Centre for Internet and Society

Yesha

praskrishna — 2019-08-15T16:46:01Z

Yesha Paul

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Shruthi

praskrishna — 2019-08-15T16:45:29Z

Shruthi

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Radhika

praskrishna — 2019-08-15T16:44:47Z

Radhika Radhakrishnan

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Pallavi

praskrishna — 2019-08-15T16:44:14Z

Pallavi

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Khetrimayum

praskrishna — 2019-08-15T16:43:28Z

Khetrimayum

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Data for Good Bangalore

praskrishna — 2019-07-31T02:12:45Z

Data for Good

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Data for Good

praskrishna — 2019-07-31T02:05:09Z

Data for Good

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July 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-08-09T13:50:49Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for July 2019.

Highlights for July 2019
CIS presented its comments on the proposed rules 29,30,31 of the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The comments were made in response to Notification G.S.R 393(E) published in the Gazette of India on May 30, 2019. CIS submitted that in the domestic approach to modernising our copyright legislation, we must refrain from considering distribution of born-digital/ digitised works over the public Internet equivalent to the function of broadcasting works over cable/ satellite. The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations have shown keen interest in collaboration. Subodh Kulkarni shares some insights in his report. ICANN has Advisory Committees which help guide the policy recommendations that the ICANN community develops while its Supporting Organizations are charged with developing policy recommendations for a particular aspect of ICANN's operations. ICANN publishes a combined budget for all these bodies under the head of policy development. CIS inquired about the financial resources allocated to each of them specifically. CIS in partnership with the Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. It was divided into two roundtable discussions, the first one focusing on the policies and regulation while the latter dealt with the technical evolution of the Internet. The roundtables aimed to analyze how growing forces of consolidation, including concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and barriers to market entry and competition would influence the Internet in the next 3 to 5 years. The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover provides an insight into the developments. As part of its Researchers at work programme on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society, CIS called for abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. Ten abstracts would be shortlisted by August 9 from the list of submissions and the selected authors would be requested to submit the full essay of their draft by September 15. Final versions of the essays are expected to be published in October. With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there is a growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the working conditions of people who work for them. To explore this further CIS conducted a panel discussion at its Bangalore office. Researchers associated with the project presented their preliminary findings. Panelists preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work. An excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives titled You auto-complete me: romancing the bot explains human relations with bots. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

CIS and the News

The following articles were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:

Fostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond (Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu; The Diplomat; July 3, 2019).
Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 4, 2019).
What is the problem with ‘Ethical AI’? An Indian Perspective (A rindrajit Basu and Pranav M.B; cyberBRICS; July 17, 2019).
Old Isn't Always Gold: FaceApp and Its Privacy Policies (Mira Swaminathan and Shweta Reddy; The Wire; July 20, 2019).
The worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 22, 2019).
India Is Falling Down the Facial Recognition Rabbit Hole (Karan Saini and Prem Sylvester; The Wire; July 23, 2019).
Why I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 28, 2019).
The Digital Identification Parade (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Indian Express; July 29, 2019). The authors acknowledge Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu for their edits and Karan Saini for his inputs.
In India, Privacy Policies of Fintech Companies Pay Lip Service to User Rights (Shweta Mohandas; The Wire; July 30, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:

PIB plans a fact-checking unit to counter fake news (Smriti Kak Ramachandran; Hindustan Times; July 3, 2019).
How Sai Baba Was Made To Spy On Your Phone For Credit Ratings (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 4, 2019).
Mozilla is funding a way to support Julia in Firefox (Catalin Cimpanu; ZD Net; July 8, 2019).
Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; July 14, 2019).
Digital public information system design: Talk to experts, find the right way (Prachatai; July 18, 2019).
Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation (Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani; Observer Research Foundation; July 22, 2019).
For sex workers, mobile phone becomes a double-edged sword (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; July 23, 2019).
Twitter reacts to the India's cryptocurrency drama (Rajarshi Mitra; FXStreet; July 26, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.

Copyright and Patent

Research on harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Submission

Comments on the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 concerning Statutory Licensing (Anubha Sinha; July 11, 2019). This submission presents comments to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“DPIIT”), Ministry of Commerce and Industry pertaining to the notification G.S.R 393(E) containing the draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 issued on 30th May 2019.

Wikipedia

Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project 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.

Blog Entries

Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University (Subodh Kulkarni; July 19, 2019).
Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh (Subodh Kulkarni; July 30, 2019).
Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations (Subodh Kulkarni; July 31, 2019).

Openness

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:

Participation in Event

Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work (Organized by Kai Hsin Hung; IT for Change; Bangalore; July 13, 2019). Torsha and Mira attended the workshop.

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.

Freedom of Speech & Expression

Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

DIDP #34 On granular detail on ICANN's budget for policy development process (Akriti Bopanna; July 6, 2019).

Participation in Events

13th European Summer School on Internet Governance (Organized by European Summer School on Internet Governance; Meissen; July 13 - 20, 2019). Akriti Bopanna attended the school.
ICANN 65 De-briefing Meeting (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations ; July 16, 2019). Akriti Bopanna remotely presented on the Human Rights related developments that took place at the Marrakech meeting, over the course of the 4 days.

Privacy

Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019). The blog post was edited by Swaraj Barooah, Elonnai Hickok and Vishnu Ramachandran. Swagam Dasgupta provided inputs.

Participation in Events

Digital ID Forum 2019 (Organized by UNDP; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; July 3, 2019). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists at this event.
BIS LITD 17 meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; July 3, 2019). Gurshabad Grover attended the sixteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Section Committee (LITD17).
Facebook Data for Good in Bangalore (Organized by Facebook; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; July 25, 2019).
Roundtable with the WhatsApp leadership (Organized by WhatsApp; Mountbatten, The Oberoi, New Delhi; July 26, 2019). Will Cathcart, WhatsApp's new global head, visited India and invited Sunil Abraham for a discussion.
Facebook Data for Good in New Delhi (Organized by Facebook; University of Chicago Center, New Delhi; July 29, 2019).

IT / Information Technology

A research on the usage of systems (computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving and sending information as well as the IT Act:

Participation in Event

Leveraging Web Application Vulnerabilities for Reconnaissance and Intelligence Gathering (Organized by Has Geek; GRD College of Science, Coimbatore; July 5, 2019). Karan Saini gave a talk at the JSFoo Conference.

Artificial Intelligence

With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:

Participation in Events

Roundtable Discussion on “The Future of AI Policy in India” (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi; July 1, 2019).
Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward (Organized by HEaL (Health, Ethics, and Law Institute of Training, Research and Advocacy) of FMES (Forum for Medical Ethics Society) in collaboration with CPS (Centre for Policy Studies), Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; July 13, 2019). Radhika Radhakrishnan, participated in a roundtable discussion on "Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward."

Gender

Presentation to Amnesty International on researching the Future of Work (Organized by Amnesty Interntional, New Delhi; July 18, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon made a presentation on CIS research on Future of Work.

Telecom

The growth in telecommunications in India has been impressive. While the potential for growth and returns exist, a range of issues need to be addressed for this potential to be realized. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the second aspect is a countrywide access to broadband which is low at about eight million subscriptions. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.

Monthly Blog

Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; July 4, 2019).

Researchers@Work

The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.

Event Organized

#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi (CIS, Bangalore; July 19, 2019). Watch the session recording video here.

Blog Entries

Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (Deva Prasad M.; July 1, 2019).
#DigitalPedagogies (Ashutosh Potdar, Maya Dodd, Nidhi Kalra, and Ravikant Kisana; July 1, 2019).
#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing (Abhishek Shrivastava, Dibyaduti Roy, and Nirmala Menon; July 11, 2019).
#RenarrationWeb (Anuja Mirchandaney, Deepak Prince, Dinesh and Shalini; July 23, 2019).

About CIS

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 disabilities, 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 reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

Follow CIS on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

Support CIS:

Please help us defend consumer and 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.

Collaborate with CIS:

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, at tanveer@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-2019-newsletter

Digital ID

praskrishna — 2019-07-21T15:55:27Z

Digital ID Forum

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SAARC 2

praskrishna — 2019-07-04T02:46:53Z

SAARC 2019, Day 2

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SAARC 1

praskrishna — 2019-07-04T02:45:40Z

SAARC 2019 - Day 1

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June 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-07-16T16:00:11Z

The Centre for Internet & Society Newsletter for June 2019.

Highlights for June 2019

Rohini Lakshané and Shweta Mohandas have updated their paper 'Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone SEP Litigation' which chronicles mobile device SEP litigation in India. All developments in the lawsuits filed in the Delhi High Court and complaints made to the CCI that were published in reliable sources till 20 September 2018 are mentioned in this paper. Christ University in association with CIS-A2K organized the Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019, from 20 - 22 June 2019, at Christ University, Bengaluru. Forty-nine Wikimedians from four countries (Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India) participated in the event. Subodh Kulkarni in his report reveals that the event discussed challenges pertaining to retention and quality and methodologies to evaluate and measure the work being done on Wikipedia. CIS and Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. The round-tables focused on the policies and regulation and technical evolution of the Internet. The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover contributed to the Internet Society’s 2019 Global Internet Report on Consolidation in the Internet Economy. An excerpt from an essay by Sadaf Khan, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives was mirrored on the website. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

CIS and the News

The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in May:

5G Aspirations and Realities (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; June 6, 2019).
Staying silent about cyberbullying is no longer an option (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; June 16, 2019).
Facebook sees its salvation with its cryptocurrency Libra (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; June 30, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:

Plugging into India’s broadband revolution (Navadha Pandey; Livemint; June 4, 2019).
Banking on artificial intelligence: In hiring drive, Bots are calling the shots now (Anjali Venugopal; Economic Times; June 4, 2019).
Fragmenting Cybersecurity Norms through the Language(s) of Subalternity: India in the East and the Global Community (Riccardo Vecellio Segate; Columbia Journal of Law; June 6, 2019).
Interpreting the Outer Space Treaty's Non-Appropriation Principle: Customary International Law from 1967 to Today (Abigail D. Pershing; Yale Journal of International Law; June 6, 2019).
No Fintech company meets every single privacy requirement under IT Act: CIS report (Shilpa S. Ranipeta; Newsminute; June 10, 2019).
Facebook to pay Indians to give up privacy: Experts raise questions (Geetika Mantri; Newsminute; June 14, 2019).
Chasing fame and fun 15 seconds at a time: Why TikTok has India hooked (Tora Agarwala, Surbhi Gupta, and Karishma Mehrotra; Indian Express; June 23, 2019).
Facebook’s Libra: A bit too ambitious? (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; June 30, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is 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.

Copyright & Patent

Research Paper

Joining the Dots in India's Big-Ticket Mobile Phone SEP Litigation (Rohini Lakshané and Shweta Mohandas; June 30, 2019).

Wikipdedia

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

What is Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference? (Sailesh Patnaik; June 5, 2019).
Karavali Wikimedians at All India Radio, Mangaluru (Bharathesha Alasandemajalu; June 13, 2019).
Wikimedia Education SAARC Conference 2019 (Subodh Kulkarni; June 22, 2019).
SVG translation workshop Kannada (Gopala Krishna; June 29, 2019).

Jobs

CIS-A2K team is seeking applications for the following posts:

Event Organized

Wikimedia Education SAARC conference (Christ University; Bangalore; June 20 - 22, 2019).

Openness

Innovation and creativity are fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of the Internet radically defined 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.

Event Hosted

Discussion on Open Standards with Bernd Erk and Jiten Vaidya (CIS, Bangalore; June 20, 2019).

Participation in Event

Rootconf 2019 (Organized by Has Geek; NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore; June 21 - 22, 2019). Karan Saini participated in the event.

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 IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

Privacy

Blog Entry

The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019).

Event Organized

Setting the Agenda: A Behavioural Science approach to Data Privacy (Organized by Centre for Social Behaviour Change; Ashoka University and the Busara Center for Behavioral Economics, Vasant Vihar, New Delhi). Amber Sinha attended the meeting.

Participation in Events

Pranesh Prakash as Resource Person for ITD seminar on Competition (Organized by International Institute for Trade and Development; Bangkok; June 24 - 26, 2019). Pranesh Prakash was also a speaker in the session on Consumer Protection and Digital Rights- Defining Welfare and Fair Competition.

Cyber Security

Participation in Events

The Global Nature of Cybersecurity in a Changing World (Organized by Hewlett Foundation; San Diego; June 20 - 22, 2019).
Workshop on Cyber-Ethics: Values-driven Innovative Solutions (Organized by Embassy of Switzerland; Bangalore; June 28, 2019). Arindrajit Basu moderated a discussion on Cyber-Ethics.

Free Speech

Participation in Events

ICANN Masterclass (Organized by ICANN, Bangalore; June 19, 2019). Akriti Bopanna attended the event.
ICANN 65 (Organized by ICANN; Morocco; June 24 - 27, 2019). Akriti Bopanna attended the event.

Telecom

Article

5G Aspirations and Realities (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; June 6, 2019).

Researchers at Work (RAW)

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

Essay

Data bleeding everywhere: a story of period trackers (Sadaf Khan; June 11, 2019). This was written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives.

Participation in Event

Unpacking video-based surveillance in New Delhi (Organized by the University of Manchester, England; June 14, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon presented their research on 'Urban Data, Inequality and Justice in the Global South'.

Blog Entries

Patreon: Understanding the Intersection of Art, Artiste, and Labour (Upasana Bhattacharjee; June 1, 2019).
#ArchivesForStorytelling (Aliyeh Rizvi, Bhanu Prakash, Dinesh, Malini Ghanathe, and Venkat Srinivasan; June 1, 2019).
#DigitalIdentities (Anjali K Mohan, Harish Boya, Janaki Srinivasan, Khetrimayum Monish Singh, and Sarita Seshagiri; June 11, 2019).

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 disabilities, 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 reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/june-2019-newsletter

May 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-06-26T01:40:33Z

The Centre for Internet & Society Newsletter for the month of May 2019

Highlights for May 2019

Omidyar Network is investing in in establishing a three-region research alliance co-led by the Institute for Technology & Society, Brazil , the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law, Kenya, and the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), India on appropriate use of Digital Identity. CIS will look at the policy objectives of digital identity projects, how technological policy choices can be thought through to meet the objectives, and how legitimate uses of a digital identity framework may be evaluated. The term Fintech is generally used to describe innovative technology and technological processes being used in the financial services sector. Vipul Kharbanda has presented a detailed analysis of RBI’s Draft Framework on Regulatory Sandbox for Fintech. Centre for Internet & Society's 'Access to Knowledge' wing (CIS-A2K) signed a MoU with PAH Solapur University, Maharashtra to promote content generation in Wikimedia projects among the institutions under University affiliation and develop a platform in the university for outreach programs on digital knowledge, language and technologies, FOSS, unicode, etc. Timely and affordable access to scientific research remains a problem in this digital day and age. Most countries including India, continue to struggle with implementing open access. The latest international initiative (created in Europe) to remedy this problem is Plan S. This has been positioned as a strategy to implement immediate open access to scientific publications from 2021 which India is considering adopting. Anubha Sinha in an article unpacks the disorderly growth of open access in India, and discusses the gap between the Plan's vision and current Indian scenario in some respects Shweta Mohandas was nominated to curate Genderlog's Twitter handle (@genderlogindia). She tweeted about topics related to gender and data, more specifically around AI, big data, privacy and surveillance. Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Tim Davies co-authored a chapter titled Open Data and Land Ownership in State of Open Data book which was recently launched at World Bank. The authors have thrown light on how the lessons from the land ownership field highlight the political nature of data, and illustrate the importance of politically aware interventions when creating open data standards, infrastructure, and ecosystems. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and CIS as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada. Can data ever know who we really are? This is an excerpt from an essay by Zara Rahman, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives.

CIS and the News

The following news pieces were authored by CIS and published on its website in May:

How privacy fares in the 2019 election manifestos | Opinion (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; May 1, 2019).
Democracy, Digital India and Networks (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; May 1, 2019).
Why the TikTok ban is worrying (Gurshabad Grover; Hindustan Times; May 2, 2019).
Digital Native: Narendra Modi’s interview by Akshay Kumar is a PR masterpiece (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 5, 2019).
Will the WTO Finally Tackle the ‘Trump’ Card of National Security? (Arindrajit Basu; The Wire; May 8, 2019).
Digital Native: Three things we need to realise about what TikTok is doing to us (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; May 19, 2019).
Open Data and Land Ownership (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; State of Open Data; May 22, 2019).
Can EVM vulnerabilities be used to game the Indian election? (Karan Saini; Kaarana Blog; May 22, 2019).
The Huawei bogey (Gurshabad Grover; Indian Express; May 30, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS was quoted in these news articles published elsewhere:

Cyber criminals hide in the ‘dark web’ to remain anonymous (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; May 2, 2019).
BJP outspends Congress, others in social media advertising (Vidhi Choudhary; Hindustan Times; May 3, 2019).
Three emerging market think tanks to collaborate on Good ID recommendations with Omidyar backing (Chris Burt; Biometric Update; May 8, 2019).
"Aadhaar Reduced Agency in Citizens and Empowered Those in Positions of Authority" (Martin Moore; News Click; May 20, 2019).
In Parts of India, Internet Shutdowns Are a Fact of Life (Megha Bahree; Top10VPN; May 21, 2019).
Artificial Intelligence: Consumer Experiences in New Technologies (Consumer International; May 28, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

Copyright & Patent

Blog Entry

Should India adopt Plan S to realise Open Access to Public-funded Scientific Research? (Anubha Sinha; May 29, 2019).

Wikipdedia

Blog Entries

Wikipedia assignments workshop for Post Graduate students in PAH Solapur University (Subodh Kulkarni; May 3, 2019).
Wikisource Workshop at Vigyan Ashram, Pabal (Subodh Kulkarni; May 26, 2019)
MoU between PAH Solapur University & CIS-A2K (Subodh Kulkarni; May 31, 2019).

Jobs

CIS-A2K team is seeking applications for the following posts:

Events

Train-the-Trainer 2019 (Organized by CIS-A2K; Vishakhapatnam; May 31 - June 2, 2019).
Wikimedia Education SAARC conference (Organized by Christ University (Deemed to be University) with the association of CIS-A2K; Christ University; Bangalore; June 20 - June 22, 2019).

Media Coverage

Ahmedabad Wikisource Workshop (Vishwavihar; May 13, 2019).
Youths come forward to augment Assamese Wikisource project (NE Now News; May 17, 2019).
Wikipedia looks to ramp up its Indian language content (Tushar Kaushik; May 28, 2019).
Project Tiger: Wikipedia ropes in locals to contribute articles in Indian languages (Tushar Kaushik; May 29, 2019).

Openness

Publication

Open Data and Land Ownership (State of Open Data; Sumandro Chattapadhyay; May 22, 2019).

Internet Governance

Digital Identity

Announcement

Announcement of a Three-Region Research Alliance on the Appropriate Use of Digital Identity (Amber Sinha; May 13, 2019).

Event Organized

Picking ‘Wholes’ - Thinking in Systems Workshop (Organized by CIS; New Delhi; May 27 - 28, 2019).

Gender

Blog Entry

Workshop on Feminist Information Infrastructure (Ambika Tandon; edited by Gurshabad Grover and designed by Saumyaa Naidu; May 9, 2019).

Free Speech

Participation in Events

Stockholm Internet Forum 2019 (Organized by Stockholm Internet Forum 2019; Stockholm; May 16 - 17, 2019). Gurshabad Grover was a panelist in the discussion on 'Influencing Internet Governance' co-organised by Article 19.
Consilience 2019 (Organized by the Law and Technology Society; National Law School of India University, Bangalore; May 25, 2019). Gurshabad Grover was a panelist on the discussion on 'Online Content Regulation: Global Perspectives and Solutions'.

Privacy

Research Paper

An Analysis of the RBI’s Draft Framework on Regulatory Sandbox for Fintech (Vipul Kharbanda; May 8, 2019).

Participation in Events

Data Empowerment And Protection Architecture (DEPA) Workshop (Organized by iSPIRT Foundation; May 18, 2019). Pranav Manjesh Bidare attended the workshop.
ABLI Privacy Workshop (Organized by Asian Business Law Institute; Singapore; May 21 - 22, 2019). Elonnai Hickok participated in the event.
HillHacks 2019 (Organized by HillHacks; Bir, Himachal Pradesh; May 24 - 26, 2019). Karan Saini was a speaker.

Artificial Intelligence

Participation in Events

Society 5.0 and Artificial Intelligence with a Human Face (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi). Radhika Radhakrishnan attended a roundtable consultation.
AI for Good Workshop (Organized by Swissnex India and Wadhwani AI; Bangalore; May 22, 2019).
MWC19 Shanghai AI and Trust in APAC and China (Organized by Digital Asia Hub; MWC Shanghai; June 27, 2019). Sunil Abraham will be making a presentation at the summit on AI and Trust in APAC and China. Sunil has been invited as a speaker on panel ‘Framing AI for Digital Upstarts’.

Cyber Security

Participation in Event

Shining light into darkness: Encouraging greater transparency of government offensive practices in cyberspace (Organized by Rights Con; Tunis; June 12, 2019). Sunil Abraham will be attending a conversation on encouraging greater transparency of government offensive practices in cyberspace.

Telecom

Article

Democracy, Digital India and Networks (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; May 1, 2019).

Participation in Event

Live [Closed]: TRAI Open House Discussion on OTT Regulation - Delhi (Organized by TRAI; New Delhi; May 20, 2019). Anubha Sinha attended the event.

Researchers at Work (RAW)

Essay

Can data ever know who we really are? (Zara Rahman; May 22, 2019).

Blog Entries

War Driving in Lhasa Vegas (Oxblood Ruffin; May 11, 2019).

#DotBharatAdoption (Dr. Amit Prakash, K.A. Dayanand, Dr. Srinivasan Ramani, Dr. V. Sridhar, and Vivek Pani; May 11, 2019).
#MaterialisingWriting (Dibyadyuti Roy, Indrani Roy, Padmini Ray Murray, and Puthiya Purayil Sneha; May 21, 2019).
The Shadow that Social Media Casts: The Doubled Offlines of Online Sociality (Karandeep Mehra; May 21, 2019).

About CIS

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/may-2019-newsletter

Linking India

praskrishna — 2019-06-05T13:56:52Z

Linking India

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/LinkingIndia.jpg

Project Tiger: Wikipedia ropes in locals to contribute articles in Indian languages

praskrishna — 2019-06-05T06:37:55Z

The project has generated content in Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Odiya and Gujarati.

The article by Tushar Kaushik was published in Economic Times on May 29, 2019.

Hundreds of people from across the country are generating online content in local Indian languages and are even competing in ‘editathons’ that pit contributors of different languages against each other.

While online encyclopedia Wikipedia’s content might be exhaustive in English, its content in Indian languages is limited. Keeping this in mind, Wikipedia’s parent organization Wikimedia Foundation, and Google, roped in Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K), Wikimedia India Chapter in 2017 and started ‘Project Tiger’ aimed at generating more content in Indian languages. A pilot project was held from December 2017 to May 2018 and another phase of the competition is set to begin next month. The project has generated content in major languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Punjabi, Bengali, Urdu, Odia and Gujarati.

The contributors are from varied age groups, some are also from remote, rural areas and they worked from different cities across the country. Two years ago, Durga Prasanna, a journalism student at Alva’s college in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district, joined a group of contributors to Wikipedia as part of a requirement from the college. She got an opportunity to participate in ‘Project Tiger’ last year. She generated Wikipedia entries in Kannada and also in the regional languages of Tulu and Konkani. Apart from Durga, seven other students of her college together contributed over 70 articles in Kannada, and a few in Tulu and Konkani, during the ‘editathon’. “We were provided a long list of topics on which not much literature existed in the local languages and among them, we chose topics based on our interests. For example, I wrote articles on ‘psychologist’ and ‘medicinal plants’,” she said.

Another participant, Charan Gill, a 65-year-old former social worker from Patiala, Punjab, was the top contributor in Punjabi. “I wrote 432 articles in a span of two-and-a-half months.However, contributing is not new to me as I have written over 10,000 Wikipedia entries in Punjabi since 2012,” he says.

Gill now works with another Wikimedia project, translating literary classics into Punjabi. He is currently translating some works of 19th century Russian author Ivan Turgenev. Thanksto Gill’s contributions, the Punjabi community of contributors won the prize for producing the most articles — 1,320. In Tamil, 1,241 articles were contributed. A total of 78 articleswere produced in Kannada by eight members.

Gopalakrishna A, community advocate for Kannada language, CIS-A2K, said all written articles were evaluated by a Wikimedia team jury to check if they fulfilled all criteria beforebeing uploaded on Wikipedia set for the contest. Once they fulfil the criteria, the articles are eligible for the prizes. “The main idea was to create content in Indian languages. Thethings most Indian contributors required were internet and hardware support. So participants who had made significant contributions prior to the competition Wikimediaprojects were provided internet connections or laptops Chromebooks,” he said.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/economic-times-may-29-2019-tushar-kaushik-project-tiger