Centre for Internet and Society

Internet at Liberty 2012: Promoting Progress and Freedom

praskrishna — 2012-05-26T04:17:46Z

Following the highly successful Internet at Liberty 2010, activists and experts from around the world converged on May 23-24 to explore the most pressing dilemmas and exciting opportunities around free expression in the digital age.

The Internet as a global, free, and open resource, is constantly developing. Over the past year we have seen how the Internet can shift power, broaden scope, and accelerate political and economic change. Simultaneously, governments and multinational companies shape what is possible online. Today, more than any time in history, technological and political forces are colliding to draw lines about how the Internet functions.

Internet at Liberty 2012, sponsored by Google, brought together global activists and representatives of academic centers, corporations, governments, the media and NGOs. The conference explored ways to expand the free flow of information online. Look for debates about today's most pressing internet freedom issues, and action-oriented workshops.

Agenda

= streamed live on the CitizenTube YouTube channel at youtube.com/citizentube

May 23, 2012

8:30 a.m.	Registration & Breakfast
9:30 a.m.- 10:00 a.m.	Welcome & Introduction
10:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.	Plenary I Debate 1: Should laws and regulations that affect the Internet favor individuals over the state? Speakers: John Kampfner - Author and historian Noomane Fehri - Tunisian National Constitutional Assembly Renata Avila - Lawyer and Advocate for Transparency, Global Voices Stewart Baker - Former Assistant Secretary, US Department of Homeland Security Susan Glasser - Editor in Chief, Foreign Policy
11:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m	Break
11:45 a.m. - 1.00 p.m.	Break-out Discussions
1.00 p.m. - 2:15 p.m.	Lunch
2:15 p.m. - 3:45 p.m.	Workshop I Choice of workshops: New Frontiers in Citizen Journalism Economics of Internet Freedom Mobile Security Survival Guide: What Every Activist and Rights Defender Needs to Know About Communicating More Safely Video for Change: How To Create, Share and Use Video for Impact and Attention Social media: Strategies & tools for advocacy campaigns Shielding the Messenger: Protecting platforms for free expression
3:45 p.m. - 4:45 p.m.	Afternoon Break Research Displays
4:45 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.	Plenary II Debate 2: Is the Internet--and global communication among citizens--best served by today's organic mix of governing forces, or do we need a more centralized, global system? Speaker: Ben Wagner - European University Institute Gary Fowlie - Head, ITU Liaison Office to the United Nations Riz Khan (Moderator) - Reporter, Al Jazeera English
5:45 p.m. - 7.00 p.m.	Reception Research Displays
7.00 p.m.	Dinner Keynote Panel Speaker: Riz Khan - International Journalist, Television Host, Author at Al Jazeera English Sana Saleem Chiranuch “Jiew” Premchaiporn

See the original agenda in Google News

May 24, 2012

8:30 a.m. - 9.00 a.m	Registration & Breakfast
9.00 a.m. - 10.00 a.m.	Plenary III Research Lightning Round Speaker: Guy Berger, Mapping Digital Media Around the World Jeffrey Ghannam, Digital Media After the Arab Spring Katrin Verclas, Mobile Monitor Nadim Kobeissi, Securing Private Networks with Cryptocat Lucas Dixon, DDOS Protection Sarah Kendzior, The Impact of Social Media in Azerbaijan Claudio Ruiz, Freedom of Expression in Chile Christopher Fabian, uReport: UNICEF Innovations Nicklas Lunblad, Internet Freedom as Economics Issue Zeynep Tufekci
10.00 a.m. - 11.00 a.m.	Morning Break Research Displays
11.00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.	Workshop II Choice of workshops: New Frontiers in Citizen Journalism Economics of Internet Freedom Mobile Security Survival Guide: What Every Activist and Rights Defender Needs to Know About Communicating More Safely Video for Change: How To Create, Share and Use Video for Impact and Attention Social Media: Strategies & tools for advocacy campaigns Shielding the Messenger: Protecting platforms for free expression
	Lunch
1.30 p.m. - 3.00 p.m.	Plenary IV Debate 3: In a world where nearly nine out of ten Internet users are not American, what is the responsibility of United States institutions in promoting internet freedom? Speaker: Sunil Abraham - Centre for Internet and Society Cynthia Wong - Center for Democracy and Technology Mohamed El Dahshan - writer, journalist Dunja Mijatović - OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Judy Woodruff (Moderator) - Senior Correspondent, PBS Newshour
3.00 p.m. - 4.00 p.m.	Closing Session

See the original agenda in Google News

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-at-liberty-2012

Internet at Liberty 2012

praskrishna — 2012-06-25T04:35:31Z

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

Internet At Liberty 2012

praskrishna — 2012-07-05T05:24:33Z

Activists and experts from all over the world came together for this event organised by Google on May 23 and 24, 2012 to explore free expression in the digital age.

Sunil Abraham was a speaker in Plenary IV Debate 3: In a world where nearly nine out of ten Internet users are not American, what is the responsibility of United States institutions in promoting internet freedom? Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan, Dunja Mijatović and Judy Woodruff were the other speakers in this panel. See the video below:

Video

Internet at Liberty 2012: Plenary IV - Sunil Abraham, Cynthia Wong, Mohamed El Dahshan and Dunja Mijatović

View the video on YouTube

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/internet-liberty-2012

Internet Article

praskrishna — 2011-05-01T01:58:07Z

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

Internet Archive

praskrishna — 2015-01-02T14:42:18Z

internet archive

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/internetarchive.png

Internet and Open Public Data

praskrishna — 2013-07-03T04:53:25Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/internet-and-open-public-data-ppp.pdf

Internet and City Word File

praskrishna — 2011-02-18T08:07:13Z

word file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/internet-city.doc

Internet and City PDF file

praskrishna — 2011-02-18T08:15:45Z

pdf file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/internet-city.pdf

Internet and City (PDF)

praskrishna — 2011-02-15T13:03:39Z

pdf

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/p-d-f

Internet and City

praskrishna — 2011-02-15T12:59:11Z

Word file

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/internet-and-city

Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic

praskrishna — 2012-09-04T11:46:03Z

The Indian government’s efforts to stem a weeklong panic among some ethnic minorities has again put it at odds with Internet companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.

This article by Vikas Bajaj was published by New York Times on August 21, 2012. Sunil Abraham is quoted. This was reposted in NDTV on August 22, 2012.

Officials in New Delhi, who have had disagreements with the companies over restrictions on free speech, say the sites are not responding quickly enough to their requests to delete and trace the origins of doctored photos and incendiary posts aimed at people from northeastern India. After receiving threats online and on their phones, tens of thousands of students and migrants from the northeast have left cities like Bangalore, Pune and Chennai in the last week.

The government has blocked 245 Web pages since Friday, but still many sites are said to contain fabricated images of violence against Muslims in the northeast and in neighboring Myanmar meant to incite Muslims in cities like Bangalore and Mumbai to attack people from the northeast. India also restricted cellphone users to five text messages a day each for 15 days in an effort to limit the spread of rumors.

Officials from Google and industry associations said they were cooperating fully with the authorities. Some industry executives and analysts added that some requests had not been heeded because they were overly broad or violated internal policies and the rights of users.

The government, used to exerting significant control over media like newspapers, films and television, has in recent months been frustrated in its effort to extend similar and greater regulations to Web sites, most of which are based in the United States. Late last year, an Indian minister tried to get social media sites to prescreen content created by their users before it was posted. The companies refused and the attempt failed under withering public criticism.

While just 100 million of India’s 1.2 billion people use the Internet regularly, the numbers are growing fast among people younger than 25, who make up about half the country’s population. For instance, there were an estimated 46 million active Indian users on Facebook at the end of 2011, up 132 percent from a year earlier.

Sunil Abraham, an analyst who has closely followed India’s battles with Internet companies, said last week’s effort to tackle hate speech was justified but poorly managed. He said the first directive from the government was impractically broad, asking all Internet “intermediaries” — a category that includes small cybercafes, Internet service providers and companies like Google and Facebook — to disable all content that was “inflammatory, hateful and inciting violence.”

“The Internet intermediaries are responding slowly because now they have to trawl through their networks and identify hate speech,” said Mr. Abraham, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society, a research and advocacy group based in Bangalore. “The government acted appropriately, but without sufficient sophistication.”

In the days since the first advisory went out on Aug. 17, government officials have asked companies to delete dozens of specific Web pages. Most of them have been blocked, but officials have not publicly identified them or specified the sites on which they were hosted. Ministers have blamed groups in Pakistan, a neighbor with which India has tense relations, for creating and uploading many of the hateful pages and doctored images.

A minister in the Indian government, Milind Deora, acknowledged that officials had received assistance from social media sites but said officials were hoping that the companies would move faster.

“There is a sense of importance and urgency, and that’s why the government has taken these out-of-the-way decisions with regards to even curtailing communications,” Mr. Deora, a junior minister of communications and information technology, said in a telephone interview. “And we are hoping for cooperation from the platforms and companies to help us as quickly as possible.”

Indian officials have long been concerned about the power of modern communications to exacerbate strife and tension among the nation’s many ethnic and religious groups. While communal violence has broadly declined in the last decade, in part because of faster economic growth, many grievances simmer under the surface. Most recently, fighting between the Bodo tribe and Muslims in the northeastern state of Assam has displaced about half a million people and, through text messages and online posts, affected thousands more across India.

Officials at social media companies, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid offending political leaders, said that they were moving as fast as they could but that policy makers must realize that the company officials have to follow their own internal procedures before deleting content and revealing information like the Internet protocol addresses of users.

“Content intended to incite violence, such as hate speech, is prohibited on Google products where we host content, including YouTube, Google Plus and Blogger,” Google said in a statement. “We act quickly to remove such material flagged by our users. We also comply with valid legal requests from authorities wherever possible.”

Facebook said in a statement that it also restricts hate speech and “direct calls for violence” and added that it was “working through” requests to remove content. Twitter declined to comment on the Indian government’s request.

Telecommunications company executives criticized the government’s response to the crisis as being excessive and clumsy. There was no need to limit text messages to just five a day across the country when problems were concentrated in a handful of big cities, said Rajan Mathews, director general of the Cellular Operators Association of India.

“It could have been handled much more tactically,” he said.

Others said the government could have been more effective had it quickly countered hateful and threatening speech by sending out its own messages, which it was slow to do when migrants from the northeast began leaving Bangalore on Aug. 15.

“It has to also reach out on social networking and Internet platforms and dismantle these rumors,” Mr. Abraham said, “and demonstrate that they are false.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 22, 2012, on page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Internet Moves by India to Stem Rumors and Panic Raise Questions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/www-nytimes-vikas-bajaj-aug-21-2012-internet-analysts-question-indias-efforts-to-stem-panic

Internet

praskrishna — 2012-07-05T05:15:57Z

Internet at Liberty 2012

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

Internet

praskrishna — 2012-06-25T05:34:03Z

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

Internet

praskrishna — 2015-10-18T04:23:47Z

Internet

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/home-images/Internet.png

International Workshop on the Impact of the TRIPS Agreement on key sectors and its continuing relevance in the context of Regional and Bilateral Trading Agreements

praskrishna — 2015-10-28T02:57:33Z

On the occasion of 20 years of TRIPS Agreement, Centre for WTO Studies and Indian Institute of Foreign Trade is holding a workshop at Naland, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi on October 26 and 27, 2015. Pranesh Prakash is a speaker in the concluding session.

26^th October 2015 (Monday)
1000-1030 hrs	Registration
1030-1100 hrs 1030-1035hrs 1035-1045 hrs 1045-1055 hrs 1055-1100 hrs	Inaugural Session Welcome Remarks by Prof. Abhijit Das, Professor & Head, Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade Remarks by Dr. V. Bhaskar, Former Special Chief Secretary Government of Andhra Pradesh and Joint Secretary Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India Inaugural Address by Shri Rajeev Kher, Former Commerce Secretary* Vote of Thanks by Ms Chandni Raina, Professor, Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
1100-1130 hrs Tea
1130-1330 hrs	Session 1 Implementation of the TRIPS Agreement by developing countries and the growth of the Regional and Bilateral Trading Agreement The TRIPS Agreement placed on the developing countries onerous commitments with respect to protection of IPRs leading to a complete overhaul of their legislations. In the process more than half of the LDCs implemented their obligations under TRIPS even before the timelines set for them for compliance. Many developing countries have moved beyond TRIPS in their legal regimes. At the same time, further tightening of the regime as part of the FTA commitments is also a concern. The session discusses the manner in which countries met their commitments under TRIPS and the pulls and pressure that led to the TRIPS plus positions adopted by many. The plethora of FTAs and BITs has set additional commitments. The lessons learnt from recent arbitration proceeding and the positions adopted by countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, Thailand and India need to be examined. In the context of increasing pressure to harmonize enforcement standards, the reasonableness of this given the differing domestic priorities and developmental goals also needs to be studied. Questions for discussion: What were the pulls and pressures faced by the developing countries as they sought to comply with the TRIPS Agreement? Have the developing countries largely accepted TRIPS Plus commitments in their IPR regimes including on crucial issues such as public health and enforcement? What are the areas in which the FTA and RTAs are further enhancing protection? Are the developed countries seeking commitments that are even beyond the protection provided in their own jurisdiction? What are the various mechanisms of influence exercised by the developed countries? Chair: Shri Jayant Dasgupta, Former Permanent Representative of India to the WTO Speakers: Prof. Peter Drahos, Australian National University Prof Carlos Correa, University of Buenos Aries Prof Frederick Abbott, Florida State University Shri R. Saha, Senior Advisor, Confederation of Indian Industry Shri KM Gopa Kumar, Third World Network
1330-1430 hrs	Lunch
1430-1630 hrs	Session 2 IP and Economic Development The reasonableness of high level IPR protection is often explained in the context of the beneficent impact it has on economic growth and development. The session will examine the strength, if any, of this correlation. Is the level of IP protection alone responsible for higher growth? What are the preconditions if any and empirical evidence on the level of development when this correlation really sets in? An important factor in development is the ability of countries to access technology and knowhow. What has been the experience of the developing countries in getting new technology? The session will discuss cross country studies with a view to gain clarity on this issue. Questions for discussion: Most developed countries have benefitted from fairly lax IPR regime, but the argument being given now for a high level of IPR protection is the beneficent impact it is likely to have on economic growth. Are the developed countries seeking to ‘kick away the ladder’ with which they climbed up to the top? Or is there a basis for the argument extended by them? What is the empirical evidence of the correlation of enhanced IPR protection on economic growth and development of a country? How important is IPR as a factor in economic growth? What is the evidence on the extent of technology transfer from the developed to the developing countries in the past two decade? Chair: Shri Sudhansh Pant, Joint Secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, Government of India Speakers: Prof. Peter Drahos, Australian National University Prof Sunil Mani, Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvananthapuram Prof Sunil Kanwar, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University Mr Bobby Bedi, Film Producer and Director, Chairman, FICCI committee on Film and Industry
1630-1700 hrs	Tea

27^th October 2015 (Tuesday)
0945-1300 hrs	Session 3 TRIPS and Public Health Pharmaceutical and biotech sectors had the maximum divergence in IP protection regimes across countries prior to the TRIPS Agreement. The TRIPS Agreement was therefore a watershed for these sectors. However the flexibilities and subsequently the Doha declaration on TRIPS and Public Health have allowed countries to model the laws taking into account their developmental and societal objectives. Questions for discussion: Pharmaceuticals and the biotech sectors were possibly the most impacted by the TRIPS Agreement. However, the flexibilities allowed countries to take into account their public health concerns while formulating the Patent regimes. How did the Agreement impact access to medicines? Does this remain an unfinished agenda for the developed countries? What would be the areas where further action could be seen? Chair: Justice (retd.) Prabha Sridevan, Former Chairperson of the Intellectual Property Appellate Board Speakers: Mr D.G Shah, Secretary General, Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance Mr. Bhaskar Bhattacharya, Partner, Corporate Law Group Ms Leena Menghaney, ‎Access Campaign India Co-ordinator at Médecins Sans Frontières Prof Frederick Abbott, Florida State University Mr Anand Grover, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court of India* Prof Sudip Chaudhuri, Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata
1300-1400 hrs	Lunch
1400-1530 hrs	Concluding Session Shape of things to come The twenty years since the TRIPS Agreement came into existence, saw widespread changes in the legislative framework of most developing countries. While they grappled with fulfilling the obligations of the Agreement, the developed world has looked towards further strengthening these norms. The FTA/RTA’s with their tighter IPR chapters are but an outcome of this exercise. *Questions for discussion:* With FTAs/RTAs a norm, where are we headed? Will TRIPS lose its relevance? Or will the TRIPS be renegotiated? What are the new issues that will figure prominently in any prospective negotiations? What are the likely implications? Chair: Dr. V. Bhaskar, Former Special Chief Secretary Government of Andhra Pradesh and Joint Secretary Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Government of India Speakers: Prof Frederick Abbott, Florida State University Mr Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet Society Ms. R V Anuradha, Partner, Clarus Law Associates Ms Sanya Reid Smith, Legal Adviser, Third World Network
1530-1600	Tea

*- tbc

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/news/international-workshop-on-the-impact-of-the-trips-agreement-on-key-sectors-and-its-continuing-relevance-in-the-context-of-regional-and-bilateral-trading-agreements

Centre for Internet and Society

Internet at Liberty 2012: Promoting Progress and Freedom

Agenda

Registration & Breakfast

Welcome & Introduction

Plenary I

Break

Break-out Discussions

Lunch

Workshop I

Afternoon Break

Plenary II

Reception

Dinner

Plenary III

Workshop II

Lunch

Plenary IV

Closing Session

Internet at Liberty 2012

Internet At Liberty 2012

Video

Internet Article

Internet Archive

Internet and Open Public Data

Internet and City Word File

Internet and City PDF file

Internet and City (PDF)

Internet and City

Internet Analysts Question India’s Efforts to Stem Panic

Internet

Internet

Internet

International Workshop on the Impact of the TRIPS Agreement on key sectors and its continuing relevance in the context of Regional and Bilateral Trading Agreements