Centre for Internet and Society

December 2010 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-08-07T11:28:02Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs arising from these projects are now online for public review:

Pornography & the Law
This monograph attempts to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/f1sQsi

Re:wiring Bodies
Dr. Asha Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/gYCP1C

The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem — An Inquiry into Technology and Governance
The project has fed into many different activities in teaching, in examining processes of governance and in looking at user behaviour. The deadline for peer review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/iiYJp1

New Blog Entries

Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities

Queer Histories of the Internet

A Detour: The Internet and Forms of Narration: A Short Note

Digital Natives

CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.

Columns on Digital Natives

A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following articles were published in the Indian Express recently:

Make a Wish [published on 19 December 2010]
Play Station [published on 5 December 2010]

Workshop

The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:

Publication

Position papers from the Thinkathon conference held at Hague from 6 to 8 December have been published:

Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers

Accessibility

Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.

National Award

Nirmita Narasimhan got a National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The event was telecast live on Doordarshan.

Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award

Conference Report

An international conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT was held in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The full report of the conference is published online:

Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report

New Blog Entries

Intellectual Property

Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:

New Blog Entries

Openness

CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software, its latest involvement have yielded these results:

Reports

Event

Wikipedia Meetup in Bangalore, This time in TERI

Privacy

CIS is doing a couple of projects, one Privacy in Asia which is supported by Privacy International, UK and the other on Privacy and Identity which is funded by Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar.

New Blog Entries

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. It is imperative to resolve these issues in the common interest of users and service providers. CIS campaigns to facilitate this.

Articles by Shyam Ponappa

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.

Take 'Model T' for Telecom

News & Media Coverage

An online community platform for people with different needs (Sify News, 12 December 2010)

Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives (Indiantelevision.com, 13 December 2010)

This Is All India Radia (Outlook, 6 December 2010)

'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency (Google News, 4 December 2010)

Intellectual Property Rights as seen in a graphic novel (TimeOut Bengaluru, 1 December 2010)

The Niira Radia Tapes: Scrutinizing the Snoopers (The Wall Street Journal, 29 November 2010)

Mobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS (The Hindu, 28 November 2010)

UID elicits mixed response (Deccan Herald, 23 November 2010)

Time to bury e-mail? (DNA, 21 November 2010)

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For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2010-bulletin

Privacy matters

praskrishna — 2011-04-04T07:22:24Z

Privacy India invites individuals to attend “Privacy Matters”, a one-day conference on 23 January 2011 at the WB National University of Juridical Sciences (NUJS) Law School in Kolkata. Privacy India, Society in Action Group and the Centre for Internet & Society have joined hands to organize this.

The conference will focus on discussing the challenges to privacy that India is currently facing. The right to privacy in India has been a neglected area of study and engagement. Although sectoral legislation deals with privacy issues, e.g., the TRAI Act for telephony or RBI Guidelines for Banks, India does not as yet have a horizontal legislation that deals comprehensively with privacy across all contexts. This lack of uniformity has led to ironically imbalanced results. In India today one has a stronger right to privacy over telephone records than over one’s own medical records. The absence of a minimum guarantee of privacy is felt most heavily by marginalized communities, including HIV patients, children, women, sexuality minorities, prisoners, etc. – people who most need to know that sensitive information is protected.

The emergence of information and communications technologies over the past two decades has radically transformed the speed and costs of access to information. However, this enhanced climate of access to information has been a mixed blessing. Whilst augmenting our access to knowledge, this new networked information economy has also now made it much easier, quicker, and cheaper to gain access to intimate personal information about individuals than ever before. As people expose more and more of their lives to others through the use of social networks, reliance on mobile phones, global trade, etc., there has emerged a heightened risk of privacy violations in India. As privacy continues to be a growing concern for individuals, nations, and the international community, it is critical that India understands and addresses the questions, challenges, implications and dilemmas that violations of privacy pose.

Who We Are

Privacy India was set up in collaboration with the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), Bangalore and Society in Action Group (SAG), under the auspices of the international organization ‘Privacy International’. Privacy International is a non-profit group that provides assistance to civil society groups, governments, international and regional bodies and the media and the public in a number of countries (see www.privacyinternational.org). Its Advisory Board is made up of distinguished intellectuals, academicians, thinkers and activists such as Noam Chomsky, the late Harold Pinter, and others, and it has collaborated with organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Download the poster

" Privacy Matters" Conference Agenda

Time	Item
10:30 11:00	Welcome: Rajan Gandhi a. Who is PI b. What are our objectives c. Why is privacy important in India
11:00 11:30	Keynote: Sudhir Krishnaswamy
11:30 11:45	Tea Break
11:45 1:00	Session I: Prashant Iyengar and Elonnai Hickok a. Personal privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations Case study: Nira Radia and wiretapping b. Informational privacy: Violations and Indian legislation that addresses these violations Case study: The proposed data protection legislation in India c. What is the existing vacuum in Indian legislation concerning privacy
1:00 2:00	Lunch
2:00 3:30	Session II: Prashant Iyengar, Deva Prasad, Amba Kak a. Identity and privacy: why does it matter b. International approaches to identity c. The UID and privacy
3:30 3:45	Tea Break
3:45 4:30	Open discussion and opinion sharing

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/privacy-matters

Mothers discuss kids, music, fashions, on Net

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T01:25:28Z

Among the many conversations about behavioural problems seen among teenage children and the benefits of organic foods, there is one that raves about a baby-sitter who takes care of pets too, and one that reviews newly opened art classes in the city. These are not the usual face-to-face discussions among women at a gathering, but threads that run on parenting websites and ‘mommy' blogs that have captured the imagination of many mothers in Chennai.

Many parenting forums register more than a thousand threads of interaction each every day from the city alone, with a variety of localised pages on Yahoo, Facebook, and netlog dedicated to facilitate communication between mothers.

Baby growth charts, immunisation schedules, home-made remedies, reviews of schools, summer camps, information on doctors and a collection of articles from the mothers themselves — these forums have it all.

Many mothers feel that going through related threads on various parenting sites before attending the PTA meetings helps to know what rest of the parents feel about issues.

“My daughter does not like me talking to her classmates' parents at meetings; discussing online helps to talk to parents without the interference of children,” says Shobana Mahadevan, a blogger and a mother.

Discussing concerns, especially those regarding increase in fees, change in examination patterns, homework, and school announcements with hundreds of other mothers on the internet helps them understand matters at hand and form opinions, she says.

Many of these forums have threads on car-pooling in selected areas where parents decide on turns to drop children at schools.

Subbiah Arunachalam, a distinguished fellow at the Centre for Internet and Society, says that with the computer finding its way into many urban households, an increasing number of mothers are focussing more on their children's performance in school.

The social network they form on the net provides the mothers a platform to be “collectively enlightened” about everything from culinary innovations to popular music and fashion trends, he says.

On “Babycentre”, a forum that monitors child's growth and gives regular inputs on expected child behaviour, Sangeetha Vijay (38), mother of a two-year-old says,

“It is like an elderly person helping you get prepared for everything from teething problems to allergies in children.”

Many mothers say that though communication on parenting forums starts out as a medium to interact with those who share similar concerns, it soon goes beyond the confines of the internet. “We have groups of ‘internet mothers' who often meet, hold competitions and spend time together,” says Penithia Selvi (32), mother of a five year old girl.

“These sites and blogs give mothers a platform to write, discuss their interests and talk openly, which is a priceless experience,” she adds.

“It is very much an urban phenomenon,” says Savithri. J., child counsellor with schools, “Since many working mothers have access to the internet for more hours, they try tracking their children's activities, and also explore the net in their own way,” she says. Many concerns such as addiction to gaming seen among children, are better discussed with mothers who experience similar problems, says Ranjitha Kumaran (32).

“Since mothers as young as 23 to those in their sixties share their experiences on these sites, the issues are approached with a lot of sensitivity and understanding,” she says.

Read the original in the Hindu

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/kids-music-fashion-on-net

Call for Comments for Report on Open Government Data in India

praskrishna — 2013-03-01T05:50:49Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is pleased to announce a public call for comments on the Report on Open Government Data in India prepared by Glover Wright, Pranesh Prakash, Sunil Abraham and Nishant Shah.

This report situates the current move towards open government data in India in the context of the country’s growingly sophisticated information and communications technology (ICT) practices as well as the Right to Information Act. It relies primarily on conversations—both on the record and off—with government officials, businesses, civil society organizations, and individual activists. For background it relies on a review of the literature relevant to OGD and RTI generally, to present a snapshot of where India stands now in respect to OGD, and to predict where it is likely to go in the near future. It seeks to understand what “open government data” means in an Indian context, and what effects institutionalized open data practices and ideas might have on Indian society. Finally, it suggests certain technical and policy strategies for developing, promoting, and implementing, and maintaining a robust open government data policy in India.

Please do write in to Pranesh Prakash (pranesh at cis-india.org) with any suggestions, criticisms, or general comments that you have by 30 January 2011.

Download the complete report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/open-government-data-report

Accessibility at CIS – Looking back at 2010

praskrishna — 2011-08-17T08:53:08Z

From its inception, CIS has been working towards reform of copyright law both at the national and international levels and towards formulation of an electronic accessibility policy for India. The year 2010 has been quite eventful for developments in the area of accessibility for persons with disabilities at the national and international levels. In this blog post, Nirmita Narasimhan looks at some of the work done by CIS and other organisations to promote digital accessibility and inclusion for persons with disabilities during the calendar year 2010.

As the year 2010 comes to an end, it seems like a good time to pause and reflect on the various activities and movements which are vibrant in India and the world over for promoting digital access for persons with disabilities and the work which CIS has done in this area.

At CIS, we began the accessibility programme with a vision — a vision of a truly accessible Internet, where every person with a disability could have access to websites and digital content without technology, design or legal barriers. The Internet and ICT technologies should be promoted as desirable tools to empower persons with disabilities to enjoy their basic rights, of education, employment and enjoyment of life.

The first initiative which we were involved in was to formulate a national electronic accessibility policy with the Department of Information Technology to ensure that all government and public websites should conform to WCAG 2.0. Over the past year, the DIT has come out with a draft policy which is now being circulated amongst state governments and ministries for feedback.

The year 2010 has also witnessed several interesting public and private initiatives for digital accessibility in India. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) began its Indian chapter under the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology. It has been extremely proactive in bringing together experts from around the country and chalking out a systematic work plan for engaging with the public and private sectors to promote awareness and raise skill on web accessibility. An interesting development in the private sector is the accessibility initiative of the NASSCOM Foundation, which is engaging with the IT industry to promote accessibility and employment of persons with disabilities.

The Copyright Challenge

The year 2010 has ended on a more positive note for copyright amendment for the benefit of persons with disabilities. After carrying on a focused six-month long national campaign for “The Right to Read”, disability organisations around the country came together to form the National Access Alliance to jointly lobby for copyright amendments with the Government of India. Several members of the Alliance deposed personally before the standing committee constituted by the Parliament of India to look into the matter and several others sent in written representations. A large part of the month of March was spent in trying to meet and brief the Members of Parliament to gather support for the amendment and to explain the dire necessity for the change. After a nail biting three-month period, the committee came out with its report, which recommended very strongly the pleas of the print disability community with regard to fair dealing for creating accessible versions of books. We are now awaiting the amended draft which should hopefully be presented to the Parliament by the HRD Ministry next year.

On the international scene also, there were positive developments with respect to agreement on the need for a legally binding instrument for exceptions for the print disabled. Early 2010 seemed to be very slow moving with the negotiations seeming to take a down turn when the June SCCR meeting ended without any concrete conclusions and no agreement amongst member states on the matter for the Treaty for the Blind. Several different proposals from USA, EU and Africa have been made in addition to the original BEPM proposal for solving the problem of cross-border sharing of accessible copyrighted materials. While two of these proposals, pertaining to EU and USA, were for non-binding instruments, the fact that they had made specific proposals on this issue showed that there was common consensus about the existence of a serious obstacle to accessing knowledge for print impaired persons, and that it needed an international solution. India was extremely supportive of the Treaty and did her best to help with mobilising developing countries support for the Treaty. The November SCCR ended on a good note with member states agreeing on a time based work plan for tackling three issues — exceptions for the print disabled, libraries and archives and for education, to be carried over 2011–2012.

Apart from WIPO, there have been good developments in other quarters as well. The United Nations Department of Social and Economic affairs started working towards accessibility within the UN system to make all documentation and communications, websites, buildings and human resources of UN and other international agencies accessible. For the first time, Disability was included in the MDG progress report and specifically mentioned in the Outcome Document of the High-Level Summit of the Millennium Development Goals. In addition, the General Assembly at its sixty-fifth session adopted the resolution on realization of MDGs for persons with disabilities for 2015 and beyond. Apart from efforts at the UN level, the year 2010 has also witnessed a lot of conferences and discussions taking place in countries around the world and a lot of organisations like G3ict, ITU and others have been extremely proactive in raising awareness in different countries and governments. February of this year saw the launch of the joint on line publication of G3ict-ITU “e-Accessibility Toolkit for Policy Makers”, a phenomenal work with contributions from over 65 experts around the world on implementation of the digital aspects of the Convention. Subsequently, a print version of this book was edited in-house at CIS and launched during an international conference at New Delhi in October. The book is gaining wide publicity and is being sent to regulators and ministries of IT around the world to assist them in their policy making.

At CIS, we have worked with a wide variety of persons and organisations from varying backgrounds on different issues, ranging from policy formulation to organising events, such as the Edict conference on enabling education through ICT for persons with disabilities. We had a lot of national and international partners, resource persons and participants at Edict 2010 and found the entire event a huge learning experience. We also came in touch with the officials at the Universal Service Obligation Fund in India and are exploring ways in which the fund can be used to benefit persons with disabilities.

This is also a year when the Persons with Disabilities Act is being amended. This process has been a turbulent one, with quite a bit of discord between the drafting committee, the disability sector and the government on the content and form of the new Act and the issues it needs to address. We have been actively involved in this process, giving feedback to the various drafts of the legislations which are circulated, attending consultations and so on. We see this activity taking up a lot of our time over the next year as well.

This year has been quite eventful for the accessibility team. We would like to acknowledge the support of all organisations, institutions and individuals who have supported our work and look forward to strengthening collaborations in the years to come.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/accessibility-cis-2010

Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award

praskrishna — 2011-08-17T08:53:12Z

Nirmita Narasimhan was awarded the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010 on the occasion of the World Disability Day. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The award function took place at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi from 11:00 to12:30 and was telecast live on Doordarshan.

Nirmita was given a certificate, cash prize and a citation which reads as follows:

Nirmita Narasimhan has excelled in different and diverse fields, despite having a severe disability. She is a gold medallist in MA (Music) from Delhi University and stood first in M.Phil. in Carnatic music from Delhi University. She is the recipient of the Sahitya Kala Parishad scholarship for advanced studies in Carnatic music from the Delhi Government. She is now working actively for digital inclusion and accessibility issues for persons with disabilities at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore.

Also see the list of recipients in the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/national-award

G3ict-GW Global Policy Forum: "ICT Accessibility: A New Frontier for Disability Rights"

praskrishna — 2011-08-26T09:58:36Z

The Institute for Global and International Studies, Elliott School of Intenational Affairs at George Washington University, in cooperation with G3ict hosted this conference in Citiy View Room, Washington, D.C on 15 and 16 November 2010. Nirmita Narasimhan participated in this conference and spoke in the panel on Successful Treaty Implementation: Key Factors of Success and Obstacles.

Background

Just four years ago the UN General Assembly adopted the text of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Designed to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities, this was the first international human rights treaty that was negotiated, developed, and written with the active participation of representatives of persons it is designed to protect. The remarkable engagement in and momentum behind this treaty, an international human rights instrument of the United Nations, has led to rapid accession to the treaty. As of September 2010, 146 signatories (including the United States) and 90 ratifying parties to the Convention pledged their commitment effectively extending the benefits of the Convention to more than 75% of the global population.

Despite the notably rapid adoption of the Convention, the global scale of the target population and the wide range of stakeholders, there is surprisingly little scholarship on the policy issues associated with the implementation of the Convention. The Institute for Global and International Studies (IGIS) at the George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs is entering into an ongoing research partnership with G3ict focusing on the global policy dimensions of ensuring accessibility of ICT and implementation of the Convention.

Shortly before the adoption of the Convention, the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict), a global grass-roots organization of subject matter experts covering the various technical and social dimensions of ICT accessibility, was made a flagship initiative of the UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development (UN GAID). G3ict is a U.S.-based public-private partnership representing multiple stakeholders from all regions of the world and a variety of backgrounds. It works closely with ITU, UNESCO, UN DESA and the World Bank, among other multilateral institutions active in this policy space. G3ict collaborated over the course of 3.5 years to develop a global, multidisciplinary body of knowledge - expert practices and tools - on the wide range of issues relevant to accessible Information and Communication Technologies, including The Accessibility Imperative, G3ict-ITU Toolkit for Policymakers, and the G3ict Self-Assessment Framework.

Objectives of the Global Forum

In the context of this research program, the Institute for Global and International Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs hosted, in cooperation with G3ict, a high-profile, high-impact Global Policy Forum on ICT Accessibility to build upon the work of G3ict and to convene a prominent interdisciplinary group of GWU and non-GWU scholars along with an array of global leaders from Government, Industry, and Civil Society to:

review the unique set of processes which made it possible for the CRPD to enjoy one of the fastest rates of adoption among Human Rights treaties and how its digital accessibility dispositions are now promoted by a grassroots multi-stakeholders cooperative work across the globe;
identify specific areas of opportunities in supporting country-level policy making and international cooperative efforts in the field of digital accessibility policy making;
raise awareness among the current Federal Administration officials and industry leaders of the potential leadership role that the United States can play in promoting digital accessibility rights around the world
Proceedings of the workshop will be video recorded, edited and made available on both the IGIS and G3ict web sites and the presentations compiled to produce an update of G3ict’s initial compendium on ICT accessibility policy making, The Accessibility Imperative, with the GWU faculty delivering a “State of the Scholarship” report for publication as well as policy briefs for U.S. congressional leaders.

Program Committee

His Excellency Luis Gallegos, Ambassador of Ecuador to the United States; past Chair of the Ad Hoc Preparatory Committee of the United Nations General Assembly for the CRPD (G3ict Chairperson)
Daniel Aghion, Executive Director, W2i
Mohammed Al-Tarawneh, Inaugural Chairperson and Vice-President 2010, UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Francesca Cesa Bianchi, Director, External Relations, G3ict
A.R. Forcke, Public Sector Market Manager, IBM Research - Human Ability & Accessibility Center
Larry Goldberg, Director of Media Access, WGBH (or Trisha O’Connell)
Akiko Ito, Chief, Secretariat for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities/UN Focal Point on Disability, UN DESA
John D. Kemp, Esq., Partner, Powers Pyles Sutter & Verville PC; Executive Director and General Counsel U.S. Business Leadership Network (USBLN®); (G3ict Research Committee Chair)
Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict
Susan Mazrui, Director, Federal Regulatory Affairs, AT&T
Debra Ruh, CEO and Founder, TecAccess
Paul Schafer, Information Technology (IT) Specialist & Assistant Section 508 Coordinator, U.S. Department of State
James Thurston, Senior Strategist, Global Policy and Standards, Microsoft
Dr. Susan Sell, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs; Director, Institute for Global and International Studies, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
Representative of GWU School of Education

Participants

GWU faculty and non-GWU Academics
International D.C.-based delegations
World Bank representatives
Representatives from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
Representatives from UNESCO
International delegations of Disabled Persons Organizations
ICT Industry and ICT corporate and institutional users
State and local government broadband planners and policy makers
U.S. Federal government representatives
Non-Governmental Organizations
Elliott School Alumni who are significant actors in this policy space

Download the agenda
See the list of speakers
Also see G3ict for full details

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/ict-accessibility-conference

Pornography & the Law - A Call for Peer Review

praskrishna — 2012-12-14T12:12:17Z

Namita Malhotra's research project on "Pornography & the Law". is a part of the Researchers @ Work Programme at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. Her monograph is an attempt to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary.

It is these shifts that push the arguments here to be relevant beyond specific occurrences or phenomenon in the digital world (the moment of video pornography, interactive cyber sex, webcam sex, camfrog, social networking and sexual behaviour, chatroulette, facebook, confessional and sexualized blogging, sexting and mobile phones, etc.) to attempt to understand the nature of affects that surround pornography, especially as reflected in the law and its desire to contain it, and how law’s desire to contain is also about subjectivities and practices around technology. The structure of the monograph is somewhere between a willful literature review and a dressing room, where various concepts, ideas, images or visions around law, film/video, technology and new media are tried on for size to explain or unravel parts or whole of the picture around pornography in the Indian context.

The Researchers At Work Programme, at the Centre for Internet and Society, advocates an Open and transparent process of knowledge production. We recognise peer review as an essential and an extremely important part of original research, and invite you, with the greatest of pleasures, to participate in our research, and help us in making our arguments and methods stronger. The first draft of the monograph is now available for public review and feedback. Please click on the links below to choose your own format for accessing the document.

Word
PDF

We appreciate your time, engagement and feedback that will help us to bring out the monograph in a published form. Please send all comments or feedback to nishant@cis-india.org or you can use your Open ID to login to the website and leave comments to this post.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/law-video-technology/pornography-and-law

Wikipedia Meet-up in TERI

praskrishna — 2011-09-22T12:21:53Z

The Wikipedia Bangalore meet-up is a monthly get-together of Wikipedians (contributors and users) to meet, discuss, share experiences, reach out and advocate for Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Danese Cooper, Chief Technical Officer, Wikimedia Foundation, Alolita Sharma, Engineering Programs Manager, Wikimedia Foundation, Erik Möller, Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation and Achal Prabhala, Wikimedia Foundation Advisory Board Member attended the meeting. The Centre for Internet and Society made arrangements for this event.

The Indian wiki community is dedicated to mainly improving Wikipedia's coverage of topics related to the Republic of India and the history and culture of the Indian subcontinent.The efforts of Indian Wikipedians in English wikipedia is coordinated through Wikiproject India.

This meeting was held at The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI), near to Domlur Club in Bangalore on Saturday, 18 December 2010 and was attended by about 41 participants. There was good attendance from various professional fields – wildlife photographers, journalists, techies, students from Rajasthan (who were in Bangalore to attend FOSS.in) and many who were interested in Indic versions of Wikipedia.

Wikipedia has 250 language versions. Their main data center is in Tampa (Florida). Most surfers from India would be hitting their caching servers in Amsterdam. The primary data however, will always reside in the United States of America as Wikipedia appreciates the freedom of speech provided by the US govt.

Wikimedia Foundation officials have met many important government departments in Delhi for promoting the Indic versions of Wiki. But the Government of India is not willing to open-source the fonts that are developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. There are 278 wikipedias including one wikipedia each for English and Simple English and there are more than 79,000 articles related to India on English Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation wants to promote Indic versions on mobile in a big way and is keen to work with Indian mobile handset makers to have the offline version of Wikipedia shipped with handsets. English has about 3.5 million articles. Indic has far lesser but can catch up with English provided people start contributing content. Indic editors can set up their own rules for content contribution and it need not be as tight as they have for English. Examples were cited from other countries. For example, Russia has been doing exceptionally well in adding Russian content and nobody in the world can beat the Germans for perfection. They pay a lot of attention to quality. Indians should also do so, it was felt.

Also see

The Wikipedia page
Mahesh's Blog Post

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/wikipedia-meet-up-bangalore

Transforming urbanscapes: ATM in cities

praskrishna — 2012-03-13T10:43:51Z

This is the first in series of posts where I will try and articulate the transformation in the urban landscape that one can attribute either directly or in-directly to information and communication technologies. I am keen in discussing changes that are more fundamental in terms of architectural typology and spatial constructs and all this while looking for things that are specific to an Indian city. And that is where the story becomes rather interesting; Indian cities are unique and so when a shift occurs in its material constructs it must be analyzed with reference to its peculiar context.

Automated Teller Machines (ATM) are an accepted part of the city landscape. They are omnipresent and expected to be near you anytime anywhere. Not surprising the other common interpretation of the acronym ATM has popularly been “Any Time Money”! The functioning of ATM is absolutely dependent on the connection of these machines with the mother server of the bank. Without the networked connection through internet, the ATMs machines are dead and practically cannot do anything. ATMs are dependent on internet and the very presence of thousands of ATM spaces in our cities is perhaps the most reoccurring reminder of the spatial alteration of the urban landscape. This phenomenon needs to be dissected further and I will try and answer the following questions in the process.

What is the nature of the ATM spatial typology and how does it fit with the physical context?
What are the meaning that are attached to the ATM space and what do they now signify?

Occurrence, Repetition and Assurance

ATM’s like the hoardings of a recent advertisement campaign repeats itself at most part of the city. The same banner, color, bright light and the bored security guard at the gate. Absolutely predictable, repetitive and thoroughly efficient. They are suppose to do a simple function of vending currency note at most times. But they are now an important element in the city that repeats and can be easily identified. They are not only doing the function of vending money but also serve as an important advertisement of the bank and announce its presence in the city. ATM’s multiple occurrence in a city surely reinforces the idea of the aspirational middle class of Indian cities.

ATM’s dots the urban landscape while glowing in the night when every other shop and establishments are asleep. A 24 hour petrol pump, the all night coffee shop and of course the railway station tea shop that open all night are the other such night owls that reassure us that the city is not dead and everything will start again tomorrow.

These all night establishment have an important urban function; that of sheltering the lost souls in the night and keeping alive the idea of a city on the move.

The Private in Public: Banking in the City Spaces

The ATMs are extensions of the banks that reach out in the city. They are the point of receiving money (our money) from the bank. Banking has extended to public place and this is a very important phenomenon. Historically of course, informal banking has been taking place in street corners and small shacks in most old areas, but again only in certain parts of the city that are associated with such activities.

The ATM’s extend banking in public domain, but through a rather scared and conditioned spaces of the room where the solitary ATM machines lie. The ATM machines occur everywhere signifying that a lifestyle in a consumer society. But ATMs as extension of banking space, are creating a rather interesting contradiction. Banks were never public places really and privacy was always a very important component of banking. Traditionally customers never did transactions in full public view. Money was collected, counted and snugly inserted in wallet or a non-noticeable bag in the comfort of the high counter and inside a fairly semi-public space of the bank. The space of the bank became the place of transaction in extremely limited public view. Moreover the view was not really of strangers but of fellow customers as worried about privacy as the “viewed” subject themselves.

The ATM’s present a new problem; as at one level it creates a space in many parts of the city where a customer can carry out transaction (mostly withdrawals of currency notes) but in full public view of the market place. This is rather interesting and the situation demands a public display of ones rather private (not necessarily secretive) exercise of doing financial transactions. Not surprising there is always a swiftness of action when people withdraw money from an ATM!

“Why can’t they have more ATM machines in the city? Multinational banks but pathetic service, I tell you. And what the hell is that guy doing. He has already withdrawn twice. Is he talking to the machine”…. An impatient customer in the ATM queue.

It is not surprising that waiting outside an ATM machine is not as comfortable as lets say waiting for our turn to buy vegetables or a boarding pass before a flight. ATM’s spatial typology are still reflective of this fundamental contradiction. It is not clear whether the ATM can be as public as a grain shop or as private as a public toilet! At one level the ATM’s have to be very accessible and visible, making it easier for people to use but at the same time they have to be guarded, controlled and monitored.

That is why perhaps there are two distinct parts of the ATM space; The facade which is formed by the back lit name of the bank written in a particular manner and the window from which one can view the ATM machine lying inside. This together becomes like a two dimensional graphics (visual brand) that announces the presence of the ATM. The second is essentially the conditioned room that keeps the machines, which tries and give some sense of the privacy to the customer and perhaps facilitate the security of the machine. Not to forget the security guard, who sits and practically does nothing!

See below the exploded view of the essential ATM typology

I wish if someone can tell me if a bored security guard always found along with an ATM is essentially an Indian phenomenon?

It is not surprising that the ATM on the wall on public street has practically failed to inspire any confidence and are rather rare to find these days. I do not think it is only the concern of security of the ATM machine. I guess the machines are more secured as embedded objects in a wall rather than being stand alone in a room. It seems it is has to do with discomfort associated with doing financial transaction in full public view and that is why the closed room.

The ATM in its present form has not really integrated with the other elements of the city as it essentially sits in the building typology that is meant for small shops. It does not exist in any particular combination of other shops. One of the reason for vitality in Indian city is the nature of combination of various agglomerated shopping and commerce.

For example Tea shop on street-balloon vendor - Chat wala - Cold drink and Ice-cream shop - Pan Shop - Florists - Newspaper Vendor - Archies Card Gallery - Stationary shop and so on!

ATM machine is surely the black sheep unless of course it can be viewed and designed as a utility urban furniture like a bus stand, parking meter, letter box, public toilets or a telephone booth.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/transforming-urbanscapes-atm-in-cities

From the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla

praskrishna — 2011-08-02T06:05:59Z

The stock markets have been the symbol of trade and commerce of the city and the region. In this post I will analyze the stock market; an important commercial institution and try and articulate its changing architectural configuration and its impact on neighborhoods and other public domain of the city. The change in information technology has had a profound effect on the business methodologies of the stock brokers and traders in the last few years with possibilities for buying and selling during the market hours from any internet enabled device. The pundits have announced that the “market is in your pocket or at the comfort of your home”. Is it really so or is the change more subtle? Moreover how will our cities and their public place transform from such shift?

The market refers to a system, institution or arrangement by which certain transactions are executed. The stock market space (building or group of buildings) is usually unique to a larger space (city, region or country) and indicative of the economic interest of corporates, organizations, government and individual investors. The stock market space itself, is one that has traditionally been highly networked node, collapsing together communications with other global markets, financial institutions, agents, investors and government bodies. Communication technology in the form of telecommunication, fax and telegram have been the lifeline to support transactions in the stock market space.

The floor of the stock market is the physical manifestation (both of symbolic and utilitarian value) of the institution of stock trade. It has been the place where the agents using information, negotiate and transact on shares for their respective clients. The space of the floor with information being displayed on the sides has been the image that is used in many movies to symbolize trade and commerce. The floor is projected and perceived as the center sanctum of the stock trading activity at large.

Trading of stocks of all possible kind is possible from a computer connected to internet using real time information of the market. Stock market building space as well as the floor do continue function as central places of trade but immense volume of trade is being done through internet enabled devices across the country. Moreover the program and structure of stock brokers office has radically changed in the last few years. The stock broking office has now become the mini floor of the trade where decisions are taken about buying and selling. The stock broking offices are now the decentralized units that are everywhere, like the ATM machines in the city. They are the neighbourhood investing space.

Story: Where to Kanti bhai?

Kanti bhai was worried that morning. He was running late and was driving swiftly to beat the railway crossing. His old bajaj was holding well competing with the jazzy Japanese collaboration bikes as he raced towards the crossing. He could never understand why youngster spend that kind of money on bikes when it cannot even hold the vegetable pack or for that matter even their wife in the pillion seat that well. He was rather proud of his bajaj chetak 2-stroke smoke spewing machine and it had served him well for the last 17 years. As he wriggled past the traffic coming from the right side (well he was on the wrong lane) and swiftly crossed before the crossing gates closed, he slowed down on the turning and signaled with a shake of his head to the kid on the street. To a stranger the nod of the head was perhaps just an empty gesture but Raju the kid was the code breaker! He knew Kantibhai wanted the masala tea real quick delivered on the first floor office of Om Shanti Stock Brokers. Raju also understood that Kantibhai was going for a big kill; bottom fishing since the market fell real hard yesterday. Raju was barely eight when he came from Dungarpur (Rajasthan) to help his uncle at the road side tea shop at Maninagar. Now the road side stall, the commercial complex in front and the shop shack besides the temple were his foster home. The masala tea that his uncle made was the fuel of most office goers in the area and it was a local institution that not only provided tea but also information on real estate, family problems of residents and mobile number of the bootlegger.

Raju with all the tea cups in his hands moved swiftly from the tailor shop below the stair to the picture framer besides it to the Raymond shop in the semi basement to the lady selling the toys on the pavement. He resembled a bee moving from one flower to another in a garden and he quickly climbed the awkward spiral stair to the first floor stock broking office. This was always the place he enjoyed most and it was always teeming with boisterous characters that were perpetually excited; laughing aloud, shouting to be heard, making fun of the other and generally having a good times. These were the stock traders whose baithak (regular sit-out) was the Om Shanti broking office. The office itself was nothing but a room, with a swanky air conditioner and four terminals (simple computers that are connected to BSE) where people took turns to sit and execute their order. But the space of the office spread way beyond this room. They sat in the corridor in front, at the travel agent shop besides, below the hoarding for a commanding view of the traffic snarls in front. The place oozed with people like Kanti bhai’s, and resonated with animated interaction about the stock market, discussions about son’s marriage or rising price of petrol.

The place has in the recent years, come to be associated with share trade and had given rise to a whole eco-sytem that supported it; The stock broking office -Pan Shop- Tea Stall-Bhajia Center- ATM- Photo copiers- Stationary Shop and the Newspaper stall. Raju the tea boy knew much about “circuits” and “stop loss” these days as much he understood the right ingredients of the tea

All of a sudden in the last few years since terminals (internet accessible computers used for transactions) have become common, trade can practically occur anywhere in the city. This phenomenon has also led to creation of the decentralized stock brokers/ investors community as they do not need to be at the main stock exchange building anymore. Due to presence of small and medium sized stock broking firms in the city, the stock market space is now a decentralized neighborhood units.

These are not only spaces for carrying out transaction but have become “places” for trader community to meet and connect. The place itself is small and allows the local neighborhood stock traders or investors to meet. This decentralized community public place characteristics of the space is an interesting development which have been made possible due to the internet based on-line trading activities in market places. Moreover this new program of online stock broking has integrated well with the various processes of the Indian bazaar like informal food, roadside vendors, service sector and active retail. This is also the sign of the strength and vitality of our contemporary markets that have evolved over the years and are the mainstay of the Indian retail.

The association of Information Technology with the Malls and the super blocks of the Call center is only one side of the story. The malls and IT complexes by turning inwards and showing off only a pretty facade have failed to offer anything to the city and do not seem to hold any promise of “public” good to its citizens or user. I will hopefully write more about this in my next posts.

It is actually these little markets where person like Kanti bhai’s rush every morning and the little Raju’s run around serving cutting chai, that small stock broking office, ATM’s and Travel agents (all program that use IT for work) are slowly transforming and complimenting the very nature of the public places in India.

Read the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla

'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T01:26:57Z

Cyber-attackers who identified themselves as the "Pakistan Cyber Army" have hacked the website of India's top police agency, officials said on Saturday. The website of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was hacked by programmers who left a message saying that the attack was in revenge for similar Indian assaults on Pakistani sites, Press Trust of India said. The hackers signed their message on the Indian police website: "Long Live Pakistan."

CBI authorities said they were working to restore the site, which offered information to the public.

The spokeswoman said she could not comment on Indian media reports that more than 200 other Indian sites had also been attacked by Pakistani hackers.

"We came to know the CBI site had been compromised Friday night," the spokeswoman told AFP, asking not to be named. "It will take us a couple of days to restore the site."

She said she could not immediately say who was responsible for the attack.

The CBI has "registered a case" and is investigating the attack, she said.

The message posted on the CBI site said the attack was "in response to the Pakistani websites hacked by 'Indian Cyber Army'," the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported.

"Hacked hahaa funny," the message said. "Let us see what you investigating agency so called CBI can do" (sic).

Hackers had also infiltrated the server of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), which maintains most of the government's websites, PTI reported.

In August, a group also calling itself the "Pakistan Cyber Army" hacked into the website of independent Indian MP Vijay Mallya, a flamboyant liquor baron, who is also head of Kingfisher Airlines.

The group claims to have hacked a number of Indian websites in recent years, including India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, in retaliation for Indian hackers accessing Pakistan sites.

Indian IT specialists have long lamented what they say is a lack of awareness about Internet security across the country, including in the corridors of power.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society, said it would have been easy for attackers to get into the CBI public site as it was "not a particularly sensitive" one.

The Indian government "has a very low level of cyber awareness and cyber security. We don't take cyber security as seriously as the rest of the world," he said.

He added that the government needed to "make at least 10 times the current level of investment to get their standards to match the rest of the world."

According to the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, a government agency that tracks IT security issues, more than 3,600 Indian websites were hacked in the first six months of this year.

Read the original news here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/police-agency-targetted

Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives

praskrishna — 2011-04-02T01:22:15Z

With electronic media generally expressing its opposition to government imposed regulations, a two-day workshop is being organised here from tomorrow on 'Comparative Perspectives on Media Self-Regulation and Society'.

The workshop will explore international and comparative perspectives on media regulation as it affects current and the future role of information in society, Star India said in a statement.

The workshop will explore contemporary issues around media self-regulation in India from the differing perspectives of academics, bureaucrats and politicians, industry leaders, civil society and legal experts. In light of the current controversies in the media, including growing demands for content regulation on India's entertainment channels, as well as debates over media ethics, this will be a highly relevant and contemporary workshop.

The University of Oxford's Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy (PCMLP) in collaboration with the National Law University- New Delhi, the National University of Juridical Sciences- Kolkata, and the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, with support from Star India .

Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni, Ministry Joint Secretary Arvind Kumar, and National Commission for Women member Secretary Zohra Chatterjee will be speaking at the workshop.

Among other expected speakers are ex-chief justice of India JS Verma who had drawn up a code for the electronic media on behalf of the News Broadcasters Association, academician Professor Satish Deshpande, former Central Board of Film Certification chairperson Anupam Kher, Centre for Internet and Society's Sunil Abraham, senior columnist Sevanti Ninan, BAG Films and Media CMD and President of the Association of Radio Operators of India (AROI) Anurradha Prasad, senior advocates Prashant Bhushanand Siddharth Luthra, TV Today Executive Director and CEO and IBF Vice President G Krishnan and NDTV CEO KVL Narayan Rao.

Leading international researchers and experts in media regulation, Professor Monroe E Price from the University of Pennsylvania, Jonathan Blake of Covington and Burling, and Professor Wolfgang Shulz from the Hans Bredow Institute will be a part of this Seminar.

Star India will be represented by COO Sanjay Gupta, EVP and General Counsel Deepak Jacob and EVP (Marketing and Communications) Anupam Vasudev.

The workshop is aimed at bringing together diverse views of academics, bureaucrats, policy makers, industry leaders, civil society and legal experts.

"In light of the current controversies in the media fraternity around the world, this workshop will deal with increased demands for content regulation on entertainment channels in India, as well as current debates on media ethics," the Star India release said.

Read the original news here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/self-regulation

Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report

praskrishna — 2013-01-28T10:14:03Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation G3ict, UNESCO, ITU, WIPO, The Deafway Foundation, DEF and SPACE with the gracious support of The Hans Foundation and the Department of Information Technology, MICT, New Delhi organized an international conference "Enabling Access to Education through ICT" in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event was sponsored by Hans Foundation.

Background

Persons with disabilities in India are often left out of mainstream schools and universities due to a variety of reasons, primarily the lack of awareness amongst educational organizations and teachers, near absence of infrastructural resources and lack of training in this regard. It is believed that barely two per cent of the 70 million disabled persons have access to education in India. Unless we take special efforts to remedy this situation by equipping teachers, educational institutions and the entire social infrastructure to adopt innovative, cost effective and technology based resources such as assistive technologies, ubiquitous Web, multiple platforms, social networks, online libraries and digital resources etc, they will continue to remain excluded from social participation.

Conference


Given above is a picture of the speakers from the Edict 2010 event in Delhi.

Edict 2010 was organised by the Centre for Internet and Society, in collaboration with G3ict, UNESCO, ITU, WIPO, The Deafway Foundation, DEF and SPACE with the gracious support of The Hans Foundation and the Department of Information Technology, MICT, New Delhi. The main aim was to highlight existing policy and practical barriers for students and educational institutions in developing countries, showcase ICT based solutions which are presently being adopted around the world and point to existing knowledge resources and emerging trends in education. The conference focused on enabling education at all levels: primary, secondary, tertiary and distance education and vocational training. The success of the conference was characterised by the fact that it brought together a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, special and mainstream educators, disability organisations, policymakers from the ministries of education (MHRD) and information technology (DIT), Technology developers and researchers, librarians and persons with disabilities, from several countries like India, USA, Switzerland, Japan, Nepal and Bangladesh, who were all experts with vast experience. Consequently, the sessions were extremely interactive, with a lot of inputs from the participants and it was commonly acknowledged that the sharing of information and learning was equal for both participants and speakers. The break out sessions resulted in a lot of recommendations and insightful observations from the four groups.

The conference was inaugurated by Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development. Other special guests were Dr.Indrajit Banerjee, Director, Information and Communications sector, UNESCO and Mr. Andrew Tru from WIPO. Smt. Das released the first copy of the book, ‘E-Accessibility Handbook for Persons with Disabilities’, a book based on the G3ict-ITU on line e-Accessibility Toolkit for Policy makers, which was edited and published by CIS. Dr. Banerjee received the first copy. Smt. Das delivered the key note address; she outlined the situation with respect to education of persons with disabilities in India and highlighted some of the initiatives of the Ministry of Human Resource and Development. She especially drew attention to the NMEICT project of the MHRD, which is a huge fund for supporting initiatives which used ICT to promote Education through ICT. Till now, NMEICT has funded one disability related project for conversion of college level textbooks into daisy format in four languages. The project is being undertaken by IIT Calcutta. She concluded by inviting all persons and organisations present in the conference to apply to the fund for specific projects and said that the ministry would be happy to look at proposals for promoting education for persons with disabilities.

The key note address was followed by remarks from Dr. Banerjee, who gave an outline of UNESCO’s initiatives around the world on education and underscored the importance of attaining the Millennium Development Goal of Education for all for all developing countries and UNESCO’s commitment to support countries in their efforts to do so. Mr.Andrew Tru talked about WIPO’s commitment towards securing access to reading materials for persons with print disabilities in accessible formats around the world and focused on the deliberations on a treaty for the print impaired at WIPO, with special emphasis on the Stakeholders’ Platform initiative of WIPO.

The conference started off with welcome note from the organisers CIS, G3ict, UNESCO, ITU and WIPO. Smt. Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource and Development gave the key note address and released the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities, brought out by CIS in collaboration with G3ict and ITU and sponsored by Hans Foundation. The handbook will help regulators around the world in their policy making. Dr. Indrajit Banerjee, Director, UNESCO gave the introductory remarks. This followed by a presentation of Axel Leblois, Executive Director G3ict, on the dispositions of the UNCRPD relating to digital accessibility.

Over the three days, there were presentations from 29 experts on a variety of topics, ranging from discussing challenges and solutions in educational institutions, to technology development and policy formulation and implementation. The profiles of the speakers are given in Annexure A. The conference was attended by 77 participants and was also attended by a large number of participants from other conferences taking place in the hotel from time to time. The list of the 77 participants is given as Annexure B.

Conclusion

The conference was highly engaging and enabled the attendees to explore the challenges and opportunities and equipped them with the tools needed to implement ICT solutions within their organizations. There was a very high level of expertise amongst educators in the conference which was apparent from the discussions, there were persons who talked about education for the blind, deaf, persons with mental disabilities etc with great authority and put forward insightful perspectives. From a technology standpoint, there was a notion that broadband which was at present not easily available was about to explode because of the huge investment that the government was putting into it and hence it was possible that all the solutions which were being discussed in the conference would be more easily available to persons with disabilities uniformly around the country. There are many opportunities to leapfrog in India. In fact, many speakers considered cloud based technologies being adopted in school systems where there was broadband infrastructure available. There was a common consensus amongst all members present in the conference that universal accessibility could only be achieved with the involvement of all stakeholders; public-private partnership is key to ensuring that all private services and technology solutions are also accessible to persons with disabilities. Participants were very impressed with the innovative teaching methods and technologies in other countries, especially in Japan.


Above is a group photo of the participants at the Edict Conference

General Recommendations

Calls for proposals for funding projects should be widely publicized: It was a common feeling of all the participants that even though there were several funds which could be tapped into for projects, there was little information about where these funds existed, how they could be applied for and used to fund different kinds of projects. Government should make some effort to ensure that information about funding opportunities should reach intended beneficiaries.
Accessibility should be integrated into existing education projects: While it is important to initiate specific accessibility related projects, it is equally necessary to integrate accessibility into existing projects such as introducing creation and distribution of accessible content in existing ICT school programmes.
Focus to be given to training students with disabilities: all the groups felt that training was a huge issue and that support for students through training was required. SSA Karnataka gave a good presentation showing how it addressed the issue of training on a large scale. The groups highlighted that the UNCRPD placed an obligation on the government to raise awareness amongst persons with disabilities.
Priority attention should be given to the development of language based tools for all Indian languages, especially minority languages. This includes development of optical character recognition (OCR) and text to speech (TTS) software in different languages. This is critical for all levels and forms of education.
Access to broadband services for persons with disabilities at affordable prices to be promoted to enable effective use of technology to access educational content.
Need to create accessible content and accessible open resources: It was stressed that all study modules used by educators, and open educational resources must be in accessible formats in order to have the widest outreach to students. Cyndi Rowland gave an example where Federal grants would not go to programmes which created non accessible content.
Public procurement should be used to promote accessibility.
Government should focus on early intervention in education because very few disabled children actually enrolled in schools and even amongst those that enrol, a very miniscule percentage go on to complete secondary and higher education.
Need to have a well developed ecosystem: All schools must be equipped with resources to teach disabled children.
Solutions and teaching methods must be innovative and highly individualised. Common approaches to teaching disabled children are less likely to be successful.
Periodic and on going trainings must be given to field practitioners with special emphasis on sharing information about solutions which have been successful or failed in the past.

Specific Recommendations

Training colleges for educators should include a course on disabilities and education for students with disabilities.
Children with disabilities in CBSE, ICSE and all state boards should get at least three years to complete class 10th and 12th examinations.
Children with disabilities should be allowed to give examinations with computers and in formats of their choice.
Each child with a disability should get compulsory training in the use of computers using appropriate assistive technology and be provided these technologies free of cost or at subsidised rates.
The government should launch a mandatory ICT training programme for all teachers in rural and urban areas to train them in the use of assistive technologies.
Course materials for all classes should be provided in CDs and accessible formats in all schools for children with disabilities.
NMEICT should fund development of text to speech software in all Indian languages so that the vast majority of Indian children who cannot read or understand English can continue to study in their native language; it is strongly recommended that such development projects also be entrusted to companies and organisations directly who have expertise in this area and should not be conditional on working with an IIT, IISC or other similar institution. The NMEICT should also fund other projects for the disabled, such as for content creation and so on.
It is recommended that the Digital Library project, which is a praiseworthy and extremely important project for creating open resources to all existing regional and English books should be made accessible since it has the potential to benefit a very large number of persons with disabilities. At the moment, the project involves all the steps which are required to create accessible books, i.e., scanning and OCRing, however, despite the fact that OCR is done, the books are still uploaded as image files and not as accessible word or text or html files which can be read using screen readers. If this was done and we had access to TTS in Indian languages, we would have access to all the traditional Indian literature and manuscripts, which are invaluable to a researcher.
It is strongly recommended that the web sites of all educational institutions, both public and private should be made accessible so that persons using screen readers can access information about the courses, admissions, read about the organisations and apply on line for admissions. It is also recommended that persons with disabilities should be given the flexibility to take on line examinations and that these should be designed in an accessible manner.
It is recommended that all educational institutions and libraries should be made physically accessible for persons using wheelchairs.

What our Speakers and Partners Had to Say

"G3ict was most pleased to organize this very effective workshop with CIS: all stakeholders required to implement the dispositions of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in matters of accessible and assistive technologies in Education actively participated. Disabled Persons Organizations, governments, industry, schools, universities administrators and educators engaged in a very dynamic and practical exchange of experience which created a great learning opportunity for all participants. It also demonstrated that solutions, funding and expertise can be leveraged in India to leapfrog current implementation methods for accessible and assistive technologies. Many participants look forward to build on the momentum of the workshop to develop an ongoing national forum on accessible and assistive ICTs in education. It was clear from the discussions held with government officials that private-public cooperation including industry, education institutions and government agencies are likely to emerge as a result of this dialogue. A most inspiring workshop, among the most successful that G3ict has been involved with in terms of engaging key ICT accessibility stakeholders at a national level."

Axel Leblois

"There is an urgent need to teach disability studies in India across all levels of school and university. Ignorance and discrimination are so high that even the media does not attempt to mask its poor and misinformed portrayal of disabled people. This conference has started a welcome conversation in that direction."

Joyojit

"This meeting brought together an amazing array of individuals that included those with disabilities, those in education, those in Ministry positions, and experts from India and abroad. The energy was palpable and the work that began at this meeting will be felt throughout India for years to come. It is clear that this will be the first of many transformative meetings sponsored by CIS."

For the presentations, click here

Download the agenda and bios here [Word, 609 kb]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/edict-report

Play Station

praskrishna — 2011-08-04T10:36:14Z

Parents needn’t panic, the internet can also be a haven for kids.

I recently came across a report about a village in Haryana which banned single women from using cellphones because the instrument in question has apparently led to couples getting together and eloping. That goes perfectly with what I’m discussing this week — the perception that the internet is the realm of the dirty, the desired and the forbidden.

Just last week, I heard three different people lamenting that children are addicted to technology, that technology corrupts our youth, and that technology is responsible for the decline of social values in the country. We need to address this paranoia about technology irrevocably transforming our world for better or worse. Particularly at this juncture, when this perception informs policies, regulation and governance about young people and their access to the internet.

My youngest correspondent in the Digital Natives programme —let’s call him M as he prefers not to be named — is in Class VI. He lives in Bangalore and runs an online community for other children at school to talk about growing up. A closed community on Facebook, it protects the privacy and identity of the participants, has a moderated access policy, and is a safe haven for children to talk about different issues, ranging from studies to the social dynamics of the schoolyard. M has been running this community for over a year now and while I do not have access to it (being a rank outsider and falling on the wrong side of the age-line), I understand from him and his friends that it has become the “coolest hangout” for almost everybody in the school, where they share, in safety, the aches and pains of teenage life.

A teacher at the school recently heard about the community and was outraged that an unmonitored, unauthorised space for free-for-all discussions was being controlled by “mere kids” and demanded that the community be shut down. With the power vested in her by the academic system, she pulled enough strings, called enough parents, and forced M and the other moderators to forfeit their passwords and shut down the community, including the archive of discussions and conversations that had grown in the last year. The parents and authorities were worried, M informs me, that “children would do all kinds of wrong things” if left to themselves. His teacher, who’s never really been on Facebook, and has vague notions about the internet, sternly announced: “The internet is a dangerous place, you can’t run it!”

M and his friends were enraged but powerless, dependent as they were on school and parental authorities for their access to online resources. Their community is no longer available on Facebook. They have been deprived of a virtual haven in which they could have discussions without feeling vulnerable. In a high-pressure academic environment, otherwise fraught with competition and rigid rules that stymie social interaction, it was the only real place for peer-to-peer bonding, and it’s now lost to them.

This story is not very dissimilar from many other instances that young users of technology often report, where their intentions and ambitions are not viewed as serious, and where elders look at their interaction with suspicion and intrigue. Parents, teachers and policy-makers presume that digital and internet technologies do bad things to children, and for them, it is time to wake up and smell the code. Technologies aren’t innately good or bad. When you hit yourself in the hand, you don’t blame the hammer. Technologies offer tools to perform different actions. For these digital natives, it’s a tool which provides public spaces for interaction, discussion and mobilisation. For many who live in urban environments and have regimented schedules of academic productivity, the bubbles on the internet are becoming the only viable alternative outlets for expression. The next time you want to apportion blame, try to look at the real problem, rather than conveniently blame it on technologies.

Technologies are what we make of them, and the paranoid urge to curb and control them denies young users their spaces of belonging and forces them to reach out through non-transparent ways. “The community shall find its way back. We were not doing anything wrong,” M’s best friend tells me. And M grins, slightly wickedly, pointing at his friend, “The only harm I would have caused is if I had thrown my laptop at him and hit him in the eye. And I would never do that. I love my laptop.”

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