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India internet: clean-up or censorship?
Is India going the way of China? Not when it comes to development indicators. Or enhanced infrastructure. Or economic power. But in another category at which Beijing excels: web censorship.
Twists and turns of the SOPA opera
Proposed DNS filtering threatens the core protocol on which the Internet's universality depends, writes Deepa Kurup in this article published in the Hindu on 15 January 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted in this.
Wikipedia turns 11 today
The world's largest free encyclopaedia turns 11 on Sunday. To mark the occasion, the Wikipedia community will host events in seven cities across the country. The community is also celebrating the first anniversary of the Wikimedia India chapter.
Activists cry foul against Aadhaar
Biometric experts, jurists and social activists today urged the state government to immediately snap ties with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and stop offering Aadhaar numbers to residents.
NGO questions people's privacy in UID scheme
Taking a leaf out of the recommendations of the parliamentary standing committee on finance (SCF) that raised objections on the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010, Delhi-based NGOs have called upon the Jharkhand government to stay the execution of UID projects in the state. Jaideep Deogharia's article was published in the Times of India on 11 January 2012.
Revealed: Bangalore’s Basic Instincts
This is a first – a sex survey that focusses only on Bangalore. Sure, we have sex surveys telling us what the country thinks. But we wanted to know what our city thinks about the three-letter word. The article was published in the Bangalore Mirror on 8 January 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted right near the end on why Bangalore might not figure in Google Search rends' top 10 India locations for porn-related queries.
Facebook, Google face censorship in India
Religious leaders in India are on a collision course with social media websites including Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Two Indian courts recently asked these American companies as well as 19 other websites to take down “anti-religious” material. They are now required to report their compliance by February. Betwa Sharma's blog post was published in SmartPlanet on 5 January 2012. Sunil Abraham has been quoted in it extensively.
Trail of the Trolls
Bullying and abuse on the Internet is on the rise. Smitha Verma finds out why most offenders are going scot-free in this article published in the Telegraph on 4 January 2012.
Constitution of Group of Experts to Deliberate on Privacy Issues
It has been decided to constitute a Small Group of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, Former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court, to identify the privacy issues and prepare a paper to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. The constitution of the proposed group and ToR are as follows:
2011: The year India began to harness social media
About half a decade ago, netizens began to expand their online presence by forging new relationships, rediscovering old ones and sharing information and content on what came to be collectively termed as social media. The year gone by marked a new milestone for this social media phenomenon, which saw a paradigm shift from merely being a networking platform to becoming a political tool, writes Satarupa Paul in the Sunday Guardian on 1 January 2012.
Inaugural EPT Award for Open Access
The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the cause of open access (OA) and the free exchange of research findings.
When the digital spills into the physical
Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru, tells us why flash mobs are an interesting sign of our times, and not just a passing fad.
India's Techies Angered Over Internet Censorship Plan
India has the world's largest democracy, and one of the most rambunctious. Millions of its young people are cutting edge when it comes to high-tech. Yet the country is still very conservative by Western standards, and a government minister recently said that offensive material on the web should be removed.
Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging
The ‘Digital natives’ concept is neither necessarily nor inherently positive, as YiPing Tsou highlights in her article Digital Natives in the Name of a Cause: From "Flash Mob" to "Human Flesh Search". The essay was published in the Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Book 2, To Think. Argyri Panezi reviews the essay.
Indecent Proposals
If Kapil Sibal’s attempts to police net content fructify, it may even lead to a reversal of some of the forward-looking provisions of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000. The new proposal, for instance, will reverse Section 79 which protects intermediaries (websites and carriers) from being prosecuted or made liable for any objectionable content published. Says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager, Centre for Internet and Society: “Unfortunately, what Sibal says turns this upside down as they would now be held responsible for e-content.” Sibal wants to monitor content prior to publication.
Censorship — A Death Knell for Freedom of Expression Online
On December 8, 2011, NDTV aired an interesting discussion on internet censorship. Shashi Tharoor, Soli Sorabjee, Shekhar Kapoor, Ken Ghosh and Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion with NDTV's Sonia Singh.
How ‘private-censorship’ is making online content disappear, quietly
If only Kapil Sibal knew how successful his ministry has already been in making online content quietly disappear and how pliant Internet companies can be in India when it comes to requests to remove content, thanks in some part to the rules notified by IT ministry in April 2011.
On Natives, Norms and Knowledge
Philip Ketzel reviews Ben Wagner's essay "Natives, Norms and Knowledge: How Information Technologies Recalibrate Social & Political Power Relations Communications" published in Book 4: To Connect.
Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids
Samuel Tettner reviews ‘Digital Natives and the Return of the Local Cause’ from Book 1: To Be. The essay is authored by Anat Ben-David.
Did He, Didn’t He?
During a recent cyber security event, Gulshan Rai, DG, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In)—the man charged with protecting India’s cyberspace—allegedly made startling claims about two organisations that have relentlessly spoken up against draconian new additions to the country’s infotech laws that could limit free speech, laws that Rai’s organisation, CERT-In, is seen to support.
