Centre for Internet and Society

WIPO SCCR 24 Post-lunch Text (July 20, 2012)

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T03:34:22Z

This is a rough transcript of the WIPO-SCCR discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/2012-07-20-sccr24-post-lunch.txt

WIPO SCCR 24 Pre-lunch Text (July 20, 2012)

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T03:36:08Z

This is a rough transcript of the WIPO-SCCR discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/2012-07-20-sccr24-pre-lunch.txt

WIPO SCCR 24 Post-lunch Text (July 19, 2012)

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T03:33:29Z

This is a rough transcript of the WIPO-SCCR discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/2012-07-19-sccr24-post-lunch.txt

WIPO SCCR 24 Pre-lunch Text (July 19, 2012)

praskrishna — 2012-07-25T03:36:37Z

This is a rough transcript of the WIPO-SCCR discussions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/2012-07-19-sccr24-pre-lunch.txt

December 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-23T08:35:03Z

Welcome to the newsletter issue of December 2011. This issue carries a special section on Freedom of Expression as there was much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media.

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscapes of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and internet technologies, in emerging information societies. The collaboration has produced a four book collective around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post Arab spring world, a position paper, a scouting report and three international workshops in Taipei, Johannesburg and Santiago.

Blog Entry

The Digital Other: Nishant Shah raises his concerns that increasingly, Digital Natives are acting as pure consumers of technology and gadgets, and seem willing to do so. The blog post was published in DML Central, 14 December 2011.

Events

Digital Native Video Contest, jointly organised by CIS and Hivos. Submission guidelines and FAQs are online. Submit your proposal online by 26 January 2012.
Digital AlterNatives Tweet-a-Review, 17 – 26 December 2011: 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' Project invites readers to review essays from the 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause', a four-book collective published by Centre for Internet & Society and Hivos.

Book Reviews

Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging: “The ‘Digital Natives’ concept is neither necessarily nor inherently positive, as YiPing Tsou highlights in her chapter Digital Natives in the Name of a Cause: From Flash Mob to "Human Flesh Search.” — Argyri Panezi
On Natives, Norms and Knowledge: “It is a text I strongly recommend, especially to those interested in the reasons behind contemporary policies that try to regulate digital activism such as the US SOPA Act.” — Philip Ketzel
Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids: “Ben-David’s piece is a well-articulated and informed attempt to resolve two of the several conceptual fuzziness of the term Digital Native. She attempts this in a philosophical manner: trying to move away from the ontological who are Digital Natives? to an epistemological when and where are Digital Natives?” — Samuel Tettner

Pathways for Learning in Higher Education

The Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications (HEIRA) at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between technologies, higher education and the new forms of social justice in India.

Workshop Report

The Digital Classroom: Social Justice and Pedagogy: Nishant Shah captures some of the questions that were thrown up and discussed at the 2 day Faculty Training workshop for participant from colleges included in the Pathways to Higher Education programme, supported by Ford Foundation and collaboratively executed by the Higher Education Innovation and Research Application and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

Blog Post

Technology, Social Justice and Higher Education by Nishant Shah, 7 December 2011.

Event Organised

Pathways 3rd Faculty Workshop & Regional Facilitators Meeting at CSCS, 8–10 December 2011, CSCS, Bangalore, Nishant Shah participated in the workshop.

Accessibility

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. So far we have organised Right to Read campaigns in the four metro cities of Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, made a submission to amend the Indian Copyright to the HRD Ministry, researched on accessible mobile handsets in India, analysed the Working Draft of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, and published a policy handbook on e-accessibility and a book on universal service for persons with disabilities.

Publications

Universal Service for Persons with Disabilities: Published by G3ict and CIS in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The book is co-authored by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict, Deepti Bharthur and Nirmita Narasimhan.
The Business Case for Web Accessibility: NASSCOM Foundation has published a handbook on web accessibility titled “Understanding Web Accessibility — A Guide to Create Accessible Work Environments”. Nirmita Narasimhan authored a chapter “The Business Case for Web Accessibility”.

Submission

Accessibility in the New Telecom Policy 2011: CIS was part of the 27 organisations that responded to the call for comments on NTP 2011. The submission was made to the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India on 9 December 2011.

Interview

An Interview of Nirmita Narasimhan on ITU Portal: ITU Girls in ICT is now online! ITU interviewed Nirmita and published her profile on their website.

Award

Nirmita receives NIVH Award: Nirmita Narasimhan received the NIVH Excellence Award from Justice AS Anand (retd), former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun on Saturday, 3 December 2011. The Tribune covered the award ceremony and published this in their newspaper on 3 December 2011.

Upcoming Event

ITU Meeting and Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility, organized by the International Telecommunication Union, India International Centre, 13 – 15 March 2012. CIS is hosting the workshop in collaboration with the ITU-APT Foundation. More information and registration are available at the ITU website.

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. We prepared the India report for the CI IP Watchlist, made submission to the HRD Ministry on WIPO Broadcast treaty, questioned the demonization of pirates, and advocated against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public funded knowledge.

Comments

CIS Intervention on Future Work of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement
The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) was held in Geneva on 30 November and 1 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event and made the intervention.
Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting: Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of 16 December 2009 during the seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) held in Geneva.

Blog Post

CIS Hosts Scanned Version of George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes: Verbindingen/Jonctions (V/J), the bi-annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant took place on 1 December 2011. CIS hosted the scanned pages of the essay in public domain.

Openness

Innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of Internet has radically defined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our endeavour has resulted in a report on open government data, a report on online video environment in India and a film on oral citations on the Wikipedia.

Award

Inaugural EPT Award for Open Access: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the cause of open access (OA) and the free exchange of research findings. The winner of the inaugural award is Dr Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet. CIS partnered with Privacy International and Society in Action Group which has produced outputs in banking, telecommunications, consumer rights, media law, sexual minorities, etc., and submitted seven open letters to Parliamentary Finance Committee on UID covering several aspects, feedbacks on NIA Bill, and IT Rules.

Peer Review

Now Streaming on Your Nearest Screen by Nishant Shah, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Volume 3, Issue 1.
Internet and Society in Asia: Challenges and Next Steps by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 11, Number 1.

Book Review

The Historian Wins Over the Biographer “In Walter Isaacson's eponymous biography of Steve Jobs, the multibillion dollar man who is credited with single handedly changing the face of computing and the digital media industry, we face the dilemma of a biographer: how do you make sense of a history that is so new, it is still unfolding.”
Nishant Shah's detailed review of Steve Jobs' biography was published in the Biblio Vol. XV Nos. 11 & 12, November- December 2011

Newspaper / Magazine Articles

Spy in the Web The government’s proposed pre-censorship rules undermine the intelligence of an online user and endanger democracy, Nishant Shah, Indian Express, 18 December 2011.
What is Dilligaf? On the web, time moves at the speed of thought: Groups emerge, proliferate and are abandoned as new trends and fads take precedence. Nowhere else is this dramatic flux as apparent as in the language that evolves online, Nishant Shah, GQ India.
Of Surrogate Futures and Scattered Temporalities: Nishant Shah responds to Michael Edwards through this blog post published in the Broker on 27 December 2011.

Interview

An Interview with Dr. Ann Cavoukian: Elonnai Hickok interviews Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario, Canada.
When the digital spills into the physical: Nishant Shah tells us why flash mobs are an interesting sign of our times, and not just a passing fad. MidDay published this interview in their newspaper on 18 December 2011.

Video

Phishing Attacks on the Rise: Sunil Abraham was on the TV Channel News 9 on 2 December 2011 speaking about two visual cues to distinguish between the fake and the real websites.

Media Coverage

India’s dreams of web censorship, Financial Time's beyondbrics, 6 December 2011, Sunil Abraham was quoted in this post.
Did He, Didn’t He by Rahul Bhatia, Open Magazine (issue: 7-14 December 2011)
Much at stake for tech sector in UID project by Pranav Nambiar, Economic Times, 12 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
On the net, red herring by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, 4 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
Twitter, Facebook take the lead in blogosphere as blog searches fall by half by Ameya Chumbhale, Economic Times, 17 November 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this article.

Event Report

Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism organised by Tactical Tech and CIS in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Zainab Bawa, Ayisha Abraham, Ward Smith and Marek Tuszinsky gave a talk. Videos of the event are now online.

Upcoming Events

Privacy Matters — Analyzing the "Right to Privacy Bill": Privacy India in partnership with International Development Research Centre, Canada, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the Godrej Culture Lab, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore is organising "Privacy Matters", a public conference at IIT, Bombay on 21 January 2012.

The High Level Privacy Conclave: Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon and Privacy International, UK is organizing the High Level Privacy Conclave at the Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens in New Delhi on Friday, 3 February 2012.

All India Privacy Symposium: Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon, Privacy International, UK and Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative is organizing the All India Privacy Symposium at the India International Centre, New Delhi on Saturday, 4 February 2012.

Event Organised

Dialogue Cafe @ Centre for Internet and Society, 2 Dec 2011, Kavita Philip gave a talk.

Special Section on Freedom of Expression

We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, this month there has been much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS:

Newspaper / Magazine Articles

Invisible Censorship: How the Government Censors Without Being Seen by Pranesh Prakash: The Indian government wants to censor the Internet without being seen to be censoring the Internet. The article was translated into Marathi and featured in Lokmat, 18 December 2011.
US Clampdown Worse than the Great Firewall by Sunil Abraham: If you thought China’s Internet censorship was evil, think again. American moves to clean up the Web could hurt global surfers. Sunil Abraham wrote this article in Tehelka, Volume 8, Issue 50, 17 December 2011.
That’s the Unkindest Cut, Mr. Sibal by Sunil Abraham: There’s Kolaveri-di on the Internet over Kapil Sibal’s diktat to social media sites to prescreen users’ posts. That diktat goes far beyond the restrictions placed on our freedom of expression by the IT Act. But, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, India is not going to be silenced online. Deccan Chronicle, 11 December 2011.

Blog Posts

Online Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical by Pranesh Prakash: The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal wants Internet intermediaries to pre-censor content uploaded by their users. Pranesh Prakash takes issue with this and explains why this is a problem, even if the government's heart is in the right place.
Press Coverage of Online Censorship Row: We are maintaining a rolling blog with press references to the row created by the proposal by the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology to pre-screen user-generated Internet content.

Radio Broadcast

Social media sites refuse Indian censorship request: Sunil Abraham spoke to Radio Australia. Follow the broadcast here

Live Chat

Is the govt bid to regulate content on the Internet a good thing?: Pranesh Prakash answered questions freedom of expression vis-a-vis objectionable content live on CNN-IBN's chat feature, 7 December 2011.

Media Coverage

Caught in the Web: “As it is the status of freedom of speech in India is in a bad shape. Sibal's new rules will only make it worse.”— Sunil Abraham in Hindu Business Line, 13 December 2011.

Online gag: Existing rules give little freedom: “Our criticism is of the policy and not of the websites and Internet entities that are forced to err on the side of caution when faced by such notices.” — Sunil Abraham in the Times of India, 9 December 2011.
Facebook, Google tell India they won’t screen for derogatory content: “Researchers sent mock take-down notices to seven sites, complaining about their content... six sites immediately deleted content. They did not even verify the validity of our flawed complaint. They over-complied.” — Sunil Abraham in Washington Post, 6 December 2011.
‘Any Normal Human Being Would Be Offended’: “Indian law seems to state that it has global jurisdiction but that is not really true. An Indian court might give an order that is unenforceable in the United States or anywhere else.” — Sunil Abraham in the New York Times, 6 December 2011.
IT Inc oppose Sibal’s ‘great’ firewall proposal: “You wouldn’t want to end up with a situation where you are denied access to, say, the website of the University of Sussex because the address contains the word ‘sex’.” — Nishant Shah in Indian Express, 7 December 2011.
Online @ India: “I haven't yet heard of anybody in India going on a rampage because somebody in Pakistan started an 'India hate' page.” — Nishant Shah in the Hindustan Times, 10 December 2011.
How ‘private-censorship’ is making online content disappear, quietly: “Google’s self-reported compliance rate of 51 per cent shows that they are probably over-stepping the law in order to appease the Indian government’s requests.” — Pranesh Prakash in FirstPost, 15 December 2011.
Kapil Sibal to sterilise Net but undercover sting shows 6 of 7 websites already trigger-happy to censor under ‘chilling’ IT Act, Legally India, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this blog post.
‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules by Heather Simmons, New York Times, 7 December 2011.
Govt wants to scrub the Internet clean, Livemint, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
India's Techies Angered Over Internet Censorship Plan, NPR, 20 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this blog post.
Internet, social media access should not be blocked: Ban, Oman Tribune, 10 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
India entering the Minority Report age?, ioL scietech. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this.
Los internautas indios se oponen a la censura a través de la Red, Diario de Navarra, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the Spanish newspaper.
Technological beasts like Facebook, Orkut, YouTube & Google impossible to control by Sunanda Poduwal & Kamya Jaiswal, Economic Times, 11 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the article.
Google V/s Kapil Sibal by Sundeep Dougal in Outlook, 8 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash's work at CIS has been extensively quoted in this blog post.
India bid to censor Internet draws flak Phil Hazlewood spoke to Sunil Abraham and published this article for AFP. France 24, Khaleej Times, Physorg.com, TimesLive, Bangkok Post, Yahoo News, MSN News, Emirates 24/7, Business Live and Jakarta Globe also carried the news on their websites, 9 December 2011.

Videos

Censorship — A Death Knell for Freedom of Expression Online: On 8 December 2011, NDTV aired an interesting discussion on internet censorship. Shashi Tharoor, Soli Sorabjee, Shekhar Kapoor, Ken Ghosh and Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion with NDTV's Sonia Singh.
FTN: Should social networking sites be censored?: Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal met the representatives of Facebook, Google and others seeking to device a screening mechanism. Sunil Abraham was on CNN-IBN from 10.00 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. speaking about freedom of expression in India.
Debate: Online content row-1: Sunil Abraham was on Times Now from 9.05 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. on 6 December 2011 speaking about freedom of expression in India.

Event Organised

Free Speech Online in India under Attack? A Panel Discussion, 21 December 2011. Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs, Lawrence Liang and Sunil Abraham gave lectures.

Telecom

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

Newspaper Article

Healing self-inflicted wounds by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, 1 December 2011: A spate of dysfunctional actions and retrograde developments has led to an unimaginable mess for India. Can the damage to growth prospects be undone? Does it need to be? If so, how?

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CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2011-bulletin

The kids are all on Facebook

praskrishna — 2012-07-20T06:24:17Z

In one photo, Prerna stands in front of the mirror, back slightly arched, a fringe covering her left eye, one hand on her hip, pursing her lips. The other hand holds the camera in a steadfast grip. Below this picture are almost a hundred likes and comments. There is nothing unusual as such about this photo on Facebook. Prerna, however, is just 11.

This article by Shikha Kumar was published in Daily News & Analysis on July 8, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

"Stop looking so pretty" and "OMG! You’re so thin" are some of the comments that appear under the picture of this young girl.

In another picture, Diksha’s wavy hair cascades around her face as she fixes the camera with an unwavering stare. The caption reads — "I love my hair. I know I sound like a conceited bitch." Diksha is 12.

Children like Prerna and Diksha, who are under the age of 13, are officially not allowed to open accounts on Facebook. But they are among the 7.5 million under-13 users of the popular social networking website, according to a study released by Consumer Reports last year. The study further revealed that among such users, 5 million were under the age of 10. Closer home, a McAfee-Synovate survey conducted across various cities in India revealed that 64% kids in the age group of 9-12 are members of social networking sites.

You may find the trend daunting since ‘kids’ are supposed to step out and socialise, rather than chat online. However, it’s a reality that we have no choice but to accept as a modern reality.

Internally, Facebook seems to have accepted the trend. As revealed by a news reports last month, the company is readying a technology that will allow children younger than 13 to open accounts and operate them in a secure manner. Possible approaches include connecting the children’s Facebook accounts with their parents’, and giving parents the control over who befriends their children on the website.

The New ways of being in touch with ‘friends’
The move has once again put the spotlight on the ways in which social networking is changing the way children interact with each other.

Namrata Bhoomkar, 13, logs on to the website at least two to three times a day. "I check my news feeds and see what my friends are up to. If you’re not on Facebook, you can’t be updated with what’s happening with everybody," she says.

Apart from finding out what their friends are up to, kids also spend a lot of time sharing their pictures, and are proficient at photo editing software like Photoshop, Picasa and Photobooth to make their pictures more striking.

Another way of standing out is to give pictures creative captions. "I google random quotes on love and life and then put those up as captions on the pictures. I get a lot of likes for it, which makes me feel nice," says 13-year old Sakshi Shrivastav.

Having No clue about privacy settings
However, while the kids use many of Facebook’s features, few are aware of the risks or the privacy settings available on the website that can protect them. In the McAfee-Synovate survey, 32% of the kids were not aware of any online threats, such as cyber hacking, stalking, bullying and identity thefts.

As a result, lessons are often learnt the hard way. "A 39-year-old man started sending me messages saying that I’m very pretty. My father found out and told me to disable my account. I was very upset since all my friends are on Facebook. So finally, my sister helped me activate my privacy settings," says an underage girl on the condition of anonymity.

Anandita Mishra, a security expert at McAfee Cybermum India, says that she does not advocate kids’ presence on Facebook. "There are several dangers; there might be paedophiles lurking, strangers pretending to be younger or your child may be a victim of online abusing or bullying," she says.

With the new timeline format, even though one’s account is protected, the cover pictures are always visible to everybody. In such cases, Mishra recommends either keeping no cover photo or keeping pictures of favourite cartoon characters.

In the face of so many risks, some experts believe that Facebook’s move to officially allow younger kids under some form of parental supervision is a step in the right direction.

"Children’s interaction online should always be under parental supervision. Censorship and control is not the responsibility of the government, but of parents," points out Sunil Abraham, director, Centre for Internet and Society.

Abraham believes that if this technology comes into force, children will consume content more responsibly. This will also give them the chance to go out in the real world and get some real communication experience, the old-fashioned way.

"They will even behave responsibly. If the account is supervised, they are less likely to engage in bullying, abusing, sexting or any other unacceptable forms of social behaviour," he adds.

While she is not totally in favour of this development, McAfee’s Mishra sees no other way because parents are unable to control their children. "Seven million kids are online with or without parental supervision. You cannot have cyber policing of children. It is important to inculcate the right values about responsible internet usage," she says.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kids-on-facebook

A Net of Hatred

praskrishna — 2012-07-20T06:09:19Z

Citizens worlwide have been resisiting the threat of internet censorship that governments seek to impose — and justifiably so. But while we have seen democratic revolutions such as the Arab Spring emerge from the power of the net, it is increasingly becoming clear to even the most ardent defender

This article by Samar Khurshid was published in the Hindustan Times on July 14, 2012. Pranesh Prakash is quoted in it.

The Problem

On the internet, anyone can say anything and largely get away with it, making it a near-perfect means for fanatics. India, in particular, with its religious diversity and history of communal tension, constantly struggles with this issue. Earlier this week, the phrase ‘Internet Hindus’ was trending on popular social media website, Twitter, brought to the fore by a discussion about online religious fundamentalism on Al Jazeera, a news network based in Qatar. The panelists sought to put in context the largely vocal community of internet users who support right-wing Hindu ideology. These ‘Internet Hindus’ have become synonymous with an "abusive, vocal, uncouth group of people who subscribe to Hindu nationalism," said one panellist. The tribe of ‘Twitter jihadis’ is now responding with equal fervour with mostly anonymous fundamentalists who are vocal with their message.

"The problem," says Pranesh Prakash, programme manager at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), "is that internet conversations become extreme. Liberals don’t get embroiled in heated arguments while fundamentalists, dedicated to extreme ideologies, tend to win out." Web censorship, he adds, is in vain as the net is too vast to control.

Online fanaticism is not limited to Hindus. For long, extremist Islamic groups have taken their jihad on to the world wide web. Of late, jihadist groups have mushroomed on social media to expand their base of support. The trend was observed by BBC Islamic Groups Analyst, Murad Batal al-Shishani, on Twitter. Even the recent arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba’s handler of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, Syed Zabiuddin Ansari alias Abu Jundal, was possible after he was tracked on Facebook trying to recruit young Muslims for 'the cause'. The Afghanistani Taliban, in fact, has its own news website with a running Twitter feed. The site offers the ‘voice of jihad’ with events propagandised from the Taliban perspective – American and Afghan soldiers are referred to as puppets, minions, cowards and even terrorists.

Islamic groups, however, are not a major cause of concern for India, according to Prasanto K Roy, a tech analyst and social media commentator. "Jihadist groups are a relatively small minority in India. But right wing Hindu groups have majority support."

The greatest issue, says CIS’s Prakash, is that these fundamentalists are increasingly well-organised and make great efforts to build a stronger extremist position. They are encouraged, he says, by the likes of Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy, who believes that minorities in India should only be given political rights after they acknowledge their Hindu ancestry; Francois Gautier, a French-Indian writer and journalist who supports the cause of Hindutva; and Zakir Naik, a Mumbai-born Islamic televangelist whose controversial opinions often attracts criticism. Prakash also says that on the net, "Many people are not only manufacturing opinion but also manufacturing facts as the basis of that opinion. These falsities are fuelling Right-wing anger."

The Solution

Governments are hard pressed to effectively censor and discourage otherwise reprehensible dialogue. The UPA attempted to tackle what they see as ‘objectionable content’. In December 2011, based on a petition, the government prosecuted internet giants like Yahoo, Google, Twitter and Facebook for hosting offensive material.

Legally, various sections of the Indian penal code, notably 153A – promoting enmity between communities – can be applied in cases of hate speech. But online speech falls short of being prosecutable, says sociologist Dipankar Gupta. "Something can only be (considered) hate speech if it directly incites people or results in violence, like statements made by Varun Gandhi in the 2009 Lok Sabha elections. Online fundamentalist speech does not cross the boundaries of the law. And we cannot prosecute someone for their opinion."

When a Twitter post asked the question whether certain people could be violating section 153A, the response was far from reasonable, or even civil. One person wrote, "We p*ss on you and your secular section." Another urged others to report the user to Twitter as spam and have him blocked. And of course all this comes with the barrage of by now infamous Twitter terms like 'sickular', 'pseudo secular' or 'Congress Dirty Tricks Department'. They have thousands of followers, even their own websites and are extremely organised.

"The larger question is whether we should tackle this legally or develop other methods," says Siddharth Narayan, a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum. "Hate-speech laws have been misused in the past. We don’t need a clampdown on internet freedom. We just need a more nuanced application of existing legislation," he says.

When looking at net-speak, it is tough to distinguish between generic statements of hate and a genuine call to violence. The internet has no intermediaries; no editors to censure your posts. Then perhaps it bodes ill for India’s secular democracy, and for secularism in the world at large, that uncurbed dialogue, which seeks to crystallise hate between communities, is spreading like an epidemic. CIS’s Prakash says the government cannot cope with this. “But we as society should be strong enough to respond, even if we disagree."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/a-net-of-hatred

RTI on Use of DPI Technology by ISPs

praskrishna — 2012-07-19T07:14:38Z

CIS had filed a Right to Information on use of DPI Technology by ISPs.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/use-of-dpi-technology-by-isps.pdf

Fifth Meeting of the two Sub-Groups on Privacy Issues under the Chairmanship of Justice AP Shah

praskrishna — 2012-08-07T10:11:25Z

The fifth meeting of the two sub-groups on privacy issues will be held on July 22, 2012 under the chairmanship of Justice AP Shah, former chief justice of Delhi High Court.

The next meeting of the two Sub-Groups (5th Meeting) on privacy issues under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court is scheduled to be held on July 22, 2012 at 11.00 a.m. This was announced vide notice No. M-13040/47/2011-CIT&I, dated the 10th June, 2012.

A copy of the notice was sent to the following individuals:

Justice AP Shah, Chairman
Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj
Usha Ramanathan
Sunil Abraham
Prashant Reddy
Prof. Arghya Sengupta
Shri Som Mittal
Shri Gulshan Rai
Mala Dutt

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/fifth-meeting-of-two-sub-groups-on-privacy

Session M4 – International Public Policy and Internet Governance Issues Pertaining to the Internet

praskrishna — 2012-07-19T05:59:40Z

The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum 2012 is being organised at Aoyama Campus, Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo on July 20, 2012. Sunil Abraham will be speaking in the session on international public policy and internet governance issues pertaining to the internet. The event is organised by APrIGF.Asia

The Internet is a vital strategic communications infrastructure for the Asia Pacific region, and so the future evolution of the Internet is a hugely important policy issue for individuals, business and government alike across the region. The region is the most diverse and dynamic in the world and the formulation of a unified and coherent regional view on such an important policy issue is very challenging. With internet governance becoming increasingly important, efforts are underway by some countries in Asia Pacific and elsewhere to change the nature of internet governance; moving from a relatively open multi-stakeholder model to a more closed, government led system of governance. What is the best evolution Internet governance path for Internet users of Asia Pacific to follow? This workshop will discuss the competing paths currently under discussion and seek to offer delegates a comprehensive understanding of the issues.

Panel

Moderator – Mr. Jeremy Malcolm, Consumers International

Speakers

Hasanul Aaq Inu, Member, Bangladesh National Parliament; Chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee for Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications
Atsushi Umino, Director for International Policy Coordination, Global ICT Strategy Bureau (MIC)
Sunil Abraham, Centre for Internet & Society, India
David Farrar, Director of Curia Market Research

Panelists

Naoya Bessho, General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer, Yahoo Japan Corporation
William Drake, International Fellow & Lecturer, Media Change & Innovation Division, IPMZ, University of Zurich, Switzerland

For the full agenda, click here
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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/session-m4-international-public-policy-and-internet-governance-issues-pertaining-to-the-internet

Accessibility Audit for Websites

praskrishna — 2012-07-13T04:33:02Z

CIS did an accessibility check for 7800 government websites. This is the report.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessibility-audit.xls

An all-nighter for hackers

praskrishna — 2012-08-06T10:59:09Z

Tech event management firm HasGeek is back with its Hacknight for hackers and developers willing to burn the proverbial midnight oil writing some competitive code.

An all-nighter for hackers

Tech event management firm HasGeek is back with its Hacknight for hackers and developers willing to burn the proverbial midnight oil writing some competitive code.

The Hacknight will be held between July 14 and 15, from 2 p.m. to 8 a.m. at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), in Bangalore, and simultaneously in Pune, at AmiWorks.

The Data Hacknight was open to geeks, enthusiasts, designers, mathematicians and statisticians to work with different datasets on projects ranging from discovering unknown patterns in data to representing data in various visual forms. This event was being held in the run-up to a larger conference on big data, analytics and applications called The Fifth Elephant.

The Hacknight was also open to individuals who want to work with tools such as R, Pig, Excel or even Hadoop to discover the possibilities and challenges of working with data, a release from HasGeek stated.

To register for the Hacknight, visit http://beta.hacknight.in/fifthelephant/bangalore2012

Yahoo sets up Grid Computing Lab

Yahoo India’s Research and Development wing and the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras announced the launch of a Grid Computing Lab set up by the Internet major on the institute campus.

This cluster of high-end servers at the lab would allow researchers to access Web-scale data and conduct research on big data and cloud computing systems, a release from Yahoo stated. The lab would focus on this emerging field and encourage more researchers to take up research in the field, as well as process and analyse huge volumes of structured and unstructured data which, to date, has been limited due to significant cost barriers in getting large computing systems operational.

D. Janakiram, Department of Computer Science, IIT-Madras, said in a release: “This opens up a new arena of exciting opportunities for our students. We are hopeful such partnerships will allow students to conduct truly breakthrough work on cloud computing and data storage systems, ultimately leading to Web innovations coming to the marketplace.”

World Class Award for iGate

iGATE, an integrated technology and operations company, announced that it has won the ‘World Class Award’ under the ‘large service organisations’ category at the Global Performance Excellence Awards (GPEA).

The awards were administered by the Asia Pacific Quality Organisation, a non-profit group, a release from iGate stated. Ravi Mani, senior vice-president, Organisational Excellence Group, iGATE, said the award was a testimony to the persistent effort the teams have put in to achieve the high-quality standards and processes at iGATE.

Cloud and growth: a survey

Over the last two years, the public cloud market in India has rapidly evolved with focus on software and payments as a service, a survey by Zinnov, a consulting firm, has found.

A study titled ‘Public Cloud Opportunity in India’ found that the overall Indian market for cloud (both public and private) grew steadily in 2011. The Software as a Service (SaaS) market, largely dominated by email, collaboration tools and enterprise resource products grew by 46 per cent, a release on the survey stated.

The public cloud market was expected to grow 55 per cent in the near future and become a default choice for new IT investments, especially in the small and medium businesses segment, the study observed.

The article was published in the Hindu on July 11, 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/all-night-for-hackers

Privacy Matters - Medical Privacy Presentations

praskrishna — 2012-07-10T11:29:13Z

The presentation files of the Medical Privacy conference can be downloaded here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/presentation-files

10th International ISTR Conference

praskrishna — 2012-08-05T08:03:28Z

The 10th international ISTR conference was organised by ISTR at Universita Degli Studi Di Siena in Italy from July 10 to 13, 2012. Nishant Shah gave a lecture on Beyond Normative Citizenships: Exploring the ‘New’ in Digital Activism.

Nishant Shah spoke as a panelist in the panel "Theoretical Grounding of Civic Driven Change".

This Tenth International Conference of ISTR marks the 20th anniversary of the formation of this global community of scholars and interested others dedicated to the creation, discussion, and advancement of knowledge pertaining to the Third Sector and its impact on human and planetary well-being and development internationally.

In this era of far-reaching changes in the way that societies are organized, the Third Sector is playing a critical role and has significantly gained importance in many countries. Democratization and the role of civil society in social integration and participation are in the spotlight with recent mobilizations particularly in the Middle East and ongoing suppression of civil society under authoritarian regimes in parts of the world. New media, social networks and other technological innovations raise new opportunities and challenges for organizing collective action and the diversity of civil society. Marketization and its impact on the Third Sector is attracting renewed research interest as welfare budgets are cut and the role of nonprofits is called into question in difficult fiscal times in many nations. A second type of marketization is also attracting attention particularly the growth of corporate social responsibility (CSR), the emergence of social enterprises and changing philanthropic paradigms. International research toward a better understanding of the implications of these changes continues to gather momentum.

ISTR’s Tenth International Conference in Sienna, Italy offers an excellent opportunity for further dialogue on these and other changes in an environment of rigor, reflexivity, authenticity and creativity. Siena encapsulates a mix of tradition and innovation that is woven from ancient webs of social engagement and enduring beliefs in justice through periods of peace and conflict. It provides an excellent setting to explore the role of third sector studies as an integrative science with short and long term objectives geared towards understanding and addressing societal concerns. Three exciting plenary sessions will canvas major theoretical and practice developments in the Third Sector and highlight the rich history and accomplishments of the host nation’s Third Sector.

See the event details on ISTR website
Read the program supplement for ISTR's 10th International Conference

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/istr-conference

March 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-09T07:33:44Z

In this month we announced the new clusters from Researchers at Work: Locating the Mobile, Interface Intimacies and Habits of Living.

Research

New series from RAW, new Clusters now Online!

From 2012 to 2015, the RAW series will build research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. We hope to build knowledge networks and production of new knowledge around questions of body, governance and cultural production in the digital times that we live in. Spearheaded by experts in the field of science, technology, society and culture the clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia.

Locating the Mobile: An Ethnographic Investigation into Locative Media in Melbourne, Bangalore and Shanghai
Larissa Hjorth (RMIT University, Melbourne), Genevieve Bell (Intel, Shanghai)
As yet we know little about the impact locative media is having, and will have upon people’s livelihoods and identity, or on public policy around privacy, identity, security and cultural production. Discourse in the field has opened up questions of art, innovation and experimentation. But there is a dearth of nuanced research on locative media that provides in-depth, contextual accounts of its socio-cultural and political dimensions. Not much work has been conducted into locative media as it migrates from art to the ‘messy’ area of everyday. The project seeks to address this knowledge gap by studying locative media in Bangalore, Melbourne and Shanghai.

Interface Intimacies
Audrey Yue (Melbourne University) and Namita Malhotra (ALF)
Users of technologies often express their engagement with technologies in affective terms. The interfaces that we see all around us constantly deflect our attention, emotions and desires on to different surfaces, creating flattened universes with the promises of deep immersion. Digging deep into interfaces, to examine peoples’ relationships with the digital interfaces around them the research cluster examines: What are the affective relationships that people have with their interfaces? What goes into anthropomorphising an interface? What are the larger politics of labour, performance and ownership that surround interface design? What are the ways in which people simulate presence and connections through their interfaces? How is the human presumed in computer-human interface design? What aesthetic and political moves are we witnessing with the rise of interface mediated publics? What and who is made opaque when interfaces become transparent? When interfaces get distributed, what are the possibilities and potential for art, theory and practice to move into new forms of politics?

Habits of Living: Global Networks, Local Affects
Wendy Chun (Professor, Brown University), Kelly Dobson, (Chair, Digital + Media, RISD, Providence), Matthew Fuller, David Gee (Reader in Digital Media, Center for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths College, University of London) and Eivind Rossaak, (Associate Professor, Department of Research, National Library of Norway, Oslo).
This is a global collaborative project to renew the conceptual power of networks. It concentrates on changing the habits of living. The Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University will be an important locus. Habits are crucial to understanding networks not simply as broad organizational structures but also as structures created through constant actions that are both voluntary and involuntary.

Digital Natives

Video Contest

Who’s the Everyday Digital Native? A global video contest finds the answer!
CIS and Hivos are excited to announce the top five videos. The finalists will each win EUR 500. According to Nishant Shah, the 12 video proposals show that the everyday digital native does not wake up in the morning and think, ‘today I will change the world’. Yet, in their everyday lives, when they see the possibility of producing a change in their immediate environments, they turn to the digital to find networks that can start a change.

Public Lectures

D:Coding Digital Natives (Nishant Shah, University of California, Los Angeles, March 9, 2012)
"In the last three years of revolutions we have also now witnessed this extraordinary thing where lot of promises were made of different kinds of revolution but which never materialised in terms of what they intended to. Citizen action happens but it doesn’t lead into anything concrete." The lecture is featured in YouTube.

Digital Natives and the Myth of the Revolution: Questioning the Radical Potential of Citizen Action (Nishant Shah, Annenberg School of Communication, University of South California, March 8, 2012): Nishant Shah made a presentation on 'Questioning the Radical Potential for Citizen Action'.
5 Challenges for the Future of Learning: Digital Natives and How We Shall Teach Them (Digital Media and Learning Conference on Beyond Education Technologies, Wyndham Parc 55 Hotel, San Francisco, March 1, 2012). Nishant Shah gave a ignite talk.
Digital Natives and the Myth of the Revolution: Questioning the Radical Potential of Citizen Action (UC Santa Cruz, Monday, March 5, 2012). Nishant Shah gave a lecture. The lecture focused more on the India against Corruption case-study rather than the theoretical framework to understanding revolutions.

Column in Indian Express

Pinning the Badge
Nishant Shah, March 18, 2012
In a world of competition, badging provides a holistic way of grading and learning, where individual talents are realized and the knowledge of the group is used. A peer-2-peer system of badging, which enables learners to be critically aware not only of their own interaction with knowledge but also recognises the ways in which larger communities of knowledge — including the peers and teachers — opens up an extraordinary way of thinking about education.

Book Review...A Few Excerpts

An Experiment in Social Engineering: The Cultural Context of an Avatar
‘Engineering a cyber twin’ is an attempt to inventory the ontological features of an avatar... Ansher’s essay… eschews a simplistic binary of offline/online, preferring to focus on the domain of interaction between the two ‘personae’ of the same self.
Pramod K. Nayar reviews Nilofar Shamim Ansher’s essay ‘Engineering a Cyber Twin’ from Digital Alternatives with a Cause? Book One: To Be.

Accessibility

Analysis

Analysis of Comments by WBU & IPA
Rahul Cherian provides an analysis of the comments by the World Blind Union and the International Publishers Association after the 23rd session of the Standing Committee of Copyright and Related Rights.

Event Organised

ITU Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (India International Centre, New Delhi, March 14 to 15, 2012): At the invitation of the Centre for Internet and Society, in cooperation with the ITU-APT Foundation of India, International Telecommunication Union organized a two-day Tutorial on Audio Visual Media Accessibility. The Tutorial was preceded by the fourth meeting of the Focus Group on Audio Visual Media Accessibility on March 13, 2012. Sunil Abraham participated in the event and was the Master of Ceremony on Day 1, March 14, 2012.

Access to Knowledge

Op-ed in Economic Times

Patented Games, Sunil Abraham, March 8, 2012
Some prefer Steve Jobs, patron saint of perfection, others prefer Nicholas Negroponte, messiah of the masses. While Mr. Jobs may be guilty of contributing to the digital divide, Mr. Negroponte may have contributed to bridging it with his innovation: the One Laptop per Child, also known as the $100 laptop or XO.

Events Participated

Consumers International Global Meeting 2012 (Kuala Lumpur, March 8 and 9, 2012): Pranesh Prakash participated in the global meeting organised by Consumers International and spoke on UN Consumer Guidelines. Robin Brown, Tobias Schönwetter and Guilherme Varella were the other speakers in the session.
Expert Meeting on Freedom of Expression and Intellectual Property Rights (London, November 18, 2011): The meeting was organized by ARTICLE 19. Nineteen international scholars, experts and human rights activists met to explore the antagonistic relationship between Intellectual Property (IP) and the rights to freedom of expression and information. Pranesh Prakash was one of the participants.

Openness

Events Organised

Open DataCamp — 2012 (Google, Old Madras Road, Bangalore, March 24, 2012): This was a one-day unconference for people working with data from various sectors to come together and share their projects and ideas. It was organised by the DataMeet group. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event. Google, India Water Portal, Gramener, Microsoft Research, Akshara Foundation, DataMeet, HasGeek and CIS were the sponsors.
Free Arduino Workshop (For Beginners): (CIS, Bangalore, March 3, 2012). The workshop drew participants such as interaction designers, artists and those enthusiastic to get started with creative projects but didn’t have prior experience with electronics. About 20 people participated in the workshop.

Events Participated

Water Data Consultation (Evoma Hotel, Bangalore, March 23, 2012). Pranesh Prakash spoke on Policy Issues and Developments around Open Data. The event was organized by Arghyam.

Internet Governance

Column in FirstPost

Why your Facebook Stalker is Not the Real Problem, Nishant Shah, March 20, 2012:We live in networked conditions. This is a statement that can now be taken at face-value, and immediately explains our highly connected, inter-meshed environments…We need to start looking at larger invasive policies exercises by the different invisible actors like the ISP, ICT ministries, corporate policies, design choices and architecture of interception that sustain the networks we so gladly embrace.

Blog Entries

Statutory Motion against Intermediary Guidelines Rules, Pranesh Prakash:A motion to annul the Intermediary Guidelines Rules was moved on March 23, 2012, by Shri P. Rajeeve, CPI (M) MP in the Rajya Sabha from Thrissur, Kerala. We are very glad that Shri Rajeeve has moved this motion, and we hope that it gets adopted in the Lok Sabha as well, and that the Rules get defeated, notes Pranesh Prakash.

Events Organised

India Explores the Balance Points between Freedom of Expression, Privacy, National Security and Law Enforcement (New Delhi, March 5, 2012). Sunil Abraham participated in this closed-door meeting jointly organised with the Global Network Initiative. Issues relating to freedom of expression and privacy were discussed in the meeting.
Climate Change and Controversy Mapping (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, March 19 to 21, 2012). The Devechia Centre for Climate Change, the Indian Institute of Science and CIS organized a three-day workshop with Professor Bruno Latour. Doctorate students doing empirical work in various types of ecological crisis participated in the event and experimented with some of the digital tools and methods developed within the "mapping controversies" consortium.
GeekUp with Erica Hagen (CIS, Bangalore, March 1, 2012). HasGeek organized a GeekUp with Erica Hagen of the GroundTruth Initiative. Erica gave a lecture on the theme: "From Information to Empowerment: Unpacking the Equation.
Cartonama Workshop (CIS, Bangalore, March 2 and 3, 2012). HasGeek organized a hands-on training for managing and building location based services. Twenty-two participants attended the workshop.
Global Censorship Conference

Events Participated

The Abrams Institute for Freedom of Expression at Yale Law School is holding a conference on global censorship from March 30 to April 1, 2012, at Yale Law School. The programme is sponsored by the Information Society Project at Yale Law School and Thomson Reuters. Rishabh Dara, Google Policy Fellow who worked at CIS office in Bangalore on freedom of expression and internet-related policy issues is participating in the event as a speaker in the panel on Case Studies of Censorship.

What is Stewardship in Cyberspace? (Innis Townhall, University of Toronto, Canada, March 18 and 19, 2012): Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session “Plenary Panel and Discussions” at the second annual Cyber Dialogue.
Secure IT 2012 — Securing Citizens through Technology (Claridges, New Delhi, March 1, 2012): The event was co-organised by DST and NSDI, Govt. of India in partnership with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. Sunil Abraham was a panelist. The video is now online.
International Conference on Mobile Law (ASSOCHAM House, New Delhi, March 1, 2012): Pranesh Prakash spoke in the panel on Mobiles - Privacy and Social Media on March 1, 2012.
Data protection experts slam state for sending mass SMSes

Media Coverage

Data protection experts slam state for sending mass SMSes
"The state government's use of unsolicited SMS a “clear abuse of the powers afforded by elected office... elected representatives would be justified in such measures, and in utilising public funds, in the event of a disaster, or when public order, public health or national security are compromised."
Sunil Abraham, The Statesman, March 25, 2012.

Open access to government data on the cards
"Welcoming the approval for the NDSAP, Pranesh Prakash, said, “None of the criticisms ... CIS had sent in as part of the feedback requested on the draft have been addressed."
Pranesh Prakash, The Hindu, March 25, 2012.

Is your facebook page your mini resume?
"Background checks are common as some companies deal with sensitive information. So it’s not illegal, but intrusive. I think some power relationships can be abused if they cross the social networking barrier — like a boss-employee and teacher-student relationship."
Sunil Abraham, IBN Live, March 26, 2012.

Click, Play, Watch
"Earlier, creative artistes depended on intermediaries like studios, TV channels and theatres to screen their work and connect with viewers. Now, they are looking at the online medium to connect with the audience directly."
Sunil Abraham, MidDay, March 18, 2012.

Save Your Voice — A movement against Web censorship
"Private sector does not protect the freedom of expression."
Daily News & Analysis, March 13, 2012.

India’s Big Bet on Identity
"There are obviously both privacy and security concerns when you’re collecting personal data from more than a billion people. “You can’t change your biometrics,”… so if they become compromised, it’s a difficult problem to fix."
Ieeespectrum. March 2012 edition.

Telecom

Columns in Business Standard

The 2G Supreme Court Judgment
Shyam Ponappa, March 1 and March 4, 2012
The Business Standard published Shyam Ponappa's two-part article deconstructing the assumptions in the Supreme Court's 2G judgment, and suggesting possible ways forward. The first one was published on March 1, 2012, and the second on March 4, 2012.

Blog Entry

Convergence India 2012
Yelena Gyulkhandanyan
Yelena attended an event organised by the Exhibitions India Group from March 21 to 23, 2012. She shares her experiences.

About CIS

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. Over the last four years our policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with International Telecommunications Union, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos. With foreign governments we worked on National Enterprise Architecture and Government Interoperability Framework for Govt. of Iraq; Open Standards Policy for Govt. of Moldova; Free and Open Software Centre of Excellence project plan for Saudi Arabia; eGovernance Strategy Document for Govt. of Tajikistan. With the Government of India we have done policy research for 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 WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, Interoperability Framework in eGovernance, Privacy Bill, NIA Bill, National Policy on Electronics and IT Act.

CIS is an accredited NGO at WIPO and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

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CIS is grateful to Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/march-2012-bulletin