Centre for Internet and Society

Constitution of the High Level Advisory Committee (HLAC) on National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T06:46:15Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has been invited to serve on the high level committee on electronic accessibility policy constituted by the Government of India.

Click to read the notification issued by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/hlac-national-policy-universal-electronic-accessibility

Constitution of Group of Experts to Deliberate on Privacy Issues

praskrishna — 2012-01-04T07:49:37Z

It has been decided to constitute a Small Group of Experts under the Chairmanship of Justice A.P. Shah, Former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court, to identify the privacy issues and prepare a paper to facilitate authoring the Privacy Bill. The constitution of the proposed group and ToR are as follows:

Constitution of the Group

S.No.	Name	Designation
1	Justice A.P. Shah, Former Chief Justice, Delhi High Court	Chairman
2	Shri. R S Sharma, DG UIDAI	Member
3	Dr. Gulshan Rai, Director General CERT-In, DIT	Member
4	Sh. Rajiv Kapoor, JS, DOPT	Member
5	Representative, Department of Legal Affairs	Member
6	Sh. Som Mittal, President, NASSCOM	Member
7	Ms. Barkha Dutt, NDTV	Member
8	Dr. (Ms) Usha Ramanathan, Researcher & Advocate	Member
9	Sh. PraneshPrakash, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet & Society	Member
10	Dr. Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India (DSCI)	Member
11	Dr. Nagesh Singh, Adviser, Planning Commission	Member
12	Sh. R K Gupta, Adviser (CIT&I), Planning Commission	Member

Terms of Reference
- To study the Privacy laws and related bills promulgated by various countries.
- To make an in-depth analysis of various programmes being implemented by GoI from the point of view of their impact on Privacy.
- To make specific suggestions for consideration of the DOPT for incorporation in the proposed draft Bill on Privacy.
The Chairman may co-opt other Members to the group for their specific inputs.
The expenditure towards TA/DA in connection with the meetings of the Group in respect of the official members will be borne by their respective Ministries/Departments. Domestic travel in respect of non-Official Members of the group would be permitted by Air India (economy class) and the expenditure would be met by the Planning Commission.
The group will be serviced by the CIT & I Division, Planning Commission.
The group shall submit its report by 31st March 2012.

(S Bose)
Under Secretary to the Government of India

To:
The Chairman and all Members of the Group of Experts
Copy forwarded to:

PS to Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission
PS to MOS (Planning, PA, S&T and ES), Planning Commission
PS to all Members of the Planning Commission
PS to Member Secretary, Planning Commission
Director (PC), IFA unit,Deputy Secretary (Admn.),Planning Commission
Administration/Accounts/General Branches, Library, CIT & I Division, Planning Commission
Information Officer, Planning Commission

(S Bose)
Under Secretary to the Government of India

Download the PDF we got from the Planning Commission.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/constitution-of-group-of-experts

Constitution of Group of Experts to Deliberate on Privacy Issues

praskrishna — 2012-01-04T07:41:34Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/constitution-of-group-of-experts.pdf

Consilience Speakers Profile

praskrishna — 2013-12-11T10:11:10Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/consilience-speakers-profiles.pdf

Consilience 2017 - A Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law

praskrishna — 2017-06-07T01:47:07Z

The Law and Technology Society, NLSIU organized their annual conference, Consilience, on the theme 'Artificial Intelligence and the Law' on May 20, 2017 in Bengaluru. Vidushi Marda took part in the event as a panelist.

The panel consisted of the following speakers:

Arun S. Prabhu (Moderator) Partner, Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas,Bangalore)
Chinmayi Arun (Faculty Associate, Berkman Klein Centre for Internet and Society)
Amlan Mohanty (Founder, Techlawtopia)
Vidushi Marda (Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society)
Anirudh Rastogi (Partner, TRA Law)

For more information, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/consilience-2017-a-conference-on-artificial-intelligence-law

Consilience 2013 Report

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T06:14:01Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/consilience-2013.pdf

Consilience – 2013

praskrishna — 2013-11-20T06:15:15Z

The Law and Technology Committee of National Law School of India University, Bangalore is organising ‘Consilience – 2013′, an annual conference on law and technology, to be held on May 25 and 26, 2013. The Centre for Internet and Society is a co-partner for this event.

Theme: Data Protection and Cyber Security in India. Click to read the report here.

Topics:
Frameworks for Data Protection in India: The J. A.P. Shah “Report of the Group of Experts on Privacy”

a. What is the scope of the principles/framework?

b. What could be the strengths and limitation of their application?

c. How does Report define privacy for India?

d. Would an alternative framework for privacy in India be better? If so, what would this framework look like?

India and the EU: The Privacy Debate

a. How does the Indian data protection regime differ from the EU regime?

b. Was the EU is justified in not accepting India as a data secure country? Reason for or against.

c. In what way does the Indian regime on data protection not meet the requirements of EU’s data protection directive?

d. What changes need to be made in the Indian regime to become EU compliant? Are these changes feasible? Should India make these changes?

Governmental Schemes, Data Protection, and Security

a. In India, do private public partnerships between government and the private sector adequately incorporate data protection standards?

b. What have been concerns related to data protection and security that have arisen from government schemes? (Please use two governmental schemes as case studies)

c. Are these concerns related to the policy associated with the project – the architecture of the project as well as the implementation?

d. Should the larger question of data protection for governmental schemes be incorporated into a privacy legislation? If yes, how so?

Contracts and Data Protection in India

a. How are contracts used to ensure data protection in India? What actors use contracts?

b. Are there weaknesses in using contracts to ensure data protection standards?

c. Do contracts address questions brought about from technology like the cloud?

Cyber security in India

a. What are the perceived challenges and threats to cyber security in India?

b. Are these currently being addressed through policy/projects? If yes, how so?

c. How does India’s cyber security regime compare to other countries?

Surveillance and Cyber Security

a. Does policy in India enable the Government of India to surveil individuals for reasons related to cyber security?

b. If so – through what policy, projects, legislation?

c. Do the relevant policies, projects, and legislation impact privacy? How so?

The Draft National Cyber Security Policy

a. What is the scope of the National Cyber Security Policy of India? Does the draft policy adequately address all of the concerns within the ambit of cyber security?

b. Would the Draft National Cyber Security Policy of India be effective in meeting the goal of enhancing cyber security levels in India?

c. How does the Draft National Cyber Security Policy compare to other countries cyber security policies?

Word Limit:

Abstract: 750-800 words

Paper: 2,500 words

Deadlines:

Abstract Submission: April 30, 2013

Paper Submission: May 15, 2013

Contact Details:

consilience2013[at]gmail[dot]com

Mohak Arora: +91-90359-21926

Shivam Singla: +91-99167-08701

Each participant is required to submit an abstract on any one of the seven topics above and can choose the specific issue within the selected topic to discuss.

For additional details, click here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/consilience-2013-law-technology-committee-nls-bangalore

Consilience 2010 Report

praskrishna — 2011-08-22T13:25:25Z

A report of the proceedings

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/publications/consilience-2010

Consilience 2010

praskrishna — 2011-04-05T04:06:51Z

The National Law School of India University, Bangalore is hosting a conference on May 29 and 30 at the Taj Residency in Bangalore.

The Law and Technology Committee (elTek) of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore is hosting ‘Consilience’, a conference, where, as the name suggests, a multi-disciplinary approach is adopted to tackle and discuss a topic of contemporary relevance. Past editions of the conference have brought together luminaries like Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission), Mr. R. Ramraj (MD and CEO, Sify Technologies Ltd.,), Mr. Richard Stallman (Founder – GNU Project), Hon’ble Justice Yatindra Singh (Allahabad High Court, India), Mr. Rahul Matthan (Partner, Trilegal ) and discussed contemporary issues such as “Legal Aspects of Business Process Outsourcing”, “Biotechnology and the Law” and“Free and Open Source Software".

The use of the Internet has proliferated in the past few years, and the positive side is clear to see. However, there is also a huge negative associated with this growth in use of the Internet. With the free dissemination of information, there is also dissemination of illegal and immoral materials. For instance, copyright protected songs and movies are found easily on the internet, sometimes even before they are officially released. The Internet has also made obscene materials like child pornography easily accessible at the click of a button. All of this has a marked negative impact on society and therefore, due to the overriding social interest at stake, the State steps in to regulate and punish the offenders. Internet intermediary liability affects everyone who uses the Internet in numerous ways, both directly and indirectly. Internet intermediary liability could shape the very future of the Internet, yet it surprising how little it has been discussed in India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/consilience-2010-bangalore

Consilience

praskrishna — 2015-06-19T01:55:12Z

Pranesh Prakash was a speaker at this event organized by the National Law School of India University on May 9 and 10, 2015 in Bangalore. The theme for this conference was "Net Neutrality".

For those of you who came in late, Net Neutrality refers to the idea that all data on the internet should be treated equally. What this means is that you shouldn't be charged more for using one website or less for another. The internet is meant to be equal for all to access. To access YouTube one should not have to pay extra, just because Airtel is trying to grow.

However, to maintain this network that we love so much, telecom operators argue they have to spend thousands of crores of rupees on licences and cable infrastructure without getting much return. Therefore they want to be able to charge differently for using different websites. This makes it is a very contentious issue as it involves a tricky balancing of business interests v. freedoms of the digital age. For a little more insight on the topic, see the document attached which explains net neutrality in a very simple manner.

The conference was graced by a host of experts in the field, such as Rajan Mathews (Director-General, Cellular Operators Association of India), T.V. Ramachandran (Resident Director, Regulatory Affairs and Govt. Relations, Vodafone Essar Ltd.), the Policy Director for Centre for Internet and Society, Mr. Pranesh Prakash, and the general counsel of CISCO India, Mr. Joginder Yadav. Students and experts alike gave differing opinions and facilitated a great debate.

For more details visit here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/consilience-nls-2015

Connections 2018

praskrishna — 2018-12-10T15:32:06Z

Gurshabad Grover attended Connections 2018, a pre-IETF event organised by the India Internet Engineering Society (IIESoc) in Bangalore on October 31 and November 1, 2018.

IIESoC organized the event with an objective to:

Discuss the interests and issues important to the network deployment, operation and design of networks in India as they impact IETF standards.

Educate and prepare new members for IETF involvement. Facilitate member involvement in IETF areas.

Provide information, guidance and direction to assist Indian community in involvement in the IETF.

Work from different IETF working groups was discussed in four tracks: IoT Standardisation, SDN and Network Operations, IPv6, and Deployments.

Click to view the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/connections-2018

Connections

praskrishna — 2011-11-14T06:13:31Z

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

Connecting the Next Two Billion: The Role of FOSS

praskrishna — 2014-09-10T05:04:58Z

Sunil Abraham was a speaker at this event organized by ICFOSS at the APrIGF in Noida on August 4, 2014.

Specific Issues of Discussions & Description

Connecting the next two billion users on the Internet poses unique challenges that must be addressed. The next two billion users will have very different profiles as compared to the first billion in terms of factors such as geography, demography, gender, disability, technology access, language access, and connectivity devices. In addition, with the coming of the Internet of Things, the users of the Internet may also include devices, sensors and sensor networks. Further, the context of the Internet itself may be changing, particularly in relation to efforts by various State and non-State actors to restrict freedom of access to the Internet and freedom of expression on it.Free & Open Source Software (FOSS) has now assumed greater significance in the light of revelations related to arbitrary surveillance conducted by states. This issue highlights the need to use audited technology and infrastructure to prevent the wanton violation of privacy of citizens. FOSS can be used to build shared community infrastructure that will protect users from privacy abuses. As most of the online applications run on top of free software, there is also a need for greater collaboration between the industry and free software community to ensure security and robustness of software to prevent incidents like the heartbleed bug vulnerabilities. As the next two billion comes online, FOSS assumes great significance for building a safe and secure Internet and robust communication platforms.The panel will discuss the following issues:• Relevance of FOSS as an access enabler and source of robust, cost-effective andfreedom-preserving software• The importance of FOSS in preventing arbitrary surveillance• Co-operation among businesses and free software community to develop secure.

Building community communication infrastructure using FOSS to restrict the dependence on centralised services.

Moderator and Speakers

Moderator: Ms. Mishi Choudhary, Executive Director, SFLC.IN, New Delhi
Dr. Rahul De, IIM Bangalore (Remote)
Dr. G. Nagarjuna, Free Software Foundation of India (Remote)
Mr. Prasanth Sugathan, Counsel, SFLC.in
Mr. Satish Babu, Director, ICFOSS
Mr. Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Mr. S. Ramakrishnan, Media Lab Asia/Govt. of India

Workshop Organizer

This workshop will be jointly organised by International Centre For Free and Open Source Software (ICFOSS), an autonomous institution under the Government of Keralamandated with the objectives of co-ordinating FOSS initiatives within Kerala, as well as linking up with FOSS initiatives in other parts of the world and SFLC.IN, a donor supported legal services organisation that works to protect freedom in the digital world.The details of the contact person for the workshop is given below:Name: Mr.Satish BabuDesignation: DirectorOrganisation: International Center for Free and Open Source Software (IC-FOSS).

For more details see the APrIGF website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/apr-igf-delhi-2014-connecting-the-next-two-billion-the-role-of-foss

CONNECTing the Dots: Options for Future Action

praskrishna — 2015-04-01T15:31:45Z

Conference on UNESCO’s Internet Study: access, free expression, privacy and ethics.

Elonnai Hickok participated in the conference organized by UNESCO on 3 and 4 March 2015 in Paris. The programme focused on topics like:

Freedom of Expression
Access and Ethics
Privacy and Ethics
Access and Freedom of Expression
Access and Privacy
The Internet Ecosystem and UNESCO's role - which options for future action?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/connecting-the-dots-options-for-future-action

Connecting People Apart - Events Series

praskrishna — 2012-06-15T11:32:44Z

Post-Media Lab is organising an event series at Lüneburg/Berlin from June 20 to June 23, 2012. Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

This was published in Mute on June 11, 2012

Events registration (free) and details here - Contact info@postmedialab.org

20 June

Opening presentation – ‘Talk to Me’ with Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits (RIXC) with a contribution by Nishant Shah (Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore). Reception and drinks.
Venue: Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg. 19:30-22:00
Event booking (free)

21 June

‘What Would the Community Say?’ – A public consultation on regional sustainability and participation projects with Nishant Shah (Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore) in cooperation with DialogN.
Venue: Freiraum, Lüneburg. 13:00-15:00
Event booking (free)

McKenzie Wark book launch and presentation, The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International.
Venue: b-books, Berlin. 21:00-23:00
Event booking (free)

22 June

The Community Complex, A Post-Media Lab conference
Participants: Johannes Paul Raether (Basso), McKenzie Wark (The New School, New York), Nishant Shah (Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore), Marcell Mars (MaMa, Zagreb), Tatiana Bazzichelli (transmediale/reSource), Clemens Caspar Mierau (Spackeria/c-base), Pod (CiTiZEN KiNO/XLterrestrials, Berlin/San Francisco), Graswurzel TV, foebud e.v. (Bielefeld), Tactical Technology Collective (Berlin and Bangalore), Freifunk (Berlin).
Venue: Denkerei, Berlin. 13:00-20:00
Event booking (free)

After conference event: Performative screening - CiTiZEN KiNO (#16): Technotopia / Dystopia : A Social Garden-i-fication Is Elsewhere!
Venue: c-base, Berlin. 22:00
Event booking (free)

23 June

Live Stream/Media Lounge: ‘From Waste to Resource. Recovering Sustainable Attitudes’
Venue: Kulinarisches Kollektiv, Berlin. 17:00-20:00
Event booking (free)

The Post-Media Lab is part of the Lüneburg Innovation Incubator, a major EU project within Leuphana University of Lüneburg, financed by the European Regional Development Fund and co-funded by the German federal state of Lower Saxony.

Full programme details

Events booking (free) – http://pml.eventbrite.co.uk Contact info@postmedialab.org

Opening presentation - ‘Talk to Me’ with Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits (RIXC) with a contribution by Nishant Shah (Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore)

Wednesday, 20 June, 19:30-22:00
Venue: Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg
Reception and drinks

Everyone wants someone to talk to. Nowadays, scientists have performed various experiments in order to verify the old assumption that talking to plants makes them grow better. This is a prototype for an interface, which allows talking to plants remotely via the internet. We invite everyone to participate in a collaborative experiment by talking to growing plants using an online remote interface.

‘What Would the Community Say?’ - A public consultation on regional sustainability and participation projects with Nishant Shah (Center for Internet and Society, Bangalore) in cooperation with DialogN (Lüneburg)

Thursday, 21 June 13:00-15:00
Venue: Freiraum, Lüneburg

Nishant Shah will pass on and upon reflect experiences about the changing face of citizen action in a post-mediatized world. He will be presenting audio-visual material from studies in India and China – from a 'Global South' perspective – in order to look at the affective circuits of digital technologies and how our current models of development and change fail to address these conditions of being human - because mostly they are targeted at conditions of being a subject. This presentation will be embedded into the discursive context of 'citizen participation' and 'liquid feedback' projects destined for Lüneburg as part of a development region funded for by the EU and EFRE.

Book launch and presentation with McKenzie Wark. The Beach Beneath the Street: The Everyday Life and Glorious Times of the Situationist International

Thursday 21 June 21:00-23:00
Venue: b-books, 14 Lübbenerstr, 10997 Berlin

McKenzie Wark appears at b-books to talk about his book on the life and times of the Situationist International, The Beach Beneath the Street.
McKenzie Wark delves into the Situationists' unacknowledged diversity, revealing a world as rich in practice as it is in theory. Tracing the group's development from the bohemian Paris of the '50s to the explosive days of May '68, Wark's take on the Situationists is biographically and historically rich, presenting the group as an ensemble creation, rather than the brainchild and dominion of its most famous member, Guy Debord. Roaming through Europe and the lives of those who made up the movement – including Constant, Asger Jorn, Michèle Bernstein, Alex Trocchi and Jacqueline De Jong – Wark uncovers an international movement riven with conflicting passions.
Accessible to those who have only just discovered the Situationists and filled with new insights, The Beach Beneath the Street rereads the group's history in the light of our contemporary experience of communications, architecture, and everyday life. The Situationists tried to escape the world of twentieth-century spectacle and failed in the attempt. Wark argues that they may still help us to escape the twenty-first century, while we still can …

Organised by The Post Media Lab at Leuphana University, Lüneburg. In collaboration with Mute and b-books

The Community Complex - A Post-Media Lab conference

Friday, 22 June 2012, 13:00-20:00
Venue: Denkerei, Oranienplatz 2, 10999 Berlin

13:00-15:00 / Workshop I: Practice
15:00-15:30 / Pause
15:30-17:30 / Workshop II: Privacy
18:00-20:00 / Evening Panel

Whether you want to have something to do with the ‘community industry’ or not, it has something to do with you. Through its burgeoning expansion, our forms of relating, caring, communicating and collaborating, are being transformed, enclosed, templated and put to work. The most affective components of network culture are rapidly being engineered into ‘product’. Just as virtual space is augmented, real space becomes ever more virtualised, securitised and impoverished. The rise of the network-assembled community has coincided with a radical disinvestment of national and municipal communities in the age of austerity. As services are withdrawn, the ‘community’ itself is enjoined to step into the breach. ‘Community’, in the era of networked neoliberalism, has become both a target of governance as well as of business.
Beyond the commercial drive which is ‘connecting people apart’, communities of difference are also flourishing in the post-internet age. Reimagining community is not just the preserve of belligerent nationalisms and Web 2.0 but also a long-standing activity of alternative, artistic and political cultures’ responses to commercialisation and industrialisation, from the 17th century puritans and diggers, the artist communes of the 19th century, through to the political squatter scenes of post-68 generation, the hacklabs of the past years and new movements such as Anonymous. The Community Complex will ask how normative forms of sociality and identification are not only produced but also challenged in today’s mashup of the virtual and real, free and waged labour, computational and affectual, real-time and bio-time, as well as minor and molar imaginings of connection. To achieve this we bring together different perspectives and experiences of critically engaging with the new realities of mediatised ‘community’ and its reimagination.

Participants: Johannes Paul Raether (Basso), McKenzie Wark (The New School, New York), Nishant Shah (Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore), Marcell Mars (MaMa, Zagreb), Tatiana Bazzichelli (transmediale/reSource), Clemens Caspar Mierau (Spackeria/c-base), Pod (CiTiZEN KiNO/XLterrestrials, Berlin/San Francisco), Graswurzel TV, foebud e.v. (Bielefeld), Tactical Technology Collective (Berlin and Bangalore).

After conference event: Performative screening - XLterrestrials and PML-present: CiTiZEN KiNO (#16): Technotopia / Dystopia : A Social Garden-i-fication Is Elsewhere!

22:00-late
Venue: c-base, Rungestrasse 20, 10179 Berlin

As much as society appears to be thoroughly seduced by all the technological empowerment in this crash course information + capture age, the flaws, the cracks and all the discontents are beginning to show. In spite of the tsunami of corporate-feeds, gadget trends and heavily wired agendas, a Social Garden-i-fication of on-the-ground communities is underway and determined to grow by any means or hack necessary!

Citizen Kino is an experimental hybrid of public cinema, theater, laboratory and media self-defense.

Live Stream/Media Lounge: 'From Waste to Resource. Recovering Sustainable Attitudes'

Saturday, 23 June 2012, 17:00–20:00
Venue: Kulinarisches Kollektiv, Lausitzer Str.13 (aka Schweizerei), 10999 Berlin-Kreuzberg

A virtual tour through Re-Use Centres from all over the world
Participating Centres are: SCRAP in Portland, Oregon (USA), ReCircle (Brussels / Belgium), Long Beach Depot For Creative ReUse in Long Beach (California / USA), Mini-Scrapbox (Reepham / UK), The Resource Exchange (Philadelphia /USA), Kunst-Stoffe (Berlin / Germany).

In cooperation with Kunst-Stoffe (Berlin), Drap Art (Barcelona) and Les Petites Gourmandises (Berlin)

Link to the original here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/connecting-people-apart