Centre for Internet & Society

Blog Entry Your economy, our livelihoods: A policy brief by the All India Gig Workers’ Union by W.C. Shukla, Rikta Krishnaswamy, Rohin Garg, Gunjan Jena, and S.B. Natarajan — last modified Jan 31, 2024 12:02 AM
In this policy brief, the All India Gig Workers’ Union (AIGWU) presents its critique on NITI Aayog’s report on India’s platform economy. Through experiences from over 3 years of organising gig workers across India, they highlight fallacies in the report that disregard workers’ experiences and realities. They present alternative recommendations that are responsive to these realities, and offer pathways towards rights-affirming futures for workers in the platform economy.
Blog Entry User Experiences of Digital Financial Risks and Harms by Amrita Sengupta, Chiara Furtado, Garima Agrawal, Nishkala Sekhar, Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Yesha Tshering Paul — last modified Dec 22, 2023 04:05 PM
The reach and use of digital financial services has risen in recent years without a commensurate increase in digital literacy and access. Through this project, supported by a grant from Google(.)org, we will examine the landscape of potential risks and harms posed by digital financial services, and the disproportionate risk that information asymmetry and barriers to access pose for users, especially certain marginalised communities.
Blog Entry Strategies to Organise Platform Workers by Chiaro Furtado — last modified Oct 22, 2023 09:54 AM
In 2022, the Centre for Internet and Society hosted a panel with Akkanut Wantanasombut, Ayoade Ibrahim, Rikta Krishnaswamy, and Sofía Scasserra at RightsCon, an annual summit on technology and human rights.
Blog Entry Datafication of the Public Distribution System in India by Sameet Panda — last modified Feb 12, 2024 12:07 PM
In this study, we look into the datafication of social protection schemes with a special focus on the Public Distribution System in India. Proponents of datafication claim that the benefits will reach the right person and curb leakages through the automation and digitisation of all PDS processes. Aadhaar is the most important link in the datafication; supporters claim that it makes technology people-centric. This study looks at the status of PDS datafication and its impact on the delivery of the scheme in Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. We also try to understand to what extent the stated objective of portability has been met and how far the challenges faced by the rights holders of the PDS have been resolved.
Blog Entry Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 (IRC22): #Home, May 25-27 by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified May 24, 2022 02:38 PM
We are excited to announce that the fifth edition of the Internet Researchers' Conference will be held online on May 25-27, 2022.This annual conference series was initiated by the researchers@work (r@w) programme at CIS in 2016 to gather researchers and practitioners engaging with the internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward. This year, the conference brings together a set of reflections and conversations on how we imagine and experience the home —as a space of refuge and comfort, but also as one of violence, care, labour and movement-building.
Blog Entry The State of the Internet's Languages Report by Puthiya Purayil Sneha — last modified Mar 07, 2022 03:01 PM
The first-ever State of the Internet’s Languages Report was launched by Whose Knowledge? on February 23, 2022 (just after the International Mother Language day), along with research partners Oxford Internet Institute and the Centre for Internet and Society. This extraordinarily community-sourced effort, with over 100 people involved is now available online, with translations in multiple languages.
Blog Entry Internet Researchers' Conference 2022 by Pranav M B — last modified Feb 11, 2022 09:54 AM
Due to internal delays related to the pandemic, the Internet Researchers' Conference will now take place online in May 2022. Please see below for a link to the updated call for sessions.
Blog Entry Platforms, Power, and Politics: Perspectives from Domestic and Care Work in India by Aayush Rathi, and Ambika Tandon — last modified Jul 07, 2021 03:19 PM
CIS has been undertaking a two-year project studying the entry of digital platforms in the domestic and care work in India, supported by the Association for Progressive Communications as part of the Feminist Internet Research Network. Implemented through 2019-21, the objective of the project is to use a feminist lens to critique platform modalities and orient platformisation dynamics in radically different, worker-first ways. Ambika Tandon and Aayush Rathi led the research team at CIS. The Domestic Workers’ Rights Union is a partner in the implementation of the project, as co-researchers. Geeta Menon, head of DWRU, was an advisor on the project, and the research team consisted of Parijatha G.P., Radha Keerthana, Zeenathunnisa, and Sumathi, who are office holders in the union and are responsible for organising workers and addressing their concerns.
Blog Entry IFAT and ITF - Protecting Workers in the Digital Platform Economy: Investigating Ola and Uber Drivers’ Occupational Health and Safety by Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office — last modified Jun 29, 2021 06:53 AM
Between July to November 2019, Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers (IFAT) and International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), New Delhi office, conducted 2,128 surveys across 6 major cities: Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi NCR, Hyderabad, Jaipur, and Lucknow, to determine the occupational health and safety of app-based transport workers. CIS is proud to publish the study report and the press release. Akash Sheshadri, Ambika Tandon, and Aayush Rathi of CIS supported post-production of this report.
Blog Entry Atmanirbhar Bharat Meets Digital India: An Evaluation of COVID-19 Relief for Migrants by Ankan Barman — last modified Jun 03, 2021 12:53 PM
With the onset of the national lockdown on 24th March 2020 in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, the fate of millions of migrant workers was left uncertain. In addition, lack of enumeration and registration of migrant workers became a major obstacle for all State Governments and the Central Government to channelize relief and welfare measures.