The Centre for Internet and Society
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February 2013 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2013-bulletin
<b>The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wishes you a great year ahead and welcomes you to the second 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.</b>
<h3>Memorial</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/fellow">Rahul Cherian</a>, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property and technology law passed away due to an illness while on a visit to Goa on February 7, 2013. Rahul was the founder of the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy, and a fellow at CIS. He was also a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices in Chennai and was one of the experts who drafted the Treaty for the Visually Impaired currently being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-february-8-2013-rahul-cherian-passes-away">Hindu</a> (February 8, 2013), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-feb-8-2013-rahul-cherian-founder-of-ngo-inclusive-planet-passes-away">First Post</a> (February 8, 2013), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/legally-india-feb-7-2013-rip-rahul-cherian-human-rights-activist-inclusive-planet-co-founder">Legally India</a> (February 7, 2013), and <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/bar-and-bench-feb-8-2013-inclusive-planet-co-founder-disability-law-activist-and-cancer-survivor-rahul-cherian-passes-away">Bar & Bench</a> (February 8, 2013) covered this story. Lawrence Liang wrote an obituary page, <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/the-hindu-op-ed-lawrence-liang-feb-9-a-lightness-of-spirit">A Lightness of Spirit</a> (The Hindu, February 9, 2013) and Nishant Shah wrote a column <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/indian-express-feb-17-2013-nishant-shah-one-for-all">One For All</a> (Indian Express, February 17, 2013).</p>
<p>CIS organised a <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/events/in-memoriam-of-rahul-cherian">memorial function</a> for Rahul Cherian at the TERI, Southern Regional Centre in Bangalore on February 28, 2013.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br />CIS invites applications for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-developer">Developer</a> (NVDA Screen Reader Project), <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-access-to-knowledge-and-openness">Programme Officer</a> (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer</a> (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> and <a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the <b>Hans Foundation</b>. One of this 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:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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 Bihar and West Bengal:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-bihar-chapter-call-for-comments">The Bihar Chapter</a> (by Manojna Yeluri, February 14, 2013): The state of Bihar is in the process of formulating a comprehensive state policy on disability. The Bihar State Policy on Disability is an extension of the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities and is currently in a draft form awaiting government approval and notification.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/the-west-bengal-chapter">The West Bengal Chapter</a> (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 28, 2013): The state of West Bengal has issued the West Bengal Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules, 1999 to implement the provisions under the central Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities and Full Participation) Act, 1995.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage<br /></b></p>
<ul style="text-align: justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ip-watch-feb-16-2013-catherine-saez-indian-users-perspective-on-wipo-negotiations-on-treaty-for-visually-impaired">Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired</a> (by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, February 16, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Wikimedia Foundation <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">awarded</a> 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. The project researches upon the noteworthy opportunities of the new types of low cost mobile devices, content and services as available in the market.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Wikipedia</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">awarded</a> CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of four members based in Delhi: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">T. Vishnu Vardhan</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>, and one new team member <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Dr. U.B. Pavanaja</a> who works from Bangalore office.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>New Team Member<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Dr. U.B. Pavanaja</a> joined the A2K team as Programme Officer, India Language Initiatives on February 19, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/knowledge-sharing-through-glam">Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore</a> (Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Nitika Tandon participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikimedia-bangalore-meetup-at-iimb">Wikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management</a> (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (organized in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM). Vishnu Vardhan spoke on the Access to Knowledge project. Noopur Raval participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/creative-commons-comes-to-india">Creative Commons comes to India</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/fifty-fourth-bangalore-wikimedia-meetup">Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore</a> (by Noopur Raval, February 28, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wikipedia-education-program-iimc-dhenkanal">Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/foss-wikimedia-under-one-roof-gnunify">FOSS, Wikimedia and Mozilla Under One Roof at GNUnify 2013, Pune</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Reports</b><br />CIS organised one Wiki workshop in the month of February 2013. We also bring you the report from an event organised in the month of January:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/celebrating-odia-wikipedias-ninth-anniversary">Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary</a> (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). Few glimpses of the event are available as audio podcasts.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/digital-literacy-workshop">Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University</a> (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://odishan.com/?p=2534">ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା: ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ</a> (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><b>ସମ୍ବାଦ:</b><a href="http://sambadepaper.com/Details.aspx?id=36615&boxid=23625437"><b><i> </i></b>ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ</a>. (Sambad, February, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.eindiadiary.com/content/odisha-workshop-organized-9th-anniversary-odia-language-application-odia-language-e-media">Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media</a> (e India Bureau, March 2, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://news.fullorissa.com/odia-wikipedias-9th-anniversary/">Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary</a> (fullOrissa News, February 13, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://indiaeducationdiary.in/Orissa/Shownews.asp?newsid=19485">Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media</a> (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.odishaviews.com/odia-language-workshop-organized-on-9th-anniversary-of-odia-wikipedia-application-of-odia-language-in-e-media/">Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media</a> (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p><b> Ongoing Events<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-workshop-bits-goa">Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa</a> (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, March 7, 2013, 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-editing-workshop-in-goa">A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa</a> (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, March 8, 2013, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Announcement<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/sanskrit-wikiquote">Sanskrit Wikiquote — Now Available</a>: The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is happy to announce the availability of Sanskrit Wikiquote. Shiju Alex, an ex-team member played an active role in bringing this out. For more info see <a href="http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R">http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R</a>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Pervasive Technologies<b><br /></b></h3>
<p><b>Event Participated In<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/international-conference-on-contours-of-media">International Conference on Contours of Media Governance: Teaching, Disciplinarity, Methodology</a> (organised by Jamia Millia Islamia University with support from Ford Foundation and ICSSR, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, February 25 – 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham presented preliminary findings from the Pervasive Technologies project.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other <a href="https://cis-india.org/openness">Openness</a> Updates</h3>
<p><b>Announcements from Other Organizations<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://epublishingtrust.net/ept-2nd-annual-oa-award/">Iryna Kuchma wins the second EPT award</a>: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development announced the winner of its 2nd Annual Award in recognition of the effort made by individuals working in the developing and emerging countries in the furtherance of Open Access (OA) to scholarly publications. Dr. Francis Jayakanth won the inaugural award last year. </li>
</ul>
<h3>HasGeek</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works from the CIS office in Bengaluru.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Event Report & Video<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/hasgeek-blog-zainab-bawa-feb-6-2013-report-of-aaron-swartz-memorial-hacknight">Report of Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight</a> (by Zainab Bawa, February 6, 2013). On January 19 and 20, 2013, HasGeek organized a hacknight to commemorate the life and work of Aaron Swartz. Zainab Bawa shares the developments.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS has an agreement with <b>Privacy International</b>, London to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. We are also doing a project on examining the indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Gender<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/women-in-indias-it-industry">Women in India’s IT Industry</a> (by Jadine Lannon, February 27, 2013)</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/women-in-the-it-industry">Women in the IT Industry: Request for Data</a> (by Jadine Lannon, February 28, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
<p><b>Free Speech & Expression<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analyzing-latest-list-of-blocked-urls-by-dot">Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition)</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, February 14, 2013). The analysis was quoted in <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-feb-19-2013-danish-raza-why-was-the-gwalior-court-in-such-a-hurry-to-block-iipm-urls">FirstPost</a>.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tehelka-sunil-abraham-feb-3-2013-dont-slap-free-speech">Don’t SLAPP free speech</a> (by Sunil Abraham with inputs from Snehashish Ghosh, Tehelka, February 3, 2013, Issue 9, Volume 10).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindubusinessline-feb-15-2013-chinmayi-arun-freedom-of-expression-gagged">Freedom of Expression Gagged</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, February 15, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Media Coverage<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-the-social-network-feb-5-2013-hate-speech-ban-or-ignore">Hate speech: ban or ignore?</a> (NDTV, February 5, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shivam Vij, and Sanjay Rajoura gave their expert views on the impact of hate speech.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-national-feb-6-2013-samanth-subramanian-censorship-and-sensibility-in-india">Censorship and sensibility in India</a> (by Samanth Subramanian, February 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ny-times-feb-8-2013-betwa-sharma-online-abuse-of-teen-girls-in-kashmir-leads-to-arrests">Online Abuse of Teen Girls in Kashmir Leads to Arrests</a> (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, February 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-feb-9-2013-t-ramachandran-indian-net-service-providers-too-play-censorship-tricks">Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks</a> (by T Ramachandran, The Hindu, February 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/economic-times-feb-12-2013-indu-nandakumar-anonymous-joins-protests-against-internet-shutdown-in-kashmir">Anonymous joins protests against Internet shutdown in Kashmir</a> (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, February 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-feb-19-2013-danish-raza-why-was-the-gwalior-court-in-such-a-hurry-to-block-iipm-urls">Why was the Gwalior court in such a hurry to block IIPM URLs?</a> (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, February 19, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh’s analysis on blocked website is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/outlook-feb-22-2013-arindam-mukherjee-stop-press-counsel">Stop Press Carousel</a> (by Arindham Mukherjee, Outlook, February 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/computer-world-india-feature-shubra-rishi-feb-25-2013-all-indian-enterprises-should-be-very-worried">"All Indian Enterprises should Be Very Worried": Centre for Internet and Society</a> (by Shubhra Rishi, Computer World, February 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Participated In<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/wilton-park-feb-13-15-2013-freedom-of-expression-online">Freedom of expression online: identifying and addressing challenges and developing a shared vision and a working partnership</a>: (organized by Wilton Park, Wiston House, Sussex, UK, February 13 – 15, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/itech-law-india-ninth-intl-asian-conference">9th International Asian Conference</a> (organized by ITech Law, Bangalore, February 14 -15, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on Censorship of Online Content. </li>
</ul>
<p><b>Privacy<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/privacy-highlights-in-india">2012: Privacy Highlights in India</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, February 12, 2013): Elonnai summarizes the top privacy moments of 2012 in India.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/eff-feb-13-2013-katitza-rodriguez-and-elonnai-hickok-surveillance-camp-iv-disproportionate-state-surveillance-a-violation-of-privacy">Surveillance Camp IV: Disproportionate State Surveillance - A Violation of Privacy</a> (by Elonnai Hickok and Katitza Rodriguez of Electronic Frontier Foundation February 19, 2013).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/big-dog-is-watching-you">BigDog is Watching You! The Sci-fi Future of Animal and Insect Drones</a> (by Maria Xynou, February 25, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Events Organized</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/analyzing-draft-human-dna-profiling-bill">Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012</a> (March 1, 2013, CIS, Bangalore).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/uid-and-npr">Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance</a> (March 2, 2013, TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event Participated In</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/omnishambles-of-uid-shrouded-in-its-rti-opacity">The Omnishambles of UID, shrouded in its RTI opacity</a>: CIS sponsored Colonel Mathew Thomas to hold a workshop at the fourth National Right to Information (RTI) organized by the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, held in Hyderabad from February 15 to 18, 2013.</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Upcoming Event<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013">DML Conference 2013</a> (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h2>Internet Access – Knowledge Repository</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation was executing the telecom knowledge repository project which included producing and disseminating modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, from November 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. The new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also 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: <a href="http://www.internet-institute.in">www.internet-institute.in</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Upcoming Event<br /></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details will be announced soon on our website.</p>
<h2 style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<p><b>Newspaper Column<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-shyam-ponappa-feb-14-2013-the-supreme-court-and-spectrum-management">The Supreme Court & Spectrum Management</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot, February 14, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, February 6, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Blog Entry<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/who-minds-the-maxwells-demon">Who Minds the Maxwell's Demon: Revisiting Communication Networks through the Lens of the Intermediary</a> (by Sharath Chandra Ram, February 28, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Events Participated In<br /></b></p>
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<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/humlab-umea-university-d-coding-digital-natives">D:coding Digital Natives - Seminar with Nishant Shah</a> (organized by HUMlab, February 26, 2013). Nishant Shah gave a talk on D:coding Digital Natives at Samhällsvetarhuset.</li>
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<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/video-vortex-9-net-re-assemblies-of-video">Video Vortex # 9 Re:assemblies of Video</a> (organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Post Media Lab, Moving Image Lab, Leuphana, et.al, February 28 – March 2, 2013). Nishant Shah delivered a <a href="http://videovortex9.net/ai1ec_event/reassemblies/?instance_id=292">key note</a> at this event.</li>
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<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities">Digital Humanities</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Upcoming Event<br /></b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/habits-of-living-networked-affects-glocal-effects">Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects</a> (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
<h3>Follow us elsewhere</h3>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<h3>Support Us</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>Request for Collaboration</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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 <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><i>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.</i></p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2013-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/february-2013-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpennessResearchers at Work2013-03-11T05:35:46ZPageBack When the Past had a Future: Being Precarious in a Network Society
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future
<b>We live in Network Societies. This phrase has been so bastardised to refer to the new information turn mediated by digital technologies, that we have stopped paying attention to what the Network has become. Networks are everywhere. They have become the default metaphor of our times, where everything from infrastructure assemblies to collectives of people, are all described through the lens of a network.</b>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">This article by Nishant Shah was published in a peer-reviewed newspaper <a class="external-link" href="http://www.aprja.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/researching_bwpwap_large.pdf">Researching BWPWAP</a>. The write-up is on Page 3.</p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">We are no longer just human beings living in socially connected, politically identified communities. Instead, we have become actors, creating archives of traces and transactions, generating traffic and working as connectors in the ever expanding fold of the network.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The network is an opaque metaphor, conflating description and explanation. So it becomes the object to be studied, the originary context that produces itself, and the explanatory framework that accounts for itself. In other words, the network was our past – it gives us an account of who we were, it is our present – it defines the context of all our activities, and it is our future – where we do everything to support the network because it is the only future that we can imagine for ourselves. It is this flattening characteristic of networks that are diagrammatically mapped, cartographically reproduced, and presented outside of and oblivious to temporality, that produces a condition of the future that can no longer be imagined through our everyday lives.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Networks neither promise nor deliver a flattened utopia of coexistence and decentralised power. Networks are, in fact, quite aware of the structures of inequity and conditions of privilege they create and perpetuate: the only way to recognise the existence of a network is to be outside of it, the only aspiration to belong to a network is to be kept outside of it when you recognise it. Networks create themselves as simultaneously ubiquitous and scarce, of everpresent and ephemeral, creating a new ontology for our being human – an ontology of precariousness, contingent upon erasure of our histories, archives of our present, and unimaginable futures; futures we are not ready for, and don’t have strategies to occupy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">I remember the times, before networks became the default conditions of being human, when kids, negotiating the variegated temporalities of their past-present-futures, would often begin their speculations on future, by saying, "When I grow up...". In that hope of growing up, was the potential for radical political action, the possibility of social reconstruction. In network societies, though, time has no currency. It has been replaced by attentions, flows of information and actions, and do not offer a tomorrow to grow into.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">There is no future to help mitigate the exigencies of the present. And with the overwhelming emphasis on archiving the present, there is no more a coherent future that can be accounted for in the vocabulary that the network develops to explain itself, and the hypothetical world outside it.</p>
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For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/aprja-net-researching-bwpwap-nishant-shah-back-when-the-past-had-a-future</a>
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No publishernishantFeaturedHabits of LivingResearchers at WorkDigital Humanities2013-02-12T06:16:12ZBlog EntryJanuary 2013 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2013-bulletin
<b>We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the first issue of our newsletter for the year 2013. This issue brings you an overview of our research programs, events organised and participated, news and media coverage, and videos of recent events.</b>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Jobs</b></p>
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<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is seeking applications for the posts of <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2675&qid=263491" target="_blank">Programme Officer</a> (Access to Knowledge — Indic Language Initiatives), <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2676&qid=263491" target="_blank">Developer</a> (NVDA Project), <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2677&qid=263491" target="_blank">Programme Officer</a> (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2678&qid=263491" target="_blank">Programme Officer</a> (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> and <a href="mailto:pranesh@cis-india.org">pranesh@cis-india.org</a>. For our Privacy project, we are seeking applications for the post of Researcher, Technology/Security Expert, Graphic Designer as well as for internships. To apply for these posts, please send in your resume to Elonnai Hickok (<a href="mailto:elonnai@cis-india.org">elonnai@cis-india.org</a>).</p>
<h2><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2679&qid=263491" target="_blank">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">CIS is carrying out two projects in partnership with the <b>Hans Foundation</b>. The first 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 the second one is for developing a screen reader and text to speech synthesizer for Indian languages. We are also working with the World Blind Union to develop the Treaty for Improved Access for Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled Persons, and assisting in the negotiations at WIPO:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities</h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Shruti Ramakrishnan has left the project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapter on Haryana:</p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-resource-haryana-chapter-call-for-comments" class="external-link">The Haryana Chapter</a> (by Anandi Viswanathan, January 31, 2012): The state implements the provisions under the central laws, particularly the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act 1995 and the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act 1999.</li>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Submission / Notification</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2681&qid=263491" target="_blank">Making Public Libraries Accessible to People with Disabilities</a> (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013): CIS was one of the 20 disability rights groups that wrote to the Ministry of Culture.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2682&qid=263491" target="_blank">Government of Madhya Pradesh initiates ICT Accessibility in Public Communication</a> (by Nirmita Narasimhan, January 31, 2013): CIS with Daisy Forum of India member Arushi in Bhopal submitted a request for a notification mandating that all communication by the Government of Madhya Pradesh should be accessible to persons with disabilities.</li>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Report</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2683&qid=263491" target="_blank">Accessible Broadcasting in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, January 11, 2013): The abridged version of ITU’s report "Making Television Accessible" which was initially put up for comments last year has been updated once again.</li>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2684&qid=263491" target="_blank">Linking Commercial Availability and Exceptions in the Treaty for Visually Impaired/Persons with Disabilities</a> (by Rahul Cherian, January 23, 2013).</li>
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<h2><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2685&qid=263491" target="_blank">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">In partnership with the <b>International Development Research Centre</b> we are doing a project on Pervasive Technologies examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The <b>Wikimedia Foundation</b>’s India Program to support and develop free knowledge in India is now being executed by us. We are also supporting the Iraq government in developing an eGovernment Interoperability Framework:</p>
<h3><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2686&qid=263491" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2686&qid=263491" target="_blank">awarded</a> CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2687&qid=263491" target="_blank" title="Access To<br ></a><br /> <br /> Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of four members based in Delhi: <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2688&qid=263491" target="_blank">T. Vishnu Vardhan</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2689&qid=263491" target="_blank">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2689&qid=263491" target="_blank">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2689&qid=263491" target="_blank">Noopur Raval</a>.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>New Project Director</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2688&qid=263491" target="_blank">T. Vishnu Vardhan</a> is the new Programme Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu managed the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2690&qid=263491" target="_blank">Art, Crafts and Culture</a> portfolio of <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2691&qid=263491" target="_blank">Sir Ratan Tata Trust</a> and also worked as Research Coordinator at the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2692&qid=263491" target="_blank">Centre for the Study of Culture and Society</a>.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>New Distinguished Fellow at CIS</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2693&qid=263491" target="_blank">Tejaswini Niranjana</a>, a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai is joining our team as an Adviser to the 'Access to Knowledge' project. She will guide the A2K team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.</li>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Reports</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2694&qid=263491" target="_blank">Access to Knowledge Report — September to December 2012</a> (by Noopur Raval, January 31, 2013): The report covers an overview of the activities done by the Access to Knowledge team under the grant provided by the Wikimedia Foundation from September 2012 to December 2012.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2695&qid=263491" target="_blank">Indic Language Wikipedias — Statistical Report — 2012</a> (by Shiju Alex, January 21, 2013): A statistical update of the Indic language Wikipedias for the year 2012 providing perspectives on the health of various Indic language communities as well as the state of various Indic language wikipedias.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Wiki Event Reports<br /> </b>CIS organised a series of Wiki workshops in Goa in the month of December 2012, we bring you the reports from those events.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><i>Note: The workshops were held in the month of December 2012 but the reports were published only in the month of January.</i></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2696&qid=263491" target="_blank">Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction</a> (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2697&qid=263491" target="_blank">Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa</a> (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2698&qid=263491" target="_blank">Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain</a> (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2699&qid=263491" target="_blank">Promoting GLAM in Goa</a> (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2700&qid=263491" target="_blank">Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level</a> (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">CIS also organised a Wiki workshop in Ghaziabad:</p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2701&qid=263491" target="_blank">A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad</a> (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013).</li>
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<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Wiki Event Participated</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2702&qid=263491" target="_blank">Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013</a> (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Wikipedia News Coverage</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2703&qid=263491" target="_blank">First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal</a> (Odisha Diary Bureau, Dhenkanal, January 27, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2704&qid=263491" target="_blank">Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media</a> (Sambad, January 30, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Wiki Events Organised</b></p>
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<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2705&qid=263491" target="_blank">Odia Education Program</a> (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2706&qid=263491" target="_blank">Odia Wikipedia 9th Anniversary Celebration</a> (Academy of Media Learning, Samantha Vihar, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, January 29, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Pervasive Technologies</h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">The Pervasive Technologies project carries out research on the intellectual property implicated in the hardware, software and content available in low-cost mobile devices.The long-term outcome of this project is to create a legitimate, legal space for these technologies to exist on the Indian market.</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
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<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2707&qid=263491" target="_blank">Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Market Place — A Presentation by Sunil Abraham</a> (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, December 15, 2012).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2708&qid=263491" target="_blank">Fifth International IPR Conference</a> (GIPC 2013) (organised by ITAG Business Solutions, Hotel Lalit Ashok, Bangalore, January 30, 2013): Snehashish Ghosh made a presentation on the Pervasive Technologies Project.</li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Other <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2709&qid=263491" target="_blank">Openness</a> Updates<b> </b></h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Blog Posts / Columns</b></p>
<p><i> </i></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<i> </i>
<li><i> </i><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2710&qid=263491" target="_blank">The Violence of Knowledge Cartels</a> (by Nishant Shah, Hybrid Publishing Lab, January 17, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2711&qid=263491" target="_blank">Remembering Aaron Swartz, Taking Up the Fight</a> (by Nishant Shah, DML Central, January 24, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Interview </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2712&qid=263491" target="_blank">Aaron Swartz: The First Martyr of the Free Information Movement</a>: Prabir Purkayastha interviewed Lawrence Liang on Newsclick, January 19, 2013. The video is published.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2713&qid=263491" target="_blank">Bangalore hackers write code as tribute to Aaron Swartz</a> (by Deepa Kurup, Hindu, January 21, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek</h3>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2714&qid=263491" target="_blank">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2715&qid=263491" target="_blank">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2716&qid=263491" target="_blank">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">Event Organized</p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2717&qid=263491" target="_blank">Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight</a> (CIS, Bangalore, January 19 – 20, 2013): Aaron’s collaborators such as <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2718&qid=263491" target="_blank">Anand Chitipothu</a> and <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2719&qid=263491" target="_blank">A S L Devi</a> participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2720&qid=263491" target="_blank">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">With <b>Privacy International</b>, London we signed an agreement to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. In this month we have blog posts on data retention, international principles of surveillance and human rights and comparitive analysis of Indian legislation vis-à-vis draft of the International Principles on Surveillance of Communications by Ellonai Hickok, and columns by Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah:</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Privacy Research</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2721&qid=263491" target="_blank">Data Retention in India</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, January 30, 2013): The post provides an insight into the data retention mandates from the Government of India and data retention practices by service providers.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2722&qid=263491" target="_blank">Draft International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, January 16, 2013): These principles were developed by Privacy International and the Electronic Frontier Foundation and seek to define an international standard for the surveillance of communications.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2723&qid=263491" target="_blank">A Comparison of Indian Legislation to Draft International Principles on Surveillance of Communications</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, January 31, 2013): The principles, first drafted in October 2012 and developed subsequently seek to establish an international standard for surveillance of communications in the context of human rights. CIS is contributing feedback to the drafting of the principles.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Columns/Op-eds</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2724&qid=263491" target="_blank">Web of Sameness</a> (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, January 18, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2725&qid=263491" target="_blank">TV versus Social Media: The Rights and Wrongs</a> (by Sunil Abraham, The Tribune, January 20, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Statement</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2726&qid=263491" target="_blank">Statement of Solidarity on Freedom of Expression and Safety of Internet Users in Bangladesh</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, January 15, 2013): This is a statement on the violent attack on blogger Asif Mohiuddin by the participants to the Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2727&qid=263491" target="_blank">No Civil Society Members in the Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, January 10, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2728&qid=263491" target="_blank">Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs</a> (by Chinmayi Arun, January 28, 2013): The author discusses the five major questions that have been the subject of debate after the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Upcoming Event</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2729&qid=263491" target="_blank">DML Conference 2013</a> (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Event Organized</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2730&qid=263491" target="_blank">An Introduction to Bitfilm and Bitcoin – A Discussion by Aaron Koenig</a> (CIS, Bangalore, January 23, 2013): Aaron Koenig, Managing Director, Bitfilm Networks of Hamburg, Germany gave a talk.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2731&qid=263491" target="_blank">Panel Discussion on E-Commerce at NLSIU</a> (organised by National Law School of India University, Bangalore, January 7, 2013). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2732&qid=263491" target="_blank">Mobile Broadband: Leveraging for Business Transformation</a> (Chancery Pavilion, Bangalore, January 9, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist in this event.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2733&qid=263491" target="_blank">Third South Asian Meeting on the Internet and Freedom of Expression</a> (organized by Internet Democracy Project, Voices for Interactive Choice & Empowerment and Global Partners & Associates, Dhaka, January 14 – 15, 2013): Pranesh Prakash moderated the session on "Understanding cyber security and surveillance in South Asia”.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2734&qid=263491" target="_blank">Is Freedom of Expression under Threat in the Digital Age?</a> (organized by Editors Guild of India, Index on Censorship and Sage, India International Centre, New Delhi, January 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham was a panelist at this event.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2735&qid=263491" target="_blank">7th India Digital Summit 2013</a> (organised by Internet and Mobile Association of India, Lalit Hotel, New Delhi, January 16 – 17, 2013): Sunil Abraham was the moderator for Plenary Session 3: Discussion on Social Media – Freedom, Moderation or Regulation.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Upcoming Event</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2736&qid=263491" target="_blank">9th International Asian Conference</a> (organised by ITechLaw, February 14 – 15, 2013): Sunil Abraham will be participating as a panelist in the session on “Censorship of Online Content”.</li>
</ul>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Media Coverage</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2737&qid=263491" target="_blank">2012 in Review: Biometric ID Systems Grew Internationally...and So Did Concerns about Privacy</a> (by Rebecca Bowe, Right Side News, January 1, 2013)</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2738&qid=263491" target="_blank">Cool Jobs | Parmesh Shahani, Head, Godrej India Culture Lab</a> (LiveMint, January 4, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2739&qid=263491" target="_blank">Clash of the cyberworlds</a> (by Latha Jishnu, Dinsa Sachan and Moyna, Down to Earth, January 15, 2013 issue). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2740&qid=263491" target="_blank">Is freedom of expression under threat in digital age?</a> (originally published by<a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2741&qid=263491" target="_blank"> Indo Asian News Service</a>, January 16, 2013 and also covered in the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2742&qid=263491" target="_blank">Business Standard</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2743&qid=263491" target="_blank">Vancouver Desi</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2744&qid=263491" target="_blank">DNA</a>, and <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2745&qid=263491" target="_blank">Tech2</a>). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2746&qid=263491" target="_blank">Is freedom of expression under threat in the digital age?</a> (by Mahima Kaul, Index on Censorship, January 18, 2013).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2747&qid=263491" target="_blank">Internet Freedom in India – Open to Debate</a> (by Kirsty Hughes, Index on Censorship, January 22, 2013). CIS research on censorship is quoted.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2748&qid=263491" target="_blank">Cyber security, surveillance and the right to privacy: country perspectives</a> (by Richa Kaul Padte, Internet Democracy Project).</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2749&qid=263491" target="_blank">Surveillance Camp: Privatized State Surveillance</a> (by Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 28, 2013). Elonnai Hickok is quoted.</li>
<li> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2750&qid=263491" target="_blank">An innovative concept comes to the fore</a> (Deccan Herald, January 29, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<table class="listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<h3>Internet Access – Knowledge Repository</h3>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">In partnership with Ford Foundation, CIS was tasked to produce and disseminate modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, as on November 9, 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. Currently, we are working on building a knowledge repository on “Internet Access”. This new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for such policy formulation. For this purpose we will be hosting a new website:<span class="visualHighlight"> <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2751&qid=263491" target="_blank">www.internet-institute.in</a></span>.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">We are also organizing an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registrations and relevant details will be soon announced on our website.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2752&qid=263491" target="_blank">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum.:</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Column by Shyam Ponappa</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2753&qid=263491" target="_blank">What's Needed Is User-Centric Design, Not Good Intentions</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, January 3, 2013 and Organizing India Blogpost, January 6, 2013).</li>
</ul>
<p><b>Event(s) Participated </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b>21<sup>st</sup> Convergence Conference Conference India 2013 (organized by Exhibitions India Group, January 16 – 17, 2013, Pragati Maidan, New Delhi). Snehashish Ghosh participated in the event.</li>
</ul>
<h2><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2754&qid=263491" target="_blank">Digital Humanities</a></h2>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University:</p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><b>Habits of Living Workshop</b></p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<b> </b>
<li><b> </b><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2755&qid=263491" target="_blank">Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects</a> (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.</li>
</ul>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<hr />
<h2 style="text-align: center; "><a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2756&qid=263491" target="_blank">About CIS</a></h2>
<hr />
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2757&qid=263491" target="_blank">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2758&qid=263491" target="_blank">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2759&qid=263491" target="_blank">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2760&qid=263491" target="_blank">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2761&qid=263491" target="_blank">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2762&qid=263491" target="_blank">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2763&qid=263491" target="_blank">NIA Bill</a>, etc.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2764&qid=263491" target="_blank">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2765&qid=263491" target="_blank">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
</ul>
<h3>Follow us elsewhere</h3>
<ul style="text-align:justify; ">
<li> Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2766&qid=263491" target="_blank">Twitter</a></li>
<li> Join the CIS group on <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2767&qid=263491" target="_blank">Facebook</a></li>
<li> Visit us at <a href="http://crm.cis-india.org/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/extern/url.php?u=2768&qid=263491" target="_blank">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Support Us</h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">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.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Request for Collaboration</h3>
<p style="text-align:justify; ">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 <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a></p>
<p style="text-align:justify; "><i>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.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2013-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/january-2013-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpennessResearchers at Work2013-06-11T11:56:35ZPageNot Just Fancy Television
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television
<b>Nishant Shah reviews Ben Hammersley's book "64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear ", published by Hodder & Stoughton </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">The review was<a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/not-just-fancy-television/1042040/0"> published in the Indian Express</a> on December 8, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Let us begin by acknowledging that when the world was learning how to drive on the information highway, Ben Hammersley was out there, instructing us how to do it best. So it doesn’t surprise that 64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear, despite its untweetable title, is quite spot-on when it comes to describing our digital pasts, demystifying our interweb presents and preparing us for technosocial futures. Well-written, interspersed with illustrative anecdotes, reflective experiences and speculative ideas, the book looks at the good, the bad and the downright bizarre that the digital turn has introduced in our lives. Working through moments of nostalgia for things that have already become obsolete, and through experiences that morph even before we can comprehend them, Hammersley writes (or, as he suggests in his introduction — co-writes with hundreds of anonymous contributors) a book that is readable, for those seeking to understand how the digital world moves and those who want to remember their own role in shaping forgotten trends.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The book also attempts to answer some of the troublesome tensions in our understanding of our contemporary digital lives. Hammersley’s basic intention in writing the book is to show how technological shifts are not merely about changing usage patterns. It radically (and often dramatically) restructures our domains of life, language and labour. Older structures have become redundant and the new ones have not yet found their feet. There are many who attempt to think of the internet as a mere extension of older media practices. But as he says, “The internet is absolutely not just fancy television.” It is a technology that is reshaping everything we had understood about who we are and how we relate to the world around us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, Hammersley suggests, the ways in which the internet is rapidly transforming the world leads to a clear divide around technology literacy. The “technologically literate” are shaping the digital turn, experimenting and exploring the possibilities, but unable to fall back upon older structures of assurance to know whether the choices they are making are sustainable. At the same time, the “technologically illiterate” are still responsible for shaping a world that they are quickly losing track of.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This book clearly explains the technological, legal, cultural, social and economic shifts of the last 20 years, and how they foretell our futures, without complicating it with geeky discourses on code or theoretical bluster.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Hammersley also ensures that the book is not merely a glossary of terms. He has the most interesting anecdotes from around the world like Harry Potter fan-fiction and crowdsourced translations in Germany challenging intellectual property rights regimes, the Human Flesh Search Engines in China, which threaten to reinforce regressive mob politics while also enabling cultural vigilantes in our societies. He also goes beyond individual concerns and reflects on the larger political concerns of censorship, control and freedom, discussing with great lucidity, the complicated nuances of hacker groups like Anonymous, political effects of collectives like WikiLeaks, etc. It is an exciting mash-up of events that will make you smile at the audacity and irreverence of the players in the digital playground, but will also make you shiver as it lays bare the new authoritarian and violent regimes that emerge with digital technologies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Instead of taking partisan positions about something as necessarily good or bad, Hammersley documents some of the practices, effects and affects of technology, to show how our world has changed. There is no explanation of why the list stops at 64 things. But it is a well curated list of social, cultural, economic and political concerns and provides a conversational account of the present and future, speculating, like an old friend on the living room couch on a Sunday afternoon.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The only criticism against Hammersley is that he is too dependent on the rules of the internet to explain the internet. The different laws that have evolved in computing and network theory, in the sociology of the Web and the economic analysis of information societies, are accepted too easily, and used as self-evident explanatory frameworks. But then, this is not a book pretending to argue for a new conceptual framework. It is a book that has set out to educate and entertain, slowly unfolding the fractured narratives of the Web from its military origins to its Arab Spring manifestations. Of the many books that are already flooding the market, trying to decode the Web, Hammersley’s list of 64 things is going to be at the top.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>The writer is Director (Research), Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore</em></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/indian-express-december-8-2012-nishant-shah-not-just-fancy-television</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedResearchers at WorkBook ReviewDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:45:14ZBlog EntryNovember 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter of November 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis of Section 66A of the IT Act by Pranesh Prakash, comments on the draft Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, an introduction to 12 mobile devices that we are researching as part of the Pervasive Technologies project, submissions of civil society in relation to the revision of International Telecommunication Regulations that are to take place at the ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, updates from the Wikipedia community on Indic languages, and news and media coverage.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; "><span class="visualHighlight"><b>Jobs</b></span></p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS is seeking applications for the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>. To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<table class="grid listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/human-machine-interfaces-the-history-of-an-uncertain-future">Human Machine Interfaces: The History of an Uncertain Future</a> (by Sharath Chandra Ram, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="text-align: justify; ">
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/itu-int-itu-d-asp-cms-events-2012-nepal-itu-nta-workshop-on-making-ict-and-mobile-phones-accessible-for-persons-with-disabilities-in-nepal" class="external-link"><span class="external-link">Workshop on Making ICT and Mobile Phones Accessible for Persons with Disabilities in Nepal</span></a></li>
</ul>
(organised by ITU, November 9, 2012). Nirmita Narasimhan was a speaker in the session "Introduction: ICT and Telecom Accessibility, Good Practices in Policy and Industry Initiatives".
<ul>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>WIPO Transcripts</b></p>
<b> </b>
<p>We are providing archival copies of the transcripts of the 25th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights held in Geneva from November 19 to 23, 2012:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-25-day-1-november-19-2012.txt">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 1, November 19, 2012</a></li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-25-day-2-november-20-2012.txt">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 2, November 20, 2012</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-25-day-3-november-21-2012.txt">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 3, November 21, 2012</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-25-day-4-november-22-2012.txt">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 4, November 22, 2012</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/wipo-sccr-25-day-5-november-23-2012.txt">WIPO SCCR 25 Day 5, November 23, 2012</a></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Comments</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/comments-on-broadcast-treaty-and-exceptions-and-limitations-for-libraries-and-archives">Comments on the Broadcast Treaty and Exceptions and Limitations for Libraries and Archives</a> (by Smitha Krishna Prasad, November 29, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/comments-on-science-technology-and-innovation-policy-draft">Comments on the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (Draft)</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, submitted to the Ministry of Science and Technology, November 26, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">As a part of the Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace research project, CIS is researching upon 12 gray-market mobile devices to generate a better understanding of the intellectual property implications of the pervasive mobile technologies available in the Indian market:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Workshop Report</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/exploring-the-internals-of-mobile-devices">Exploring the Internals of Mobile Devices — Report from a One-day Workshop at TERI</a> (by Jadine Lannon, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/icomm-2012-report">ICOMM2012: International Communications and Electronics Fair</a> (by Jadine Lannon, November 14, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/pervasive-mobile-technologies-meet-our-grey-market-devices">Pervasive Mobile Technologies: Meet Our Mobile Devices!</a> (by Jadine Lannon, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Upcoming Event</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/global-congress-on-ip">2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest</a> (FGV Law School, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, December 15 – 17, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Event Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/autonomy-access-infrastructure-future-a-discussion-with-cs-lakshmi-on-sparrow-archive" class="external-link">Autonomy, Access, Infrastructure and Future — A Discussion with C S Lakshmi</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 29, 2012). A video of the event is published.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/art-in-the-open-source-age">Art in the Open Source Age — A Talk by Gene Kogan</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://http//cis-india.org/openness/blog/informatics-nic-in-neeta-verma-alka-mishra-d-p-mishra-july-2012-open-government-platform">Open Government Platform</a> (by Neeta Verma, Alka Mishra and D.P. Mishra, Informatics Magazine, July 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/science-gallery-workshop">Science Gallery Workshop @ Srishti</a> (organised by Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, Srishti School of Art Design and Technology (N2 campus), Bangalore, November 23, 2012). Sunil Abraham participated in this event.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>Access to Knowledge Programme</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/access-to-knowledge-program-plan">awarded</a> CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of three members based in Delhi: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>. Program Manager, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/people/our-team">Shiju Alex</a> left the organisation. November 16, 2012 was his last working day.</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Events Organised</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/kolkata-tasting-the-sweetness-of-wikipedia">Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia!</a> (Kolkata, November 3, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/first-odia-wikipedia-education-program-to-be-rolled-out-at-iimc-dhenkanal">First Odia Wikipedia Education Program</a> (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, November 8, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wiki-workshop-at-aml">Odia Wikipedia Workshop at AML</a> (Academy of Media Learning, Bhubaneswar, November 10, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/mini-hackathon-delhi">A Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi</a> (CIS, New Delhi, November 11, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-state-of-tech-talk-by-erik-moeller">Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller</a> (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/odia-wikipedia-workshop-organized-in-kmbb-college-bhubaneswar">An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB</a> (KMBB College, Bhubaneswar, November 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/follow-up-to-wikipedia-introductory-session-at-bharati%20vidyapeeth">Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session</a> (Bharati Vidyapeeth, Delhi, November 19, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Events Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-hackathon-hyderabad">Wikipedia Hackathon</a> (organised by BITS, Hyderabad, October 25 – 27, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-womens-workshop-in-mumbai">Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai</a> (by Noopur Raval, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala, Mumbai, November 4, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>News and Media Coverage</b></p>
<ul>
<li>‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/news/bangalore-mirror-article-kalyan-subramani-nov-15-2012-some-indian-laws-could-be-challenging">Some Indian laws could be challenging</a>’ (Bangalore Mirror, November 15, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/report-of-odia-wikipedia-workshop-in-sambad">A Report of the Odia Wikipedia Workshop held in KMBB College of Engineering, Bhubaneswar</a> (Sambad, November 19, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/orissa-diary-november-23-2012-pravuprasad-routray">OdishaDiary conferred prestigious Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 to Odia Wikipedia team</a> (Orissa Diary, November 23, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/article-in-cybersafar">વિકિપીડિયા ગુજરાતી માં પણ છે</a> (by Harish Kothari, Cybersafar, November 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Blog Entry</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/typing-in-indic-languages-from-mobiles">Typing in Indic Languages from Mobiles made Easy!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 19, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>HasGeek</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of November: <a href="http://droidcon.in/2012/">Droidcon India</a> (November 2 and 3, 2012, MLR Convention Centre, Whitefield, Bangalore).</p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: justify; ">
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<ul>
</ul>
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:
<ul>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Analysis of IT Act</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/breaking-down-section-66-a-of-the-it-act">Breaking Down Section 66A of the IT Act</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, November 25, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/livemint-opinion-november-28-2012-pranesh-prakash-fixing-indias-anarchic-it-act">Fixing India’s anarchic IT Act</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, Livemint, November 28, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/times-crest-pranesh-prakash-november-24-2012-draft-nonsense">Draft nonsense</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, The Times of India, November 24, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Analysis of Justice AP Shah Report</b></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/question-and-answer-to-report-of-group-of-experts-on-privacy">Q&A to the Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, November 9, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Comments / Submissions to ITU</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/statement-of-civil-society-members-and-groups-at-best-bits-pre-igf-meeting" class="external-link">Statement of Civil Society Members in the "Best Bits" pre-IGF Meeting</a>. CIS was one of the signatories of this submission made to the ITU.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/submission-on-indias-draft-comments-on-proposed-changes-to-itus-itrs">Submission on India's Draft Comments on Proposed Changes to the ITU's ITRs</a>. CIS was one of the signatories along with Society for Knowledge Commons, Delhi Science Forum, Free Software Movement of India, Internet Democracy Project and Media for Change.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/submission-on-proposals-for-future-itrs-and-related-processes" class="external-link">Submission by Indian Civil Society Organisations on Future ITRs and Related Processes. </a>CIS was one of the signatories of this submission in response to ITU’s call for public comments.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/indian-govts-submission-to-itu">Indian Government's Submission to ITU</a>: We have put up the text of the submission made by the Government of India to the World Conference of International Telecommunications, Dubai on November 3, 2012.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/will-the-international-telecommunication-regulations-itrs-impact-internet-governance-a-multistakeholder-perspective">India Internet Governance Conference</a> (organised by the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, FICCI and Internet Society, October 4 -5, 2012). Pranesh Prakash made a presentation. CIS was one of the supporting organisations.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Blog Entries</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bal-thackeray-comment-arbitrary-arrest-295A-66A">Arbitrary Arrests for Comment on Bal Thackeray's Death</a> (by Pranesh Prakash, November 19, 2012). This was re-posted in <a href="http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?283033">Outlook</a> (November 19, 2012), <a href="http://kafila.org/2012/11/19/social-media-regulation-vs-suppression-of-freedom-of-speech-pranesh-prakash/">KAFILA</a> (November 19, 2012), and <a href="http://shailsnest.com/2012/11/20/4445/">Shail's Nest</a> (November 20, 2012). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/dot-blocks-domain-sites">DoT Blocks Domain Sites — But Reasons and Authority Unclear</a> (by Smitha Krishna Prasad, November 21, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Upcoming Events</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/technology-culture-and-events-in-south-east-asia">Technology Culture and Events in South East Asia — A Presentation by Preetam Rai</a>(CIS, Bangalore, Near Domlur Club and TERI Complex, December 18, 2012, 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013">DML Conference 2013</a> (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Internet Governance Forum</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Pranesh Prakash, Chinmayi Arun, Malavika Jayaram and Elonnai Hickok participated in the Internet Governance Forum held in Baku, Azerbaijan in the month of November 2012. In total, CIS spoke in 12 panels:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/best-bits">Best Bits 2012</a> (organised by Best Bits, Baku, Azerbaijan<b> </b>November 3 and 4, 2012). Pranesh Prakash and Elonnai Hickok participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/privatisation-of-censorship">The Privatisation of Censorship: The Online Responsibility to Protect Free Expression</a> (organized by Index on Censorship, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 5, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist. </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/new-trends-in-industry-self-governance">New Trends in Industry Self-Governance</a> (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals">Civil Rights in the Digital Age, about the Impact the Internet has on Civil Rights</a> (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.). Malavika Jayaram was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/solutions-for-cross-border-data-flows">Solutions for Enabling Cross-border Data Flows</a> (co-organised by ICC BASIS and the Internet Society, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 7, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/cloudy-jurisdiction-addressing-the-thirst-for-cloud-data-in-domestic-legeal-processes">Cloudy Jurisdiction: Addressing the thirst for Cloud Data in Domestic Legeal Processes</a> (co-organised by Electronic Frontier Foundation (Peru) and University of Ottawa, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 7, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/frameworks-for-cross-border-online-communities-and-services">What Frameworks for Cross-Border Online Communities and Services</a> (hosted by the Internet & Jurisdiction Project, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012). Chinmayi Arun was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals-governing-identity-on-the-internet">Governing Identity on the Internet</a> (co-organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.). Malavika Jayaram was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/mag/116-workshop-proposals/1051-igf-2012-workshop-proposal-no-118-law-enforcement-via-domain-names-caveats-to-dns-neutrality">Law Enforcement via Domain Names: Caveats to DNS Neutrality</a> (organised by Hong Xue, Vivekanandan, Wei Mao and Leo Liu, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012). Chinmayi Arun was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/who-is-following-me">Who is Following Me: Tracking the Trackers</a> (organised by Internet Society and the Council of Europe, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012). Malavika Jayaram was a speaker at this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/national-ig-mechanisms">National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues</a> (Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/steady-steps-foss-and-mdgs">Steady Steps.....FOSS and the MDG's</a> (organised by International Center For Free and Open Source Software and Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa, Baku, Azerbaijan, November 8, 2012). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/privacy-in-social-networked-world">Privacy in the Social Networked World</a> (hosted by the Centre for Business Information Ethics, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan, on behalf of the Asian Privacy Scholars Network, November 19 – 20, 2012). Elonnai Hickok spoke on Transparency and Privacy in India.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Featured in the Media</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-india-news-new-delhi-nov-3-2012-power-to-youth">Power to youth</a> (The Hindustan Times, November 3, 2012). The article names Sunil Abraham and Lawrence Liang as some of the young people who are shaping the future.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ft-magazine-nov-16-2012-25-indians-to-watch">25 Indians to watch</a> (FT Magazine, November 16, 2012). Sunil Abraham is one among the 25 rising Indian stars to watch out for.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/whoswholegal-profiles-malavika-jayaram" class="external-link">Malavika Jayaram named a top lawyer for Internet and e-Commerce in India</a> (WHO’s WHO LEGAL, November 20, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/live-mint-politics-surabhi-agarwal-nov-6-2012-information-security-policy-on-govt-agenda">Information security policy on govt agenda</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, November 6, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-sandhya-soman-and-pratiksha-ramkumar-nov-7-2012-law-yet-to-catch-up-with-tech-enabled-peeping-toms">Law yet to catch up with tech-enabled peeping toms</a> (by Sandhya Soman & Pratiksha Ramkumar, Times of India, November 7, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-sci-tech-internet-karthik-subramanian-nov-14-2012-india-second-in-requesting-user-info-google">India second in requesting user info: Google</a> (by Karthik Subramaniam, Hindu, November 14, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/telegraphindia-opinion-story-kavitha-shanmugham-nov-14-2012-post-and-be-damned">Post and be Damned</a> (by Kavita Shanmugham, November 14, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-india-times-tech-tech-news-internet-ishan-srivastava-nov-15-2012-india-second-in-keeping-tabs-on-netizens">India second in keeping tabs on netizens</a> (by Ishan Srivastava, The Times of India, November 15, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/thinkdigit-internet-kul-bhushan-nov-15-2012-india-ranks-second-globally-in-accessing-private-details-of-users">India ranks second globally in accessing private details of users</a> (thinkdigit, November 15, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/articles-economic-times-nov-17-2012-indu-nandakumar-googles-transparency-report-sketchy-inconclusive">Google's 'Transparency Report' sketchy, inconclusive: Government</a> (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, November 17, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-nov-19-2012-neha-thirani-hari-kumar-women-arrested-in-mumbai-for-complaining-on-facebook">Women Arrested in Mumbai for Complaining on Facebook</a> (by Neha Thirani and Hari Kumar, New York Times, November 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-nov-19-2012-girls-arrested-for-facebook-post-on-thackeray-get-bail">Girls arrested for Facebook post on Thackeray get bail</a> (FirstPost, November 19, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-india-nov-19-2012-arrest-of-girl-over-thackeray-fb-update-clear-misuse-of-sec-295a">Arrest of girl over Thackeray FB update a clear misuse of Sec 295A</a> (FirstPost, November 19, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/india-blogs-nytimes-november-20-2012-how-to-steer-clear-of-indias-strict-internet-laws">How to Steer Clear of India’s Strict Internet Laws</a> (by Sangeeta Rajesh and Heather Timmons, New York Times, November 20, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibnlive-news-nov-20-2012-netizens-flay-mumbai-girls-arrest-over-facebook-post">Internet users flay Mumbai girls' arrest over Facebook post</a> (IBN Live, November 20, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-politics-venky-vembu-nov-20-2012-arrests-over-facebook-posts-why-were-on-a-dangerous-slide">Arrests over Facebook posts: Why we’re on a dangerous slide</a> (Venky Vembu, FirstPost, November 20, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-arun-dev-nov-20-2012-girl-arrest-draws-flak-on-social-media">Girl's arrest draws flak on social media</a> (The Times of India, November 20, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/indiatimes-sonal-bhadoria-nov-21-2012-indias-shame-world-reacts-to-fb-post-arrest">India's Shame: World Reacts to FB Post Arrest</a> (by Sonal Bhadoria, India Times, November 21, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/whdi-reviews-nov-22-2012-indian-government-at-second-position-after-usa-for-demanding-user-data-from-google">Indian government at second position after U.S.A for demanding user data from Google</a> (WHDI Reviews, November 22, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/indolink-november-2012-indians-rank-second-for-online-shopping">Indians Rank Second For Online Snooping</a> (Indolink, November 23, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs">Civil society & industry oppose India’s plans to modify ITRs</a> (by Shalini Singh, The Hindu, November 23, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-november-28-2012-nirmalya-behera-amnesty-international-calls-for-review-of-66a-of-it-act">Amnesty International calls for review of 66A of IT act</a> (by Nirmalya Behera, Business Standard, November 28, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dnaindia-nov-29-2012-apoorva-dutt-thousands-go-online-against-66a">Thousands go online against 66A</a> (by Apoorva Dutt, DNA, November 29, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-businessline-november-29-2012-the-flaw-in-cyber-law">The flaw in cyber law</a> (by S Ronendra Singh, Hindu Business Line, November 29, 2012). Sunil Abraham and Snehashish Ghosh are quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-politics-november-29-2012-surabhi-agarwal-govt-tweaks-enforcement-of-it-act-after-spate-of-arrests">Govt tweaks enforcement of IT Act after spate of arrests</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, November 29, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-atlantic-wire-november-29-2012-david-wagner-you-can-get-arrested-for-facebook-status-update-now">Yes, You Can Get Arrested for a Facebook Status Update Now</a> (by David Wagner, Atlantic Wire, November 29, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-politics-lakshmi-chaudhry-november-30-2012-the-real-sibals-law-resisting-section-66a-is-futile">The real Sibal’s law: Resisting Section 66A is futile</a> (by Lakshmi Chaudhry, FirstPost, November 30, 2012). Pranesh Prakash’s blog post on section 66A which was also published in Outlook is quoted.</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3>Videos</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-video-ndtv-special-ndtv-24x7">Women arrested for Facebook post: Did cops act under Sena pressure?</a> (NDTV, November 19, 2012). YP Singh, Alyque Padamsee, Rohan Joshi, Karuna Nundy and Pranesh Prakash took part in a discussion about the arrest of two girls over a Facebook comment.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ibnlive-videos-november-20-2012-the-last-word-is-there-a-need-to-review-information-technology-act">The Last Word: Is there a need to review Information Technology Act?</a> (CNN-IBN, November 20, 2012). Aryaman Sundaram, Pavan Duggal, Pranesh Prakash and Ravi Visvesvaraya Prasad took part in a discussion with Karan Thapar on section 66A of the IT Act.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-november-30-2012-video-interview-with-pranesh-prakash">Interview with Pranesh Prakash</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<p> </p>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.</p>
</td>
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<tr>
<td>
<p>The following are the new outputs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/dot-its-powers-and-responsibilities">DoT — Its Powers and Responsibilities</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/govt-policy-and-guidelines">Government Policy and Guidelines</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/trai-regulations">TRAI Regulations</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/trai-telecommunication-tariff-orders">TRAI Telecommunication Tariff Orders</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 30, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Newspaper Columns</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-in-2012-nov-3-2012-shyam-ponappa-super-wifi-shared-spectrum">Super WiFi & Shared Spectrum: A Time to Start Sharing</a> (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot on November 3, 2012 and Business Standard, November 1, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/the-hindu-businessline-november-24-2012-jayna-kothari-folly-of-mandating-spectrum-auctions">Folly of Mandating Spectrum Auctions</a> (by Jayna Kothari, Hindu Business Line, November 24, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
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<tr>
<td>
<p><b>Event Participated</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><a href="http://jmi.ac.in/bulletinboard/eventmodule/latest/detail/674/22969">2nd MPL Faculty Workshop (North Zone) on Teaching Public Policy, Media and Law</a> (Central University, Rajasthan, November 1-2, 2012). Snehashish Ghosh made a presentation on "Building a Telecom Knowledge Repository."</p>
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<th>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
</th>
</tr>
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<td>
<p><b>Interview</b></p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway">Whose Change Is It Anyway? | DML2013</a>: As a preparation for the DML conference, Nishant Shah had an interview with Howard Rheingold, a cyberculture pioneer, social media innovator, and author of "Smart Mobs. Watch the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ueRSm1TTw">video</a> on YouTube.</li>
</ul>
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<td>
<h2><a href="http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/">About CIS</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a>.</p>
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<td>
<p><b>Follow us elsewhere</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Get short, timely messages from us on <a href="https://twitter.com/cis_india">Twitter</a></li>
<li>Join the CIS group on <a href="http://www.facebook.com/groups/28535315687/">Facebook</a></li>
<li>Visit us at <a href="https://cis-india.org/">http://cis-india.org</a></li>
</ul>
</td>
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<p><b><span>Support Us</span></b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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.</p>
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<p><b>Request for Collaboration</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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 <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a> or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at <a href="mailto:nishant@cis-india.org">nishant@cis-india.org</a></p>
</td>
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</tbody>
</table>
<hr />
<p><i>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.</i></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceOpennessResearchers at Work2013-01-06T13:59:11ZPageAlt needs to Shift
https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/indian-express-nov-18-2012-nishant-shah-alt-needs-to-shift
<b>People maybe talking more online, but they all seem to be talking about the same kind of thing.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: center; ">Nishant Shah's column was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/alt-needs-to-shift/1031583/0">published in the Indian Express</a> on November 18, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify; ">If you were to recount what has happened in the world, based entirely on your tweetosphere and Facebook timelines, you might realise that everything important seems to have happened elsewhere. It is true that we live in a widely connected viral world, where if the USA sneezes, India gets a flu, but it seems as if lately, the things that I hear and read about are generally things that happen only at a global level. More surprisingly, most of the news that trends on Twitter, gets promoted on Facebook, and discussed on Google Plus, is in sync with what is being reported in mainstream media.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Of course, the voices are different. People have found a space for their opinions. There are strong critiques and alternative viewpoints around these events which are finding space in the public domain.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Much like the salons and cafes of the 18th century, which saw a whole range of new educated classes coming into the public to discuss and shape the society they lived in, the digital commons have created new public spaces of expression and discussion. This has been, indeed, one of the visions of the social web and we have reached a point where, at least for digital natives who have grown up within digital ecosystems, there is space to produce alternative opinions in their immediate environments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">At the turn of the millennium, when the social Web was being shaped, this was one of the biggest excitements — the possibility that voices from outside of mainstream and traditional media, which often get curtailed, would find contestations and alternative visions from people’s everyday experiences. And in many ways, it looks like we have achieved this dream, and found channels, communities and information strategies, which allow for conflicting views to co-exist in our knowledge spectrum. It is fascinating to realise that just a decade ago, the ways in which we talked about the key questions of our life, was so different, and was largely controlled by those in positions of power who identified only certain things as “newsworthy”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Traditional media has also changed dramatically, with citizen reporters contributing to the content, crowdfunded information shaping news, and ordinary people being the first to witness globally significant events before the larger media complexes arrived. And now that we are well on our way to harnessing the power of this social web, there is something else that needs to be addressed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">It is the concern that increasingly people are talking more, but they seem to be talking about the same kind of thing! Sure, there are many different voices, but their focus of attention is the same. We see a whole range of alternative opinions emerging, but they are still clustered around the things that traditional media is also covering.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">In the age of information overload, with so many different information streams, it feels like there is a homogenisation of information where increasingly only that which can be easily understood, easily read, easily captured to create spectacles gets to be at the centre of the attention economies. Which is why, news which is local, things which do not have global interest, and events which cannot be captured in videos on YouTube and hashtags on Twitter, do not feature in the alternative worlds of the social web. And when these locally relevant and significant things get mentioned, they have to work so much harder, to overcome the visibility threshold to get attention from the local publics.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">We have found the alternative to the mainstream, but maybe it is now time to find the alternative to the alternative. We need to think of localisation of our social web. A lot of effort is made towards being on the global information highway, but we now also need to start investing energy into rendering our local contexts more accessible and intelligible, not only to the larger worlds but also to ourselves. Maybe it is time to reflect on how much we posted, read and consumed of the recent presidential elections in the USA, and try to recollect what else happened in the world. Maybe it is time to step out of our silos where we have replaced multiplicity of things with diversity of opinions about a narrow range of things. The next time you see something trending or popular, it might be a good idea to reflect on what else might be hiding behind the virality of that digital object.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">This column was informed by conversations from a thought exploration on ‘Habits of Living’ supported by Brown University and Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/indian-express-nov-18-2012-nishant-shah-alt-needs-to-shift'>https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/indian-express-nov-18-2012-nishant-shah-alt-needs-to-shift</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedResearchers at WorkDigital Humanities2012-12-14T10:03:30ZBlog EntryWhose Change Is It Anyway? | DML2013
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway
<b>As a preparation for the DML conference, Nishant Shah had an interview with Howard Rheingold, a cyberculture pioneer, social media innovator, and author of "Smart Mobs. Nishant Shah is chair of 'Whose Change Is It Anyway? Futures, Youth, Technology And Citizen Action In The Global South (And The Rest Of The World)' track at DML2013. Here, he talks about shifts in citizen engagement in Indian politics and civics, and the underlying significance of these changes.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">"More and more, you have young people who are trying to come together, not merely to express discontent, but actually take action so that they can build the kinds of futures they want to occupy."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The 2013 DML conference will be held in March 14-16, 2013 in Chicago, Illinois. The conference is supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the University of California's systemwide Humanities Research Institute at UC Irvine.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">More details about the DML2013 Conference and the Call For Workshop/Panel/Paper Proposals can be found at the conference website: <a class="external-link" href="http://dml2013.dmlhub.net">dml2013.dmlhub.net</a>.</p>
<hr />
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Video</h3>
<p><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q1ueRSm1TTw" frameborder="0" height="315" width="320"></iframe></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway</a>
</p>
No publishernishantVideoCyberculturesResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:47:19ZBlog EntryOctober 2012 Bulletin
https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin
<b>Welcome to the newsletter of October 2012 from the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS). The present issue features an analysis by Ujwala Uppaluri of the Delhi High Court’s judgment in Super Cassettes v. MySpace, announcement of public call for comments for reports on “Banking and Accessibility in India” and “Making TV Accessible in India”, and updates on Indic languages.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify; "><b>Jobs</b><br />CIS is seeking applications the posts of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/research-manager">Research Manager</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/programme-officer-internet-governance">Programme Officer – Internet Governance</a>. To apply send your resume to <a href="mailto:sunil@cis-india.org">sunil@cis-india.org</a>.</p>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility">Accessibility</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies:</p>
<h3>Public Call for Comments</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/banking-and-accessibility-in-india">Banking and Accessibility in India: A Study on Banking Accessibility in India</a> (by Vrinda Maheshwari, October 30, 2012). </li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/making-tv-accessible-in-india">Making TV Accessible in India</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 8, 2012). </li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entries</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/hathitrust-judgment-and-its-impact-on-tvi-negotiations-at-wipo">The HathiTrust Judgment and its impact on TVI negotiations at WIPO</a> (by Rahul Cherian, October 30, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/wipo-approves-road-map-on-tv">WIPO General Assemblies Approve Road Map on Treaty for the Visually Impaired</a> (by Rahul Cherian, October 11, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k">Access to Knowledge</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:</p>
<h3>Analysis</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/super-cassettes-v-my-space">Super Cassettes v. MySpace</a> (by Ujwala Uppaluri, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Blog Entry</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/icomm-2012-report">ICOMM2012: International Communications and Electronics Fair</a> (by Jadine Lannon, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event Organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/events/workshop-exploring-the-internals-of-mobile-technologies-1">A Workshop on "Exploring the Internals of Mobile Technologies"</a> (TERI Southern Regional Centre 4th Main, Domlur II Stage Bangalore, October 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/openness">Openness</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:</p>
<h3>Wikipedia Education Programs</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/launch-of-assamese-wikipedia-education-program">Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/malayalam-wikipedia-education-program-august-october-update">Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates</a> (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-education-program-rajkot">Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/gujarati-wikipedia-article-competition">Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia</a> (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Workshops</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: left; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/bengaluru-a-hub-for-kannada-and-sanskrit-wikipedia">Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wikipedia-workshop-ghaziabad">Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad</a> (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/wiki-women-day-2012-pune">Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/blog/first-pune-odia-wikipedia-organized">First Pune Odia Wikipedia Organized!</a> (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Event</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/openness/events/wikipedia-hackathon-bits-hyderabad">Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS</a> Hyderabad (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Press Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.orissadiary.com/ShowEvents.asp?id=37463">Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language</a> (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Wikipedia Team Updates</h3>
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Access_To_Knowledge/Team" title="Access To Knowledge/Team">A2K team</a> consists of three members based in Delhi: <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Nitika Tandon</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Subhashish Panigrahi</a> and <a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Noopur Raval</a>.</li>
<li>We are seeking applications for the post of <a href="https://cis-india.org/jobs/vacancy-for-programme-director">Programme Director</a> (Access to Knowledge) for the New Delhi office.</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/about/people/our-team">Shiju Alex</a>, Program Manager, Access to Knowledge is leaving the organisation. November 16, 2012 will be his last working day. We wish him success in all his future endeavours. </li>
</ul>
<p><b> </b></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: left; ">
<p><b>HasGeek</b></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the <a href="http://fifthelephant.in/2012/">Fifth Elephant</a>, <a href="http://droidcon.in/2011">Droidcon India 2011</a>, <a href="http://androidcamp.hasgeek.com/">Android Camp</a>, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works out from CIS office in Bengaluru. The following event was organised by HasGeek in the month of October:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://hacknight.in/droidconin/2012">Droidcon 2012</a> (CIS, Bangalore, October 27 – 28, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance">Internet Governance</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">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:</p>
<h3>Column</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/epw-web-exclusives-oct-27-2012-elonnai-hickok-rethinking-dna-profiling-india">Rethinking DNA Profiling in India</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 43, October 27, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Analysis</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/privacy-perspectives-on-the-2012-2013-goa-beach-shack-policy">Privacy Perspectives on the 2012 -2013 Goa Beach Shack Policy</a> (by Elonnai Hickok, October 25, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Upcoming IGF Events</h3>
<p>At the seventh annual IGF meeting to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan in November 2012, CIS is organising one workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/national-ig-mechanisms">National IG Mechanisms – Looking at Some Key Design Issues</a> (co-organising with Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, Institute for System Analysis, Russian Academy of Sciences, et.al., November 8, 2012 from 2.30 p.m. to 4.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>Pranesh Prakash is a panelist in the following workshop:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/new-trends-in-industry-self-governance">New Trends in Industry Self-Governance</a> (organised by Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, UK and Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland and Nominet, UK, November 7, 2012 from 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m).</li>
</ul>
<p>CIS fellow Malavika Jayaram is a panelist for these workshops:</p>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals">Civil rights in the digital age, about the impact the Internet has on civil rights</a> (organised by ECP on behalf of the IGF-NL, November 7, 2012, 4.30 p.m. to 6.00 p.m.).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/intgovforum-cms-w2012-proposals-governing-identity-on-the-internet">Governing Identity on the Internet</a> (organised by Brenden Kuerbis, Citizen Lab and Christine Runnegar, Internet Society, November 8, 2012, 11.00 a.m. to 12.30 p.m.).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other Upcoming Event</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013">DML Conference 2013</a> (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012): CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central are jointly organizing the DML Conference 2013 in Chicago.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Event organised</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/privacy-rights-are-a-global-challenge">The Public Voice: Privacy Rights are a Global Challenge</a> (Punta del Este, Uruguay, October 21, 2012): Malavika Jayaram was a speaker at this event.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Events Participated</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">3rd Worldwide Cybersecurity Summit (organised by EastWest Institute in partnership with NASSCOM and FICCI, Federation House, New Delhi, October 30-31, 2012): Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok participated in this event.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Fourth Annual Legal Services Conference in India (organised by US India Business Council, New Delhi, October 11, 2012): Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session on “Censorship and Content Restrictions: The Future of Internet Speech in India”.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; ">Meeting on Lawful Access by Law Enforcement (Brussels, October 3 – 5, 2012): Elonnai Hickok participated in the meeting.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Video</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/ndtv-news-oct-31-2012-arrested-for-tweeting-legitimate-or-curbing-free-speech">Arrested for tweeting: Legitimate or Curbing Free Speech?</a> (NDTV, October 31, 2012): Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion aired on NDTV along with Shivam Vij, SB Mishra and Sanjay Pinto.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Media Coverage</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/hindustan-times-specials-coverage-gujarat-assembly-elections-2012-zia-haq-oct-26-2012-on-social-media-modi-goes-soft">On social media, Modi goes soft</a> (by Zia Haq, Hindustan Times, October 26, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/daily-pioneer-columnists-oct-29-2012-apar-gupta-bolstering-right-to-remain-private">Bolstering right to remain private</a> (by Apar Gupta, The Pioneer, October 29, 2012): Pranesh Prakash is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><i>CIS was part of the expert committee even though not explicitly mentioned in these</i>: <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/newstrackindia-october-18-2012-suggests-law-to-protect-individual-privacy">Panel suggests law to protect individual privacy</a> (Newstrack India, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/business-standard-october-18-2012-privacy-law-mooted-to-protect-people-against-misuse-of-info">Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info</a> (Business Standard, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/dna-india-october-19-2012-saikat-datta-experts-committee-moots-law-to-protect-privacy">Experts' committee moots law to protect privacy</a> (by Saikat Datta, Daily News & Analysis, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/times-of-india-october-19-2012-govt-panel-wants-curbs-on-phone-taps">Govt panel wants curbs on phone taps</a> (The Times of India, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/indianexpress-amitabh-sinha-october-19-2012-privacy-act-should-not-circumscribe-rti-expert-group">Privacy Act should not circumscribe RTI: expert group</a> (by Amitabh Sinha, Indian Express, October 19, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-business-line-oct-18-2012-nine-point-code-set-out-to-safeguard-personal-information">Nine-point code set out to safeguard personal information</a> (Hindu Business Line, October 18, 2012), <a href="https://cis-india.org/news/zee-news-october-22-2012-privacy-law-mooted-to-protect-people-against-misuse-of-info">Privacy law mooted to protect people against misuse of info</a> (Zee News, October 18, 2012).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/livemint-october-18-2012-surabhi-agarwal-courts-approval-needed-to-tap-phones">Court’s approval needed to tap phones: Panel</a> (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, October 18, 2012): Sunil Abraham is quoted.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/first-post-pallavi-polanki-oct-11-2012-could-better-dna-testing-facilities-in-india-have-saved-the-talwars">Could better DNA testing facilities in India have saved the Talwars?</a> (by Pallavi Polanki, October 11, 2012): CIS press statement is mentioned.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom">Telecom</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:</p>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/knowledge-and-capacity-around-telecom-policy">Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS and Ford Foundation joined hands to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers. The following are the new outputs:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/spectrum-management">Spectrum Management</a> (by Snehashish Ghosh, October 31, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/home-1/telecom/telecom-knowledge-repository/cable-tv">Cable Television</a> (by Srividya Vaidyanathan, October 16, 2012).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Column in Business Standard</h3>
<ul>
<li style="text-align: justify; "><a href="https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/organizing-india-blogspot-october-11-2012-shyam-ponappa-the-supreme-court-delivers">The Supreme Court Delivers</a> (by Shyam Ponappa in <a href="http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/shyam-ponappasupreme-court-delivers/488420/">Business Standard</a>, October 4, 2012 and <a href="http://organizing-india.blogspot.in/2012/10/the-supreme-court-delivers.html">Organizing India Blogspot</a>, October 11, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h3><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives">Digital Natives</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify; ">Newspaper Column</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement">The Rules of Engagement</a> (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, October 29, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>
<h2><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw">Researchers at Work</a></h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS organised the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012. Three columns by Nishant Shah arising from these workshops were published in the month of October:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/dml-central-blog-oct-22-2012-nishant-shah-habits-living-being-human-networked-society">Habits of Living: Being Human in a Networked Society</a> (DML, Central, October 22, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/first-post-tech-oct-12-2012-nishant-shah-digital-habits-how-and-why-we-tweet-share-and-like">Digital Habits: How and Why We Tweet, Share and Like</a> (FirstPost, October 12, 2012).</li>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/blogs/habits-of-living/financial-express-october-23-2012-nishant-shah-who-s-that-friend">Who’s that Friend?</a> (Indian Express, October 23, 2012).</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<ul>
</ul>
<h2>*<a href="https://cis-india.org/about/">About CIS</a>*</h2>
<p style="text-align: justify; ">CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the <a href="https://cis-india.org/advocacy/accessibility/blog/e-accessibility-handbook">e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities</a> with ITU and G3ict, and <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/dnbook">Digital Alternatives with a Cause?</a></span>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/position-papers">Thinkathon Position Papers</a> and the <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/front-page/blog/digital-natives-with-a-cause-a-report">Digital Natives with a Cause? Report</a> with Hivos, etc. We conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/cis-analysis-july2011-treaty-print-disabilities">WIPO Treaties</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012">Copyright Bill</a>, <a href="https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/front-page/blog/cis-feedback-to-nia-bill">NIA Bill</a>, etc. CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the <a href="https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award">National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities</a> from the Government of India and also received the <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://cis-india.org/news/nirmita-nivh-award">NIVH Excellence Award</a></span>.</p>
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<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin'>https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/october-2012-bulletin</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaAccess to KnowledgeDigital NativesTelecomAccessibilityInternet GovernanceResearchers at Work2012-11-08T11:42:01ZPageThe Rules of Engagement
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement
<b>Why the have-nots of the digital world can sometimes be mistaken as trolls. I am not sure if you have noticed, but lately, the people populating our social networks have started to be more diverse than before.</b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nishant Shah's column was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-rules-of-engagement/1022938/0">published in the Indian Express</a> on October 29, 2012.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Oh, sure, we are still talking about a fairly middle-class hang-out that happens largely in English and is restricted to people in urban environments who have the economic and cultural capital of access. But if you browse through your friends’ lists and compare it with, say, the network from five years ago, you will realise that the age demography has changed quite dramatically. I am not suggesting that the Web was only the realm of the young – let us face it, the people who actually created the infrastructure of the Web were not tiny tots. However, with Web 2.0 at the turn of the millennium, we have had an extraordinary focus on young people online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">But as the networks grow to include more people, there are now a lot of people online, who might not be the 16-year-old BlackBerry-wielding digital native, nor be in the “business of internet” but are finding a space for themselves, tentatively and steadily negotiating with this new space. Some of it might be because, those of us who were new kids on the block in the Nineties, are now older by a decade and are still on the block, but replaced by newer kids around the block. Some of it might be because there is an ease of access as portable computing devices grow more personal and get more people to use their smartphones as a gateway into the online worlds. But a lot of it is actually because the fold of the Web is expanding. The digital spaces of conversation are being integrated into our everyday lives and practices, replacing older forms of media and information structures and processes of social and cultural belonging.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And so, even though the penetration of the interwebz is not as rapid in countries like India as one would have hoped for, we do see a wide age group of people coming online, forming networks, and entering into conversations. I hadn’t really realised this, even though I was adding them to my social networks, that the digital immigrants are now here, and they are here to stay. It suddenly surfaced in my thoughts, because I recently heard a few narratives which made me dwell on the effort and the learning that one takes for granted but is a prerequisite for belonging to these new social spaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">One of the first complaints I heard was about a hostility that many digital immigrants face when they start engaging with the social media. They follow the manuals. They read the FAQs. They look at patterns, and learn. And yet, even when they seem to be doing what seems to be exactly what everybody else is doing, they are often told that they got it all wrong. This is bewildering for many, because they cannot really see the difference. And the reason is that the social web is governed by a whole lot of unwritten rules and codes, which clearly are the rites of passage into the online world. These are not things that can be taught. These are not written in a guideline that tells you how to behave on Facebook or how to sift through the live-streams on Twitter. It is a fiercely guarded set of dos and don’ts which clearly distinguish between the digital natives and the digital immigrants, reinforcing exclusivity and exclusion. And when the digital immigrant violates these rules, they are often faced with a sneer, a sarcastic comment, or a dismissal as “not with it”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second thing I have repeatedly noticed is “calling troll” to people who do not always know these rules. Trolling is not new to the world of the internet. People who disrupt conversations and discussions by posting provocative or tangential information, by voicing hateful opinions, by passing harsh judgments, or sometimes by willfully breaking the rules of the communities, in order to seek attention and interrupt the flow of conversations are called trolls. Trolls are universally frowned upon and trolling wars often take up epic proportions because people get emotionally invested in them. Trolls are often shamed publicly, their mistakes brought into an embarrassing spot-light and ridiculed in back-channels or even in public discussions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Calling somebody a troll presumes that the user is conversant with the rules of the game and is then breaking them, working with the idea that if you are online, you are naturally a digital native. The digital immigrants often create noob mistakes that can appear troll-like but are not intended to be so, and are often on the receiving end of a community’s hostility. And it is time, now that our online networks are growing, for us to realise that our presumptions about who is online need to change. If we are looking at an inclusive Web, we need to stop imagining that the person on the other side of the interface is necessarily like us, and develop new networks of nurture, which allows the digital immigrants safe spaces to experiment, make mistakes, and learn like the best of us. The next time, before you call somebody a troll, see if it might just be somebody learning the tricks of the trade. If they are doing something wrong, just politely point it out to them. And remember, acceptance is not only for people who are like us, but about people who are markedly unlike us.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/india-express-news-nishant-shah-oct-29-2012-the-rules-of-engagement</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital ActivismResearchers at WorkInternet GovernanceDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:48:54ZBlog EntryOne. Zero.
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero
<b>The digital world is the world of twos. All our complex interactions, emotional negotiations, business transactions, social communication and political subscriptions online can be reduced to a string of 1s and 0s, as machines create the networks for the human beings to speak. So sophisticated is this network of digital infrastructure that we forget how our languages of connection are constantly being transcribed in binary code, allowing for the information to be transmitted across the web. </b>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Nishant Shah's article was <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/one.-zero./1003149/0">published</a> in the Indian Express on September 16, 2012</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;">Indeed, we have already reached a point where we don’t even need to be familiar with code to perform intimate functions with the machines that we live with, as they respond to us in human languages. While this human-machine duality has been resolved with the presence of intuitive and interactive interfaces that allow us to seamlessly connect to the person(s) at the other end of a digital connection, there is another binary that still remains at the centre of much discussion around all things digital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This is the duality of the Real and the Virtual. In geekspeak, this particular separation has been coded as a divide between RL (Real Life) and VR (Virtual Reality). This separation between the two is so naturalised that it has become a part of our everyday imagination where things that happen online are ‘out there’ and ‘an escape’ whereas things that are offline, are ‘real’ and ‘believable’. However, as digital technologies become pervasive and ubiquitous, these lines between RL and VR have blurred. Especially with new technologies of augmented reality and simulated layers like Google Goggles or even location-based services on your smartphone that help you navigate through the offline world, it is becoming difficult to clearly say what is online and what is offline.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">There are two questions that help demonstrate this blurring of boundaries very clearly. The first is an existential one, something that doesn’t crop up often in conversations, but suddenly haunts you on at 2 pm on an idle Thursday: Who are you, when you are online? A famous cartoon on the web had two dogs sitting on a connected computer, their paws on the mouse, and telling each other, ‘On the internet, nobody knows you are a dog’. But in the hyper-connected world that we live in, everybody knows exactly who we are, even as we ourselves are confused about where our bodies end and where our digital extensions and avatars begin. Things that we do in RL affect and shape the ways in which our avatars evolve on social networking sites. The interactions that our avatars have with other digital objects map back on our understanding of who we are and how we dress our bodies. Even when we are not connected, our avatars interact, constantly, not only with other avatars in the system, but also machines and artificial intelligence scripts, and robots and networks, masquerading as ourselves even outside our knowledge. We might be tagged, liked, shared, transmitted and morphed; we might be photoshopped, reduced to a tweet, condensed to a status message, embodied in an avatar on our favourite role playing game, or hovering as a signature to emails. These are all parts of us, but they are not just extensions of us. These are things that not only stand in for us but also shape the ways in which we understand ourselves and how we connect to the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second question crops up regularly in digitally mediated conversations. When your parents call you on the cell phone, or your friend messages you on the Blackberry, or your colleague pings you on Skype or your IRC buddies see you on a chat channel. As our modes of access have become mobile and devices of access have become portable, we can never really clearly answer the question, ‘Where are you right now?’. It is a question worth dwelling on. Where are you when you are walking down a street, using GPRS data on your cellphone, and a friend uses a Voice Over IP service like Whatsapp to ask you, ‘Where are you right now?’. Are you on the street? On your phone? On an application? Located somewhere on a server? Bits of data on a high-speed optic fibre, zooming across the ionosphere? Depending upon who is asking the question, you would be able to and in fact have to give a different answer about where you are when you are online.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This blurred duality might be seen as confusing, taking away the assurance of our body and our geography from everyday practices. In fact, one of the reasons why the digital revolution has been so well received is because these technologies facilitate an almost seamless transfer of ideas, emotions and connections across the different realms of RL and VR, offering us new ways of thinking about being human, being social, and being connected. The strength of the digital is in this coupling together, of the hitherto irreconcilable realms of our life in messy and enchanting ways, giving us new opportunities to think about who we are and where we are in our quotidian lives.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/www-indianexpress-com-one-zero</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkInformation TechnologyDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:50:32ZBlog EntryDeconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies
<b>Nishant Shah was invited to do a book review of a new anthology 'Deconstructing Digital Natives', edited by Michael Thomas. The review was published in Routledge's Journal of Children and Media on July 18, 2012. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Deconstructing Digital Natives: Young People, Technology and the New Literacies</em> is an anthology that revisits the debates and scholarship that have arisen around youth and technology in the last decade or so. It is a timely intervention that invites some of the most influential scholars who have contributed to and shaped the discourse around “digital natives” to come and revisit their original ideas from the last decade. The term “digital native” probably bears witness to the strident discourses that, more often than not, fall into the trap of exotically glorifying or despairingly vilifying young peoples’ engagement with digital technologies. As Buckingham points out in his foreword to the book, these conversations either take up the language of a “generation gap [that] entails a narrative of transformation and even of rupture, in which fundamental continuities between the past and the future have been destroyed” or they guise themselves in an “almost utopian view of technology—a fabulous story about technology liberating and empowering young people, enabling them to become global citizens, and to learn and communicate and create in free and unfettered ways” (p. ix). The essays seek a point of departure from these tried and tested arguments in order to provide a “balanced view” on the topic. And so we have a distinguished author list from the world of digital natives scholarship, coming together not only to ponder on their own contributions to the field and how those ideas need to be upgraded, but also to provide new contexts, concepts, and frameworks to understand who, or indeed, what, is a “digital native,” often in tension with their earlier work.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In its ambition of revisiting existing debates and providing a “research-based approach by presenting empirical evidence and argument from international researchers in the field,” the book succeeds unevenly (p. xi). Despite its efforts to chart a point of departure, some of the essays end up falling into some usual traps. For example, despite the fact that the oldest digital natives are probably in their thirties, they are thought of as being young. They are defined only as “students” within formal learning institutions without looking at the radical potential of learning outside organized education, embedded in their everyday practices. The digital natives remain an object of research and the peer-to-peer structures that are supposed to shape them, but do not feature in the methodologies of researching them. This notwithstanding, the essays still offer a historical and social perspective on the debates around digital natives in certain developed pockets of the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the first section, “Reflecting on the Myth,” Thomas’ essay “Technology, Education and the Discourse of the Digital Native” introduces a tension between the techno-euphorists and the “digital luddites,” which replays itself through the rest of the contributions. While Thomas places himself between “technoevangelism” and “technoskepticism,” Prensky, who coined the term “Digital Natives” in 2001, then introduces to us a new binary of “digitally wise” and “digitally dumb” (p. 4). Prensky reviews the responses that his opposition of “digital natives” and “digital immigrants” have produced over the last decade and emphasizes that his coinage was at the level of a metaphor, and was not to be taken seriously. Prensky agrees that the earlier opposition might be discarded because it evokes too many simple responses based on skills with technology. Digital wisdom, for Prensky, is in the ways in which digital technologies enhance the human brain “to anticipate second- and third-order effects to which the unaided mind may be blind” as the world becomes too complex for the “unenhanced human brain” to cope with it (p. 23). Typically, Prensky’s argument creates a dichotomy of those who can (and will) and those who will be outside of this web of digital enhancements. His analysis tries to complicate the idea of human wisdom by looking at questions of ethics and agency, but the final formulations appear cliche´d, merely re-creating the older tensions rather than thinking through them. Jones’ following essay on the “Net Generation” is more persuasive, where he argues for dismissing the idea that “nature of certain technologies . . . <em>has affected the outlook of an entire age cohort</em> in advanced economies” and instead should unpack how “new technologies emerging with this generation have particular characteristics that <em>afford certain types of social engagement</em>” (p.42).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In the second section, titled “Perspectives,” the essays take up two different tones.The first is about looking at digital literacy, skill, and fluency in everyday practices of digital natives, and how they shape our contemporary and future sociopolitical and cultural landscapes. Banaji, in exploring the EU Civic Web Project, echoes Jones’ ideas. The presumptions within education about an entire generation as “born with technologies” has consequences in the field of civic action, where programs for citizen action are designed with expectations that the young people will have core digital competencies and literacy. She does not push that argument further, but in her study of the two Scottish e-initiatives, one can see the promise of a radical reconstruction of civic engagement movements, where the young participants are not going to be satisfied as mere participators, and will demand a space for their voice to be heard.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Takahashi’s essay on the <em>oyaubibunka</em> (“thumb culture”) mobile generations in Japan stands alone in its analysis of an Asian context—though many might argue that Japan, with its developed economy, can hardly be counted as a typically “Asian” perspective. Takahashi is rooted, both in practice and discourse, in youth and technology in Japan, where the youth often experience close-knit community experiences through mobile interfaces, in their otherwise alienated modern habitats. Almost as a response to Turkle’s Alone Together (2011), Takahashi shows how collaborative and cocreation cultures ranging from the mobile novels on Mixi to everyday interaction on Social Networking Systems is bringing in new kinds of social spaces of belonging. The essay, however, resists simply celebrating this space and works in complex ideas of freedom, control, risks, and the tensions between traditionalization and modernity in Japan.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Zimic and Dalin, writing from a similar heavily connected Nordic region, pose a different set of questions in their essay, “Actual and Perceived Online Participation Among Young People in Sweden.” For Zimic and Dalin, in a space where connectivity can be taken for granted, the further question to ask is not whether digital natives participate online or not, but whether they participate in ways that are expected of “a digital citizen in the information age” (p. 137). Through empirical data and case studies, the essay shows the different kinds of activities that youth engage with and also concludes that though engaging in civic issues is important to the young people’s sense of belonging to participatory cultures, using the Internet does not provide an “automatic guarantee” toward participation, and “assistance is required in order to engage them in relevant activities” (p. 148).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The second set of essays in this section all cluster around the digital native as a student. Locating the digital native within educational institutions, they look at the ways in which the ideas of learning, pedagogy and engagement with the text are changing with the rise of digital technologies. Levy and Michael look at two case studies involving students in Australian high schools, to “facilitate a deeper understanding of products and processes in multimodal text construction,” which they think is core to interactive communication technology literacy skills (p. 85). The data is rigorous and rich, but the conclusions are a bit of a disappointment: digital natives need to better manage their time and resources and they need to learn traditional skills in order to cope with their educational environment.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The trend of an exciting hypothesis and conclusion, which do not necessarily leave you with anything more than what you already knew, continues in this section. Erstad sets out on a journey to see how digital literacy posits challenges to educating the digital generation and ends by suggesting that the digital divide should address questions of “how to navigate in the information jungle on the Internet, to create, to communicate, and so forth” (p. 114). Similarly, Kennedy and Judd want to unravel the mystery of why “students, who are so clearly familiar and apparently adept with Internet tools, are at times so poor at using the Internet academically” (p. 119). Through empirical research and interaction with students, they end up making an argument against the Googlization of everything (Vaidhyanathan, 2011), suggesting that “satisficing strategies” of information search, defined by a need for instant gratification and not looking beyond the first information sets, has produced “a generation of students that has grown up with Google [who] may over-value expediency when locating and selecting appropriate scholarly information” (p. 132). On similar trends, Levy proposes to question the assumption of whether all “young children are inherently ‘native’ users of digital technology” for implications on our future pedagogy within the new textual landscape (p. 152). The case studies and the frameworks built are interesting, but they reveal nothing more than the claim that the essay begins with by Marsh et al. (2005) and Bearne et al. (2007) that “young children are immersed in ‘digital practices’ from an early age and that they often develop skills in handling screen texts even when they are not exposed directly to computers at their own homes” (Levy, 2011, p. 163). The implication is clear: change our schools to accommodate for these new textual practices and help children capitalize on their digital competence and develop “digital wisdom.” But it is a recommendation that has been around for at least a decade, if not more.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The third and concluding section of the book, “Beyond Digital Natives,” is possibly the most promising part of the book. Bennett and Maton seek to look beyond “nuanced versions of the idea” and move the debate on to firmer grounds of how the rise of the digital natives is going to affect the policies around educational technology” (p. 169). They engage with a body of work that is specifically oriented toward building empirical evidence-based frameworks for understanding the potential role of technology in education. With a fine conceptual tool that makes distinctions between access and usage, they systemically dismiss the “academic moral panic” that characterizes conversations around youth-technology-change.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">For Bennett and Maton, the object of inquiry is not the digital native but the body of discourse that surrounds this particular entity—and they make a plea for research rather than imaginings, showing how the influential work in the area has been plagued by unsupported claims, unevidenced observations, and futuristic imaginations, which paint a poetic picture of digital natives but offer very little in terms of furthering the argument. It is also noteworthy that they do not flinch from critiquing the colleagues who also feature in the same book, as an idealizing and homogenizing group that has shown “diversity rather than conformity” (p. 181).</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Palfrey and Gasser, whose <em>Born Digital</em> (2008) has been the guide for lay readers to understand the nuances and complexities of the area, in their essay, begin by acknowledging that “digital natives” is an awkward term. However, they argue, it is still a term that resonates deeply with parents and educators, and that this resonance should not be taken lightly by researchers. Their decision was to use this term, albeit with caution and discretion, strategically to refer to a small subset of young people and the gamut of relationships and engagements they have with digital technologies. The suggestion is to use the term and in every usage, look at the unevennesses and awkwardness it creates, thus actually unpacking an otherwise opaque relationship which is reduced to “usage” or “access.” Their concerns are more about the quality of information and access, infrastructure for critical literacy and digital fluency, and making legible these everyday practices to larger implications for a future that they posit is bright and hopeful.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><em>Deconstructing Digital Natives</em> is an interesting revisit of a term that has grown in different ways through the first decade of the new millennium. However, the book still remains located in the same geopolitics in which the early discourse of digital natives were grounded—developed, privileged locations where connectivity, affordability, and ubiquitous digital literacy are taken for granted—reminiscent of the frantic cries one hears in piracy markets in Bangkok, “same, same, but different.” The revisiting does not seem to feel the need to explore other contexts. A few essays talk about factoring in local and contextual information in understanding digital natives, but the scholarship reinforces the idea of how technologies shape and are shaped by identities in some parts of the world, and that these identities can be heralded as universally viable, with a little nuancing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The questions that have emerged in this discourse in the recent years, remain ignored. What does a digital native look like in the Global South? Can we have new concepts and frameworks which emerge from these contexts? Is it possible to produce accounts in languages and ideas that are embedded in everyday practices rather than forcing them to become legible in existing vocabularies? One would hope that the next book that deconstructs digital natives would also deconstruct the prejudices, presumptions, and methodological processes that are embedded in this field.</p>
<hr />
<p style="text-align: justify;"><strong>References</strong></p>
<ol>
<li>Bearne, E., Clark, C., Johnson, A., Manford, P., Motteram, M., & Wolsencroft, H. (2007). Reading on screen. Leicester: UKLA.</li>
<li>Marsh, J., Brookes, G., Hughes, J., Ritchie, L, Roberts, S., & Wright, K. (2005). <em>Digital beginnings: Young children’s use of popular culture, media and new technologies</em>. Sheffield: Literacy Research Centre, University of Sheffield.</li>
<li>Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). <em>Born digital</em>. New York, NY: Basic Books.</li>
<li>Turkle, S. (2011). <em>Alone together: Why we expect more from technology and less from each other</em>, NY. New York: Basic Books.</li>
<li>Vaidhyanthan, S. (2011). <em>The Googlization of everything: (And why we should worry)</em>. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.</li>
<hr /></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="visualHighlight">Nishant Shah is the Director-Research at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society. He is the principal researcher for a Global South inquiry into digital natives and sociopolitical change, and recently edited four-volume book, Digital AlterNatives with a Cause?, which is available as a free download at <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook" class="external-link">http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/dnbook</a>. Correspondence to: Nishant Shah, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India. E-mail: nishant@cis-india.org</span></p>
<ul>
<li><span class="visualHighlight">Download the file (originally published by Taylor & Francis) <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/deconstructing-digital-natives" class="internal-link">here</a> [PDF, 66 Kb]</span></li></ul>
<ul>
<li><span class="visualHighlight">Read the original published by Taylor & Francis <a class="external-link" href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17482798.2012.697661">here</a></span></li></ul>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/young-people-technology-new-literacies</a>
</p>
No publishernishantFeaturedResearchers at WorkBook ReviewDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:51:06ZBlog EntryCitizen Activism the Past Decade
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/citizen-activism-the-past-decade
<b>Call for Contributions to the ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ newsletter, ‘Citizen Activism the Past Decade’. Deadline: August 15, 2012.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">The past decade (2001 – 2011) has been marked by unprecedented democratic protests across the globe. Not only have citizens risen against autocratic regimes or systemic corruption, which is not unprecedented in itself, but also, a spark in one region inflamed solidarity among neighbouring nations to pick up the placards and march for change. Plenty has been written about the strategic deployment of social media, Web 2.0 platforms and Smart-gadgets by the digital natives (the youth and the old alike) to rewrite the rules of citizen activism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">In this issue of the newsletter, we explore the mechanics of activism aided by media: web, social, digital, and traditional. What do we understand by a cause and how does it find resonance at the local and global platforms? Is the digital native a community player or a global citizen? How do digital natives connect, collaborate, mobilize and bring about their visions of change? The aim is to not establish or reinforce these dichotomies, if indeed they exist, but to understand the dimensions of the stage the digital natives operate on <em>and if that stage is a synecdoche for global youth-led civic action.</em> A case in point: <strong>‘Slut Walk’ </strong>moved from being a one-off march in Toronto to becoming a global movement and came full circle when small towns and cities across the world organized protest marches with a local ‘twist’.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify;">Topics that contributors can explore:</h3>
<ol></ol>
<ul>
<li>What do we understand by citizen activism? How has citizen activism changed over the last 10 years with the advent of new media tools?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Youth as 'change agents'. Are protest movements youth oriented today? How are civil rights movements of the past decade different from the wave of movements that marked the 60s? (women's lib, LGBT rights, civil rights, disability rights). Explore the mechanics of organizing, mobilizing and measuring the success of a campaign in both the cases.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Participatory Politics and Web 2.0 | Value and power of the Network in effecting change | Mobilizing support and consensus within the network |studies on politically active youth using social media | digital natives as apathetic citizens | Is Slacktivism still a misunderstood term?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Kony 2012 video campaign | interviews | what went wrong and what did they do right? | Rise of DIY activism | mechanics of digital activism | resources, tools and strategies</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Rise of the ‘Glocal’ (global with local resonance) cause | Slut Walk and Co – global protests inspiring local campaigns | Children of globalization with global stakes supporting local causes – how does this work?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Role of new media as a vehicle for civic engagement | Are new media and traditional media mutually exclusive in influencing citizen action? | How are new media strategies deployed by citizens in comparison with traditional media engagement?</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Learning from past campaigns: citizen activism initiates and strategies in history that inspire modern campaigns (The ‘Walk to Work’ protest in Uganda protesting against fuel price hike and removal of subsidies is similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s <em>Dandi</em> <em>March</em> in pre-independence India to protest against Salt Tax).</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Finding commonalities in citizen activism across Asia, Africa and Middle East | Explore the citizen action campaigns that have shaped political discourse in the past decade | Explore some of the most successful youth action campaigns of the past decade </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">How do we measure value, quality and success of campaigns? When does a protest officially end? Studies that explore the life-cycle of a protest or movement </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">The future of activism: new technologies, new demography, new forms of engagement | art and activism | Gamification </li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Role of non-governmental organizations and civil society networks in fostering political change | collaboration between NGOs and social media activists / independent protesters</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">State and the empowered citizen | State response to protest | surveillance and censorship</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Technologies of protest</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">Studying citizen activism | digital native research methodology to study citizen activism</li></ul>
<ol></ol>
<p style="text-align: justify;">To know more about the topics you can write about, please write to: <a class="external-link" href="http://mailtonilofar.ansh@gmail.com">nilofar.ansh@gmail.com</a> (Nilofar Ansher, Community Manager). Contributions can be in the form of essays, notes, commentaries, reviews (book or paper), dialogues and chat transcript, poems, sketches / graphics. Essay word count between 800-1,600 words. Send your entries along with a brief bio and a profile picture by August 15, 2012.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">View previous issues of the 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' newsletter here: <a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/newsletter" class="external-link">http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/newsletter</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/citizen-activism-the-past-decade'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/citizen-activism-the-past-decade</a>
</p>
No publisherNilofar AnsherFeaturedResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:52:44ZBlog EntryRevisiting Techno-euphoria
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/revisiting-techno-euphoria
<b>In my last post, I talked about techno-euphoria as a condition that seems to mark much of our discourse around digital technologies and the promise of the future. The euphoria, as I had suggested, manifests itself either as a utopian view of how digital technologies are going to change the future that we inhabit, or woes of despair about how the overdetermination of the digital is killing the very fibre of our social fabric. </b>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><a class="external-link" href="http://dmlcentral.net/blog/nishant-shah/revisiting-techno-euphoria">Published</a> in DML Central on July 5, 2012</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A way out of it, for some of us working with young people and their relationships with (as opposed to usage of) technologies, is to think of digital technologies as a paradigm through which everyday life is reconfigured, or as contexts within which we evolve new relationships of power and negotiation. Or to put it plainly, it has forced us to think of digital technologies not in terms of tools and gadgets, infrastructure and logistics (though those are also important) but as embodied experiences that reshape the very ways in which we conceptualize our everyday life.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When we talk of digital natives in India, the immediate spaces that they inhabit conjure up images of big crowded IT cities that are transforming into hubs of international outsourcing industries and IT development. We presume that digital natives would be found in the 12% of the Indian sub-continent where broadband access is available. We often narrow our focus to look at urban, middle class, affluent, English speaking, educated youth who occupy extremely privileged positions in their social, cultural and economic practice.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, the story* I want to share with you today comes from an unusual location in India – from the village of Banni in the desert region of Kutch, located at the North-Western borders of India and Pakistan. In this small village that is about 80 kilometers from the biggest town with amenities like hospitals and schools, almost every household has a smart phone with access to the internet. In the absence of more popular forms like radio, which are disallowed because of the proximity to the turbulent India-Pakistan borders, the Chinese-made smart phones become the de facto interface of communication and cultural production. The phones become not only the life-line in times of crises, but also everyday objects through which the villages stay connected with the world of cultural production and entertainment. The internet services on the phones allow them to access Bollywood songs and movies, images and games, popular television programming and other popular cultural products in the country. In many ways, Banni is probably more digitally connected than many parts of the larger cities in the country.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, the strong influence of Islam in this fairly homogenized community means differential access for the people who live in it. Women, according to the village doctrines, are not allowed access to technologies for fear of corruption. Hence the smart phones are all exclusively owned by men who have complete access to the information highway whereas the women do not have immediate ownership of such interfaces. And yet, the women in the village are quite updated about the latest news, gossip, politics, information about the weather, and cultural productions like TV soaps and Bollywood movies. This discrepancy between lack of access to digital technologies on the one hand, and a fairly comprehensive access to information of their choice is perplexing at first. Till you turn your attention to the children, who, in their pre-pubertal space, are not segregated so clearly into the technology publics and privates, and hence can navigate the spaces which are otherwise so gender exclusive.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">These children would not usually be recognized as digital natives because they are not particularly tech savvy and they do not have direct and unlimited access to the digital devices or connectivity. However, they become interfaces through which the information consumed by the male population permeates and travels to the female population in the village. The children become embodied interfaces, who imbibe the information from these digital devices and re-enact it for the women in their own private spaces. The village now has its own child-stars who not only pass on the local news and information, but also re-enact, on a daily basis, scenes, songs, and story-lines from the soaps and movies that are popular with the women in the village.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">While the gendered politics of technology access and the creative ways in which children are able to work as embodied interfaces is interesting – and perhaps needs more space than is afforded here – what remains interesting to me is how this story disrupts the regular narratives of techno-euphoria. It cannot be explained away merely in terms of usage. It cannot be used to claim radical social change in community and gendered relationships. It is difficult to make a technology-empowerment argument though this. What is perhaps most interesting is that it shows how we need to start thinking about digital technologies as producing new ecosystems that reconfigure our understanding of who we are and the roles we play in developing social relationality. The digital natives in these stories are not merely the children – though their embodied interface produces startling insights into how personal relationships with technologies are produced. The men who have access to the phones and have mastered digital literacy in navigating through these phones, the women who become the last-mile consumers who have found creative ways of staying connected despite their lack of access, and the children who become the nodes in this technology-information infrastructure, are all digital natives of a certain kind. They might not have claimed that identity and indeed might never want to. And yet, the very conditions of everyday life, as they are mediated by the presence of digital technologies in Banni, help us understand the social structures and information relationships in ways which are more complex than theorized by our techno-euphoric attention to network visualizations which are heavily determined by usage and action.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This story from Banni is layered and needs unpacking at many different levels. However, it shall always remain, for me, a catalyst to re-think the focus and framework of our technology discourse, and talk about digitally mediated identities (digital natives or otherwise) in a vocabulary that moves beyond usage, infrastructure and access. It emphasizes, for me, the idea that the gadgets and tools we use are, actually, only material manifestations of the digital -- which operates at the level of a paradigm or a context, through which we are slowly reshaping the material, social, and cultural notions of who we are and how we connect to the world around us.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Read Nishant's last post <a class="external-link" href="http://dmlcentral.net/blog/nishant-shah/techno-euphoria">here</a><br />Link to the picture <a class="external-link" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pranavsingh/1311922613/">here</a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">* <em>I am greatly thankful to my friend Rita Kothari at the Indian Institute of Technologies, Gandhinagar, for first introducing me to this context and its peculiar technology ecosystem</em>.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/revisiting-techno-euphoria'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/revisiting-techno-euphoria</a>
</p>
No publishernishantDigital subjectivitiesResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:53:49ZBlog EntryAcross Borders
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/across-borders
<b>A friend and I were at a cafe in Bangalore the other day, when an acquaintance walked in. After the initial niceties, and invitation to join us for coffee, the new person looked at us and asked a question that sounded so archaic and so unexpected that we had no answers for it: How do you two know each other? This innocuous question threw us both off the loop because we didn’t have an immediate answer. </b>
<p>Nishant Shah's <a class="external-link" href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/across-borders/970341/">article</a> was published in the Indian Express on July 5, 2012</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">How do we two know each other? My story would begin with Livejournal — a community-based blogging platform that was popular in the early Noughties and was the first large-scale digital network I belonged to, and where I spoke with and befriended people writing in that closed social network. My friend probably pins it down to Twitter and how our blogging-friendship solidified through the charms of 140-character direct messages. There is another story somewhere, that we discovered later, when we added each other on Facebook and realised that we have a few close friends in common. Over the last many years, we have also worked together on a couple of projects, have caught up IRL (In Real Life) whenever we visit each others’ cities — Mumbai and Bangalore — and have thought of ourselves as friends, without trying to form a narrative that identifies the point of origin.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">When you compare this state of being, which is increasingly the default mode of being for many young people who cement their relationships through digital connections, with how we used to get to know people even two decades ago, we know that things have changed dramatically. For the longest time, the act and fact of knowing somebody was to find physical, material and communitarian similarities — filters that allowed us to hobnob with others like us. Of course, we were always progressive and cosmopolitan, but a quick sweep of any social circle would show that we were mostly confined to people who shared common stories with us. Sometimes these stories were of material proximity, we grew up in the same neighbourhoods, went to the same schools, etc. Sometimes these stories were of class and affordability, we belonged to the same clubs and hung out at similar places. Sometimes these stories were about an imaginary sameness, of religion, community, family etc.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If there is a truly democratising principle that the digital revolution brought to the fore, it can be seen in this destabilising of an older world order, where we are quite comfortable in coexisting and embracing those who are unlike us. I do not mean this to be a celebratory moment where the flat, non-discriminatory and inclusive societies are finally being built. Indeed, the digital networks have their own set of filters that eventually allow us to connect only with people of the same ilk. If you are online in India, you are necessarily talking to people who speak in a particular language and speak it in a particular way. Grammar, diction, fluency, references to global cultural icons and productions, consumption-based lifestyles, all betray the different locations (physical or otherwise) that people come from and serve as extremely strong filters to determine who we connect with.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This, sometimes, even translates into gadget snobbery. For example, a young friend told me that she finds it impossible to connect with people who don’t have a BlackBerry phone because she doesn’t know how she can sustain relationships without being constantly in touch through the BlackBerry Messenger. Similarly, the celebration of social applications like Instagram, which were available only to iPhone users, warns us that there are severe economic, social, cultural and political prejudices that abound in cyberspaces.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">However, in the middle of these complications, digital natives are not only a mobile-wielding generation, but also a mobile generation. They are fluid, not necessarily tied to the geographies of their origin, and often imagine themselves, as travelling across different networks and systems, like the information traffic on the internet. This dislocation of the fixity of where we are from and who we are, is one of the most exciting results of the digital turn. The fact that we are able to not only step out of these older networks, which are often entrenched in old-world politics that perpetuate mindless discrimination, but also fabricate new communities and collectives that bring together a diversity, for me, is heartening. While these new social forms will have their own set of problems — gendered, social, linguistic and class-based — they are also the new forms of our socio-cultural being. And there is hope that as the physical translates into the digital, there is a possibility of reconfiguring our pasts and recycling them for more collaborative and shared futures.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/across-borders'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/across-borders</a>
</p>
No publishernishantResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:55:41ZBlog EntryThe Bots That Got Some Votes Home
https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/bots-got-some-votes-home
<b>Nilofar Ansher gives us some startling updates on the "Digital Natives Video Contest" voting results declared in May 2012, in this blog post.</b>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It was a hint of suspicion raised by one of our colleagues at the Centre for Internet & Society that spurred our Web Analytics team to check into the voting activity of the contest that was all about the ‘<a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/vote-for-digital-natives" class="external-link">Everyday Digital Native</a>’. And while we acknowledged and celebrated the ‘digital’ in the native (users of technology), we forgot the human part that the digital has to engage with. Following weeks of deliberations, we now have conclusive evidence that points to irregularities in voting numbers of the Top 10 contestants. We are now staring at the elephant in the room: those innocuous little automated scripts we sweetly nicknamed, ‘bots’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering, in which an automated script fetches, analyzes and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. Each server can have a file called robots.txt, containing rules for the spidering of that server that the bot is supposed to obey. In addition to their uses outlined above, bots may also be implemented where a response speed faster than that of humans is required (e.g., gaming bots and auction-site robots) or less commonly in situations where the emulation of human activity is required, for example chat bots (Source: Wikipedia).</p>
<h3>What irregularities?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">You would see how a script or bot would have played a role in ‘automating’ the votes for a video. The Top 10 videos received a combined voting number of 20,000+. The discrepancy occurs at the juncture where the votes polled on the front end (the webpage where the contestant video was visible to the public) did not match with the number of hits the page received on the backend (this is the analytics part). For instance, the top polled video has some few thousand votes more than the number of people who actually visited our CIS website in the same duration. This prompted a review of the logs and the possible “hand” of a nonhuman agent acting on its human creator’s command to drive up the votes.</p>
<h3>How was this done? The Technicalities</h3>
<p>The following graph shows the extremely high level of voting requests just before the closing date (March 31, 2012). This would not be extraordinary except for the fact that two or three entries had an exceptionally higher vote count relative to their page views as per the analytics statistics.</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/scripted-voting-report/quickhist_march_april.png" alt="null" class="image-inline" title="Voting requests by date" /></p>
<h3>Analysis of the voting against the http requests for the voting link against page views</h3>
<div>
<table class="vertical listing">
<tbody>
<tr style="text-align: center;">
<th>
<p>Entry</p>
</th>
<th>Actual Votes Recorded (1)<br /></th>
<th>Direct http requests to votes (2)<br /></th>
<th>http requests for normal page view access (3)<br /></th>
<th>Recommended adjusted vote count (4)<br /></th>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/digital-media-dance" class="internal-link">Digital Dance</a></p>
</td>
<td>268</td>
<td>448</td>
<td>198</td>
<td><span class="visualHighlight">198</span></td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/big-stories-small-towns" class="internal-link">Big Stories, Small Town</a></p>
</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>112</td>
<td>3</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/digital-natives-contest/entries/connecting-souls-bridging-dreams" class="internal-link">Connecting Souls, Bridging Dreams</a></p>
</td>
<td>1113</td>
<td>2018</td>
<td>1685</td>
<td>1113</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/finalist-summary/deployed" class="internal-link">Deployed</a></p>
</td>
<td>191</td>
<td>479</td>
<td>195</td>
<td>191</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p class="internal-link"><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/from-the-wild-into-the-digital-world" class="internal-link">From The Wild Into The Digital World</a></p>
</td>
<td>10317</td>
<td>11880</td>
<td>810</td>
<td><span class="visualHighlight">810</span></td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/i-am-a-ghetto-digital-native" class="internal-link">I Am A Ghetto Digital Native</a></p>
</td>
<td>321</td>
<td>365</td>
<td>844</td>
<td>321</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/life-in-the-city-slums" class="internal-link">Life in the City Slums</a></p>
</td>
<td>13</td>
<td>18</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>13</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/who-is-a-digital-native" class="internal-link">Digital Natives</a></p>
</td>
<td>111</td>
<td>328</td>
<td>102</td>
<td><span class="visualHighlight">102</span></td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/with-no-distinction" class="internal-link">With No Distinction</a></p>
</td>
<td>369</td>
<td>557</td>
<td>1232</td>
<td>369</td>
</tr>
<tr style="text-align: right;">
<td>
<p><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/entries/digital-coverage-in-a-digital-world" class="internal-link">Digital Coverage in a Digital World</a></p>
</td>
<td>9622</td>
<td>13650</td>
<td>181</td>
<td><span class="visualHighlight">181</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3></h3>
<span class="internal-link"> </span>
<ol>
<li style="text-align: justify;">These are the public votes displayed on the contestant’s page through the thumbs up icon</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">These are http requests to the voting link against each video when the user clicked on the thumbs up icon.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">These are http requests which are collectively related to the video page (page view). A normal human user would browse through a page first, which downloads some other urls, such as the HTML for the page, JavaScript, images, and so on. A normal vote request would be included collectively. A direct http request to the voting link on the other hand does not do this, and only makes a specific request to vote without downloading the other parts that make up the page.</li>
<li style="text-align: justify;">A normal human vote count should be the same or less than the number of page views. Only three videos highlighted show abnormal behaviour and it is recommended these be adjusted to the page view counts.</li></ol>
<h3>Are you saying contestants cheated?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">While the use of programming scripts to accrue votes is no new tactic and we should, in fact, have a more robust mechanism to monitor such activity during a contest, we cannot prove the culpability of the human agents. The contestants might be innocent actors with overzealous friends or colleagues who ran the voting scripts. As of now, since there is no way to ascertain their part in this irregularity, it’s best we give them the benefit of the doubt. What comes through loud and clear is that once you do away with the scripted votes, four contestants still manage to have enough votes to maintain their positions in the final five. In the fifth position, we now have a contestant from the top ten finalists, who has secured the requisite votes (after vote adjustment) to propel him into the final five.</p>
<h3>Recommendation</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">‘Digital Dance’ (Cijo Abraham), ‘From the Wild into the Digital World’ (John Musila) and ‘Digital Coverage in a Digital World’ (T.J. Burks) had additional vote url counts than page views. It is recommended that the total votes for these videos be adjusted to the page view counts, and not the actual vote counts as displayed on their individual web pages (thumbs up icon) during the voting period.</p>
<p>The rankings of the adjusted voting would now read as:</p>
<ol>
<li>Connecting Souls, Bridging Dreams – Marie Jude Bendiola (1113)</li>
<li>From The Wild Into The Digital World - John Musila (810)</li>
<li>With No Distinction - T.J. K. M. (369)</li>
<li>I Am A Ghetto Digital Native – MJ (321)</li>
<li>Digital Dance – Cijo Abraham (198)</li></ol>
<h3>Transparency at CIS</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">‘The Digital Natives with a Cause?’ research inquiry is shaped around concerns of transparency, equity and community accountability. In our research methods as well as in outputs of the different activities, we have always maintained a complete transparency of decision making processes as well as in depending upon the incredible people we work with to help us learn, grow and reflect openly on the concerns that we have been engaged with. We strive to follow this method and in publishing these statistics, we want to ensure that there is complete transparency about the votes that were accrued and how the final winners were selected. We also take this opportunity as a learning experience to re-think the question of the non-human actors in our networks and further about the nature of participation and reputation online. We hope that the publishing of these results will help answer any inquiries on how the process unfolded.</p>
<h3>View Logs and Source Code</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/scripted-voting-report/logs-during-voting-period" class="external-link">All logs from the web server for this period</a> (24.7MB) Identical IPs are from caching server.</li>
<li><a class="external-link" href="http://www.cis-india.org/digital-natives/video-contest/scripted-voting-report/main.R">R script to evaluate data for table</a></li></ul>
<h3>What next?</h3>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Since we spotted the error in time, we haven’t disbursed the prize money of EUR 500 to each of the Top 5 contestants. They will now receive the prize along with a chance to participate in the Digital Native workshop-cum-Webinar, slated to be held in July 2012. The top 10 videos will be showcased in this event.</p>
</div>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/bots-got-some-votes-home'>https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/bots-got-some-votes-home</a>
</p>
No publisherNilofar AnsherFeaturedResearchers at WorkDigital Natives2015-04-24T11:56:10ZBlog Entry