the need for balancing this exception against the need to preserve the stability of global trade.

The recent spate of national security driven justifications to subvert the adjudicatory powers of the WTO provided a necessary opportunity for the panel to clarify its stance on this issue.

The findings of the panel

The findings of the panel can be divided into three broad clusters:

1) The WTO tribunals’ jurisdiction over the security exception: Right from the outset, the panel clearly stated that it had jurisdiction to adjudicate the matter at hand. It rebutted Russia’s claim that any country invoking the exception had unfettered discretion in the matter

2) The ambit of the self-judging nature of the security clause: Both the Russian Federation and the United States, which had filed a third party submission, re-emphasised the supposed self-judging nature of the security clause due to the incorporation of the words “ which it[the WTO member] considers necessary for the protection of its essential security interests” in clause (2) of the provision.

However, the panel argued that the sub-paragraphs (i)-(iii) require an objective review by the Panel to determine whether the state of affairs indicated in the sub-paragraphs do, in fact, exist. In this way, the Panel added,the three sub-clauses act as “limiting qualifying clauses.” The determination of the measures that may be ‘necessary’ for protecting their ‘essential security interests’ are then left to each WTO member. By interpreting the clause in this manner,the Panel deftly preserved the sovereign autonomy of member states while preventing the bestowing of carte blanche’ ability to take shelter behind the provision.

3) Determination of emergency in international relations: The use of the term “other emergency in international relations” as used in the provision is an amorphous one because the term ‘emergency’ is not clearly defined in international law. Therefore, the Panel relied on UN General Assembly Resolutions and the fact that multiple states had imposed sanctions on Russia to conclude that there was, in fact, an ‘emergency’ in international relations in this case. In doing so, the Panel upheld the transport restrictions imposed by Russia. However, the implications extend far beyond the immediate impact on the two parties.

Implications of the ruling

Before considering the implications of this report, we must consider that, like in other avenues of international law, the municipal legal principle of stare decisis does not apply to Panel or Appellate Body decisions. This means that future panels are not bound by law to follow the finding in this report.

However, WTO tribunals have often used the reasoning put forward in previous panel or Appellate Body reports to support their findings.

Steel and aluminium tariffs

The US, whose third party submission failed to sway the panel has recognised the potential implications of the report and disparaged it as being “seriously flawed”. They have also discouraged the WTO tribunals deciding the steel and aluminium tariff disputes from using it as precedent.

However, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, European Union, Japan, Moldova, Singapore and Turkey had all filed third party submissions which encouraged the panel to assert its jurisdiction in the matter and have openly supported the panel’s approach – which would be a boost for the panels set up to adjudicate the Trump sanctions.

Given the groundwork laid out by the panel in this dispute, it would be difficult for the US to satisfy the panel’s understanding of ‘emergency in international relations’ as the Panel clearly stated that “political or economic differences between Members are not sufficient, of themselves, to constitute an emergency in international relations for purposes of subparagraph (iii)”.

Huawei and cybersecurity

In addition to steel and aluminium tariffs, the panel’s decision also has an impact on the rapidly unfolding Huawei saga. Huawei, which is the world’s largest telecom equipment company and is now taken the lead in the race to develop one of the world’s most critical emerging technologies: fifth generation mobile telephony.

However, Huawei has recently fallen out of favour with the US and other western countries amidst suspicions of them enabling the Chinese government to spy on other countries by incorporating backdoors into their infrastructure.

Various countries, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand have effectively banned Huawei from public participation while the US has prevented government agencies from buying Huawei infrastructure-triggering litigation by Huawei seeking to prevent the move.India has adopted an independent approach by allowing Huawei to participate in field trials of 5G equipment despite Indian agencies flagging concerns over the use of Chinese made telecom equipment.

On April 11, China complained about the Australian decision at the formal meeting of the WTO’s Council for Trade in Goods by highlighting its discriminatory impact on China. To defend itself, Australia may need to invoke Article XXI and argue that the ban fits in under one of the sub-paragraphs (i)-(iii) of clause (2) The report by this panel, may, therefore propel the WTO’s first big foray into cybersecurity and enable it to act as a multi-lateral adjudicator of the critical geo-political issues discussed in this piece.

The history of international law has been a history of powerful nations manipulating its tenets for strategic gain. At the same time, it has been a history of institutional resilience, evolution and change. The World Trade Organisation is no exception. Despite several aspects of the WTO ecosystem being severely flawed with a disparate impact on vulnerable groups in weaker nations, it has been the bulwark of the modern geo-economic order.

By taking the ‘national security’ exception head on, the panel has undertaken a brave act of self-preservation and foiled the utilisation of a dangerous trump card.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-wire-arindrajit-basu-may-8-2019-will-the-wto-finally-tackle-the-trump-card-of-national-security

Will The International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) Impact Internet Governance? A Multistakeholder Perspective

pranesh — 2012-12-10T04:40:11Z

Pranesh Prakash made a presentation at the India Internet Governance Conference (IIGC) held at the FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi on October 4 and 5, 2012. The event was organised by the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, FICCI and Internet Society. CIS was one of the supporting organisations.

Principles

I'll outline some broad principles that should be kept in mind while deciding on proposals for the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITR).

Any proposal should be considered for the ITR if an only if it satisfies all the below criteria:

Only if international regulation is needed

If only national regulation is sufficient, then ITR is not the right place for it.
International roaming price transparency, for instance, is an issue where international cooperation is required.

Only if it is a technical issue limited to telecommunications networks and interoperability

On the issues of 'security', if it is strictly about network security, then it is fine.

ITU already does some standard setting work around this.

If it about security of root server operations, or DNS, etc., that's not around telecommunications, despite being a technical issue.
If it is about criminal activities on telecommunications networks, that is not a technical issue.

Only if it is something that can be decided at the level of states.

Multistakeholder issues should not end up at the ITU, since the ITU is not a multistakeholder body.
This principle has been accepted by the ITU itself in the Geneva Declaration as well as the Tunis Agenda.

Only if it proposes to address a proven harm

The ETNO proposal, for instance, does not make it very clear why they think current interconnection system is a problem.

Though the ETNO proposal says that it is required to enable "fair compensation", "sustainable development of telecom", it does so without showing why the current payment mechanisms are unsustainable, or how telecom industry has changed lately, or even how moving from voice to data (even for voice) is going to affect "sustainable development of telecom".
Geoff Huston provides the wonderful example of how ten years ago, content providers were asking for fair compensation from telecom providers ("content is being provided free, while ISPs charge customers; ISPs are worthless without content, hence ISPs need to share revenue with content providers"). Now the opposite argument is being made by telecom operators.

Airtel in India has publicly asked Google and Facebook for revenue sharing.

Rohan Samarajiva of LIRNEasia

He believes ETNO proposal is bad for developing countries.

Adverse unintended effect of ETNO proposal ("sending-party network pays") is that less traffic will be directed towards poorer regions without the ability (whether through ad sales, or otherwise) to justify that expenditure by the sender.

ISOC paper is one of the most in-depth analysis so far.

They strongly believe it is going to be bad for Internet

Truth is that there has been no clear economic study so far of the potential impact. Hence counting benefits without proper analysis is risky.

Only if there's no better place than ITU

If another existing organization like ICANN or IETF can look at it, then ITU should not take over.

If all the above principles are satisfied, then the question becomes:

Does the proposal further substantive principles, such as:
Development
Competition and prevention of monopolies
Etc.

If the proposal does advance such substantive principles, then we should ask what kind of regulation is needed: Whether mandatory or not whether it is the minimal amount required to achieve the policy objectives.

Conclusion

Indian government's positions on the specific proposals to the ITR haven't yet been made public.

But the India government has taken a public position on the larger issue before: the IBSA statement on Enhanced Cooperation from December 2010. the IBSA reaffirms its commitment to the stability and security of the Internet as a global facility based on the full participation of all stakeholders, from both developed and developing countries, within their respective roles and responsibilities in line with paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda.

"The management of the Internet encompasses both technical and public policy issues and should involve all stakeholders and relevant intergovernmental and international organizations."

Demonization of the ITU is not good, though some in civil society have engaged in it, and is not the issue here. * After all, ITU was a core part of the WSIS process that led to the multistakeholder system. * ITU does have its own role to play in Internet governance.

Importantly, transparency and public participation is required. * We have signed an international civil society letter asking ITU to be more transparent. This has had a little impact; more documents are now out in the public. And there's now WCITLeaks.org * The Indian government must hold inclusive meetings with all relevant experts and stakeholders, including civil society organizations and academics.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/will-the-international-telecommunication-regulations-itrs-impact-internet-governance-a-multistakeholder-perspective

Will Only Legal Backing For Aadhaar Suffice?

praskrishna — 2016-03-16T02:31:52Z

Aadhaar is set to become mandatory, but the opponents of the scheme are not amused. Concerns about privacy of the Aadhaar number and the authenticity of the biometric data being collected have been expressed by people right from the beginning. But the government has not done much to address these issues.

The article was published in New Indian Express on March 14, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

“It does not matter what legislative backing they give it, it is still a surveillance programme. How can you have a privacy Bill for a surveillance programme? Legislative backing would be band-aid. I do not agree with it,” says Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of The Centre for Internet and Society. The society is a Bengaluru-based organisation looking at multi-disciplinary research and advocacy.

Abraham says that ever since the Aadhaar scheme was implemented, there was a massive degradation of civil liberties. “It is an opaque technology. Why should the government have such a database?” he asks.

Abraham says that the keys to the data should not have rested with the government where it is vulnerable. Instead, the government should have explored the concept of introducing smart cards issued to the citizen with the data stored on it.

Access to this data could not be had without the permission of the citizen, he says. At present, if something goes wrong or if the data is compromised, the government can always blame a lapse in technology, Abraham adds.

He questions the government’s logic where it assumes that only the poor section of society can misuse the benefits and says that it is well known that the problem exists in the supply chain and that the government has done nothing to address this.

Mathew Thomas of The Fifth Estate, an NGO, wonders what advantage the BJP suddenly found that they decided to pursue Aadhaar rather than send it to the trash bin as they had promised before the general elections.

Thomas says Aadhaar is flawed and is a fraud on the Constitution and the government has taken the money bill route simply to avoid a debate on it.

“Just passing a Bill is meaningless. This is radically wrong and we all know that protection of privacy is nonsense. How do they plan to plug the leakages? Have they even conducted a study, because there is no evidence of it. The correct beneficiary can get an LPG cylinder, but what is stopping the person from using it for an auto or for his car? That the government can lie to its own people is terrible,” he says.

A five-judge bench of the Supreme Court, which is hearing the matter on privacy concerns about Aadhaar, is expected to have a hearing by the end of this month.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/new-indian-express-march-14-2016-will-only-legal-backing-for-aadhaar-suffice

Will Modi govt move on Kashmir’s Article 370 stand the scrutiny of Supreme Court?

Admin — 2019-08-07T13:44:26Z

Many scholars have questioned the constitutional validity of Narendra Modi government's decision to scrap Article 370 that gives special status to Jammu & Kashmir.

The article by Print was published on August 6, 2019. Pranesh Prakash was consulted.

Legally, Supreme Court should not stand by Modi govt’s decision to scrap Article 370

In the first case regarding Article 370 (Prem Nath Kaul v. State, 1959), the Supreme Court underscored the importance of the Jammu & Kashmir constituent assembly’s role. But in two other cases (Sampat Prakash v. State, 1968, and MM Damnoo v. State, 1972), it differed without even citing the 1959 case.

Some might argue that given the number of presidential orders passed under Article 370, starting with the Nehru government, there is little left to protect in the article. That’s partially true, but it is also true that Article 370 symbolises a contract between the state of Jammu & Kashmir and the Indian Union, which was negotiated as a condition of its accession to India. It doesn’t allow for the President to unilaterally abolish the article without the recommendation of the constituent assembly of the state. Monday’s presidential order will not stand judicial scrutiny. That’s why, despite the constant erosion of Article 370, it is still politically and legally unacceptable.

If this is allowed by the Supreme Court, then the federal nature of the country will cease to be, along with its democratic nature.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/the-print-august-6-2019-will-modi-govt-move-on-kashmir-article-370-stand-the-scrutiny-of-supreme-court

Will Indians have to pay for WhatsApp?

pranesh — 2015-08-24T02:00:56Z

India's Department of Telecommunications (DoT) formed a panel in January 2015 to look into net neutrality in the country.

This was originally published by BBC on July 25. Pranesh Prakash has been quoted.

Net neutrality means service providers should treat all traffic equally. Users should be able to access all websites at the same speed and cost.

A battle to decide the future of the internet in India is being fought online, between telecom users and operators.

The panel has now released its report to the public and invited comments. Pranesh Prakash from the Centre for Internet Studies decodes the report and what it means for Indians.

What does the panel say?

Internet-based Over-the-top (OTT) communication services like WhatsApp, Viber, and the like are currently taking advantage of "regulatory arbitrage", meaning that the regulations that apply to non-Internet based communications services (telephone calls) are different from OTT communications services.

Under current rules, the OTT services don't have to get a licence from the government, don't have to abide by anti-spam, do-not-disturb regulations, share any revenue with the government or abide by national security conditions. The panel wants to bring these services under a licensing regime.

The report distinguishes between Internet-based voice calls (voice over IP, or VoIP) and messaging services and doesn't wish to interfere with the latter. This means it could regulate services like Skype, Viber and WhatsApp calls but not WhatsApp or Viber messages. It also distinguishes between domestic and international VoIP calls, and believes only the former need regulation. It is unclear on what basis these distinctions are made.

The core principles of net neutrality - which are undefined in the report, though definitions proposed in submissions they've received are quoted - should be adhered to. In the long-run, these should find place in a new law, but for the time being they can be enforced through the licence agreement between the government and telecom providers.

Where does the panel report go wrong?

The proposal by the panel to regulate VoIP services like Skype or Viber is a terrible idea.

Many important terms are left undefined, and many distinctions that the report draws are left unexplained. For instance, it is unclear on what regulatory basis the report distinguishes between domestic and international VoIP calls or between regulation of messaging services and VoIP services.

Will it increase cost of access to WhatsApp and Viber?

"Zero-rating" is a policy whereby telecoms providers agree not to pass on the costs of handling the data traffic so that consumers can receive services for free.

On the one hand, this could decrease the cost of access to WhatsApp and Viber. But that might not be allowed because free services could harm competition and distort markets.

Whether this will lead to consumers paying for WhatsApp and similar services depends on what kinds of regulations are placed on them, and if any costs are imposed on them.

Does the report uphold net neutrality?

The report is clear that it strongly endorses the "core principles of net neutrality".

On the issue of "zero-rating" the panel proposes some sound measures, saying that there should be a two-part mechanism for ensuring that "harmful" zero-rating doesn't go through.

First, telecom services need to submit "zero-rating" tariff proposals to an expert body constituted by telecoms department.

Second, consumers will be able to complain about the harmful usage of "zero-rating" by any service provider, which may result in a fine.

Where have people got the report wrong?

There have been reports saying that the panel has recommended increased charges for domestic VoIP calls. This is untrue.

There are reports saying the panel has given the go-ahead for all forms of zero-rating. Once again, this is untrue. The panel cites instances of zero-rating that aren't discriminatory, violative of net neutrality and don't harm competition or distort consumer markets (such as zero-rating of all Internet traffic for a limited time period). Then it goes on to state that the regulator should not allow zero-rating that violates the core principles of net neutrality.

Pranesh Prakash is policy director at the Centre for Internet and Society. A longer article he wrote on the panel report can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/bbc-july-25-2015-will-indians-have-to-pay-for-whatsapp

Will India win net neutrality battle?

praskrishna — 2016-01-11T02:28:44Z

There is more than what meets the eye in Facebook’s ‘noble mission’ of providing internet for all.

The article by Pratap Vikram Singh and Taru Bhatia was published by Governance Now on January 5, 2016. Sunil Abraham gave inputs.

India is gearing up for an era of startups and entrepreneurship and the man pushing it as one of his biggest development and self reliance agenda is none other than prime minister Narendra Modi, who launched the ‘Startup India, Standup India’ campaign this year. Few technology giants, led by the likes of Facebook and some telecom service providers, however, have thrown a technology spanner. It is important to note that a significant number of the startups in India are internet-based – next only to the US and China in having maximum number of tech startups, according to industry body NASSCOM.

For these to flourish and for India to have next Facebook or Google it is important to have an open and neutral internet, believe digital rights experts. A network which doesn’t discriminate between the data packets (smallest unit of information sent in binary format over a network) and provides level playing field for all. “It is critical for the Startup India campaign. If we let the principles of net neutrality be compromised, then it makes it very difficult for entrepreneurs and startups to compete against established players, who can close off the market for upstarts by schemes like differentiated pricing and zero rating (toll free access to websites or apps),” said Vishal Misra, associate professor, department of computer science, Columbia University.

A prerequisite for startups

A few months from now, country’s telecom regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), is going to decide whether internet would remain neutral and whether it will continue to foster innovation. A major threat to net neutrality, according to civil society and digital rights experts, comes from zero rating – toll free access to a few selected websites or apps, a strategy adopted by internet service providers or internet platforms to hook users to those select few sites. For telecom and internet service providers zero rating is a new stream of revenue, a way to secure optimal return on investment from their existing subscriber base – without requiring additional investment. The ISPs are arguing that they should be given more flexibility in managing their network – in a way they should be allowed to assume the role of gatekeeper of the internet.

For ISPs, net neutrality is an obsolete and utopian idea. Facebook, which has grown into a mammoth internet platform since its inception in 2004, has recently joined this bandwagon. Under its Free Basics initiative (erstwhile internet.org), the internet giant provides toll free access to a set of websites (including Facebook obviously!) handpicked by itself to the users. In India so far it has partnered with Reliance Communications.

Facebook by far is the most audacious and aggressive proponent of ‘zero rating’ scheme. From lobbying the prime minister to giving back-to-back ads in television channels and two-page ads in national dailies to circulating a vaguely written letter in support of Free Basics on its social media site, Facebook is pitching for ‘digital equality’ by giving access to 'basic internet’ or say a slice of the internet.

Cautioning against zero rating, Prabir Purkayastha, chairperson, Society for Knowledge Commons, said the way zero-rating is being discussed, it seems Indians are only the consumers of internet, which is not true. “Indians are also the innovators on internet,” said Purkayastha. “Internet has given the innovators the right to connect to the users without having a huge amount of money. This is the character that will be destroyed if zero-rating will be implemented,” he says.

That’s true. Be it US-based Facebook or Google or Indian Flipkart or PayTm or SnapDeal, had it not been for open and neutral internet they wouldn’t have become what are today.

Raman Jit Singh Chima, global public policy director, Access Now, a New York-based firm working for digital rights, said the idea is to prevent a telco or an internet platform from assuming a role of a gatekeeper and control access. Misra, too, has written extensively on the counter-productiveness of zero rating: stifling of innovation and service providers loosing incentive to improve service and keep prices low. Both Misra and Chima testified their views on net neutrality to the standing committee on IT in August after the department of telecommunications submitted an expert committee report on the neutrality issue.

Whither public consultation

To formulate a regulation on how internet will shape up, the TRAI has come out with two consultation papers concerning net neutrality in the last nine months. The first consultation paper on ‘regulatory framework for over the top players (OTTs)’, which came in March, was written in favour of telecom and internet service providers. “It was embarrassing,” said Purkayastha. Over 1.2 million people wrote to the regulator. This was result of the savetheinternet.in campaign ran by free internet activists and lawyers, who were later joined by All India Bakchod (AIB) whose video on net neutrality went viral on YouTube (the video has received three million views in last eight months). This was unprecedented in the history of TRAI consultations. However, the fate of those responses is still unclear.

In December the regulator brought another paper. This time it was titled ‘regulation on differential pricing’. Contrary to the initial paper, this paper is far more objective and reasonable, said Nikhil Pahwa, founder, MediaNama portal and a key volunteer behind savetheinternet.in campaign. The regulator has sought comments on its second paper by December 30 and counter-comments by January 7. Till the time a final call is taken, the telecom regulator has instructed Reliance Communications, Facebook’s India telecom partner, to put Free Basics on hold.

The savetheinternet.in campaign has formulated the responses to the new consultation paper and has made it available for everyone favouring net neutrality to send it to the TRAI. The AIB team has released another video titled ‘Save the Internet - 2 – Judgement Day’, which has been viewed close to one million times in just four months.

The neutrality debate started in India in December 2014 when Airtel, country’s largest telco, announced – although it later backtracked – that the company would charge consumers more for using VOIP services, on top of the data charges. Later, it went on to launch Airtel Zero, wherein it struck deal with online services providers for user access at zero rate. Facebook had already introduced internet.org by then. While it was initially led by civil society, the debate was later joined by politicians – Naveen Patnaik, M Chandrashekhar, Jay Panda, Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal – who strongly came out in support of net neutrality.

Facebook has termed its zero rating platform as a philanthropic activity intended to connect billions of unconnected population so that they can access education, health and employment related information. It has urged users to sign a petition, cautioning them against "a small, vocal group of critics" lobbying to prevent 1 billion people from accessing 'affordable internet'. Under Free Basics, Facebook claims, it doesn't charge app developers and includes them if they comply to its 'objective tech specs'.

Free Basics: A camouflage?

Critics, however, call it a walled garden. In providing free access to close to a hundred websites it continues to play the role of a gatekeeper. It is not the poor who decide what to access but Facebook! While it says that it is not making money out of Free Basics as it doesn't display ads in the Free Basics version of Facebook, it keeps the option of monetisation open in the future.

“It [Free Basics] has been camouflaged as charity," said a senior TRAI official, in an off the record conversation. While speaking to the Guardian on Facebook’s zero rating in December, Tim Berners Lee, founder of world wide web (www), said, “In the particular case of somebody who's offering... something which is branded internet, it's not internet, then you just say no. No it isn't free, no it isn't in the public domain, there are other ways of reducing the price of internet connectivity and giving something... [only] giving people data connectivity to part of the network deliberately, I think is a step backwards.”

Speaking in favour of zero rating, Payal Malik, associate professor, economics, Delhi University, said that it is wrong to assume that all consumers will get hooked to zero rated sites. “In a way you are saying that all humans have same preferences and likes and dislikes, which is very unlikely,” said Malik.

Experts representing telecom industry argue that the net neutrality regulation should be geography specific and the telecom players should be given more flexibility in dealing with the network. Mahesh Uppal, a senior telecom consultant and director, ComFirst India, while speaking at a round table discussion in Delhi, said that a majority of population in the West including countries opting for strict net neutrality – including Netherlands, Slovenia and the US – are already connected. "The data connectivity is primarily through fixed lines - copper, co-ax cable or optical fibre wired — wherein it is easier to add capacity to meet traffic growth. However this is difficult to do so for wireless networks," said Uppal. In developing countries, including India, mobile telephony and internet majorly runs on wireless. Hence, he argued, telecom and internet service providers should be given flexibility to zero rate. For Uppal, if zero rating or sponsored content is implemented properly “it can be one of the ways to scale up internet access” to the unconnected regions.

Neutrality proponents, however, differ. “It is basic economic theory, and zero rated sites get a price advantage. There are studies that show customers stay within the world of zero rated sites and never venture outside or are aware of the full internet,” professor Misra said.

Zero or equal rating?

So is there a middle ground? Are there ways to increase access without tampering with open and neutral character of the internet? Experts believe there are. Some of the solutions are not completely black and white, but in between. While there is a fierce opposition to zero rating, it might work, according to Sunil Abraham, executive director, centre for internet and society (CIS), if provided with an amount of equal rating (giving free data pack to users so that they can access any site or app they want).

Mozilla Foundation advocates equal rating. The foundation has sought to create such an alternative in Bangladesh and countries in Africa within the Firefox OS ecosystem. The foundation has tied up with telecom operator Grameenphone in Bangladesh to provide 20 Mb data per day for free to users, in exchange for viewing an advertisement. The model could be easily replicated in India, said Pahwa of MediaNama.

For African countries, the foundation has partnered with Orange. Both allow Africans to purchase $40 Firefox OS smartphones that come packaged with free three to six months of voice calling, text, and up to 500 Mb of monthly data. Purkayastha of Knowledge Commons said that zero-rating plan by telecom operators only makes sense when government services are provided for free through it. “That is the form of zero-rating I would support.”

There are a few platforms which are reimbursing data in megabytes to users accessing partnering apps. The user can then use the free data pack to access any other site or app. Some of them include: mCent, Gigato and DataMi. mCent, owned by Boston-based firm Jana, is a pioneer in this area. It is being used by 30 million users cross 98 countries. In India, according to Jana, one out of every 10 internet users has subscribed to mCent.

Yes, it does violate neutrality as it puts those app providers not having enough money at a disadvantageous position vis-à-vis to those having deep pocket to reimburse data to users. “I think it’s a grey area,” said professor Misra. On the surface it seems to be just like Free Basics, however, Gigato (or mCent) is making no pretense that what they are doing is philanthropy of increasing access, said professor Misra, adding that it is still acceptable as user will have the data to venture out of the walled garden. The senior TRAI official too finds it acceptable. “In my opinion, Facebook should become like Gigato,” he said.

If the regulator is going to protect consumers’ right and also not stifle startups and entrepreneurism, it will have to ensure some broad, core principles of the internet. It will have to prevent both the ISPs and the internet platforms from becoming gatekeepers. It must not allow any throttling, blocking, fast and slow lanes, discrimination based on price or quality of service and distortion of level playing field. How and whether TRAI is going to do these would be clear in a few months.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/governance-now-pratap-vikram-singh-and-taru-bhatia-january-6-2015-will-india-win-net-neutrality-battle