Centre for Internet and Society

Workshop for Web Developers on Web Accessibility

sachia — 2011-08-31T10:51:35Z

Solution Exchange, an initiative of the United Nations Agencies in India, and the Centre for Internet and Society are organizing a workshop on web accessibility for web developers from organizations in the public and private sector, with the support of The National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI). The workshop will be held in Delhi from February 16^th-18^th, 2009. CIS' media partner for the event is Disability News India.

This workshop, which will feature seven trainers and about thirty participants, is the first one of its kind, bringing together practitioners from NIC and other government departments, as well as from small and medium enterprises across the country. The primary aim of this workshop is to demonstrate the importance of creating accessible web sites and to educate the developers of government and private web sites on how to incorporate accessibility features into new as well as existing web sites.

The training will comprise both theory-oriented and practical sessions. The trainers will be specialists in various aspects of web accessibility. The main focus will be on WCAG 2.0 guidelines. The participants will be persons already involved in developing web sites with good knowledge of HTML, XML, CSS, etc. The workshop will in a sense not only help in training web developers in accessibility, but will also attempt to increase capacity building by training potential accessibility trainers. There will also be a session where key persons involved in the working groups on accessibility, e-governance architecture and open standards will share the National Informatics Centre perspective.

Many of the sessions will be documented as lessons on accessibility and put up on the CIS web site. As part of the outcome of the workshop, five inaccessible government web sites will be identified and taken up for retrofitting with accessibility features within the next few months.

In its move to support web accessibility, NIXI has already undertaken the translation of the WCAG 2.0 standards into Hindi--the first translation of the WCAG into any Indian language. This is intended to aid web developers in the need for creating accessible web sites.

Please click on the links for more information about the proposed sessions to be held at the workshop and the participating trainers.

The workshop will be held in the Human Resource Development Centre Building of the CSIR in Ghaziabad (HRDC building, CSIR, Sector 19, Central Government Enclave, Kamla Nehru Nagar, Ghaziabad-201002, UP).

Map

Please refer to the map as necessary.

Participants

Click here for a complete list of participants and their organisational affiliations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/workshop-for-web-developers-on-web-accessibility

Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller

praskrishna — 2012-12-18T06:51:46Z

The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore is hosting a talk by Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation at its office in Bangalore on November 12, 2012, from 11.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m., followed by a lunch discussion.

Talk Summary

Wikipedia's technology platform is rapidly changing, with improvements being deployed every day. Unlike other top websites, Wikipedia is run by a non-profit (Wikimedia Foundation) and all its technology is open source, ready to be improved and extended by you.

Learn about the recent and coming technology changes to Wikipedia and Wikimedia's other projects: the new Visual Editor, improvements to mobile sites and apps, Wikidata, and projects with mysterious codenames like "Echo", "Milkshake", "Agora" and "Flow". Learn how to get involved and ask anything you'd like to know about Wikipedia.

Erik Moeller

Erik Moeller is the Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation, overseeing a department of about 70 people. Erik has been involved in Wikipedia since 2001 and joined the staff of Wikimedia in 2008. He previously worked as a journalist and project manager.

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller

Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad

praskrishna — 2012-10-25T08:42:56Z

CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad Campus are organizing a hackathon for their tech fest — ATMOS on October 26 - 27, 2012, from 6.00 p.m. on October 26 to 6.00 a.m. on October 27.

An all night hackathon to get started in contributing technically to the world’s largest source of free information – Wikipedia. The code that you write (and eventually deploy) will be viewed/used 7,938,026,125 times a month! Write user scripts that fix annoying little things with the way Wikipedia functions. Write bots to import (and accurately maintain) large amounts of information from various sources into Wikipedia. Write tools to make it easier to maintain Wikipedia’s standards and fight spam. Most of all join the awesome Open Source community and have fun!

Pre-requisites:

Preferable working knowledge of HTML/CSS/Javascript *or* python.

Laptops, which you will have to carry with you.

To register for the event, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad

Whose Data is it Anyway?

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:12:15Z

Tactical Technology Collective and the Centre for Internet & Society invite you to the second round of discussions of the Exposing Data Series at the CIS office in Bangalore on 24 January 2012. Siddharth Hande and Hapee de Groot will be speaking on this occasion.

Like countless others, this title is a convenient adaptation of a 1972 play by Brian Clark, Whose Life is it Anyway?, a meditation on 'euthanasia' and the extent to which governments or the law can determine the private life of an individual. In a similar sense we use the title to help frame the second set of conversations in the Exposing Data Series, to zero in on the idea of data and who has the right to decide what happens with it. Philosophically, and also at the level of code, computing and the law, the ownership of data can be a somewhat odd and a contentious thing to grapple with. The only other understandings of 'ownership' we really have are those of property and identity and these get imputed onto the intangibility of data. And, in some senses now, many aspects of one's identity exist as data.

There are a range of experiences of data ownership that we talk about and experience daily. On the one hand you can hoard hard disks with favourite content to retrieve memories and experiences. On the other end of things, you can aggregate your experiences and memories with that of thousands of others, that then gets treated almost like a private hard disk belonging to some mysterious X. Who is this Mysterious X? Is there a Y? Or an XY? What is the trajectory of data in its movement from the individual to a larger, shadowy infrastructure that harvests it? What happens to our idea of data in its reconfiguration from intangible code to an idea of politics and rights? To introduce another provocation, do our existing ideas of data ownership objectify individuals? What does this objectification imply for the notion of personal privacy? For example, does the fetishization of 'things' called data obfuscate the idea of personal privacy?

One of the ways in which we may consider looking at open data initiatives for transparency and accountability is to assess it as discourse, and in relation to what happens when communities aggregate data. Open Government Data usually involves a top-down approach in terms of how it is aggregated, collated, shared, whilst community based approaches are more particular, contextual and local. What do these different approaches give us when we bring them to the same table?

The second event in the Exposing Data Series will focus on data ownership, looking into open government data and community-based data aggregation, to explore the various levels of data collection, the movement of data and its exchange, its representation, and dissemination in different contexts.

Speakers

Siddharth Hande, Transparent Chennai
Hapee de Groot, Hivos, Netherlands

This event is free and open to everyone. However, we would appreciate a confirmation of attendance ahead of time so as to ensure that your space is reserved. To confirm your attendance please write to: yelena.gyulkhandanyan@gmail.com

Photo Source: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=2000

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/whose-data-is-it

Web Sites Accessibility Evaluation Methodologies: A New Imperative for State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

praskrishna — 2011-08-31T10:40:17Z

W3C-WAI, G3ict and CIS are joining hands to organise the 20th International World Wide Web Conference in Hyderabad, India on March 30, 2011 at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Room H-01.

While web accessibility principles and guidelines have already become well known and been adopted by many countries, measuring the accessibility of web sites for users living with different types of disabilities remains a complex endeavor subject to a number of possible methodological challenges. Yet, with web accessibility policies and programs increasingly implemented around the world as a result of the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (98 countries representing over 75 per cent of the world population), policy makers, organizations of persons with disabilities, web site owners and courts when legal action is taken will inevitably need to rely on well-defined evaluation methodologies and benchmarks.

The panel, which will take place during the first day of the W3C Track with focus on web accessibility and discuss current accessibility evaluation methodologies and their challenges, policy makers requirements, current plans of the W3C-WAI, and practical technical survey methodologies alternatives.

Panelists will include: Glenda Sims(Deque Systems), ShadiAbouZahra (W3C-WAI), Neeta Verma (National Informatics Centre, Government of India), NirmitaNarasimhan (Center for Internet and Society), and SrinivasuChakravarthula (Yahoo! India).

Co-organizers: W3C-WAI, G3ict, CIS
Duration: 90 minutes
Moderator:NirmitaNarasimhan, Program Manager, CIS and Editor, G3ict – ITU Policy Toolkit Handbook

Panel Agenda:

Introduction:NirmitaNarasimhan, Program Manager, CIS and Editor, G3ict – ITU Policy Toolkit Handbookwill welcome participants on behalf of co-organizers CIS, G3ict and W3C, introduces speakers and topics:

NirmitaNarasimhan will share G3ict’s perspective on the CRPD and its global impact as well as the legislative, regulatory and judicial requirements for a reliable evaluation methodology of web accessibility.
ShadiAbou Zahra will describe the work of W3C-WAI in this domain, and discuss the multiple tools available, methodological challenges and future work currently planned.
Glenda Sims, Senior Accessibility Consultant willpresents Deque’s experience and the technical details of evaluating and testing enterprise level websites, comparing methodologies and suggesting solutions to establish guidelines.
SrinivasuChakravarthula, Accessibility Manager at Yahoo! India, member of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) India’s National Advisory Board and of the NASSCOM’s Disability Working Committee, will present industry’s perspectives and the need to rely on clear accessibility benchmarks.
Neeta Verma, Senior Technical Director, Data Centre& Web Services Division, National Informatics Centre will discuss web accessibility assessment methodologies from an e-governance standpoint.
Q&As among panelists and the audience.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/w3c-conference-hyderabad

UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T03:40:07Z

On September 24, 2012, the Centre for Internet & Society in collaboration with the Alternative Law Forum invites the public to a talk with international experts, Helen Wallace from GeneWatch, UK and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics in the United States. The meeting will be held at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore from 5.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

The UK National DNA Database was the first to be established, in 1995, and is the largest per capita in the world. A major DNA expansion programme began in 2000 but is now being rolled back by the implementation of a new Protection of Freedoms Act, following a judgment against the UK government by the European Court of Rights. The lessons for the UK experience for the DNA Bill in India will be discussed, including the need for safeguards to protect privacy and rights, maintain public trust in police use of DNA, and prevent miscarriages of justice.

Dr. Helen Wallace

Dr. Helen Wallace is Director of GeneWatch UK, a not-for-profit organisation which aims to engage members of the public in ensuring that genetic science and technologies are used in the public interest. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the social and ethical issues raised by DNA databases and is widely quoted in the UK press. Helen provided expert evidence to the applicants in the case of S. and Marper v. the UK at the European Court of Human Rights, in which the Court ruled unanimously that the indefinite retention of innocent people's DNA database records was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. She has supplied both oral and written evidence on this issue to numerous parliamentary committees including the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee and the UK Science and Technology, Home Affairs and Constitutional Committees, as well as the scrutiny committee for the Protection of Freedoms Act, 2012. This new Act requires the removal of about a million innocent people's records from the UK National DNA Database and the destruction of all stored biological samples.

Jeremy Gruber

Jeremy Gruber is the President and Executive Director of Council for Responsible Genetics. Jeremy joined CRG in March 2009. Previously he served as the legal director of the National Workrights Institute, a human rights organization dedicated to the rights of American workers. Prior to that he served as the field director for the ACLU’s National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. Jeremy has worked for over a decade on genetic non-discrimination legislation at the state and Federal level. He helped author and pass numerous state laws on genetic non-discrimination. Jeremy is a founder and executive committee member of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a group of 500 organizations that advocated for genetic non-discrimination legislation on Capitol Hill and played a major role in the recently passed Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) by Congress. He worked closely with members of Congress and staff on GINA language as well as strategy and support. He is a prolific writer on privacy issues and is often consulted by state legislatures. He is regularly featured in print, radio and television. Jeremy holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from St. John’s University School of Law and a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University.

Overview and Concerns Regarding the Indian Draft DNA Profiling Act

Forensic DNA: A Human Rights Challenge

The above video was originally posted in YouTube

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/uk-dna-database-and-european-court-of-human-rights-lessons-that-india-can-learn-from-mistakes

Tweet a Review of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause Books

praskrishna — 2012-01-07T14:42:32Z

Essays from 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?' books are getting reviewed. We invite everyone to participate in this book review event! Deadline: January 31

Read one essay from the 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?' books published by the Centre for Internet & Society and HIVOS.
Download PDFs here.

Post a review on your blog

Tweet the review's link on Twitter using #TweetReview and copy @cis_india

For e.g. "Unpacking the shiny packaging of Digital Natives" Book 2 To Think #TweetReview http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/unpacking-from-shiny-packaging @cis_india
Send us a link to your view

For more details about the event and the essays you want to review, email: nilofar.ansh@gmail.com

Tweet-a-Review is a monthly event organized as part of the 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' project.

Read previous reviews here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/tweet-a-review

Thinking with Data@CIS

praskrishna — 2012-09-05T08:11:49Z

The Thinking with Data course offered at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS) will be screened at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. The screening will be followed by online discussions with the faculty through Skype or Google+ Hangouts.

Introduction to the course

Rajesh and Anand are offering a course titled Thinking with Data at NIAS. It’ll be covered in 12 – 14 two-hour sessions. The course will cover the basic ways in which we can use data to enhance our thinking capacities. Click here for more information about the course.

Salient Features

How to think with data and work on interesting problems.
Refresher course in programming using Python and HTML.
Discussions and FAQs with faculty and participants.
Project work.

Timings and Venue

It will be screened every Wednesday, starting from September 12, 2012, from 6.30 p.m. to 8.30 p.m.
Venue: Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

As part of the class, we are also offering a refresher course in Python and HTML

Objectives: Introduction to Programming using Python

Hardware Requirement: Learners should bring their own laptops

Prerequisites: Enthusiasm to learn.

Audience Level: Learners with following answers are welcomed.

I’m not too comfortable with programming
I can program, but not that well in Python
I’m good at Python

Timings of the Refresher Course:

September 16, 2012: 5:00 to 8.30 p.m.

September 17, 2012: 5:00 to 8:30 p.m.

September 18, 2012: 5:00 to 8:30 p.m.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/thinking-with-data

The Right to Read Campaign - Chennai

radha — 2011-08-31T10:45:38Z

A nationwide Right to Read campaign began with road shows in the four metro cities of India and was then carried on in other cities. The events comprised of presentations, debates and demonstrations, book reading sessions and setting up of stalls where various accessibility tools were demonstrated. The first road show was held in Loyola College, Chennai on 26th September, 2009.

The Problem Statement

Millions of Indians are unable to read printed material due to disabilities. Technologies are in place which can help them read printed matter if the material gets converted into alternate formats such as large print, audio, Braille or other electronic formats. Whereas the Constitution of India declares “right to read” a fundamental right, the provisions of the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 does not permit conversion of books into accessible formats for the benefit of persons with print impairment, as a result of which a “book famine” is created. International conventions to which India is a signatory to specifically requires it to amend its copyright laws for the benefit of persons with disabilities and make available information and materials to persons with disabilities on an equal basis as others.

Publishers too do not make books available in accessible formats as a result of which less than 0.5 per cent of books are available in accessible formats in India. As a result, persons with print impairments get excluded from the education system and this has a big impact on their career choices. Further, there are no national policies or action plans to ensure that publications in accessible formats in all Indian languages are made available to persons with print disabilities all over the country.

Objectives of the Right to Read Campaign

To accelerate change in copyright law;
To raise public awareness on the issue; and
To gather Indian support for the Treaty for the Blind proposed by the World Blind Union at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

Your Support for the Campaign

No campaign is complete without the endorsement of leaders in the field. We invite you to lend your name and support to this campaign in large numbers and help us make this campaign a success. If you wish to do so, please e-mail Nirmita Narasimhan: nirmita@cis-india.org. Declaration on the Right to Read.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/the-right-to-read-campaign-chennai

The Public Voice: Privacy Rights are a Global Challenge

praskrishna — 2012-10-22T14:28:09Z

October 21, 2012 is an important day for global civil society defending privacy and free speech. The Public Voice coalition will be hosting a global conference in Punta del Este, Uruguay, and you are invited to take part in the conversation and interact with the panelists. Malavika Jayaram is speaking at this event.

You can follow the live conversation here, and join the conversation by using #thepublicvoice hashtag, ask questions, participate in polls and interact with those covering the event in several languages. The conference aims to assess cultures and privacy perspectives from around the World, and members of civil society wil discuss the spread of Surveillance Technologies and its implications in societies, experts will explore Latin American policy, law, and technology perspectives on privacy governance and suggest to governments and private sector to safeguard citizens privacy.

You can read the program and follow the live Webcast in English and Spanish.

During the day the panelists will assess cultures and privacy perspectives from around the world. They will raise public awareness of surveillance technology and its consequences to consumers, for freedom of expression and human rights, and they will explore Latin American policy, law, and technology perspectives. It is the small window civil society has before the 34th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners comprising all the governmental agencies all over the World, webcast available here. It certainly can bring the relevant topics for citizens to the discussion table. I hope you join us.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-rights-are-a-global-challenge

The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices

praskrishna — 2012-09-17T05:54:30Z

On the 27th of September 2012 the Centre for Internet & Society invites the public to a meeting and talk with international experts Helen Wallace from GeneWatch UK, and Jeremy Gruber from the Council for Responsible Genetics from the United States. The meeting will take place from 9.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m. at the India International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi in Conference Room No. 2.

The public meeting and talk will focus on the proposed DNA Profiling Bill pending in Parliament and explore best practices concerning the collection, storage, and retention of DNA samples and best practices concerning the analysis of DNA samples and use of DNA samples as evidence in courts. Case studies from the US and the UK will be explored to understand what India can do better from the experiences of other countries.

Dr Helen Wallace

Dr Helen Wallace is Director of GeneWatch UK, a not-for-profit organisation which aims to engage members of the public in ensuring that genetic science and technologies are used in the public interest. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on the social and ethical issues raised by DNA databases and is widely quoted in the UK press. Helen provided expert evidence to the applicants in the case of S. and Marper v. the UK at the European Court of Human Rights, in which the Court ruled unanimously that the indefinite retention of innocent people's DNA database records was in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. She has supplied both oral and written evidence on this issue to numerous parliamentary committees including the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee and the UK Science and Technology, Home Affairs and Constitutional Committees, as well as the scrutiny committee for the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. This new Act requires the removal of about a million innocent people's records from the UK National DNA Database and the destruction of all stored biological samples.

Jeremy Gruber

Jeremy Gruber is the JD, President and Executive Director of Council for Responsible Genetics. Jeremy joined CRG in March 2009. Previously he served as the legal director of the National Workrights Institute, a human rights organization dedicated to the rights of American workers. Prior to that he served as the field director for the ACLU’s National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace. Jeremy has worked for over a decade on genetic non-discrimination legislation at the state and Federal level. He helped author and pass numerous state laws on genetic non-discrimination. Jeremy is a founder and executive committee member of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a group of 500 organizations that advocated for genetic non-discrimination legislation on Capitol Hill and played a major role in the recently passed Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) by Congress. He worked closely with members of Congress and staff on GINA language as well as strategy and support. He is a prolific writer on privacy issues and is often consulted by state legislatures. He is regularly featured in print, radio and television. Jeremy holds a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from St. John’s University School of Law and a B.A. in Politics from Brandeis University.

Forensic DNA: A Human Rights Challenge

The above video was originally posted in YouTube

Click on the links below to download the files:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/the-dna-profiling-bill-developing-best-practices

The Awesome Contracts Project (Geekup @ CIS)

praskrishna — 2012-05-11T12:17:09Z

Vivek Durai, co-founder at Awesome Contracts, a Singapore-India startup will give a public lecture on May 18, 2012 at the Centre for Internet & Society in Bangalore. Lawyer, musician, legal recruiter and entrepreneur, Amith Narayan will also participate through Skype!

The Awesome Contracts Project

Contracts are ubiquitous in our everyday life. They are also a nuisance. And they typically come attached with a bigger nuisance - lawyers! Interestingly though, contracts are a lot like code. Geek-lawyers, a very small, minuscule tribe on this planet, tend to notice a lot of similarities between the two. If this is true, it opens up a lot of possibilities, including changing the way we do business and in particular generate contracts, negotiate and seal deals.

We'll talk about some of the technology and some of the products we're working on that we think can provide power to a lot of folks.

Agenda

17:00 - 17:05	Welcome with Tea, Coffee, and Snacks
17:05 - 17:15	Lightning Talks
17:15 - 18:00	The Awesome Contracts Project
18:00 - 18:30	Q & A

Vivek Durai

Vivek Durai is a co-founder at Awesome Contracts, a Singapore-India startup that is working on interesting problems in the field of law and contracts. As with just about everyone else, he and co-founder Amith Narayan would like to change the world. Preferably, for the better. Vivek and Amith are both alumnus of the National Law School of India University.

Vivek is a lawyer by training, a geek by nature, and generally human. Most of the time. As far as ideologies go, Vivek is a Pythonista currently flirting with Node and other things. He is also incidentally a Partner at Atman Law Partners, a young three office boutique law firm.

Amith Narayan

Amith Narayan loves hats. He likes them so much in fact, he's been wearing all kinds. He has been a corporate lawyer, a musician, a record producer, a legal recruiter, and now an entrepreneur running this crazy little startup. Amith grew up in Calicut (Kozhikode) Kerala, trained in law at NLSIU, worked in the grand dame of the Indian legal world - Crawford Bayley - before moving to Singapore where he's been living for the past 10 years. Amith will join us over Skype during the talk.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/awesom-contracts-project

The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School

praskrishna — 2012-08-02T13:23:14Z

The 2nd Biannual Inter Asia Cultural Studies (IACS) Summer School will be hosted in Bangalore, India by the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) with the Inter Asia Cultural Studies Consortium. The event will be held in the first and second week of August 2012.

The IACS Summer School brings together South and East Asian experts from different disciplines as faculty for graduate and advanced research students to engage with key issues of larger social, cultural and political concerns in Cultural Studies in Asia. Any student registered in a post-graduate degree program is eligible for the IACS Summer School. There are limited seats and students will be selected based on their applications. Students registered at universities participating in the Consortium of Inter Asia Cultural Studies Institutions will be given first preference.

The Summer School 2012 proposes to integrate the teaching with core IACS faculty with the larger realities of change in South and East Asia. It proposes a 10 + 4 day structure.

Core Course: Methodologies for Cultural Studies in Asia: The Summer School offers a 10 day core course that works through seminars, taught classrooms, tutorials, open spaces, field trips and workshops. The core course shall address questions of Cultural Identity, Modernity, Nationalism, Gender, Class, Revolution and Asianism to frame an argument about relocating methods, concepts and ideas in contemporary Cultural Studies in Asia.

Day/Date	Time	Session	Instructors	Readings
Aug 02 (Thu)	09:30-10:00	Introduction to Course/Orientation
	10:00-1:00	Session 1: The Question of Knowledge	Instructors: Daniel PS Goh Nithin Manayath	The Epistemological Value of East Asian Perspective – Sun Ge Knowledge Production in the Era of Neo-Liberal Globalisation – Kuan-Hsing Chen Teaching versus Research? – Meaghan Morris
	3:00-5:00	Student Presentations	Choi, Ji Yeon Ajinkya Shenava Khetrimayum M Singh Vincent Chung Jaime Fang-Tze Hsu
Aug 03 (Fri)		Culture Industries workshop
		Workshop party
Aug 04 (Sat)	10:00-1:00	Session 2: The Question of Culture	Instructors: Asha Achuthan Ratheesh Radhakrishnan	Hind Swaraj – Chs IV, VI, XII, XIII – MK Gandhi Value Typology of Chinese Peasants and Its Transformation in Contemporary China – He Xuefeng An Elaborative Argumentation of a Nong-Country – Zhang Shi Zhao
	3:00-5:00	Student Presentations	Annisa Beta Ying-Tzu, Liu (Eva) Li, Yen-Chieh Sharib Aqleem Ali Li, Cho Kiu (Joseph)	Venue: 1 Shanti Road
	6:00-8:00	EVENING SALON	Tejaswini Niranjana and Kuan-Hsing Chen	Venue: 1 Shanti Road
Aug 05 (Sun)		HOLIDAY
Aug 06 (Mon)	10:00-1:00	Session 3: Nationalism and Modernity	Instructor: Milind Wakankar Student Presentations: Mai Thi Thu Baidurya Chakrabarti Zhang, Bing Musab Iqbal Meng Hsien Lu	On Nation – Zhang Tai Yan Nationalism in India – Rabindranath Tagore New Dominant Ideology and Changes of Urban Space in Today's Shanghai – Wang Xiaoming The Twilight of Certitudes: Secularism, Hindu Nationalism and Other Masks of Deculturation – Ashis Nandy A National Culture for Pakistan: the political economy of a debate – Saadia Toor
	3:00-5:00		Instructor: Madhuja M Student Presentations: Pan Yifan Zhang Zhihui Se Young Oh
		EVENING SALON	Stephen Chah and Ashish Rajadhyaksha	Venue: Centre for Internet and Society
Aug 07 (Tue)	10:00-1:00	Session 4: Culture and Economy	Instructors: Radhika P Raghu Tenkayala	In the Margin of the Capital: From ‘Tjerita Boedjang Bingoeng’ to ‘Si Doel anak sekolahan’ The Emergent Culture of Consumption – Chua Beng Huat ‘Bollywood’ 2004; When Was Bollywood – Ashish Rajadhyaksha Peasant Cultures of the 21st Century – Partha Chatterjee
	3:00-5:00	Student Presentations	Chan Ka Yi Kim Yoon Young Tanna Shilpa Shirishkumar Ruchi Jaggi Haesook Yong
Aug 08 (Wed)	10:00-1:00	Session 5: Gender and Culture	Instructors: Navaneetha Mokkil Nitya Vasudevan	Why Culture Matters – Tejaswini Niranjana Prostitutes Parasites and the house of state feminism – Naifei Ding Women and Freedom – Firdous Azim Letters to the Editor: The domestic violence act and conflict Spectralization of the Rural: Reinterpreting the labour mobility of rural young women in post-Mao China – Yan Hairong
	3:00-5:00	Student Presentations	Elmo I-Che Hsu Pang Ka Wei (Janet) Li-Fang Lai Kris Yu-Shiuan Chi Samia Vasa Shwetha D Ryu M-Rye Sabreena Ahmed
	6:00-8:00	EVENING SALON	Firdous Azim and Naifei Ding/Siddharth/Arvind in conversation	Venue: Alternative Law Forum
Aug 09 (Thurs)	10:00-1:00	FIELD TRIP	SURESH JAYARAM – Pettai Tour
Aug 10 (Fri)	10:00-1:00	Session 6: Understanding Popular Cultural Practice	Instructors: Namita Malhotra Nishant Shah	Hong Kong Action film in the Indian B Circuit – SV Srinivas Inter-Asia Comparative Framework: Postcolonial Film Historiography in Taiwan and South Korea Kim Soyoung Fan Bhakti and Subaltern Sovereignty – Madhava Prasad
	3:00-5:00	Student Presentations	Samhita Sunya Khatija Sana Khader Ayesha Maria Mualla Antoreep Sengupta
Aug 11 (Sat)		UNWORKSHOP DAY (Writing)	Evening: Final Party

Optional Courses: 2 Additional 4-days parallel Courses shall be offered to participants interested in specialised inquiries of their research practice.

Course A. The Digital Subject: Science, Technology and Society in Asia

Course Coordinator: Nishant Shah

Course Instructors: Nishant Shah, Lawrence Liang and Ashish Rajadhyaksha

Course B. Research Seminar on Technology, Culture & the Body

Course Coordinator: Nitya Vasudevan

Course Instructors: Tejaswini Niranjana, DING Naifei, Audrey Yue, Wing-Kwong Wong, Hsing-Wen Chang, Nitya Vasudevan

Nandy

A National Culture for Pakistan: the political economy of a debate – Saadia Toor

Nandy

A National Culture for Pakistan: the political economy of a debate – Saadia Toor

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/iacs-summer-school-2012

Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham

praskrishna — 2012-09-04T10:44:34Z

Katherine Sydenham from the University of Michigan School of Information will deliver a lecture at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bangalore on August 10, 2012, from 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Abstract

The current investigation explores the possibility of comparison of techniques used by technology evangelists and religious evangelists. The study sought informants from three major categories: proprietary software evangelists, proponents of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and religious evangelists of several religious traditions. A preliminary analysis of qualitative data indicates that there are enough similarities in strategies used by members from each group to make the inquiry relevant. Early data also reveal significant differences in each group´s strategy that may inform and shape future efforts on behalf of technology evangelists to reach a wider audience for their products.

Katherine Sydenham

Katherine is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan School of Information. Her research in the Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) field focuses on technology adoption by marginalized communities. Her background is in Religious Studies and Library and Information Science. Her summer internship at Microsoft Research is exploring the strategic similarities between technology evangelism and religious evangelism.

Click here to read more about Katherine

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/technology-evangelists-religious-evangelists

Securing e-Governance: Ensuring Data Protection and Privacy

praskrishna — 2012-06-15T04:10:57Z

Privacy India in partnership with the Centre for Internet & Society, International Development Research Centre, and Society in Action Group is organizing a discussion on E-Governance. It is based on the theme, ‘Security and Privacy Issues’, and will be held in Ahmedabad, Gujarat on June 16, 2012, from 9.30 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. Registration is free and open to the public.

India has witnessed a rapid proliferation of the use of information and communication technology in the delivery of government services. E-government is seen as an instrument to simultaneously increase the efficiency, transparency and accountability of public administration and improve public service delivery. Consequently, this has transformed the traditional delivery of public sector services, this is known as “e-governance”. These developments have implications and pose challenges for privacy and security.

The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. — people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected.

Since June 2010, Privacy India in collaboration with Privacy International, based in London, has been engaging in public awareness through workshops and consultations. These provide a platform for policy makers, sectoral experts, NGOs, and the public to discuss and deliberate different questions of privacy, its intersections and its implications with our everyday life. The discussions have ranged from topics of identity and privacy, to minority rights and privacy, and consumer privacy. The workshops have been organized in different cities — Bangalore, Guwahati, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Goa, etc.

Agenda

9.00 - 9.30	Registration
9.30 - 10.00	Welcome Prashant Iyengar is a practicing lawyer and lead researcher for Privacy India. He will present who Privacy India is, and the objectives of Privacy India's research. His presentation will focus on discussing privacy in India.
10.00 - 10.15	Tea Break
10.15 - 10.45	Session I People as the Most Vulnerable Link in e-Governance Dr. Nityesh Bhatt, Sr. Associate Professor and Chairperson in the information Management Area at Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad
10.45 - 11.15	Ongoing e-Governance projects: Issue with security and privacy Professor Subhash Bhatnagar, Advisor - Center for Electronic Governance, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
11.15 - 11.25	Discussion
11.25 - 11.55	E-governance: What is it? Mr. Gopalkrishnan Devanathan (Kris Dev), Co-founder of the International Transparency and Accountability Network.
11.55 - 12.25	Security and privacy in e-governance with reference to the Gujarat Government Dr. Neeta Shah, Director (eGovernance), Gujarat Informatics, Ltd.
12.25 - 12.35	Discussion
12.35 - 1.20	Lunch Break
1.20 - 1.50	Session II Cyber Usages: Challenges and Dispute Resolution Utkarsh Jani, Advocate, Jani Advocates
1.50 - 2.20	Concern for privacy and security of the common man Dr. Mrinalini Shah, Professor of Operations Management at Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad
2.20 - 2.50	Security issues in e-Governance: A hacker's perspective Mr. Sunny Vaghela, Founder & CTO, TechDefence Private Limited
2.50 - 3.00	Discussion
3.00 - 3.30	Session III Securing the desktop through Virtualisation Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Regional Manager East, CG & MP at NComputing Inc
3.30 - 4.00	Opening up Data and privacy Ms. Nisha Thompson, Data Project Manager at Arghyam/India Water Portal
4.00 - 4.10	Discussion
4.10 - 4.25	Tea Break
4.25 - 5.00	Discussion and Questions

Confirmed Speakers

Dr. Nityesh Bhatt, Sr. Associate Professor and Chairperson in the Information Management Area at Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad
Utkarsh Jani, Advocate, Jani Advocates
Gopalakrishnan Devanathan (Kris Dev), Co-Founder of the International Transparency and Accountability Network
Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar, Advisor- CEG- IIMA
Anindya Kumar Banerjee, Regional Manager- East, CG & MP @ NComputing India
Nisha Thompson, Consultant, India Water Portal
Dr. Mrinalini Shah, Professor, NMIMS University, Mumbai
Sunny Vaghela, Founder & CTO, TechDefence Private Limited
Prashant Iyengar, Assistant Professor, Jindal Global Law School & Assistant Director, Centre for Intellectual Property Rights Studies

Please confirm your participation with Natasha Vaz at natasha@cis-india.org. We sincerely hope you will be able to attend and look forward to your participation.

Download the following:

E-Governance, Identity and Privacy [PDF, 253 Kb]
Event Poster [PDF, 162 Kb]
Event Brochure [PDF, 1618 Kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/securing-e-governance

Centre for Internet and Society

Workshop for Web Developers on Web Accessibility

Map

Participants

Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller

Talk Summary

Erik Moeller

Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad

Pre-requisites:

Whose Data is it Anyway?

Speakers

Web Sites Accessibility Evaluation Methodologies: A New Imperative for State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Panel Agenda:

UK DNA Database and the European Court of Human Rights: Lessons that India can Learn from Its Mistakes

Dr. Helen Wallace

Jeremy Gruber

Forensic DNA: A Human Rights Challenge

Tweet a Review of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause Books

Thinking with Data@CIS

Introduction to the course

The Right to Read Campaign - Chennai

The Problem Statement

Objectives of the Right to Read Campaign

Your Support for the Campaign

The Public Voice: Privacy Rights are a Global Challenge

The DNA Profiling Bill: Developing Best Practices

Dr Helen Wallace

Jeremy Gruber

Forensic DNA: A Human Rights Challenge

The Awesome Contracts Project (Geekup @ CIS)

The Awesome Contracts Project

Agenda

Vivek Durai

Amith Narayan

The Asian Edge: 2012 Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society Summer School

Technology Evangelists and Religious Evangelists — A Talk by Katherine Sydenham

Abstract

Katherine Sydenham

Securing e-Governance: Ensuring Data Protection and Privacy

Agenda

Session I

Session II

Session III

Confirmed Speakers

Download the following: