Centre for Internet and Society

Civil society & industry oppose India’s plans to modify ITRs

praskrishna — 2012-11-30T09:42:17Z

Industry fears ITU control over Internet; excessive content control and surveillance an issue for civil society.

Shalini Singh's article was published in the Hindu on November 23, 2012.

India’s proposal on International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), submitted last month to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the U.N. agency responsible for information and communication technologies, has drawn opposition from, and fears of content control among, civil society and the industry alike.

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet Society, told The Hindu: “The Indian government’s position on the ITRs can be improved, particularly with regard to the proposed definitions, approach to cyber security, scope of regulation.” However, he said, “we are confident that the Indian position will protect consumer and citizen interest once the government implements changes based on inputs from all… stakeholders.”

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), which represents the $100-billion IT and BPO industry, has strong views against the Internet governance model of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), but favours self-regulation. Its president Som Mittal says: “NASSCOM does not favour oversight by an existing U.N. organisation like ITU. Internet and infrastructure have to be in the hands of expert organisations with proven experience.” NASSCOM has also expressed discomfort with the inclusion of “ICTs along with processing” in Section 21E of India’s proposal, since this would subject IT and BPO industries to inter-governmental regulation through the ITRs.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents India’s largest mobile operators with nearly 700 million subscribers, has also opposed any role for ITU in the areas of international roaming and Internet governance, fearing a direct impact on domestic network architecture, costs and technology choices. COAI director-general Rajan Mathews said: “We are already regulated by the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Placing the ITU’s jurisdiction over us — where we neither have voice nor recourse — is unacceptable.” The COAI’s position is consistent with the GSM Association (GSMA), the world’s largest association of mobile companies representing 800 operators spanning 220 countries. The COAI further alleges that most of its inputs “have been rejected without reasons assigned or even a meeting.” It has lodged a protest with the DoT.

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has similarly protested against ITU’s jurisdiction over issues of Internet governance, architecture and cost.

Subho Ray, president, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), said: “We represent a vast majority of Internet companies but have not been consulted by the DoT. We are completely opposed to ITU’s jurisdiction in any area related to Internet policy.”

The FICCI has also given detailed inputs on the dangers of allowing ITU’s jurisdiction, especially in areas of Internet policy and governance. It supports a bottom-up consultative and consensus-led multi-stakeholder approach, similar to the one propounded by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal at the Internet Governance Forum, the world’s largest multi-stakeholder conference, held in Baku.

Several prominent civil society groups and members of academia involved in Internet governance also have apprehensions about expanding the ITU’s reach to Internet regulation through the ITRs. In a November 15, 2012 letter to Telecom Secretary R. Chandrashekhar, Society for Knowledge Commons, Internet Democracy Project, Free Software Movement of India, Delhi Science Forum, Media for Change and Software Freedom Law Center have complained about not having been consulted, while warning that India’s proposal “could have far reaching implications for the Internet.”

On the issue of cyber security, industry associations and several civil society groups are unanimously against any role for ITU, pointing out that including ill-defined terms such as ‘spam’ and ‘network fraud’ in a binding treaty is a terrible idea. Further, cyber security commitments can force India to cooperate with countries whose military and strategic interests are against it.

Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India, and head of NASSCOM’s security initiatives, said: “Cyber security is sought to be taken over by ITU — an area in which it has little experience. Cyber security includes areas of application security, identity and access management, web security, content filtering, cyber forensics, data security, including issues such as cyber espionage and cyber warfare. The ITU has had no involvement in these matters over the last two decades, and should therefore stay out of them.”

Similar views have been expressed in varying degrees by the COAI, the IAMAI, the ISPAI and the FICCI. Dr. Ray of the IAMAI says: “cyber security is essentially a state prerogative and should not be part of an external treaty obligation. Any attempt to channel it through the ITU may be counter productive.”

Mr. Sibal, who has already been challenged by opposition to the domestic IT rules, is aware that if left unaddressed, opposition to India’s stance on ITRs will only escalate at a national and global level, and that if corrections have to be made in India’s position, those will have to be done consensually within the governance structure. Mr. Sibal confirmed that while cyber security was an area of discussion with the ITU, “the ITU does not have any role in Internet governance.”

According to him, either he or the Department will hold meetings on these issues with the industry to further evolve India’s position.

Mr. Chandrashekhar further confirmed that similar to several global national delegations, the government would include media and industry experts as part of its delegation to Dubai, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) will be held from December 3 to 14. The final decisions on the ITRs and the composition of the delegation would be announced the coming week.

A deeply divided house in Dubai is a strong possibility, with countries which favour democracy and free speech taking a stance against those who, due to political compulsions, have proposed inter-governmental control through the ITRs by the ITU, not just on Internet policy, but also its traffic and content, most of which automatically fall under the definitions of the ICTs.

The 193-countries at THE WCIT may well spend 11 days discussing national proposals to separate issues that can be addressed nationally from those which require inter-governmental cooperation, while further debating which platforms may be best to address global cooperation.

It is equally clear that the existing Internet governance system is unacceptable to most countries, and therefore a more evolved democratic and internationally equitable system, which is managed through a multi-stakeholder process and yet with a definite role for countries like India, appears the only way forward.

Mr. Sibal, at meetings with global Internet governance bodies in Baku, is learnt to have bargained hard for India’s explicit role in the existing Internet governance processes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs

CIS’ Comments to the (Draft) Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022

Abhishek Raj, Divyank Katira, Isha Suri, Shweta Mohandas, and Vipul Kharbanda — 2022-11-22T13:22:24Z

The Department of Telecommunications, Government of India invited comments on the Draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022. The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) submitted its comments.

Reviewed by Pallavi Bedi

Preliminary

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organization that undertakes interdisciplinary research on the internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. Through its diverse initiatives, CIS explores, intervenes in, and advances contemporary discourse and practices around the internet, technology, and society in India, and elsewhere. Over the last decade, CIS has worked extensively on policy issues related to telecommunication, internet access, digital inclusion, and so on.

In the past, CIS has responded to various public consultations pertaining to telecommunication such as the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) consultation on 5G Auctions^{^[1]}, TRAI consultation on regulation of over-the-top (OTT) services^{^[2]}, to name a few .

We appreciate the efforts of the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for having consultation on the “Draft Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022”. We are grateful for the opportunity to put forth our views and comments to the draft bill.

Summary of Recommendations

At the outset, we recommend that in the interest of transparency and accountability, prior to enacting important legislations like the Telecom Bill, the government would be well-advised to conduct an “impact assessment” exercise such as “regulatory impact assessment” and put the report in public as practised in jurisdictions such as the European Union.^{^[3]} We would also recommend the government to disclose responses and submissions that it receives during the process to ensure a transparent and consultative process of policymaking.

We recommend that the scope of the bill should be reconsidered and internet-based services should be removed from the definition of telecommunication services. From this definition read with other clauses of the bill, it appears that the bill tries to licence (or control !) not just telecommunication but all kinds of communication and internet-based services. Putting onerous regulatory requirements on every bit and byte flowing through the internet is unnecessary and regulatory overreach.

The draft bill’s attempt to provide for a non-discriminatory and an affordable Right-of-way (RoW) regime is appreciable. However, the central government has been given an overriding power over the local government which has constitutional powers with regard to permissions in their jurisdiction. The bill must clarify the modalities to ensure coordination between centre, state, and local authorities.

We recommend that clause 46 of the draft bill which significantly dilutes TRAI’s power should be deleted. Moreover, the government must work towards further strengthening TRAI by hiring subject matter experts to ensure that India has a powerful sector regulator which is well prepared to usher in the next wave of innovation.

We recommend that the Bill be inline with the Puttaswamy Judgement, and that of Anuradha Bhasin vs Union of India. The Bill, while paying close attention to the protection of users and duty of the user, fails to uphold rights of the user such as the right to privacy and the freedom of speech and expression.

As per clause 29, the objectives for which Telecommunication Development Fund (TDF) can be utilised is broad and therefore the government would be well-advised to specify that TDF can only be utilised to ensure digital access, adoption and usage for digitally marginalised groups. Furthermore, TDF must be ring fenced and not credited to the Consolidated Fund of India to ensure timely implementation which has thus far remained a significant challenge with the universal funds (USOF) regime.

The bill does not have any provisions upholding the principles of net neutrality. The government must act on TRAI’s recommendations and set up the multistakeholder body to check adherence to net neutrality requirements by incorporating provisions to that effect.

In the interest of transparency and accountability, a clause requiring the government to report (quarterly or annually) vital statistics relating to the functioning and financial aspects of matters contained within the draft legislation. The reporting should also include the number of licences provided, licences revoked, number of blocking and suspension orders passed among others.

Detailed Response

Preamble

No comments

Chapter 1: Short Title, Extent and Commencement

No comments

Chapter 2: Definitions

➔ 2(9): “message” means any sign, signal, writing, image, sound, video, data stream or intelligence or information intended for telecommunication.

Comment: The terms “intelligence” and “data stream” are not clear in the definition and these terms have not been defined elsewhere in the bill. Moreover, the definition of message is broad and may have implications with regard to surveillance and privacy of users, when read with clause 4(8) and clause 24(2)(a).

Recommendation: We recommend that the terms “intelligence” and “data stream” are defined under the bill, in order to reduce chances of excessive surveillance and to maintain the informational privacy of the individual. Additionally the definition could have an expansive list of what could constitute a message in order to prevent mission creep.

➔ 2(18): “telecommunication equipment” means any equipment, appliance, instrument, device, material or apparatus, including customer equipment, that can be or is being used for telecommunication, and includes software integral to such telecommunication equipment;”

Comment: The inclusion of customer equipment in the definition of telecommunication equipment has implications. The definition of the “customer equipment”^{^[4]} as provided in clause 2(5) of the Bill is broad enough to include personal devices such as phones, routers, among others. As per clauses 23 to 26 the Central Government has wide ranging powers with respect to telecommunications equipment and telecommunications networks such as issuing various directions for telecommunications networks and even has the power to take over such networks. As the definitions currently stand, these provisions would automatically become applicable to customer equipment as well which may be a violation of the right to privacy of the citizens of the country.

Moreover, according to 3(2)(c), possession of wireless equipment requires authorization. On reading 3(2)(c) with the definitions of wireless equipment in 2(23) and customer equipment in 2(5), an argument could be framed that the customer equipment could technically also require a licence, and so would the software integral to such equipment. If customer equipment is in fact included in telecom equipment and software integral to it is also included therein, then arguably even Android OS or other OS can be licensable.

Recommendation: Thus, we suggest that the government should remove customer equipment from the definition of telecommunication equipment.

➔ 2(21): “telecommunication services" means service of any description (including broadcasting services, electronic mail, voice mail, voice, video and data communication services, audiotex services, videotex services, fixed and mobile services, internet and broadband services, satellite based communication services, internet based communication services, in-flight and maritime connectivity services, interpersonal communications services, machine to machine communication services, over-the-top (OTT) communication services) which is made available to users by telecommunication, and includes any other service that the Central Government may notify to be telecommunication services;”

Comment: Clause 2(21) expands the scope of “telecommunication services” significantly. The overly-broad definition of “telecommunication services”, and what constitutes a “message”^{^[5]}, brings within its ambit a host of internet services including but not limited to email, instant messaging, social media services, and even payments and e-commerce transactions. Neither the bill, nor the accompanying explanatory note provides a satisfactory rationale for an all-encompassing definition of “telecommunication services”. The explanatory note attached to the bill suggests that legislations in Australia, EU, UK, Singapore, Japan, and USA have been examined while drafting this bill. However, our research^{^[6]} suggests that none of these jurisdictions define “telecommunication services” so expansively and seek to regulate entities offering only internet based services companies through licensing, in particular. It may also be worthwhile to note that TRAI recommended against such an approach and also clarified that there is no issue of financial arbitrage.^{^[7]} However, the bill attempts to bring OTT communication services within the purview of licensing. From this definition read with other clauses of the bill, it appears that the bill tries to licence (or control !) not just telecommunication but all kinds of communication and internet-based services. Putting onerous regulatory requirements on every bit and byte flowing through the internet is unnecessary and regulatory overreach. There can be major implications of expanding the definition of telecommunication services, some of which are listed below:

● The draft bill has stringent provisions on surveillance and shutdowns [clause 23 to clause 28]. These clauses would be naturally applicable to the expanded bucket of telecommunication services. This has serious implications on user’s right to privacy and freedom of expression online. For example, the bill gives the government the power to surveil citizens over apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram, to name a few, and even email. [some of this will be delved into greater detail in the foregoing sections]

● Some of the internet-based services listed in the definition in 2(21) are already regulated under the Information Technology (IT) Act 2000. For example, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 regulates intermediaries, including the significant social media intermediaries (SSMI) such as Facebook and Twitter. Putting an additional regulatory burden on these service layer companies in the form of licensing, as envisaged in clause 3 and clause 4 of the bill would hamper the innovation in the sector. Furthermore, it has been observed that the compliance burden of regulations is higher on small businesses in cases where regulations impose identical requirements on entities regardless of the firm size.^{^[8]} Therefore, inserting such a requirement would have a detrimental impact on innovation because excessive compliance requirements would act as a significant entry barrier for smaller firms.

Moreover, there is significant overlap between various services that are mentioned in the definition of telecommunication services which may lead to significant challenges. As these services are not defined elsewhere in the bill, it leaves scope for ambiguity. The bill makes a mention of “over-the-top (OTT) communication services” without defining it. We argue that making a distinction between communication and non-communication OTT services is superficial and does not take into account today’s realities where categorising applications into different categories is extremely difficult. A majority of the OTT applications such as e-commerce, healthcare, food delivery, payments, and so on, provide integrated communication channels. Disaggregation and making an artificial distinction of such apps into communication (with licensing requirements) and non-communication (without licensing requirements) would result in fragmentation of the internet which is definitely not a desirable outcome.

The “same-service same-rules” argument put forth by Telecommunication Service Providers (TSPs/ telcos) for the regulation of OTT apps which provide communication services [generally referred to as OTT communication services] at par with them is flawed for the reasons elaborated herein below:

● It is well recognized that there are significant differences at the technical and architectural level between TSPs and OTT apps which provide communication services . Regulating OTT apps which provide communication services at par with TSPs just on the basis of functionality without considering the inherent technical and architectural differences between them is a definite recipe for failure.

● Moreover, even at the functional level, OTT communication apps offer several additional features which are not available in the traditional TSP services.^{^[9]} Due to this, establishing functional equivalence between TSP’s services and OTT communication services is not only technically unfeasible but also unnecessary since those apps are better regulated by MEITY.

● Furthermore, TSPs enjoy privileges which OTTs don't. For example, TSPs have exclusive rights to spectrum, right of Way (RoW), numbering resources, to name a few. TSPs have control over underlying broadband infrastructure which OTTs and other internet-based service companies do not have.

As opposed to what has been suggested in the bill i.e, licence all telecommunication services [clause 3(2)(a)] including the internet-based services, it may be prudent to explore alternative approaches to regulate this space. For instance, a “two-layered framework”^{^[10]} for regulatory intervention can be considered. In this two-layered framework, the first layer would be the network layer consisting of the network and infrastructure; and the second layer would be the service layer consisting of applications and services. The services in the second layer can be further refined into the following three categories: (i) services provided over a non-Internet Protocol (IP) based architecture e.g Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) voice calls provided over a circuit switched network; (ii) specialised services that are provided over an IP based architecture in a closed network including facility-based services e.g., facilities-based VoLTE calls to PSTN and IPTV; (iii) IP-based/ Internet-based services such as OTTs. The gist^{^[11]} of the framework is:

The network layer may be regulated by way of licensing.

Non-IP Services and Specialised services may be regulated by way of licensing.

Internet-based services should be regulated by instruments other than licensing. Such instruments should preferably be in the form of legislations like the IT Act and its rules thereunder.

While there can be approaches apart from the one described above to regulate internet-based services such as the OTT and those approaches can be discussed and debated, putting licensing requirements for every internet-based service is not the way forward.

Recommendation: We recommend that the scope of the bill should be reconsidered and internet-based services should be removed from the definition of telecommunication services. In the interest of transparency and accountability, prior to enacting such a legislation the government would be well-advised to conduct a “regulatory impact assessment” exercise and put the report in public, as done in jurisdictions such as the European Union.

Chapter 3: Licensing, Registration, Authorization and Assignment

Clause 4. Licensing, Registration Authorization and Assignment

➔ 4(6): “The possession and use of any equipment that blocks telecommunication is prohibited, unless authorised by the Central Government for specific purposes.”

Comment: While assuming jurisdiction over equipment capable of blocking telecommunication via this clause is a welcome step, it is not clear why equipment capable of intercepting telecommunications has been kept out of the scope of this clause. Since unlawful and unauthorised interception of telecommunications is a violation of the fundamental right to privacy of an individual,^{^[12]} it is imperative that the scope of this clause be increased to include interception equipment as well. Furthermore, the latter part of the provision mentions “specific purposes” without adequate checks and balances in place. As such, the specific purposes must be defined exhaustively to ensure that this power is not misused.

➔ 4(7): "Any entity which is granted a licence under sub-clause (2) of clause 3, shall unequivocally identify the person to whom it provides services, through a verifiable mode of identification as may be prescribed."

Comment: All services do not require a verification of the identity of a person. There is a legitimate need to verify a person in the case of financial transactions, however a similar level of scrutiny is not warranted for applications that a person might use once, or applications that do not pose a threat to anyone. For example the need to verify a person through Know Your Customer (KYC) or otherwise for an application to order food, or an application which is meant for communication can be excessive regulation. Furthermore, number based internet communication apps such as Whatsapp require users to sign in through a mobile number, which have already gone through a KYC process. Therefore, dual KYC would be redundant and serve no purpose.

The Supreme Court while looking at the constitutionality of the Aadhaar Act upheld the need for banking and financial institutions to require an individual’s Aadhaar number stating the legitimate aim of preventing money laundering; however, the Court struck down the provision that required any private entity to collect Aadhaar details.^{^[13]} Justice Bhushan held that the collection by private entities violated the right to privacy, by failing the first prong of the test laid down in Puttaswamy, the test of legality.^{^[14]}

Recommendation : Clause 4(7) should be deleted.

➔ 4(8) “The identity of a person sending a message using telecommunication services shall be available to the user receiving such message, in such form as may be prescribed, unless specified otherwise by the Central Government.”

Comment: Although the intent behind this provision may have been to curb the menace of anonymous harassment of users, a blanket requirement to reveal the identity of the sender of a message in every instance may be considered a violation of the right to privacy of the sender. . There are clearly a number of competing rights involved here and the issue needs to be addressed in a more nuanced manner. Additionally there are a number of services such as chat applications providing support for mental health, that allow users to be anonymous in order to remove the concern and stigma around seeking help. A requirement that the user's name be revealed in these applications could hinder the functioning of these services as well as prevent more people from seeking help.

Anonymity was also explained in the Puttaswamy Judgment where it was stated that - “Privacy involves hiding information whereas anonymity involves hiding what makes it personal. An unauthorised parting of the medical records of an individual which have been furnished to a hospital will amount to an invasion of privacy.” In his judgement, Justice F. Nariman talks about different aspects of the right to privacy in the Indian context and observes “Informational privacy which does not deal with a person’s body but deals with a person’s mind, and therefore recognises that an individual may have control over the dissemination of material that is personal to him. Unauthorised use of such information may, therefore lead to infringement of this right”.^{^[15]}

In this backdrop it is perhaps preferable that the issue be addressed through separate guidelines rather than through a blanket direction in the Statute. Recently the Department of Telecom sent a reference to the TRAI for framing a mechanism for using KYC based identification.^{^[16]} It would be advisable if the TRAI in its response also takes into account the competing rights involved in this issue of caller identification and suggests a framework that addresses these concerns as well.

Retaining anonymity on the internet: Individuals may choose to remain anonymous online for a number of reasons. This includes employees expressing opinions about their employers and whistleblowers, people providing anonymous tips to newspapers or law enforcement, people expressing political opinions and criticism that may be subject to persecution, or simply someone saying something that they may be embarrassed about.^{^[17]} In India, in particular, an individual’s caste can be derived from their name, and they may choose to remain anonymous or adopt a pseudonym to escape centuries of stigma and discrimination that their communities have faced. Religious, gender and sexual minorities may also make this choice for similar reasons. The broad definition of telecommunication services in the bill places restrictions on anonymity online and severely degrades an individual’s ability to exercise their fundamental right to freedom of expression.

Right to privacy: The overly broad definition of “telecommunication services” and what constitutes a “message” also brings a number of digital services under the ambit of this bill. This can include email, instant messaging, social media services, and even payments and e-commerce transactions. Mandating identification of individuals as they navigate these services, which they require to go about their daily lives, creates an unprecedented potential for surveillance and abuse of personal information. To evaluate the legal validity of this infringement on privacy, we can utilise the necessity and proportionality tests put forth by the Puttaswamy Judgment. The explanatory note accompanying the bill states that the purpose of this provision is to “prevent cyber frauds”, establishing a legitimate aim for mandating identification. However, it fails to justify whether this is the least intrusive means necessary to achieve the stated aim. Law enforcement agencies have access to a wide variety of metadata, such as IP addresses, already collected by digital services today, which can be used to identify individuals committing cyber crimes. Furthermore, as the internet is a global network, bad actors can evade identification by routing their internet traffic through another country by using services such as Virtual Private Network (VPNs), proxies and onion routing. Well resourced actors can simply hire someone in another country to communicate on their behalf. The infringement upon the right to privacy by this provision is also disproportionate to the objective sought. By mandating storage of personally identifiable information that is not required for the operation of the wide range of services that fall under the ambit of this bill, it allows not only for state surveillance, but also creates the possibility of misuse by criminal actors and hostile states who may gain unlawful access to this information through data breaches. Overall, this provision can easily be circumvented by the bad actors it intends to catch, leaving us with a surveillance mechanism that is ripe for misuse against ordinary, law-abiding citizens.

Misunderstanding how the internet works: This draft bill assumes and propagates a centralised view of the internet. Unlike traditional telecommunication services, which require access to a finite spectrum or other physical infrastructure, the internet allows any individual or organisation to self-host their own communication service. Several organisations and technologically savvy individuals host their own email services, instant messaging services, blogs and social media networks. It is unclear how the licensing provisions in this bill apply to people developing and hosting their own communication equipment.

Recommendation : Clause 4(8) should be deleted.

Clause 5. Spectrum Management

➔ 5(2)(b): “administrative process for governmental functions or purposes in view of public interest or necessity as provided in Schedule 1; or”

Comment: Even though the draft bill seeks to provide an explicit statutory framework and predictability for spectrum management policy in India, it appears that for the large part it would be relying on spectrum auctions for assignment of spectrum. While the bill provides for administrative allocation of spectrum for governmental functions or purposes in view of public interest or necessity as provided in Schedule 1, the explanatory note provided for the draft bill indicates auction to be the predominant method for spectrum assignment. Even though the explanatory memorandum cannot be used for legal interpretation, it can be used to indicate that for the foreseeable future the government intends to allocate spectrum predominantly through auctions. While it can be argued that an auction based regime ensures transparency, it also creates significant barriers to entry for smaller operators. It is also pertinent to mention that in the seven auctions held since 2010, the government has successfully sold 100 percent of the auction only once. Relying solely on auctions since 2010 has led to unsold spectrum, lost revenue, and deferring of the rural digital ecosystem.^{^[18]} Therefore, auctions should be supplemented with “administrative allocation” and other innovative approaches to ensure that affordable broadband connectivity does not remain within the remit of a few. For instance, Canada has initiated a consultation on a non-competitive local licensing framework in the 3900-3980 MHz Band and Portions of the 26, 28 and 38 GHz Bands, and one of its objectives is to facilitate broadband connectivity in rural areas.^{^[19]} Therefore, we would like to recommend the DoT to explore other forms of spectrum assignment and not rely solely on auctions to ensure efficient utilisation of available spectrum and to also ensure affordable access to hitherto underserved regions.

Moreover, the bill does not provide clarity with regard to unlicensed spectrum for public Wi-Fi, and assignment of shared spectrum for satcom services.^{^[20]} Spectrum allocation for satcom becomes all the more important as the draft bill seems to give a preference to auction for spectrum assignment, while the global practice on spectrum assignment for satcom has been administrative allocation.

Furthermore, clause 5(2)(b) read with Schedule 1 suggests that BSNL and MTNL can acquire spectrum through an administrative process in view of public interest or necessity. However, we would like to submit that spectrum assignment to BSNL and MTNL may no longer serve the public interest and it only protects a very small interest group. For context, BSNL and MTNL have a combined market share of only 9.83%, as per TRAI subscription data of Aug 31, 2022.^{^[21]} For such a small subscriber share, it cannot be argued that these PSUs serve a public interest. The government can easily migrate these subscribers to the other three telcos. Moreover, this also provides the PSUs with an unfair advantage over its competitors and distorts the level playing field, thereby creating competition concerns in the market.

➔ 5(8): “The Central Government may, to promote optimal use of the available spectrum assign a particular part of a spectrum that has already been assigned to an entity (“primary assignee”), to one or more additional entity/ entities (“secondary assignees”), where such secondary assignment does not cause harmful interference in the use of the relevant part of the spectrum by the primary assignee, subject to the terms and conditions as may be prescribed.”

Comment: “Secondary assignment” of spectrum and the shift from “right to exclusive use” to “right to protection from interference”, as envisaged in 5(8) is a progressive move towards efficient utilisation of spectrum.

CIS, in its past submission^{^[22]} to the TRAI had highlighted the merits of a “use-or-share” approach in spectrum. The chasm that exists between expensive exclusive spectrum licensing and the licence-exempt ecosystem can be bridged by enshrining “use-it-or-share-it” provisions in spectrum licences. As such, ‘use-it-or-share-it’ rules enable the regulator to grant secondary access to licensed or governmental spectrum that is unused or underutilised.^{^[23]} ‘Use-it-or-share-it’ rules expand the productive use of spectrum without risking harmful interference or undermining the deployment plans of primary licensees. Clauses such as 5(8) enable “use-or-share” provisions are a step in the right direction.

➔ 5(9): “The Central Government, after providing a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the assignee concerned, if it determines that spectrum that has been assigned, has remained unutilized for insufficient reasons for a prescribed period, may terminate such assignment, or a part of such assignment, or prescribe further terms and conditions relating to spectrum utilization.”

Comment: There is lack of coherence between 5(8) and 5(9) when read together. 5(8) and 5(9) should be put as sub-clauses under a parent clause to ensure clarity.

We believe that the provision must be articulated clearly to state that licensees would first be given an opportunity to share spectrum and in cases where the entity fails to do so within a reasonable amount of time, the spectrum licence would be cancelled to prevent wilful spectrum hoarding. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) in the 2nd Information Memorandum has expressed similar provisions with clarity. While, we feel five years may be an unnecessarily long timeframe for the government to enact spectrum sharing provisions, the language put forth by ICASA captures the essence of our argument:

“11.6.2 In cases where the spectrum is not fully utilised by the licensee within 5 years of issuance of the Radio Frequency Spectrum Licences, the Authority will initiate the process for the Licensee:

11.6.2.1 to share unused spectrum in all areas to ECNS licensees who may, inter alia, combine licensed spectrum in any innovative combinations in order to address local and rural connectivity in some municipalities including by entrepreneurial SMMEs;

11.6.2.2 to surrender the radio frequency spectrum licence or portion of the unused assigned spectrum in accordance with Radio Frequency Spectrum Regulations, 2015”

Recommendation: Clause 5(8) and 5(9) must be brought under one clause and it must be clarified that licence holders would lose their licence in case they fail to successfully incorporate spectrum sharing.

Clause 7. Breach of Terms and Conditions

➔ 7(1): “In case of breach of any of the terms and conditions of licence, registration, authorization or assignment granted under this Act, the Central Government may, after providing an opportunity of being heard to the party concerned, do any one or more of the following: ……”

Comment: Usually the consequences of breach are specifically illustrated in the licence. Listing the consequences of breach in the statute itself may lead to lack of clarity unless the terms of licence are also referenced. It could also be argued by a defaulting licensee that the powers listed in clause 7(1) are exhaustive and the Central Government cannot add any other conditions for breach of the conditions of the licence as in the licence agreement and any such conditions not specified in clause 7(1) are void and ultra vires the Statute.

Recommendation: In order to avoid such a situation, the clause should clearly state whether the powers listed in clause 7(1) are in addition to the terms and conditions that may be specified in the licence.

Chapter 4: Right of Way for Telecommunication Infrastructure

Comment: The draft bill attempts to provide for a non-discriminatory and an affordable Right-of-way regime, which is appreciable. However, the provision suggests that the central government has an overriding power over the local government. Provided that the Constitution of India defines certain powers which reside with the local authority in terms of providing permissions in the local areas, it is unclear from the bill on how the coordination between various authorities will take place. We recommend that there needs to be a mechanism that ensures coordination between centre, state, and local authorities.

❖ 14(3) : “In the event the person under sub-clause (1) does not provide the right of way requested, and the Central Government determines that it is necessary to do so in the public interest, it may, either by itself or through any other authority designated by the Central Government for this purpose, proceed to acquire the right of way for enabling the facility provider to establish, operate, maintain such telecommunication infrastructure, in the manner as may be prescribed.”

Comment: The right of the Central Government to acquire the right of way should be in lieu of adequate and appropriate compensation to be paid to the property owner. This requirement should be clearly mentioned in sub-clause (3). The clause as it currently stands only mentions the Central Government’s right to acquire but contains no mention of said acquisition being in lieu of adequate and proportionate compensation.

Chapter 5. Restructuring, Defaults in Payment and Insolvency

➔ 19(1): “Any licensee or registered entity may undertake any merger, demerger or acquisition, or other forms of restructuring, subject to provisions of applicable law, after providing notice to the Central Government of the same.”

Comment: Sub-clause (1) only requires that the Central Government be given a notice in case of merger, demerger, acquisition or restructuring of the licensee. Although sub-clause (2) requires that the successor entity shall comply with all the terms and conditions of the licence, considering the strategic nature of the telecommunications sector^{^[24]} it would be advisable to change the requirement of notice to a requirement of permission from the Central Government for restructuring the business rather than a mere notice requirement. In order for this requirement to not be a hindrance to the growth of the industry there could be a provision for deemed approval if the approval is not granted within a particular period of time.^{^[25]}

Recommendation: Any merger in the sector must be approved by the DoT. In order to ensure that this does not lead to unnecessary delays, a deemed approval route may be considered.

Chapter 6: Standards, Public Safety and National Security

❖ 24(2): “On the occurrence of any public emergency or in the interest of the public safety, the Central Government or a State Government or any officer specially authorised in this behalf by the Central or a State Government, may, if satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so, in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or preventing incitement to an offence, for reasons to be recorded in writing, by order:

(a) direct that any message or class of messages, to or from any person or class of persons, or relating to any particular subject, brought for transmission by, or transmitted or received by any telecommunication services or telecommunication network, shall not be transmitted, or shall be intercepted or detained or disclosed to the officer mentioned in such order; or

(b) direct that communications or class of communications to or from any person or class of persons, or relating to any particular subject, transmitted or received by any telecommunication network shall be suspended”.

Comment: The pre-conditions for interception contained in the Bill are similar to those contained in the Telegraph Act, 1885, i.e. “occurrence of any public emergency or in the interest of the public safety, the Central Government or a State Government or any officer specially authorised in this behalf by the Central or a State Government, may, if satisfied that it is necessary or expedient to do so, in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or preventing incitement to an offence”. Although more stringent, these conditions are different from those contained in the Information Technology Act, 2000 which does not contain the added safeguard of there being a “public emergency or in the interest of public safety”.^{^[26]} With consumers spending more and more time on the internet and using internet based technologies and applications for communications, there is significant regulatory overlap between the Telecommunications Bill and the Information Technology Act, 2000. It is therefore advisable that the interception and blocking provisions under both the legislations should be aligned and standardised.

The judgement in the Puttaswamy case provides some guidance to assess the limits and scope of the constitutional right to privacy in the form of the three prong test. The test requires the existence of a law, a legitimate state interest and the restriction (to privacy) should be ‘proportionate'. The order to intercept, detain, disclose or suspend a communication made between private individuals, acts as a violation of privacy and to ensure that this does not provide extensive grounds to surveil people, the three prong test especially the grounds of proportionality combined with the necessity provision are essential to ensure that this provision is not used disproportionately.

More recently in Anuradha Bhasin vs Union Of India the Supreme Court stated “A public emergency usually would involve different stages and the authorities are required to have regards to the stage, before the power can be utilised under the aforesaid rules. The appropriate balancing of the factors differs, when considering the stages of emergency and accordingly, the authorities are required to triangulate the necessity of imposition of such restriction after satisfying the proportionality requirement.” The court while passing the judgement also stated “The concept of proportionality requires a restriction to be tailored in accordance with the territorial extent of the restriction, the stage of emergency, nature of urgency, duration of such restrictive measure and nature of such restriction. The triangulation of a restriction requires the consideration of appropriateness, necessity and the least restrictive measure before being imposed.”^{^[27]} The judgement while examining the duration of the suspension mentioned that any order which suspends the internet must adhere to the principle of proportionality and must not extend beyond necessary duration.

Recommendation: There is a need to look at the implications of such an order enabling blocking or suspension of services post the Puttaswamy judgement where informational privacy, and dignity were considered as some of the aspects of privacy. While this clause uses the test of necessity and expediency, we suggest that along with these two the clause also introduce the three prong test laid out in Puttaswamy I. In addition to this since this legislation has been drafted subsequent to the Anuradha Bhasin judgement the provisions of the legislation must be in conformity with the same in order to avoid confusion and reduce litigation.

Chapter 7: Telecommunication Development Fund

➔ Clause 29: “The sums of money received towards the Telecommunication Development Fund under clause 27, shall first be credited to the Consolidated Fund of India, which shall be appropriated by the Central Government, in accordance with law made by the Parliament, to the Telecommunication Development Fund from time to time for being utilised to meet any or all of the following objectives:

(a) support universal service through promoting access to and delivery of telecommunication services in underserved rural, remote and urban areas;

(b) research and development of new telecommunication services, technologies, and products;

(d) support pilot projects, consultancy assistance and advisory support towards provision of universal service under sub-clause (a) of this clause; and

(e) support introduction of new telecommunication services, technologies, and products.”

Comment: Clause 27 of the draft bill proposes to rename the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to Telecommunication Development Fund (TDF) and expand its scope to include underserved urban areas in addition to rural and remote areas. This has been done, ostensibly to expand the scope of current USOF to include within its ambit underserved urban areas, research and development, and skill development, among others.^{^[28]} While there is a need to spend the vast amount of unspent balance within the USOF, and spending it on skill development, investments in innovative low cost-technology that enables affordable broadband connectivity for all is important, the manner in which the TDF is currently defined is loose and vague. In order to ensure that the fund is spent to include digitally marginalised groups only, the purpose for which the TDF can be used needs to have an “exact” and “specific definition”. The purpose should be narrowly defined to include only those activities that have the potential to mitigate and bridge the many digital divides that exist in our country because in its absence TDF may be misused to subsidise urban middle class users as opposed to originally intended beneficiaries - the hitherto marginalised sections of the society.

Furthermore, the Bill suggests that the money received towards the TDF shall first be credited to the Consolidated Fund of India, which shall be appropriated by the Central Government, in accordance with law made by the Parliament. This is a relic of the erstwhile USOF policy funds, and allocations are made on a demand and review basis. One of the reasons that India has an unspent balance of nearly INR 50,000 crore in USOF is owing to a delay in its implementation due to bureaucratic delays since all credits to this fund require parliamentary approvals.^{^[29]} In order to ensure that funds received through USOF/TDF are utilised efficiently, the government must ring fence these funds and ensure that they are only spent on the objectives envisaged under the TDF. Furthermore, funds collected for this purpose must not be credited to the Consolidated Fund of India since requiring additional approvals delays implementation of the fund. For instance, the rural road fund is ring fenced which has ensured smoother flow of funds.^{^[30]} Moreover, auction proceeds, and other levies on the sector such as service tax and GST are already credited to the Consolidated Fund of India, therefore the government can afford to ring fence funds collected for universal service as opposed to crediting them to the Consolidated Fund of India.

Recommendation: The objectives for which the TDF can be utilised is vague and too broad and therefore the government would be well-advised to specify that TDF can only be utilised to ensure digital access, adoption and usage for digitally marginalised groups. This would go a long way in ensuring that the funds are not misspent on providing subsidies to users that may not be in need for such a subsidy. Furthermore, TDF must be ring fenced and not credited to the Consolidated Fund of India to ensure timely implementation.

Chapter 9: Protection of users

➔ Clause 34 : “In the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or preventing incitement to an offence, no user shall furnish any false particulars, suppress any material information or impersonate another person while establishing identity for availing telecommunication services.”

Comment: The intent behind this provision appears to be to prevent misrepresentation or identity and the giving of false information for availing telecom services. Whilst it is understandable that there may be privacy issues involved in the matter of revealing one’s identity for availing telecommunications services, the requirement to provide correct identity documents is a well established and accepted norm in the industry today which is manifest in the KYC requirements that have to be fulfilled by every customer. Therefore there is no need to qualify the obligation to provide true and accurate documents with the phrase “in the interest of the sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or preventing incitement to an offence”.

Chapter 10: Miscellaneous

➔ Clause 46: Amendment to Act 24 of 1997

Comment: Clause 46 of the Bill significantly dilutes the power of TRAI and effectively renders the Regulator to the role of the government’s rubber stamp through proposed amendments to clause 11^{^[31]} of the TRAI Act. Section 11 of the TRAI Act as it currently stands requires DoT to solicit recommendations from TRAI on issues pertaining to licensing, new services, and spectrum management, where the powers vest with the government. However, if the Bill becomes a law, this would not be mandatory on the government’s part. It may or may not seek the Regulator’s recommendations, thus eroding the transparency which was built in the process of policymaking. Consequently, as per the current Bill, the government will effectively be the licensor, operator, and the Regulator. Since the government owns BSNL/MTNL (a telecom operator) the role of an independent regulator assumes even more significance. Even without the proposed amendments, the Indian regulator has been largely ineffective since it lacks significant functional autonomy including negligible penalisation powers, limited role in its hiring decisions, and lack of financial autonomy since it needs DoT’s approvals for its budget.^{^[32]} Even in its present form, TRAI has lesser power as compared to many regulators across the globe. For instance Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the USA, Ofcom of the UK, and regulators in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka have powers over spectrum and licensing, while TRAI has only recommendatory powers.^{^[33]} With the advent of 5G, the lines between telecom and digital services are likely to blur even more and in order to ensure that we are able to exploit the vast potential this new wave of innovations could unleash, it is important to have skilled policymakers well-versed with technology at the helm of affairs. Amidst this backdrop, it is important to invest in enhancing TRAI’s competence by hiring subject matter experts, and ensuring that TRAI functions as an independent and transparent regulator.

Furthermore, the bill empowers the government to set up an alternate dispute resolution mechanism effectively making the role of Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) redundant. Currently, TDSAT is the first body which looks into any dispute between two (i) telecom operators, (ii) telecom operators and the government, and (iii) between operators, the government and as well as the regulator. Only once the TDSAT has passed orders on such disputes can they be appealed in the Supreme Court. Therefore, clauses diluting the power of TRAI must be deleted. The government must also clarify what it means by an alternate dispute resolution mechanism, and the role it envisages for TDSAT.

Lastly, TRAI process is consultative by design providing various stakeholders with an opportunity to participate in the policymaking process. However, the proposed bill does not have any provisions mandating the DoT to hold transparent stakeholder consultations.

Recommendation: Clause 46 of the proposed bill should be deleted. Furthermore, the government must work towards further strengthening TRAI by hiring subject matter experts and further empowering TRAI by giving it penalising powers. Also, TRAI must be responsible for conducting spectrum audits and ensuring that licensees are adhering to licensing conditions.

➔ 46(k): “Provided further that the Authority may direct a licensee or class of licensees to abstain from predatory pricing that is harmful to the overall health of the telecommunication sector, competition, long term development and fair market mechanism” shall be inserted.”

Comment: The Bill through clause 46 (k) empowers the TRAI to decide on ‘predatory pricing’, which falls within the remit of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) which could potentially create jurisdictional overlaps between the two regulators. Even in the past, there has been friction between the two regulators on whether TRAI has jurisdiction to decide on matters relating to competition and predatory pricing in telecom tariffs.^{^[34]} In Competition Commission of India v. Bharti Airtel Limited & Ors^{^[35]}, Supreme Court of India rejected the contention by the incumbent dominant operators (IDOs) that TRAI, as the sectoral regulator, had exclusive jurisdiction to rule on competition-related aspects in the industry. It ruled that if TRAI had determined that the IDOs had formed a cartel or colluded to block Jio’s entry, the CCI then would have jurisdiction to decide whether the IDOs’ actions had an appreciable adverse effect on competition. While TRAI’s powers of sanction were limited by the TRAI Act, the CCI had the power to prescribe and enforce structural remedies to promote genuine competition in the telecom sector. The court prescribed comity between TRAI and the CCI in the discharge of their roles.^{^[36]} Over time, the telecom sector has evolved from being a rudimentary voice service to being a complex data-centric converged service, and even though overlapping jurisdictions cannot be completely wished away,^{^[37]} there is a need for clearly defined roles for various ministries and regulators. And there will also be a need to adopt a consultative approach towards policymaking through inter-departmental consultations, an area that India has thus far been lacking in. As evidenced by the International Telecommunication Union’s (ITU) Global ICT Regulatory Outlook 2020, which ranks India at 94 (out of a total of 193) countries in terms of the maturity and collaborative approach shown by telecom regulatory bodies, lower than countries such as Japan, Singapore, Korea, Pakistan, Kenya, and Nigeria.^{^[38]}

Therefore, inserting such a provision may create more chaos and regulatory uncertainty. It is advisable that the government ensures there are no jurisdictional issues between the two regulators by clearly defining the role of TRAI and inserting provisions to facilitate inter regulatory consultation mechanism.

➔ Clause 48: “If the person committing an offence under this Act is a company, the employee(s) who at the time the offence was committed, was responsible to the company for the conduct of the business relating to the offence, shall be liable to be proceeded against and punished accordingly.”

Comment: While there is a need to ensure that offenders and violators of provisions under this Act are provided with penalties, there is a need to look at ways to ensure that the fear of penalties does not stifle innovation. This legislation intends to bring into its ambit a number of new stakeholders who might not be able to comply with all the requirements due to the inexperience, which could lead to inadvertent offences and violations. The current wording of clause 48, does not make any distinction between offences that were done with prior knowledge and malafide intentions and those done without knowledge of its commission.

Recommendation: We suggest that the Act keeps the wordings in line with similar legislations such as the draft Personal Data Protection Bill 2019. The revised text could have a proviso that reads as “Nothing contained in sub-clause (1) shall render any such person liable to any punishment provided in this Act, if he proves that the offence was committed without his knowledge or that he had exercised all due diligence to prevent the commission of such offence.”

Keeping in mind the existing burden of work both on the executive and the judiciary, and the time sensitive nature of the provisions of the Bill there is a need to look at different, swift, and inexpensive strategies. One possible way could be through Informal Guidances, similar to Security and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)’s Informal Guidance Scheme, which enables regulated entities to approach the Authority for non-binding advice on the position of law.^{^[39]} As there will be a number of new players that will be under the Bill, it would be useful for entities to get guidance. Another possible step could be to use Undertakings, where the regulator enforces the errant party to seek contractual undertakings to take certain remedial steps.^{^[40]}

➔ Clause 51: “Notwithstanding anything contained in any law for the time being in force, where the Central Government, a State Government or a Government of a Union Territory is satisfied that any information, document or record in possession or control of any licensee, registered entity or assignee relating to any telecommunication services, telecommunication network, telecommunication infrastructure or use of spectrum, availed of by any entity or consumer or subscriber is necessary to be furnished in relation to any pending or apprehended civil or criminal proceedings, an officer, specially authorised in writing by such Government in this behalf, shall direct such licensee, registered entity or assignee to furnish such information, document or record to him and the licensee, registered entity or assignee shall comply with the direction of such officer.”

Comment: The requirement to provide information or document even for “pending or apprehended civil or criminal proceedings” is too wide and could be misutilised, specially given the fact that there is no judicial authority making the determination that the information or document is required for such proceedings. Even in clause 91 of the Cr.P.C. , the requirement to provide documents or information is only for existing investigations, inquiries, trials or proceedings. Therefore the requirement to provide information, document or record for apprehended civil proceedings should be deleted.

Additional Comments

➔ Comment: The bill fails to incorporate net neutrality requirements

Technological convergence and vertical integration within the sector make adherence to net neutrality critical to keep discrimination and anti-competitive conduct in check. While extant TRAI regulations, forbid TSPs from discriminating on the basis of content, sender or receiver, protocols or user equipment based on prior arrangements, by slowing down one application or providing fast lanes to another. However, there is lack of clarity on how adherence to net-neutrality principles is currently being monitored. In 2020, TRAI had recommended setting up a Multistakeholder body for monitoring adherence to net neutrality by licensees.^{^[41]} However, the draft bill fails to codify net neutrality requirements and as such non-discriminatory treatment of traffic does not find a mention in the bill or the explanatory note accompanying it.

Recommendation: The government must act on TRAI’s recommendations and set up the multistakeholder body to check adherence to net neutrality requirements by incorporating provisions to that effect.

➔ Comment: There is no provision in the bill that requires the government to report vital statistics and other information relating to the sector. We understand that both TRAI and DoT have taken efforts in publishing those statistics through DoT dashboard and reports such as the annual report, performance indicator reports, and subscriber reports. But, putting reporting requirements in the statute would be better.

Recommendation: In the interest of transparency and accountability, a clause requiring the government to report (quarterly or annually) vital statistics relating to the functioning and financial aspects of matters contained within the draft legislation. The reporting should also include the number of licences provided, licences revoked, number of blocking and suspension orders passed among others.

^{^[1]} “Response to TRAI consultation on Auction of Spectrum in frequency bands identified for IMT/5G”, Centre for Internet and Society, accessed 10 November 2022,https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/response-to-trai-consultation-auction-of-spectrum-in-frequency-bands-identified-for-imt-5g

^{^[2]} “Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services”,Centre for Internet and Society, accessed 10 November 2022, https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/response-to-trai-consultation-paper-on-regulatory-framework-for-over-the-top-ott-communication-services

^{^[3]} “Impact Assessments”, European Commission, accessed 10 November 2022,<https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-making-process/planning-and-proposing-law/impact-assessments_en#:~:text=Impact%20assessments%20examine%20whether%20there,support%20the%20decision%2Dmaking%20process.>

^{^[4]} Clause 2(5) defines customer equipment as follows: “ “customer equipment” means equipment deployed on the premises of a person, other than the equipment of the licensee or registered entity, to originate, route or terminate telecommunication, or equipment used by such person for accessing telecommunication services;”

^{^[5]} As defined in clause 2(9) of the draft bill.

^{^[6]} Japan: "Telecommunications service" means intermediating communications of others through the use of telecommunications facilities, or any other acts of providing telecommunications facilities for the use of communications by others; Singapore: “telecommunication service” means any service for telecommunications but excludes any broadcasting service; UK: “electronic communications service” means a service of any of the types specified in subsection (2A) provided by means of an electronic communications network, except so far as it is a content service. Those types of service are— (a)an internet access service; (b)a number-based interpersonal communications service; and (c)any other service consisting in, or having as its principal feature, the conveyance of signals, such as a transmission service used for machine-to-machine services or for broadcasting.

^{^[7]} Muntazir Abbas, “Regulating OTT players complicated: Trai”, The Economic Times, 30 January 2020,<https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-policy/regulating-ott-players-complicated-trai/articleshow/73759307.cms?from=mdr >

^{^[8]} Justin Douglas and Amy Land Pejoska, Regulation and Small Business, <https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/p2017-t213722-Roundup_Sml_bus_regulation-final.pdf>

^{^[9]} See, for instance, “Features, Whatsapp (2020), <https://www.whatsapp.com/features>; “Signal

Messenger Features”, Signal (2020)

^{^[10]} CIS has recommended this “two layered framework” in its previous submissions to TRAI.

^{^[11]} “Response to TRAI Consultation Paper on Regulatory Framework for Over-The-Top (OTT) Communication Services”,Centre for Internet and Society.

^{^[12]} “Internet Privacy in India”,Centre for Internet and Society, accessed 10 November 2022,https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/internet-privacy-in-india

^{^[13]}Justice K. Puttaswamy and Others v. Union of India and Others 1 SCC 1 (2019)

^{^[14]}“Judgement in Plain English Constitutionality of Aadhaar Act”, “Supreme Court Observer, accessed 10 November 20222,https://www.scobserver.in/reports/constitutionality-of-aadhaar-justice-k-s-puttaswamy-union-of-india-judgment-in-plain-english/

^{^[15]} “Right to Encrypt : Subset of Right to Privacy?”, SFLC, accessed 10 November 20222,https://sflc.in/right-encrypt-subset-right-privacy

^{^[16]} PTI, “Trai to moot mechanism for KYC-based caller name display”,The Economic Times, 20 May 2022,https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/telecom/telecom-news/trai-to-moot-mechanism-for-kyc-based-caller-name-display/articleshow/91695117.cms?from=mdr

^{^[17]} Palme, Jacob, and Mikael Berglund. "Anonymity on the Internet.” <https://people.dsv.su.se/~jpalme/society/anonymity.pdf >

^{^[18]} Rajat Kathuria, Isha Suri “Why spectrum needs a change in approach”, Indian Express, 20 October 2022, https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/why-spectrum-needs-a-change-in-approach-8235997/

^{^[19]} Consultation on a Non-Competitive Local Licensing Framework, Including Spectrum in the 3900-3980 MHz Band and Portions of the 26, 28 and 38 GHz Bands - Spectrum management and telecommunications

^{^[20]} Aneesh Phadnis“Extant rules choke growth, telecom bill needs review: Broadband India Forum”, Business Standard, 23 September2022<https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/extant-rules-choke-growth-telecom-bill-needs-review-broadband-india-forum-122092301265_1.html >

^{^[21]} Highlights of Telecom Subscription Data as on 31st August, 2022, TRAI, accessed 10 November 2022, https://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/PR_No.67of2022.pdf

^{^[22]} “Response to TRAI consultation on Auction of Spectrum in frequency bands identified for IMT/5G”, Centre for Internet and Society.

^{^[23]} Calabrese, M. (2021). Use it or Share It: A New Default Policy for Spectrum Management. Available at SSRN 3762098. <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID3762098_code2826029.pdf?abstractid=3762098&mirid=1 >

^{^[24]} “Guidelines for Implementation of New Public Sector Enterprises (PSEI Policy for CPSEs in Non-Strategic Sector' regarding”, “Government of India Ministry of Finance Department of Public EnterPrises, 10 November 2022, https://dpe.gov.in/sites/default/files/DPE_OM_DTD_13.12.21_Guidelines_on_New_PSE_Policy_0.pdf, Economic Survey 2021-2022, India Budget, accessed 10 November 2022, <https://www.indiabudget.gov.in/economicsurvey/ebook_es2022/index.html#p=86 >

^{^[25]} A similar approach has been taken in the new Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 for registration of establishments under clause 3(3) of the Code.

^{^[26]} Sections 69 and 69A of the Information Technology Act, 2000.

^{^[27]} Anuradha Bhasin vs Union Of India, 3 SCC 637 (2020)

^{^[28]} Explanatory Note to the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, Pg. 14.

^{^[29]}“USOF Scheme for Aspirational Districts in 5 states”, “Drishti IAS”, accessed 10 November 2022, https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/usof-scheme-for-aspirational-districts-in-5-states

^{^[30]}“What BharatNet can learn from the rural-roads scheme: involve states, local bodies, private sector” “ Centre for Internet and Society, accessed 10 November 2022, https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/what-bharatnet-can-learn-from-the-rural-roads-scheme-involve-states-local-bodies-private-sector

^{^[31]} Functions of Authority, clause 11, TRAI Act, 1997.

^{^[32]} Pratap Vikram Singh, “Trai, try again: India’s toothless telecom regulator fights for more powers”, Aug 31, 2021, The Ken, <https://the-ken.com/story/trai-try-again-indias-toothless-telecom-regulator-fights-for-more-powers/>

^{^[33]} Ibid.

^{^[34]} “PTI” “Have power to settle competitive tariff issues: TRAI to CCI”, Aug 7, 2017, The Economic Times, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/have-power-to-settle-competitive-tariff-issues-trai-to-cci/articleshow/59959144.cms?from=mdr

^{^[35]} CIVIL APPEAL NO(S). 11843 OF 2018

^{^[36]} Ibid at Para 90

^{^[37]} “Market Study on the Telecom Sector”, Jan 22, 2021, Competition Commission of India

^{^[38]} Global ICT Regulatory Outlook 2020 - Pointing the way forward to collaborative regulation (2020), ITU, https://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-d/opb/pref/D-PREF-BB.REG_OUT01-2020-PDF-E.pdf

^{^[39]}Informal Guidance Scheme of SEBI: Understanding the Concept and Analyzing the Guidance Provided by SEBI, Vijay Kumar Singh https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228226352_Informal_Guidance_Scheme_of_SEBI_Understanding_the_Concept_and_Analyzing_the_Guidance_Provided_by_SEBI>

^{^[40]} We have made similar recommendations to the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019, on the offences and penalties under the Bill. The comments can be viewed here: <https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/cis-general-comments-to-the-pdp-bill-2019>

^{^[41]}Recommendations On Traffic Management Practices (TMPs) and MultiStakeholder Body for Net Neutrality, TRAI, accessed 10 November 2022, https://www.trai.gov.in/sites/default/files/Recommendations_22092020_0.pdf

The comments were drafted by Abhishek Raj, Divyank Katira, Isha Suri, Shweta Mohandas and Vipul Kharbanda, and reviewed by Pallavi Bedi. Click to download the submission here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/cis-comments-to-draft-indian-telecom-bill-2022

Why spectrum needs a change in approach

Rajat Kathuria and Isha Suri — 2023-01-18T23:35:10Z

Rajat Kathuria and Isha Suri write: It must be recognised that spectrum needs to be combined with other infrastructure to enable service delivery.

One must bear in mind that the cost of deploying other infrastructure in remote areas is nearly twice as much, while revenue opportunities are far lower, damaging if not destroying the rural business case. The stark digital divide needs a fresh approach to crack it.

On September 22, the government released the draft Indian Telecommunication Bill, 2022, seeking to replace the colonial era Indian Telegraph Act, 1885. The draft bill compares spectrum to aatma: “In a way, spectrum is similar to aatma, which is ajar, amar as described in Shrimad Bhagwad Gita. Like aatma, spectrum too does not have any physical form, yet it is omnipresent.” And yet there is one immutable difference in this material world. While the value of aatma is inestimable, spectrum has always had a banal price tag associated with it.

Click to access the full article published in Indian Express on October 29, 2022

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/indian-express-rajat-kathuria-isha-suri-why-spectrum-needs-a-change-in-approach

October 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:31:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of October 2013 can be accessed below.

Highlights

The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the Union Territory of Daman and Diu.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.
The Access to Knowledge team in collaboration with the Goa University re-released the Konkani Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License CC-BY-SA-3.0.
Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia from October 21 to 25. Overall CIS spoke in 7 panels.
In an article on Spy Files, Maria Xynou examines the legality of India’s surveillance technologies and their potential connection to India’s central monitoring system.
A clause-by-clause comments on the Working draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 was sent to the Ministry of Science and Technology.
CIS started the first Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country.

Accessibility

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 24 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

National Resource Kit

The Daman and Diu Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 28, 2013).
The Arunachal Pradesh Chapter (by CLPR, October 29, 2013).
The Madhya Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 30, 2013).
The Delhi Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, October 31, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Survey (Other Organisation)

Accessibility of Banks and Financial Services Institutions: A Global Survey (posted by Nilofar Ansher, October 20, 2013). G3ict and Scotiabank, requests senior managers, COO / CEOs, Managing Directors, IT Directors, HR Directors, and accessibility professionals from banks and financial services companies to participate.

Blog Entry

Bengali eSpeak Aids in Disaster Management (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 15, 2013).

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software. We produced a column in the Economic and Political Weekly, submitted our feedback on Framework on Open Source Software Adoption in E-Governance Systems, and conducted 3 Wikipedia workshops:

Article

The Fight for Digital Sovereignty (by Sunil Abraham, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol-XLVIII No. 42, October 19, 2013).

Blog Entries

Mobile Phone Patents: Prior Art Survey (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 23, 2013).
Ambiguity in the App Store: Understanding India’s emerging IT sector in light of IP (by Samantha Cassar, October 24, 2013).

Submission

Feedback on the Framework on OSS Adoption in E-Governance Systems (by Nehaa Chaudhari, October 26, 2013). In September, 2013, the DeitY invited comments on the Framework on the proposed adoption of Open Source Software in E-Governance Systems. CIS gave its feedback.

Events Participated In

OSOD 2013: International Workshop on Open Science and Open Data (organised by Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, October 7, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a panelist and gave a presentation on Government Accessibility and Copyright Conundrum.

National Conference on Opening up by Closing the Circle: Strengthening Open Access in India (co-organised by UNESCO, Central Library, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Commonwealth Educational Media Centre for Asia, October 21, 2013). Nehaa Chaudhari was a panelist in the discussion on "Why Open Access?". She gave a presentation on 'Pondering Copyright and Recasting Openness'.

Note: The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 Wikipedia workshops in October:

Event Co-organised

Re-release of Konkani Vishwakosh under CC-BY-SA 3.0 (organised by Goa University and CIS-A2K, Goa University Conference Hall, September 26, 2013). Nitika Tandon has blogged about the event.

Events Organised

Workshop on Wikipedia in the Indian Undergraduate Language Classrooms (October 1, 203, Christ University, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
Train the Trainer — Four-day long Residential Programme (October 3 – 6, 2013, CEO Center, Gubbi, Bangalore. CIS-A2K Team conducted the workshop. Seventeen people participated in the event.
Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization (Goa University, October 19-20, 2013). CIS-A2K team conducted the workshop. Thirty-seven people participated in the event.

Events Participated In

Re-sourcing Indian Cinema: Humanities Research, New Archives and Collaborative Knowledge Production (organised by the Centre for Contemporary Studies and the Centre for Study of Culture and Society, October 29, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on “Let Cinephiles Collaborate: Pleasures and Perils of Indian Film History on Wikipedia”.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Mangalore: Konkani writers resolve to form all-India forum at JKS conference (Daijiworld, October 1, 2013).
Wikipedia in Indian Languages on Mobile Phones (by Megha Prakash, Sci Dev Net, October 15, 2013).
कोंकणी विश्‍वकोश ‘विकिपीडिया’वर (Navprabha Daily, October 22, 2013). A detailed article about the digitalization of Konkani Vishwakosh.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you clause-by-clause comments on the Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012, and a map monitoring privacy in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Anja Kovacs on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 10 video interviews:

Internet Governance Forum

Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Chinmayi Arun participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Bali, Indonesia in the month of October. Overall, CIS spoke in 7 panels:

Charting the Charter: Internet Rights and Principles Online (organised by IRP Coalition, October 22, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
Fair process frameworks for cross-border online spaces (organised by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of France, Western Europe and Others Group and Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Civil Society of Germany, Western Europe and Others Group, October 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham and Chinmayi Arun were panelists for this workshop.
Removing Barriers to Connectivity: Connecting the Unconnected (organised by Internet Society and ETNO, October 23, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.
FOSS: Smart Choice for Developing Countries (organised by TechNation and Open Source Alliance of Central Asia, October 23, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke on FOSS and IT Growth Policies in South Asia.
Privacy: from regional regulations to global connections? (organised by Internet Society, Bali, October 24, 2013). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists.
Human rights, freedom of expression and free flow of information on the Internet (a Focus Session on Openness, October 24, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event.
Taking Stock: Emerging Issues - Internet Surveillance (a session on Internet Surveillance, October 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash made intervention in this session.
Tweets from Bali IGF 2013: To enable research by those who didn't want to mess around with Twitter's APIs, CIS has made available tweets from the IGF as downloadable .CSV files.

Privacy

Magazine Article

What India can Learn from the Snowden Revelations (by Elonnai Hickok, Yahoo, October 23, 2013). The title of the article was changed in the version published by Yahoo.

Blog Entries

Concerns Regarding DNA Law (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aoxXM9.
Interview with Big Brother Watch on Privacy and Surveillance (by Maria Xynou, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cRDMbV.
Interview with Bruce Schneier (by Maria Xynou, October 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/GS6oDX.
An Interview with the Tactical Technology Collective (by Maria Xynou, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i1lVNo.
Interview with Dr. Alexander Dix (by Maria Xynou, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a7dgtQ.
Open Letter to Members of the European Parliament of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (by Elonnai Hickok, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17eZntz.
An Interview with Jacob Kohnstamm (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/17NcQmD.
Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light on the Global Surveillance Industry (by Maria Xynou, October 25, 2013): http://bit.ly/1d6EmjD.

Comments

Re: The Human DNA Profiling Bill, 2012 (by Bhairav Acharya, October 9, 2013). CIS provided clause-by-clause comments on the on the Working Draft version of the Human DNA Profiling Bill: http://bit.ly/17Jpp63.

Announcement

The India Privacy Monitor Map (by Maria Xynou with assistance from Srinivas Atreya, October 9, 2013). CIS has started a first of its kind Privacy Watch in India. The map includes data on the UID, NPR and CCTNS schemes, as well as on the installation of CCTV cameras and the use of drones throughout the country: http://bit.ly/19A5mCZ.

Event Organised

Privacy Round-table, New Delhi (organised by FICCI, DSCI and CIS, FICCI, Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/GAsStr.

Event Participated In

'Free Speech and Media in South Asia: Human Rights Concerns in a Globalizing World (organised by the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy, Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, in collaboration with the Centre for Media and Governance, National Law University, Delhi, Oxford University, October 25, 2013). Chinmayi Arun spoke about “Privacy and Surveillance in India” in a panel discussion: http://bit.ly/18bRGi5.

Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

Part 11: An Interview with Anja Kovacs (October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/15EAZOE.

Other IG Updates
Event Organised

Mapping Digital Media: Broadcasting, Journalism and Activism in India (co-organised by Alternative Law Forum, Maraa and CIS, Bangalore International Centre, October 27, 2013). Samantha Cassar has blogged about the event: http://bit.ly/17EVtdw. It was covered by the New Indian Express (http://bit.ly/1dGENE6) and Hindu (http://bit.ly/1bcVUIU) on October 28.

Events Participated In

Religious Pluralism and the Tensions between Freedom of Expression and Respect for the 'Other’ (organised by Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations project, in cooperation with Jamia Millia Islamia, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, October 10, 2013). Chinmayi Arun was a speaker at the session on “Democracy and the Tension between Freedom of Speech and Respect for the Other’s Religion, Culture, Identity, India and Europe”: http://bit.ly/194dtI7.
Fragmentation in a Democracy: The Role of Social Movements and the Media (organised by the Observer Research Foundation, Delhi and Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, Berlin at Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi, October 16, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on “Impact of Media, Social Media & Technology on Democracy / Governance”: http://bit.ly/17e3PZ9.
Internet, Mobile & Digital Economy Conference (IMDEC) 2013 (organised by FICCI, in association with the Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India, New Delhi, October 25, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the session on "The Internet We Want: A Multistakeholder Approach": http://bit.ly/1b8QHDD.

New and Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Decline in web freedom steepest in India: Report (by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, October 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cVOJ99.
Google survey: 37% of urban Indian voters are online (by Anuja and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, October 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gtqqDY.
The quest for genuine clout on the internet (by Karthik Subramanian, October 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b8TdKa.
India believes in Complete Freedom of Cyber Space: Kapil Sibal (by Elizabeth Roche, Livemint, October 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fZgwd1.
Location Tracking: Why the Govt-Mobile Manufacturer War Won’t End Soon (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, October 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/HkIvF7.
Bouquets & brickbats for Google's new privacy policy (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, October 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18Rzkqm.
Bali meet to discuss Internet governance issues (by Moulishree Srivastava, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17I4r3M.
Indian politicians yet to tap voters online: CIS’s Abraham (by Venkatesh Upadhyay, Livemint, October 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/17HRV4s.
Beyond the Searchlight (by Debarshi Dasgupta, October 23, 2013): http://bit.ly/17IitlZ.
Nowhere to hide: Govt making your personal details public (by FirstPost editors, FirstPost, October 28, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGE6KJ.
Your private data may be online, courtesy govt (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/HpQRMp.
Saving privacy as we knew it (by Somesh Jha and Surabhi Agarwal, Business Standard, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/16HNYwu.
E-governance hopes rise as India crosses 1 billion transactions (by J Srikant, Economic Times, October 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cnJIKd.

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Events Participated In

GFM 2013 (organized by the University of Luneberg, Germany, October 3 – 5, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah participated in a panel discussion with Wendy Chun, Tom Levine and Geert Lovink, around 'The End of Bibliographies: New Media and Research'. Nishant also participated as a panelist in a panel discussion on 'Open Up: Pragmatism and Politics of Open Access': http://bit.ly/1f9LCOH.
Digitalization of Culture (organized by Leuphana University, Luneberg, October 8, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah did an introduction keynote to 1600 undergraduate students. A video of the lecture can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/1enWQPv.
RENEW: The 5th International Conference on the Histories of Media Art, Science and Technology (hosted by RIXC Centre for New Media Culture in Riga in partnership with the Art Academy of Latvia, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and Danube University’s Center for Image Science, October 8 - 11, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah was a part of the selection committee for the conference and chaired a session on Network Art on October 9: http://bit.ly/17e41aJ.

Blog Entry

A Hitchhikers Guide to the Cyberspace (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ga8yfH.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

Modules

World Intellectual Property Organisation (by Anirudh Sridhar and Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2013). WIPO is a specialized agency of the United Nations which deals with issues related to intellectual property rights throughout the world. Find out more at http://bit.ly/17a8WEk.
An Interview on Internet Governance with Professor Milton Mueller and Jeremy Malcolm (by Anirudh Sridhar, October 31, 2013). Professor Milton Mueller from the Syracuse University School of Information and Jeremy Malcolm, an Information Technology and Intellectual Property Lawyer, spoke about current issues and debates surrounding internet governance: http://bit.ly/17ix3Ro.

About CIS
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k

Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge

E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2013-bulletin

July 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-08-11T05:46:53Z

Seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014) below:

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the seventh issue of the newsletter (July 2014). Archives of our newsletters can be accessed at: http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters

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Highlights
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Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of the World Intellectual Property Organisation Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (WIPO-SCCR) held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) gave its statements on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations.
India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty and the Accessible Books Consortium was launched. Nehaa Chaudhari who participated in the 28^th session of the WIPO-SCCR reports on this in a blog entry.
Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva produced a research paper on patent valuation and license fee determination as part of the Pervasive Technologies project.
Our grant application to the Wikimedia Foundation was approved. CIS has been awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year for the Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia) project.
CIS and the University of Mysore organized the Open Knowledge day in Mysore on July 15, 2014. Six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha was re-released under the Creative Commons (CC license).
We helped the Ministry of Science and Technology draft the Open Access Policy for the DST/DBT.
The first of the seven proposed roundtable meetings on “Privacy and Surveillance” conducted by CIS in collaboration with the Cellular Operators Association of India and the Council for Fair Business Practices was held in Mumbai on June 28, 2014. Anandini K. Rathore has blogged on this.
Bedavyasa Mohanty has produced a blog entry that analyses the nuances of interception of communications under the Indian Telegraph Act and the Indian Post Office Act.
Vinayak Mithal has written a blog entry on the Constitutionality of Indian surveillance law that analyses ICANN's reactive transparency mechanism, comparing it with freedom of information best practices. He describes the DIDP and its relevance for the Internet community.
Nishant Shah speaks on the right to freedom of speech and expression in the latest interview conducted as part of the Cybersecurity series being done with a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Ottawa.
Nishant Shah’s peer reviewed article “Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore” was published in Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, on July 3, 2014. Nishant gives a narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.
CIS recruited two new staff members in its Bangalore office. Rohini Lakshane joined as a Program Officer in the Pervasive Technologies project and K.N. Medini joined as a Senior Accounts Officer. Their profiles can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team.

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Accessibility and Inclusion
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Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. We compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). We will be publishing this soon. The draft chapters along with the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

Work Report for July (by Suman Dogra, July 31, 2014).

Blog Entry

India's Ratification of the Marrakesh Treaty Celebrated; Accessible Books Consortium Launched (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 1, 2014): India became the first country to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty.

Media Coverage

SpicyIP Tidbit: India ratifies the Marrakesh Treaty for the Visually Impaired (by Thomas J. Vallianeth, Spicy IP, July 1, 2014).

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Access to Knowledge
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As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►WIPO

Participation in Event and Statements
Nehaa Chaudhari participated in the 28^th session of WIPO-SCCR held in Geneva from June 30 to July 4, 2014. The following have been the outputs from the event:

Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 2, 2014).
Opening Comments by India on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (posted by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 7, 2014). This was the statement made by the Indian delegation at WIPO-SCCR 28^th session on July 2, 2014.
Statement on the Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives at WIPO SCCR 28 (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 3, 2014).
28th Session of the WIPO SCCR: Report on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, July 29, 2014).

► Pervasive Technologies

Research Papers

Patent Valuation and License Fee Determination in Context of Patent Pools (by Vikrant Narayan Vasudeva, July 9, 2014). Vikrant has produced research that examines patent valuation and license fee determination in detail.
Grounds for Compulsory Patent Licensing in United States, Canada, China, and India (by Maggie Huang, July 29, 2014). In her research paper Maggie tries to answer questions about the grounds of compulsory licensing in international treaties with specific examples from America and Asia.

►Wikipedia
As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Announcement
Our grant application to the Funds Dissemination Committee (FDC) of the Wikimedia Foundation was approved by its board which met in Frankfurt from May 21 to 24, 2014. CIS had requested a grant of Rs. 18,406,454 and were awarded Rs. 12,000,000 for the next one year.

The following were done this month:

Articles / Blog Entries

Aircel & Wikimedia Foundation announce Wikipedia Zero (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, Prajavani, July 3, 2014). As per this, users of Aircel need not pay for data for accessing Wikipedia.
ଇଣ୍ଟରନେଟରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଅକ୍ଷରସଜ୍ଜା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Samaja, July 4, 2014).
State of Odia Language in Computing and Future Steps (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Sovereign, July 7, 2014).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷା ବିକାଶର ରାସ୍ତା (by Subhashish Panigrahi, The Sambad, July 23, 2014).
University of Mysore Re-releases Kannada Vishwakosha (Encyclopaedia) under Creative Commons Free License (by Dr. U.B.Pavanaja, July 24, 2014). Leading English and Kannada dailies like Andolana Kannada, City Today, Deccan Herald, Hosa Diganta, Kannada Jana Mana, Kannada Prabha, Rajya Dharma, Samyukta Karnataka, The Hindu, The New Indian Express, Udayavani, Vijaya Karnataka, and Vijaya Vani published about this. Scanned versions of the published articles can be downloaded here.
Wiki Loves Pride 2014 and Adding Diversity to Wikipedia (by Dorothy Howard, Wikimedia Blog, July 25, 2014).
Doctors and Translators Are Working Together to Bridge Wikipedia's Medical Language Gap (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Global Voices, July 27, 2014). This was re-published on the Wikimedia Blog, July 30, 2014.
Classical Odia Language in the Digital Age (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Odisha Review, posted on July 28, 2014). The essay was published in the magazine’s June edition.

Event Organized

Open Knowledge Day (co-organized by Mysore University and CIS-A2K, Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies, University of Mysore, July 15, 2014). The event coincided with the Open Knowledge Festival in Berlin from July 15 to 17. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted the event. On this occasion Mysore University released six volumes of Kannada Vishwakosha under the Creative Commons (CC) license.

Participation in Events

National Level Seminar on Computer Application and Odia Language (organized by Institute of Odia Studies and Research, July 6, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a panelist.
Open Knowledge Festival 2014 (organized by Google, Omidyar, et.al., Berlin, July 15 – 17, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi represented India as the India Ambassador of OpenGLAM local and made a presentation.
#NAMA: The Future of Indic Languages (organized by Medianama, The Oberoi Hotel, Bangalore, July 24, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

News and Media Coverage
CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Wikipedia edit-a-thons to add content on LGBTs (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 7, 2014).
Font problem hits Odia (by Bibhuti Barik, The Telegraph, July 7, 2014).
Four volumes of Kannada Encyclopaedia digitised (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 12, 2014).
‘ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ’ಕ್ಕೆ ಇನ್ನು ಲೈಸೆನ್ಸ್ ಹಂಗಿಲ್ಲ (Prajavani, July 14, 2014).
Soon, all 14 volumes of Kannada encyclopaedia to be online (by R. Krishna Kumar, The Hindu, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪಿಡಿಯಾಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ (Kannada Prabha, July 15, 2014).
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶದ ಆರು ಸಂಪುಟ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾಗೆ (Udayavani, July 15, 2014).
ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಾದಲ್ಲಿ kannada ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ : ಈಗ ಆನ್ ಲೈನ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 6 ಸಂಪುಟಗಳು ಮುಕ್ತ…ಮುಕ್ತ……( Just Kannada, July 15, 2014).
Six Kannada encyclopaedias released (Webindia 123, July 15, 2014).
150 Rare Books Get New Lease of Life Online, Courtesy Students (by Anila Backer, New Indian Express, July 15, 2014).
Open Access: Students help revive and digitize rare books for Malayalam Wiki Library (Spicy IP, July 15, 2014).
'Trolled' from US Congress, Wikipedia bans edits (by Narayan Lakshman, The Hindu, July 25, 2014).
Telugu Wikipedia struggles to stay afloat (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 27, 2014).
The joys of being a Wikipedian (by Svetlana Lasrado, New Indian Express, July 29, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation (Vijayavani, July 30, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation for Kannada Science Writers (Prajavani, July 31, 2014).

►Openness

Blog Entries

Mozilla brings Indian Communities together Twice in One Month (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Mozilla Website, July 8, 2014).
Mozilla Brings Indian Communities Together (by Subhashish Panigrahi, Opensource.com, July 13, 2014).
Department of Biotechnology and Department of Science, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, release Open Access Policy (by Anubha Sinha, July 18, 2014). We have also been acknowledged in the policy.

HasGeek Event

The Fifth Elephant (NIMHANS Convention Centre, July 25-26, 2014). CIS was a community outreach partner.

Media Coverage

Plan for open access to science research (by Renuka Phadnis, The Hindu, July 22, 2014).
Indian Govt looks to provide free access to publicly-funded research works (by Riddhi Mukherjee, Medianama, July 23, 2014).

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Internet Governance
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►Freedom of Expression

As part of our project on Freedom of Expression (funded through a grant from the MacArthur Foundation) to study the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute to the debates around Internet governance and freedom of expression at forums like ICANN, ITU, IGF, WSIS, etc., we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entries

ICANN’s Documentary Information Disclosure Policy – I: DIDP Basics (by Vinayak Mithal, July 1, 2014).
Reading the Fine Script: Service Providers, Terms and Conditions and Consumer Rights (by Jyoti Panday, July 2, 2014).
Facebook and its Aversion to Anonymous and Pseudonymous Speech (by Jessamine Mathew, July 4, 2014).
Free Speech and Surveillance (by Gautam Bhatia, July 7, 2014).
Delhi High Court Orders Blocking of Websites after Sony Complains Infringement of 2014 FIFA World Cup Telecast Rights (by Anubha Sinha, July 8, 2014).
GNI and IAMAI Launch Interactive Slideshow Exploring Impact of India's Internet Laws (by Jyoti Panday, July 17, 2014).

FOEX Live

We are also posting a selection of news from across India implicating online freedom of expression and use of digital technology: July 7, 2014.

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. We have produced the following outputs during the month:

Blog Entries

Models for Surveillance and Interception of Communications Worldwide (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 2, 2014).
The Constitutionality of Indian Surveillance Law: Public Emergency as a Condition Precedent for Intercepting Communications (by Bedavyasa Mohanty, July 4, 2014).
UK’s Interception of Communications Commissioner — A Model of Accountability (by Joe Sheehan, July 24, 2014).

Event Report

First Privacy and Surveillance Roundtable (by Anandini K Rathore, July 18, 2014).

Article

Private Censorship and the Right to Hear (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hoot, July 17, 2014). The article was also mirrored on the website of the Centre for Communication Governance.

Participation in Events

Information Influx Conference (organized by the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam, July 2 – 4, 2014). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker.
Consultation to Frame Rules under the Whistle Blowers Protection Act, 2011 (organized by National Campaign for People's Right to Information and Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University, New Delhi, July 5, 2014). Bhairav Acharya participated in the event.
Best Practices Meet (organized by DSCI, Hotel Leela Palace, Bangalore, July 9, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.
Rethinking Privacy: The Link between Florida v. Jardines and the Surveillance of Nature Films (organized by Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, July 11, 2014). Bhairav Acharya gave a talk.
Region as Frame: Politics, Presence, Practice (organized by International Association for Media and Communication Research, Hyderabad, July 18, 2014). Sunil Abraham was a speaker for these panels: Governing Digital Spaces: Issues of Access, Privacy and Freedom, UNESCO panel debate, and Special Session on Research Paths In and Outside of the Academy.
ICT Awareness Program for Myanmar Parliamentarians (organized by Myanmar ICT for Development Organization, July 26 – 27, 2014, Yangon). Sunil Abraham participated in the event as a speaker and presented on Innovation Ecosystem and Thinking about Internet Regulation.

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

Cyber-crimes shoot up 52% in India over last year (by K.V.Kurmanath, Hindu Businessline, July 2, 2014).
COAI, Centre for Internet & Society to hold pan-India meetings on privacy issues (IANS, July 4, 2014). The news was mirrored in the Times of India , NDTV, Business Standard , Economic Times , and World News.
Living in a Fish Bowl (by Shuma Raha, The Telegraph, July 16, 2014).
Terror recruiters target Indians on internet (by Sandhya Soman, July 18, 2014).
The trouble with trolls (by Vishal Mathur, Livemint, July 22, 2014).
India’s dedicated Cryptology centre gets Rs. 115 crore funding (by Harichandan Arakali, SearchSecurity.in, July 28, 2014).

►Cyber Stewards
As part of its project on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and the International Development Research Centre, Canada, CIS conducted 2 new interviews. With this it has finished a total of 19 interviews:

Video Interviews

Lobsang Gyatso Sither (July 31, 2014).

Lobsang Sangay (July 31, 2014).

--------------------------------
Digital Humanities
--------------------------------
CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Peer Reviewed Article

Asia in the Edges: A Narrative Account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Summer School in Bangalore (by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, July 3, 2014). This is the narrative account of the experiments and ideas that shaped the second Summer School, “The Asian Edge” which was hosted in Bangalore, India, in 2012.

Blog Entry

Reading from a Distance — Data as Text (by P.P. Sneha, July 23, 2014).

-----------------------------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us
Please help us defend consumer / citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of ‘The Centre for Internet and Society’ and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd ‘C’ Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru – 5600 71.

► Request for Collaboration:
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, atsunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

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

Opportunities for TV White Spaces in India Workshop

praskrishna — 2013-09-18T04:51:11Z

Shyam Ponappa, a fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society is participating in a workshop on TV White Space. The workshop is being organized by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay and sponsored by the Ford Foundation at the Royal Hotel Plaza in New Delhi on June 21, 2013.

See the original published by the Indian Institute of Technology website here

About the Workshop

This workshop will discuss the regulatory aspects of TV white space with a focus on Indian requirements. We believe that making the most efficient use of the TV white space spectrum will offer tremendous benefits to the low-income broadband users in India. It will also provide opportunities to the academia and indigenous industries for research and development, thereby creating intellectual property related to methods feasible for TV white space spectrum usage and access in India.

The workshop is intended for researchers, policy makers, and industry professionals working in the area of TV white spaces. The discussions will provide exposure to the TV white space applications and regulations across the world. The regulatory framework for TV white space present elsewhere in the world will be in focus, and we will provide suggestions for the same in India. This workshop may sow the seeds of developing a regulatory framework for TV white space operation in India.

The program consists of an overview of the TV white space regulations and standards from different countries around the world, and a discussion on the TV white space regulations necessary for the Indian context.

Time	Details
09:30 10:00	Inauguration and Introduction
10:00 10:30	WhiteSpace Applications, Regulations and Technologies, Dr. Apurva Mody, White Space Alliance
10:30 11:00	Tea Break
11:00 11:30	Geo-location Database – U.S. TV White Spaces and Beyond John Malyar, iConnective
11:30 12:00	TV White Space Detection and Spectrum Characterization in India, Prof. Vinay Ribeiro (IIT Delhi) and Prof. Animesh Kumar (IIT Bombay). Based on collective work done at IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay
12:00 12:30	White Space Opportunities in South India Prof. Zafar Ali Khan, IIT Hyderabad
12:30 14:00	Lunch
14:00 14:30	Enabling the Global Spectrum Village, Jeffery Yan, Microsoft
14:30 15:00	TI solutions for TV white space Jose Frangline, Texas Instruments
15:00 16:00	Panel Discussion
16:00 16:30	Tea Break
16:30 17:00	Regulations of Ofcom, Dr. Reza Karimi, Technical Policy Director, Ofcom
17:00 17:30	Regualtions of FCC, Dr. Julius Knapp, Chief, Office of Engineering and Technology, FCC

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/iitb-june-21-2013-opportunities-for-tv-white-spaces-in-india-workshop

April 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-05-31T08:07:38Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcomes you to the fourth issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS
We at the Centre for Internet and Society celebrate 5 years of existence with an exhibition showcasing our work and accomplishments over this time. The exhibition will be held concurrently at both our Bangalore and Delhi offices from May 20 to 24, 2013, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Google Policy Fellowship
CIS is inviting applications for the Google Policy Fellowship programme. Google is providing a USD 7,500 stipend to the India fellow who will be selected by July 1, 2013. Fellowship focus areas include Access to Knowledge, Openness in India, Freedom of Expression, Privacy, and Telecom Send in your applications for the position by June 15, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org. CIS also invites applications for the post of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge, Pilot Projects). To apply for this position send your resume to vishnu@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Himachal Pradesh, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan:

The Himachal Pradesh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
Goa Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Jammu & Kashmir Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, April 30, 2013).
The Rajasthan Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, April 30, 2013).

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

Events Organised

Girls in ICT Day (April 25, 2013, Mitra Jyothi Auditorium, HSR Layout, Bangalore). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a talk on Social Media and Kannada Language for Women with Disabilities. Sara Morais wrote an event report.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (May 9, 2013, TERI, Southern Regional Centre, Domlur, Bangalore).

Announcement

CIS Gets ITU-D Sector Membership: CIS has become a sector member of ITU-D.

Access to Knowledge and Openness

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. CIS also promotes openness including open government data, open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software through its Openness programme.

Wikipedia
Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi, and one team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who is working from Bangalore office. Noopur Raval, Programme Officer has left the organisation. April 24, 2013 was her last working day.

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project

Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages.

Blog Entries

Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013).
Analysis of Konkani Wikipedia: Facts & Challenges (by Nitika Tandon, April 30, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 30, 2013).

Event Organised

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.

Events Co-organised
The following events were organised in the month of March but reports were written during the month of April. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi held meetings with wikipedians:

Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).

The following event was organised in the month of April. We will be publishing the report soon:

Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.

Other Access to Knowledge Updates

WIPO

CIS Intervention on the Treaty for the Visually Impaired at SCCR/SS/GE/2/13 (Geneva, April 18 – 20, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the session and spoke about the rights of the visually impaired.

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes. Currently, CIS is doing a project with Privacy International, London to facilitate research and events around surveillance, and freedom of speech and expression.

Information Technology

IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69A Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 27, 2013).
Indian Telegraph Act, 1885, 419A Rules and IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules (by Jadine Lannon, April 28, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69 Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).
IT (Amendment) Act, 2008, 69B Rules: Draft and Final Version Comparison (by Jadine Lannon, April 30, 2013).

Resources
The below rules were published recently:

Newspaper Column

Off the Record (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, April 6, 2013).

Privacy

India´s ´Big Brother´: The Central Monitoring System (CMS) (by Maria Xynou, April 8, 2013).

Events Organised
Maria Xynou gives an overview of the discussions and recommendations from the privacy round tables held in Delhi and Bangalore:

A Privacy Round Table in Delhi (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, FICCI Federation House, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, April 3, 2013).
A Privacy Round Table in Bangalore (organized by CIS and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Jayamahal Palace, Jayamahal Road, Bangalore, April 20, 2013).

Announcements

2nd Expert Committee meeting on draft 'Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012': The Department of Biotechnology has constituted an Expert Committee to discuss various issues of this Bill in detail. Sunil Abraham has been nominated as one of the members of this Committee. A meeting of this Expert Committee has been scheduled for May 13, 2013 under the Chairmanship of Dr. T. S. Rao, Adviser, DBT.
Chinmayi Arun is one of the international experts supporting the Internet & Jurisdiction project, a global multi-stakeholder dialogue process.

Upcoming Events

A Privacy Round Table in Chennai (co-organised with Data Security Council of India and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Residency Towers, Sir Thyagaraja Road, T Nagar, Chennai, May 18, 10.30 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.).
Consilience – 2013 (National Law School of India University, Bangalore, May 26 – 27, 2013).

Other Event Hosted

Or-bits.com — A Talk by Marialaura Ghidini (CIS, Bangalore, April 19, 2013). Marialaura Ghidini gave a talk abou the creation and activities of or-bits.com, a web-based curatorial platform that she founded in 2009.

News and Media

Clarify and define terms in IT rules, panel tells govt. (by Prashant Jha, Hindu, April 1, 2013).
India takes its first serious step toward privacy regulation – but it may be misguided (Privacy Surgeon, April 9, 2013).
Regulating Social Media: Unrealistic, Impossible, Necessary? (NDTV, April 11, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in a discussion on social media aired on NDTV.
Social media may influence 160 LS seats in 2014 (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, April 12, 2013).
Vote: Will Social Media Impact the Election? (by R. Jai Krishna, Wall Street Journal, April 15, 2013).
Untangling the web of India's 'ungovernable' Net (Deutsche Welle, April 15, 2013).
CIS in GNI Annual Report (April 25, 2013). CIS gets mentioned in GNI Annual Report. Sunil Abraham is quoted in it.
Is free speech an Indian value? (by Satarupa Sen Bhattacharya, India Together, April 27, 2013).

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project on Internet Access. It covers the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access and will touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event
We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” with the support of Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details have been announced.

The following units have been published:

Internet Infrastructure (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).
Internet Service Provider – Introduction (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, April 30, 2013).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility of telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Newspaper Column

Prioritizing Communications & Energy (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot, April 4, 2013).

Blog Entry

From Open Citizen Radio Networks to the Race for .RADIO gTLD (by Sharath Chandra Ram, April 30, 2013).

Event Participated

Broadband Policy Course (organised by Lirne Asia, Bangalore, April 5 – 6, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan and Snehashish Ghosh attended the course.

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.
Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Request for Collaboration
We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/april-2013-bulletin

BIF Workshop on V Band-New Use Cases under 802.11ad &.11ay

Admin — 2018-06-01T00:13:52Z

The workshop organized by Broadband India was held on May 31, 2018 at Taj Mansingh (Long Champ) in New Delhi. Shyam Ponappa attended the workshop.

In view of the need to extend broadband connectivity everywhere and take it to unserved and underserved areas, V band (60Ghz) has a very crucial role to play . In view of the need for more clarity on the subject of V Band allocation in India and in view of the fact that new use cases are emerging since the TRAI Recommendations were made in 2015, Broadband India organized a half day workshop.

The workshop focused on engaging the technology companies that are building different use cases (including Fixed wireless access, Mobile backhaul, Short Range Devices-SRD ) and the telecom partners/operators who will be the main deployers of this technology.

The primary objective of the workshop was to bring into perspective the TRAI Recommendations of 2015 and discuss new use cases of the “V Band – New Use Cases Under 802.11ad and 802.11ay” standards.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/bif-workshop-on-v-band-new-use-cases-under-802-11ad.11ay

CIS anniversary

praskrishna — 2013-05-06T07:28:07Z

The Centre for Internet and Society will celebrate five years of its existence with an exhibition showcasing its works and accomplishments.

This was published in Hindu Business Line on May 5, 2013

The exhibition will be held concurrently at both Bangalore and Delhi offices from May 20 to 24, 2013, said a press release.

“To promote transparency, we're getting the general public to be our auditors by throwing open our account books and contracts which show how we have spent the Rs 8.3 crore received from our donors.”

The exhibition will also see artists like Kiran Subbaiah, Tara Kelton, Navin Thomas, Abhishek Hazra, among others exhibiting their works, as well as lectures.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-business-line-may-5-2013-cis-anniversary

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

praskrishna — 2016-07-17T03:41:56Z

Ford Foundation and the Centre for Internet & Society bring you research on the origins of the Internet in India, its impact on the Indian GDP and topics and debates surrounding the Internet in today's world.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access

Live [Closed]: TRAI Open House Discussion on OTT Regulation - Delhi

Admin — 2019-05-28T02:04:17Z

TRAI organized an open house discussion on “Regulatory Framework for OTT Services” in Delhi on May 20, 2019. Anubha Sinha attended the event.

The objective of the consultation was to look into services that they are considering as being possibly ‘similar’ to those provided by telecom service providers. The consultation paper sought to compare licensing norms and regulations applicable to TSPs and OTTs, on the grounds that the certain services provided by them are substitutable with one another. Our notes from the TRAI Open House in Bangalore on April 24th are here.

For more see Medianama site

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/news/live-closed-trai-open-house-discussion-on-ott-regulation-delhi

The Huawei bogey

gurshabad — 2019-06-05T03:38:19Z

India needs to prove company aids Chinese government, or risk playing into US hands.

The article by Gurshabad Grover was published in Indian Express on May 30, 2019.

The Trump administration has not only passed orders restricting the US government and its departments from procuring networking equipment from Chinese companies, but is exerting considerable pressure on other countries to follow suit. The fear that Huawei and ZTE will aid Chinese espionage and surveillance operations has become common even though there has been no compelling evidence to suggest that Huawei’s equipment is substantively different from its competitors.

These events have also sparked a larger debate about the security of India’s communications infrastructure, an industry powered by foreign imports. Commentators have not shied away from suggesting that India ban the import of network equipment. C Raja Mohan, in ‘The tech wars are here’ (IE, December 11, 2018), expressed these concerns and asked whether Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers should be allowed to operate in India. A larger point was made by D S Hooda in his piece, ‘At digital war’ (IE, October 25, 2018). He pointed out threats that arise from using untrusted software and hardware all over the stack: From Chinese networking middleboxes to American operating systems and media platforms. As a method to establish trust in ICT infrastructure, Hooda recommends “indigenis[ing] our cyber space”.

The path towards indigenised manufacturing of networking equipment is an expensive, elaborate process. Restricting certain foreign companies from operating in the country without evidence would be a knee-jerk reaction solely based on cues from US policy, and would undermine India’s strategic autonomy.

At the heart of threats from untrusted software or hardware, lies an information asymmetry between the buyer and seller. It is not always possible to audit the functioning of every product that you purchase. Open technical standards, developed by various standards development organisations (SDOs), govern the behaviour of networking software, and remove this information asymmetry: They allow buyers to glean or implicitly trust operational and security aspects of the equipment.

It is clear that various governments including India have repeatedly failed to advance privacy and security in the 5G standards, which are developed at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) — the organisation developing standards for telephony. Government and industry dominance at the 3GPP has ensured that telecom technologies include security vulnerabilities that are euphemistically termed as “lawful interception”. From an architectural perspective, 5G does not contain any significant vulnerabilities that were absent in older telecom standards. Unfortunately, these vulnerabilities are indifferent to those who exploit them: A security exception for law enforcement is tantamount to a security vulnerability for malicious actors. As the report from UK’s Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre Oversight Board confirmed, there is perhaps no technical way to mitigate the security risks that 5G poses now. But there is still no evidence to suggest that Huawei is operating differently from say Ericsson or Nokia.

India needs to establish that Huawei is aiding the Chinese government through their products (5G or otherwise) before reacting. That Chinese companies are rarely insulated from Beijing’s influence is indisputable. However, the legal requirements placed on Chinese companies by Beijing are equivalent to de facto practices of countries like the US, which has a history of intercepting equipment from American companies to introduce vulnerabilities, or directly compelling them to aid intelligence operations. Such influence should be fought back by pushing for international norms that prevent states from acquiring data from companies en masse, and domestic data protection legislation.

In the long term, the Indian government and its defence wings would benefit from understanding the argument Lawrence Lessig has made since the 1990s: Decisions of technical architecture have far-reaching regulatory effects. A long-term strategy that focuses on advancing security at technical SDOs will prove more effective in ensuring the security of India’s critical infrastructure than the economically expensive push for indigenisation.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/indian-express-may-30-2019-gurshabad-grover-the-huawei-bogey

Broadband Reforms for Local Manufacturing

Shyam Ponappa — 2017-07-05T02:03:24Z

Broadband in India needs reforms for local manufacturing and for infrastructure expansion and utilisation.

The article was published in the Business Standard on May 31, 2017 and in Organizing India Blogspot on June 5, 2017.

India’s markets are at the heart of what attracts investment and economic activity, with mobile phones and broadband services comprising a significant share. In exploring their magnitude and supply chains, an obvious need emerges for policies and incentives for local manufacturing of components and handsets to boost domestic supply and create employment. Another avenue for deriving local benefits is extending the coverage of digital platforms, expanding the market through policies and incentives facilitating broadband infrastructure. Policy support can help both to extend networks using fixed and wireless technologies, as well as to increase capacity utilisation.

Reforms affecting both supply and demand are needed to fully and equitably provide ubiquitous coverage and exploit digital platforms for public welfare. Such reforms would mitigate the lower revenue potential of rural populations. Enabling steps could include allowing active sharing of spectrum and networks, providing more unlicensed spectrum, financial incentives such as tax credits and spectrum charge rebates for rural infrastructure, and standardised right-of-way charges.

India’s Mobile Handset Market

"A billion smartphones will be sold in India in [the] next five years."

This estimate is from a report by IIM-Bangalore and CounterPoint Researchers.[1] The report notes that India became the second-largest global smartphone market in terms of number of users in early 2016, and still has enormous growth potential even as demand for smartphones elsewhere is waning. In the next five years, almost a billion smartphones and half a billion feature phones will require components worth $80 billion (Rs 5.2 lakh crore). These will have to be imported if they are not produced locally. The report estimates that in 2016, about 50 local units assembled over 180 million mobile phones valued at $9 billion (about Rs 59,000 crore), about 70 per cent of the $13 billion sold. However, the local value addition was only $650 million (Rs 4,225 crore, or 7.2 per cent). This underscores an urgent need for policy changes, considering that emerging manufacturers in these sectors such as Brazil and Vietnam have value added of nearly 20 per cent and over 30 per cent, respectively, while champions such as South Korea and Taiwan add above 50 per cent, and China has 70 per cent local value added.

In early 2016, India’s domestic smartphones had a 40 per cent market share, but by the quarter ending March 2017, Chinese brands dominated, with a share of over 51 per cent, while local brands dropped to under 14 per cent.[2]

According to the IIM-B/CounterPoint Researchers report, Indian manufacturers import most of their components, and there are few incentives for R&D or to attract component suppliers to form local ecosystems. Further, the existing incentives will become ineffective once the goods and services tax (GST) is introduced, because they will all be subsumed under GST. Accordingly, the Broadband India Forum in association with EY have suggested (a) refunding the GST to manufacturers for handsets and (b) extending this policy to components could provide an appropriate manufacturing incentive.[3] This needs to be done without delay.[4]

The report also proposes a phased approach to maximise local value added, aiming for 30 per cent by 2020, and more thereafter. Early phases suggested are moving from assembling chargers and other such accessories to high-value components such as printed circuit boards, cameras and display units. The researchers suggest that chargers, batteries and cameras can in fact be manufactured locally, contributing to components valued at an estimated $15 billion by 2020. If these proposals are adopted and executed, it will reduce imports and create jobs, deriving local benefits from India’s market opportunities. Moreover, it will help create an R&D capability in India for this sector, which can over time become a supplier to global markets.

The prerequisite for these improvements is policy reforms on matters such as duties on components (including the refund of GST) and incentives for suppliers to set up in India. The report also suggests that policies need to be framed for effectively funding institutions and corporations for research to build intellectual property and skilled professionals.

Extending Digital Infrastructure & Utilisation

There is a parallel need for policies supporting the extension and coverage of digital platforms, of the sort achieved in migrating from up-front auction fees to revenue sharing with the New Telecom Policy in 1999 (NTP-99). These require convergent action within the government and its multifarious departments and agencies, or in some cases by coordination and resolution among stakeholders, i.e., in addition to the agencies of government, the judiciary, the operators and vendors of equipment, the press and media, and the public.

There are some issues that relate to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s (Trai) recommendations over the years that need decisions on implementation. An example is access to broadband services through cable networks. The government’s position on additional charges as a share of revenues conflicts with cable operators’ unwillingness to pay additional charges, and perhaps the cost of the devices for conversion. The effect of this deadlock is that the entire set of cable network users have to use another means for broadband connectivity. As this policy change will affect the competitive dynamics of wireless service providers, it is a candidate for coordinated, participative resolution. Some Trai recommendations may benefit from review, such as open access (like Wi-Fi) on 60 GHz.

Other examples are:

Enabling additional bands of unused spectrum such as 60 GHz and 70/80 GHz for wireless gigabit links, and

Enabling the sharing of entire networks, including the radio access network (and therefore spectrum) among operators.

The promise of digital platforms is immense, and both these streams of reforms need to be taken up and completed for India’s digital platforms and markets to deliver on their considerable potential.

[1]. “Mobile Phone Manufacturing: A Practical Phased Approach,” by Pathak, Chatterjee and Shah: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2874689

[2]. http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prAP42557317

[3]. http://www.communicationstoday.co.in/index.php/daily-news/6710-broadband-india-forum-with-ey-releases-the-research-paper-on-incentivizing-domestic-handset-manfacturing-under-gst Added after publication - June 6, 2017

[4]. For a detailed exposition of the GST question and why raising customs duties on imported equipment/components is not feasible because of the terms of the Information Technology Agreement 1997 under the WTO, see: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/incentivising-manufacturing-mobile-phones-india-parag-kar

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-june-5-business-standard-and-organizing-india-blogspot-broadband-reforms-for-local-manufacturing

More On Those Dropped Calls

Shyam Ponappa — 2015-10-06T02:34:24Z

A basic problem is that the cost of spectrum and licences relative to earnings is too high, structurally.

The article originally published in the Business Standard on September 2 was mirrored in Organizing India Blogspot on September 3, 2015.

Will the government's variant of "speak softly and carry a big stick" deliver Digital India in a hurry? Unlikely, because the problem is an overloaded system with a too-spare design, and insufficient cash flows. Increasing call drops are a symptom of inadequate carrying capacity for the demands of traffic, from voice to data in 3G and 4G. These are structural problems, because the system doesn't generate sufficient investible funds; nor are conditions right to develop such investment capacity; nor are the prospects demonstrably healthy. The situation requires the policy changes outlined below, which only the government can bring about, as it has in the past.

A fundamental aspect of the problem is low spectrum availability. India's operators have 12-15 MHz, compared with a global average of 45-50 MHz. Leading countries have even more; for instance, operators in Seoul reportedly have 10 times more spectrum than operators in India. Limiting the spectrum available to operators compels them to invest more to deliver a given level of traffic and quality than if more spectrum were available.

There are other aspects as well:

high charges for licences and for spectrum, 8+4 per cent of (adjusted) revenues in addition to auction payments,
imported equipment paid for with a weak stream of local-currency revenues,
changes in spectrum holdings that require adjustment in equipment after older spectrum assignments lapse and new spectrum has been acquired, and
the burgeoning need for new investments for 3G and 4G services. Embedded in the latter is the additional overload caused by tower shut-downs and the difficulties in getting additional sites, apart from the need for more capital.

Add regulations that hinder spectrum trading and sharing, and we have a sector that is structurally weak and restricted in scope.

As for call drops, operators in developed markets experienced similar capacity pressures when there was very rapid growth in data usage, for instance AT&T in the US and O2 in the UK some years ago. The difference is that they were able to invest rapidly to shore up their networks. By contrast, Indian operators had to invest disproportionately in acquiring spectrum, leaving less capacity for investment in networks. For example, in 2014 operators in China reportedly invested $35 billion in 4G equipment, whereas in India, only $3 billion went into equipment. Most of its $32-billion investment - $29 billion, over 90 per cent - was for spectrum. There has also been the diversionary effect because difficult business conditions in the sector led to profits being invested elsewhere, instead of back into communications infrastructure. The difference in approach and functional capacity is stark: China is moving ahead with building high-speed data capability, while the struggle in India is with dropped calls and simply keeping users connected. The government, therefore, needs to facilitate conditions whereby operators invest substantial amounts every year.

For this to happen, the structure of high charges for spectrum and licences relative to earnings has to change, as do restrictive regulations. The monthly average revenue per user in India at the end of 2014 was of the order of Rs 110-120. Capital expenditure ranged from 13 to 15 per cent of revenues in 2014, rising to 20 per cent in 2015. The latter exceeds the percentage invested in the US - but the revenue in India is about 25 times less than the $50 revenue in America, and the US has had well-developed networks for decades. Meanwhile, the recent spectrum-sharing guidelines that restrict more than enable effective sharing epitomise our dysfunctional regulations.1 It is baffling why the government would issue such retrograde regulation if the goal is digital development, because these guidelines do exactly the opposite of what is needed.

Government versus Private Sector
Meanwhile, there has been an escalating war of words between the government and service providers. The latter are trapped in a vicious circle of heavy investment requirement with low revenue-generation capacity, as explained above. Breaking out of this trap is possible only if the government develops conducive policies, as it did with the path-breaking changes associated with the 1999 New Telecom Policy (NTP-99). The change at that time was from up-front licence fees to revenue-sharing. It fell short because the government's share was too high, and began to work only after 2003, when government charges were reduced. In like manner, the government needs to frame policies applying similar principles to spectrum, and ultimately to network infrastructure, so spectrum and networks become more productive.

Our problems arise from three sources: regulations and government charges, operator behaviour and responses, and public opinion and the perceptions and actions of the judiciary. The government can take the initiative through creating policies that facilitate investment and service delivery. Many changes are purely administrative, such as permitting unrestricted spectrum sharing without additional "conversion" charges, or reducing licence and spectrum charges. Surely the department of telecommunications, the finance ministry, and the prime minister's office understand the logic of higher net present values that accrue from incremental revenues to operators. Conversely, any restriction of revenues or opportunity loss reduces the government's share, resulting in lower net present values. For example, restricting 3G roaming or insisting on payments to convert administered spectrum before it can be shared limit revenues, resulting in opportunity losses.

The government needs to be persuasive while acting decisively, to influence operators and public opinion through well-formulated systematic initiatives. Tighter monitoring of quality, including dropped calls, and related penalties are needed - but balanced with constructive policies. These could cover enabling regulations such as for roaming and secondary spectrum sharing with the government, and in developing a consortium approach for active network sharing initiated by the government with broad private participation, led by a private-sector partner. Other potential areas include enabling, organising, and facilitating broadband through cable networks, and inducting technologies such as TV White Space and satellites.

This is where the rhetoric of leading Team India has to be walked and not just talked, to persuade and lead the sector to collaborate and not undercut institutional development.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/business-standard-september-3-2015-shyam-ponappa-more-on-those-dropped-calls

September 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2015-11-25T01:55:25Z

We are happy to share with you the ninth issue of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) newsletter (September 2015). It has been a significant month for public debates on the digital future of governance, citizenship, and economy in India, led by conversations around the draft National Encryption Policy, the Aadhaar number as a basis for provision of welfare services, the investigation of Google for potential abuse of market dominance by the Competition Commission of India, and the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions released by the Indian Patents Office. We were busy engaging with these issues, and more.

The past editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director

Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India
With great excitement, we are announcing the beginning of an annual conference series titled Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), the first edition of which is to take place in Delhi during February 25-27, 2016 (yet to be confirmed). We invite you to propose sessions for the conference by Sunday, November 15, 2015.

Highlights

CIS sent an Open Letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his US visit, requesting him to urge USA to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty. During the month, NVDA team organized training programmes for the visually impaired at Kullu, Bangalore and Ranchi. Nehaa Chaudhari in a blog post laid out a series of research questions, potentially seeking to apply actor-network theory as a research methodology. Recently, the Indian Patents Office released the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (“2015 Guidelines/ Guidelines”) in an attempt to clarify examination of software related patents in India. Anubha Sinha analysed the 2015 Guidelines. Read on to understand how the new guidelines will potentially lead to an increase in software patenting activity by expanding the scope of patentable subject matter – in negation of the legislative intent of section 3(k) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970. As a part of its content donation initiative, CIS has brought Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence. CIS-A2K has received 74 issues as of now from the Telugu Jaati foundation. Sunil Abraham’s article titled Hits and Misses with the Draft Encryption Policy was published in The Wire on September 26, 2015. Vidushi Marda in a blog post titled Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India analysed the data flow within the UID scheme and highlighted the vulnerabilities at each stage. Vanya Rakesh in a blog post titled Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill has analysed the Human DNA Profiling Bill introduced in 2012 with the provisions of the 2015 Bill. CIS sought information from ICANN on their revenue streams by sending them a second request under their Documentary Information Disclosure Policy. This request and their response have been described in a blog post by Aditya Garg. CIS has submitted a joint proposal with DataMeet and Oorvani for the Knight News Challenge 2015. We are proposing the development of "an application for users to search for locally-relevant data, discuss missing data, demand data, explore and respond to data demands by others, and start data crowd-sourcing exercises." CIS made its submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations to ICANN's CCWG-Accountability. Pranesh Prakash, on behalf of CIS, submitted comments to the Department of Telecom Panel’s report on net neutrality via MyGov. Prakash states that the report displays a far better understanding of the underlying issues than the TRAI consultation paper did, and is overall a good effort at balancing the different sides. Shyam Ponappa’s monthly column titled More on Those Dropped Calls was published by Business Standard.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Updates

September 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; September 30, 2015).

Event Reports

Training in the use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA (Organized by CIS and Lakshay for the Differently Abled; September 29 – 30, 2015; Ranchi). The event was conducted online by Dr. Homiyar over skype, with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.
5 day TOT for Training in Use of eSpeak Kannada with NVDA (Organized by CIS, Mithra Jyoti, Enable India and NFB, Bangalore; September 21 – 25, 2015; Bangalore).
eSpeak Training in Hindi Language (Organized by CIS and National Association for the Blind; Kullu; September 3 – 4, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by CIS; Atmadepam Society; August 22 – 23, 2015). The report was published in the month of September.

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Pervasive Technologies

Blog Entries

Pervasive Technologies: Working Document Series - Research Questions and a Literature Review on the Actor-Network Theory (Nehaa Chaudhari; September 5, 2015).
FAQ: CIS Proposal for Compulsory Licensing of Critical Mobile Technologies (Rohini Lakshané; September 25, 2015).

Other (Copyright and Patent)

Submission

Comments on the Guidelines for Examination of Computer Related Inventions (CRIs) (Anubha Sinha; September 21, 2015).

Blog Entries

Open Letter to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on His Visit to the United States of America in September 2015 (Pranesh Prakash and Nehaa Chaudhari; September 23, 2015).

Participation in Events

National Conference: WTO, FTAs and Investment Treaties: Implications for development policy space (Organized by Focus on the Global South, Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (ISID), Madhyam, MSF Access Campaign, National Working Group on Patent Laws and WTO (NWGPL), Public Services International (PSI) – South Asia, South Solidarity Initiative – ActionAid, Third Word Network (TWN), and Forum against FTAs; September 22 – 23, 2015; Institute for Studies in Industrial Development, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Copyright: Access to Knowledge in Free Trade Agreements?
IPEX 2015 (Organized by Confederation of Indian Industry, APTDC and TDPC; September 25 - 26, 2015; Chennai). Rohini Lakshané attended the event.

Media Coverage

Open letter from CIS to PM Modi on Intellectual Property Rights issues on his Visit to US (Apoorva Mandhani; LiveLaw; September 23, 2015).

Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entries

CIS brings Nadustunna Charithra magazine under CC BY SA licence (Tanveer Hasan; September 2, 2015).
OCR and OER – update (Subhashish Panigrahi; Open Education Working Group; September 25, 2015).
As Odia Wikipedia turns 13, what happens next? (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015). This was originally published on the Wikimedia Blog on August 21. The post was shared on Wikipedia's official Facebook page, and on Twitter handles [1 and 2].
Google's Optical Character Recognition Software Now Works with All South Asian Languages (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 26, 2015).
Wikimedia contributor shares his Linux story (Subhashish Panigrahi; September 27, 2015). This article is part of a series called My Linux Story. To participate and share your Linux story, contact us at: open@opensource.com. Read the original published by Opensource.com on September 3, 2015.

Events Co-organized

Annamaya Library edit-a-thon (Organized by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia Community; August 6, 2015; Andhra Loyola College; Vijaywada).
International Workshop on Digitization and Archiving (Organized by CIS-A2K and Wikipedia Community; August 19 – 21, 2015). Rahmanuddin Shaik was one of the trainers.

Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

Unable to read Odia on your android device? Don’t fret! (Ruby Nanda; Odisha Sun Times; September 28, 2015).

Openness

The advent of the Internet has radically redefined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.

Open Data

Submission

As one of the general stewards of the process, CIS was invited to take part in the final drafting meeting of the International Open Data Charter held before Con Datos 2015 in Santiago, Chile, but we could not take part in it. Apart from organising two public consultations on the draft Charter in Bengaluru and Delhi, we also submitted our detailed comments on the document. The final version of the Charter document has been launched at the United Nation General Assembly meeting, on September 27.

Free Software

Blog Entry

Software Freedom Pledge (Pranesh Prakash; September 25, 2015).

Internet Governance

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

Privacy

Article

Hits and Misses With the Draft Encryption Policy (Sunil Abraham; The Wire; September 26, 2015).

Blog Entries

Data Flow in the Unique Identification Scheme of India (Vidushi Marda; September 3, 2015).
Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 v/s 2015 Bill (Vanya Rakesh; September 6, 2015).
Open Governance and Privacy in a Post-Snowden World: Webinar (Vanya Rakesh; September 26, 2015).

Participation in Event

The Changing Landscape of ICT Governance and Practice - Convergence and Big Data (Co-organized by Innovation Center for Big Data and Digital Convergence, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan; August 24 – 25, 2015). Sharat Chandra Ram was granted the Young Scholar Award 2015 to attend the Young Scholar Workshop followed by main CPRSouth2015 conference (Communication Policy Research South) conference.

Free Speech and Expression

Submission

CIS Submission on CCWG-Accountability 2nd Draft Proposal on Work Stream 1 Recommendations (Pranesh Prakash; September 13, 2015).

Blog Entries

DIDP Request #11: NETmundial Principles (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
DIDP Request #12: Revenues (Aditya Garg; September 14, 2015).
Peering behind the veil of ICANN’s DIDP (Padmini Baruah; September 21, 2015).

Participation in Event

Asian Regional Consultation on the WSIS+10 Review (Organized by The Internet Democracy Project, Bytes for All, APNIC, the Association for Progressive Communications, ISOC, Global Partners Digital and ICT Watch; September 3 – 5, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event.

IGF

The tenth annual IGF meeting will be held in João Pessoa, Brazil, on November 10 - 13, 2015. IGF's MAG has decided to retain the title “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” as the overarching theme. Sunil Abraham will be a panelist for the following workshops:

Understanding and Mitigating Online Hate Speech and Youth Radicalisation (Organized by Council of Europe, Oxford University, OHCHR, Google and ISOC; November 2015).
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in Multi-stakeholder Cooperation (Organized by the United Nations; November 2015).

Cyber Security

Event Organized

Bangalore Chapter Meet of DSCI (Co-organized by DSCI and CIS; September 26, 2015). Melissa Hathaway, Commissioner, Global Commission for Internet Governance and Sunil Abraham gave a talk at this event.

Miscellaneous

Sustainable Smart Cities India Conference 2015, Bangalore (Vanya Rakesh; September 21, 2015).

Telecom

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Submission

Comments on the DoT Panel Report via MyGov (Pranesh Prakash; September 26, 2015).

Op-ed

More on those Dropped Calls (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; September 2, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; September 3, 2015).

Researchers at Work

The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

Submission

Where's My Data? Submission for Knight News Challenge 2015 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; September 30, 2015). The text of the proposal was prepared by Nisha Thompson of DataMeet, Meera K of Oorvani, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay.

Blog Entries

The Internet in the Indian Judicial Imagination (Divij Joshi; September 9, 2015).
The Many Lives and Sites of Internet in Bhubaneswar (Sailen Routray; September 21, 2015).

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Does this click with you? (Parshathy J. Nath; The Hindu; September 1, 2015).
Government may tieup with global police, Interpol to fight child pornography (Surabhi Agarwal; September 3, 2015).
Hiding behind rules on naming sites it banned, govt reveals fears (Harjeet Inder Singh Sahi; September 3, 2015).
Outrage before sharing (Nikhil Verma; The Hindu; September 9, 2015).
Faking a stand (Shweta T. Nanda; The Week; September 20, 2015).
Some Key Words Are Missing (Arindam Mukherjee; Outlook; September 21, 2015).
Open sesame (The Hindu; September 22, 2015).
India encryption policy draft faces backlash (Moulishree Srivastava; September 22, 2015)
Online outcry forces government to withdraw draft encryption policy (Naina Khedekar; First Post; September 23, 2015).
Encryption policy would have affected emails, operating systems, WiFi (Amrita Madhukalya; DNA; September 23, 2015).
Govt presses 'undo' button on draft encryption policy (Business Standard; September 23; 2015).
Huge outcry forces India to backtrack on social media data proposal (Today; September 24, 2015).
Facebook’s Free Internet Access Program in Developing Countries Provokes Backlash (Newley Purnell and Resty Woro Uniar; The Wall Street Journal; September 24, 2015).
Ahead of hosting Modi, Facebook rebrands internet.org as Free Basics (Business Standard; September 26, 2015).
‘By weakening our security, govt is putting us at risk of espionage’ (S. Raghotham and Mayukh Mukherjee; Asian Age; September 27, 2015).
ভারতে পাঁচশোরও বেশি স্টেশনে ফ্রি ওয়াই-ফাই চালু হবে (BBC; September 28, 2015).
Do you agree with our fee hike? Press 1 to answer Yes; or 2 for Yes (Kieren McCarthy; The Register; September 29, 2015).
Indian PM Narendra Modi’s digital dream gets bad reception (Amanda Hodge; September 29, 2015).
What Bengaluru Thinks of the Big Tech Announcements in Silicon Valley (Maya Sharma; NDTV; September 29, 2015).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the mediation and reconfiguration of social and cultural processes and structures by the internet and digital media technologies.

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► Request for Collaboration

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, Access to Knowledge, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/september-2015-bulletin