Centre for Internet and Society

Monitoring Sustainable Development Goals in India: Availability and Openness of Data (Part II)

sumandro — 2016-04-12T04:14:27Z

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an internationally agreed upon set of developmental targets to be achieved by 2030. There are 17 SDGs with 169 targets, and each target is mapped to one or more indicators as a measure of evaluation. In this and the next blog post, Kiran AB is documenting the availability and openness of data sets in India that are relevant for monitoring the targets under the SDGs. This post offers the findings for the last 10 Goals. The first 7 has already been discussed in the earlier post.

The first part of the post can be accessed here.

Goal #08: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all

There are fourteen indicators to monitor the goal 8 and the data is available for all the indicators mapped to their respective targets. For most of the indicators, the data availability is not what the indicator demands, but has to be derived from the available dataset.

The data can be accessed freely in the public domain for all the indicators. However, for the subparts in some of the indicators, the data is not accessible freely. There is a cross agency dependency over the data, to arrive at the required indicator.

Data is collected annually for most of the indicators, while the indicators, viz., Indicator 8.3.1.: Share of informal employment in non-agriculture employment by sex; Indicator 8.5.2: Unemployment rate by sex, age-group and persons with disabilities, which are measured by the Census or the planning commission the frequency of data collection becomes decennial or quinquennial. And the Indicator 8.8.2 : Number of ILO conventions ratified by type of convention, which lists the number of conventions the frequency cannot be determined as it's just a list updated whenever there is a ratification of any ILO conventions. Some of the available data are restricted to particular years and most of them are not till date.

Two indicators, i.e., Indicator 8.5.2 and Indicator 8.10.1: Number of commercial bank branches and ATMs per 100,000 adults, which are measured at the level of districts, whereas Indicator 8.7.1: Percentage and number of children aged 5-17 years engaged in child labour, per sex and age group; Indicator 8.8.1: Frequency rates of fatal and non-fatal occupational injuries by sex and migrant status, are measured at the state level. The remaining are measured only at the national level.

Most of the data are collected from the international organisations like ILO, UNEP, UNWTO, etc., from whose source the data are not updated regularly. There is also a need to disaggregate according to the indicator.

Goal #09: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

When development is through industrialization, sustainable and inclusiveness should be the necessary conditions to attain it. Having said this, the data is available for all the indicators, i.e., twelve indicators, corresponding to the targets as defined for the goal 9. For most of the indicators, the data have to be derived for the required measure to monitor the goal.

From among these indicators, the data is collected annually for most of the indicators, while for the two indicators, Indicator 9.3.1: Percentage share of small scale industries in total industry value added; Indicator 9.3.2: Percentage of small scale industries with a loan or line of credit, the frequency of data collection is once in five years.

Excluding two indicators, i.e., Indicator 9.2.2: Manufacturing employment as a percentage of total employment; Indicator 9.1.1: Share of the rural population who live within 2km of an all season road, for which the data is available at the state level and district level respectively, for the remaining indicators the data is available only at the national level.

The data pertaining to eleven indicators are freely accessible in the public domain, however, for the Indicator 9.b.1: Percentage share of medium and high-tech (MHT) industry value added in total value added, the data is not freely accessible. Most of the freely available data are obtained from the international organisations, along with the official data from the government in India.

Goal #10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

Bridging the gap between the global north-south divide through co-operation – social, economical, political, etc., would promote equality. There are twelve indicators for measuring this goal, of which the data is not available for one of the indicators and are available for the remaining indicators.

From the data available, for six of the indicators the data is accessible freely in the public domain, whereas for the five of the indicators – Indicator 10.2.1; Indicator 10.3.1; Indicator 10.4.1; Indicator 10.7.3; Indicator 10.a.1, the data is closed.

Most of the data available are of the national level and for the Indicator 10.7.3: Number of detected and non-detected victims of human trafficking per 100,000, the data includes from the states as well. However, since the goal refers to inequalities within the country as well, the granularity of the data should have been from the state/district level as well.

And, the frequency of data collected are annually for some of the indicators and for some the details cannot be determined or not valid. For most of the indicators the data has to be derived from the available dataset and disaggregated as needed. Also, for some indicators the data is partially available.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 10.7.1: Recruitment cost borne by employee as percentage of yearly income earned in country of destination

Goal #11: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Housing and the type of settlements determines the human development and the progress of development of a nation. Therefore for monitoring the goal 11 is implicit to human development. There are thirteen indicators to monitor this goal and out of which the data is available for ten indicators and for the three indicators the data is not available.

For three of the indicators the available data is not freely accessible, while for the remaining ones the data is accessible. And for most of the indicators the data has to be derived as needed.

The data is collected annually for most of the indicators and quinquennially for the Indicator 11.5.1, and for some data the data pertains to particular year and there lacks a sequence of data availability.

For four of the indicators – Indicator 11.2.1; Indicator 11.3.1; Indicator 11.6.1; Indicator 11.a.1, the data is available at the state/city level along with national level. And for the remaining indicators the data is available at the national level alone. Also, some of the data are not up-to-date and refers to data more than 3 or years old.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 11.3.2: Percentage of cities with direct participation structure of civil society in urban planning and management, which operate regularly and democratically
Indicator 11.7.1: The average share of the built-up areas of cities that is open space in public use for all, disaggregated by age, sex, and persons with disabilities
Indicator 11.b.1: Percentage of cities implementing risk reduction and resilience strategies aligned with accepted international frameworks (such as the successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action on Disaster Risk Reduction) that include vulnerable and marginalised groups in their design, implementation and monitoring

Goal #12: Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Production and consumption should go hand in hand, but over consumption or over production would only lead to destruction of the environment. Therefore goal 12 seeks to ensure a sustainability in both. The data is available for ten indicators out of twelve indicators, and for the two indicators the data is not available, so as to monitor the respective goals. Some of the data are partially available and using the available data the indicators can be derived.

Moreover, the data for six of the indicators which are available are freely accessible in the public domain whereas for the remaining four indicators – Indicator 12.4.1; Indicator 12.4.2; Indicator 12.5.1; Indicator 12.b.1, the data is not open.

While for most of the indicators say, Indicator 12.2.1; Indicator 12.3.1; Indicator 12.5.1; Indicator 12.a.1; Indicator 12.c.1, the data is collected annually, whereas for the others, the data which are available are for particular years or cannot be determined. Except for the Indicator 12.5.1, for which the data is available at the city level, the data for the remaining are of the national order. The data is collected from both the national institutions, ministries and also from the international organisations.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 12.1.1: Number of countries with SCP National Actions Plans or SCP mainstreamed as a priority or target into national policies.
Indicator 12.8.1: Percentage of educational institutions with formal and informal education curricula on sustainable development and lifestyle topics

Goal #13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

The impact of climate change is severe, therefore taking an urgent action ensures could reduce the impact. The data is available for four of the indicators out of five, and for one of indicators the data is not available.

The data for three indicators are freely accessible in the public domain, whereas for the Indicator 13.3.1: Number of countries that have integrated mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early warning into primary, secondary and tertiary curricula, the data is not open and also not specific to the indicator. The data for some of the indicators are partially available and have to be derived.

The frequency of the data is not uniform and cannot be determined, by the virtue of the indicator itself. For example, the occurrence of a disaster event is random. However, for some of the indicators the reporting is either annual or quadrennial.

The data availability is at the national level and in case of the Indicator 13.3.1., the data is available for two states – Orissa and Tamil Nadu. Data for almost all the indicators are obtained from international organizations and very less data availability from the national databases.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 13.2.1.: Number of countries that have formally communicated the establishment of integrated low-carbon, climate-resilient, disaster risk reduction development strategies

Goal #14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development

Oceans are the torchbearers for all the countries. Therefore everything related to oceans, seas and marine resources have an impact on the human life. There are ten indicators corresponding to the targets, of which the data is available for nine indicators and for one indicator the data is not available. The data for some of the indicators are not direct, but need to be derived, while for some indicators the data is partially available. To derive some indicators we need to rely on cross agency data.

For the Indicator 14.a.1: Budget allocation to research in the field of marine technology as a percentage of total budget to research, the data on budgetary allocation doesn't specify to marine technology.

The frequency of data collected for most of the indicators are not available or cannot be determined or not applicable, whereas for some the data is collected annually. And for most of the indicators the data is available at the national level and for the Indicator 14.5.1: Coverage of protected areas in relation to marine areas, the data is available for the states also.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 14.6.1: Dollar value of negative fishery subsidies against 2015 baseline

Goal #15: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

This goal on restoring, promoting ecosystem and stopping biodiversity loss, etc., has fifteen indicators mapped to twelve corresponding targets. Of which, the data is available for fourteen of the indicators and the data is not available for the one of the indicators. Data for some of the indicators exist partially and for some the data has to be derived to match the indicators. To arrive at the indicators, the data has to be derived from different datasets available.

Most of the data which are available are closed and only five are accessible in the public platform – Indicator 15.1.1 : Forest area as a percentage of total land area; Indicator 15.4.2: Mountain Green Cover Index; Indicator 15.8.1: Adoption of national legislation relevant to the prevention or control of invasive alien species; Indicator 15.9.1: Number of national development plans and processes integrating biodiversity and ecosystem services values; Indicator 15.a.1: Official development assistance and public expenditure on conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and ecosystems.

The frequency of data collected is not available or cannot be determined for majority of the indicators, while the data is annually collected for the ones which can be determined. Furthermore, the data is available at the national level for all the indicators, except the Indicator 15.b.1: Forestry official development assistance and forestry FDI, for which the data is available at the level of states as well.

The data available are collected by international organisations like OECD, FAO, Convention on Biological Diversity, etc., as well as by the national institutions and ministries like Planning Commission, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, etc.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 15.2.2: Net permanent forest loss

Goal #16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels

A society which is inclusive, peaceful, provides justice and accountable in all its forms would ensure sustainable development, therefore to promote the aforementioned parameters one has to monitor them through an established measure. There are twenty-one indicators for this goal mapped to the respective targets and out of which the data is not available for five indicators to monitor the goal. From the available dataset, the values need to be derived for some of the indicators and for some indicators the data is directly/partially available.

From among the data which are available, for nine indicators the data is not freely accessible in the public platform, while the remaining six data set are open to access. They are available both from national and international agencies and most of the data are not up to the date.

The data which are available are collected/reported annually. And, excluding four indicators. i.e.; Indicator 16.1.3, Indicator 16.3.1, Indicator 16.4.2, Indicator 16.b.1, the data is available at the state level, while for the remaining indicators the data is available only at the national level. Most of the indicators require data from past 12 months, but the available dataset does not cater the needs, as they are not updated regularly. Finally, the indicators seeks disaggregated data for monitoring the goal.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 16.1.4: Proportion of people that feel safe walking alone around the area they live
Indicator 16.2.3. Percentage of young women and men aged 18-24 years who experienced sexual violence by age 18
Indicator 16.6.2: Percentage of population satisfied with their last experience of public services
Indicator 16.7.2: Proportion of countries that address young people's multisectoral needs with their national development plans and poverty reduction strategies
Indicator 16.a.1: Percentage of victims who report physical and/or sexual crime to law enforcement agencies during past 12 months disaggregated by age, sex, region and population group

Goal #17: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Moving towards achieving SDGs in the global scenario requires support – financial, technological, etc. This support can be strengthened the relationship between the developing and the developed countries. There are twenty-four indicators to monitor the goal 17, out of which the data is available for twenty-three of the indicators and for one of the indicators the data does not exist.

The data which are available are direct as per the indicators, whereas for most of the indicators the data need to be derived. Data is partially available for the Indicator 17.16.1: Indicator 7 from Global Partnership Monitoring Exercise: Mutual accountability among development co-operation actors is strengthened through inclusive reviews.

From the data available for twenty-three indicators, fourteen of the data set are freely accessible and the nine are not open. Also, some of the data which are open are not up to date or the latest data is not open.

The data is collected annually for most of the indicators and for some the data is available for particular year. Also for some of the indicators like Indicator 17.5.1: Number of national & investment policy reforms adopted that incorporate sustainable development objectives or safeguards x country; Indicator 17.6.1: Access to patent information and use of the international intellectual property (IP) system; Indicator 17.18.2: Number of countries that have national statistical legislation that complies with the Fundamental Principles of Official statistics, the frequency cannot be determined or not valid.

Since this indicator speaks at the national level, the granularity of the data pertains to the nation. Most of the data are obtained from the international organisations say UN, World Bank, IMF, OECD, etc., and some are from the national institutions/ministries like Planning Commission, Finance Ministry, etc.

Data Not Available:

Indicator 17.17.1: Amount of US$ committed to public-private partnerships and civil society partnerships

Conclusion

Decision making depends on data, a data should be representative, with high quality and has to be timely collected, which ensures precise assessment of the decision being made. From the analysis it was found that, most of the data which are available are either not freely accessible, outdated and not precise to the need. Most of the SDG indicators are based on disaggregation. The disaggregation is a key to measure to the precision, especially incidences like poverty, food security, health, etc. Therefore, to monitor different parameters we need to identify the different levels prevailing in the parameter to ensure inclusivity.

Said above, the frequency of data collection is either annual, quinquennial and decennial. To enable real time evaluation, the data should be up-to-date. Moreover, for most of the indicators the data availability is at the national level or at the state level and sometimes at the district level. The granularity of data ensures geographic inclusiveness.

In a country like India for close monitoring of progress/development of any sort the data availability should be;

at a granular level of district/block,
collected and updated regularly,
disaggregated by age, sex, and also by social group, and
the data should be open to be able to access in the public domain freely.

Open data will be a crucial tool for governments to meet the transparency and efficiency challenges. For this reason, government data should be open – freely accessible, presented in a format that is comparable and reusable and, ideally, released in a timely manner.

Author

Kiran A B, is a student of Master of Public Policy (MPP) at the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru. Kiran has an undergraduate degree in electronics and communications engineering, and he has three years full-time work experience as a software engineer, working in different technological platforms. His research interest includes interdisciplinary linkages between policy, law and technology.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/monitoring-sustainable-development-goals-in-india-availability-and-openness-02

Posts

sumandro — 2016-03-30T11:09:35Z

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

TRAI Consultation on Differential Pricing for Data Services - Post-Open House Discussion Submission

sumandro — 2016-03-30T13:13:30Z

The Centre for Internet and Society sent this submission to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) following the Open House Discussion on Differential Pricing of Data Services, held in Delhi on February 21, 2016.

Download the submission document: PDF.

Post-Open House Discussion Submission to TRAI

Dear Ms. Kotwal,

This is to heartily congratulate TRAI once again for taking several steps, including the Open House Discussion, to ensure that various opinions about the topic of ‘differential pricing for data services’ are presented and are responded to - and are all in full public view.

This brief note is to a) add to the positions and arguments submitted previously by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), India, b) put in writing our comments during the Open House Discussion (January 21, 2016), and c) respond to other comments shared at the same event. We have six points to share in this note:

Forbearance is not an option: We are of the opinion that though the data services market has thus far been kept un-monitored and unregulated, and there are several reasons why this situation should not continue any more. Although the reality of differential pricing (that is data packets originating from different sources being priced differently by ISPs) was highlighted with the recent offering of zero rated packs, it is a general practice in the sector, as illustrated by widely available special/curated content packs for the user to consume data from a specified web-based source. It is not surprising that most such special/curated content packs involve an arrangement between the ISP and a prominent leader in the web-content/platform sector, such as Facebook and Twitter. Serious market distorting impacts of such arrangements are imminent if they are allowed to continue without any monitoring, enforced public disclosure, and regulatory actions by a public authority.
Address differential treatment of data, and not only differential pricing: Pricing is only of the three ways in which data services can be treated differently by the ISPs depending upon the source of the data packets concerned. The other two ways are: a) differential speed, or throttling of some data packets and prioritisation of the others, and b) differential treatment of data protocols, for example, the blocking of peer-to-peer or voice-over-IP traffic by an ISP. If the public authority decides to only regulate differential pricing of data service, it is highly probable that ISPs may shift to other forms of discrimination between data packets - either in terms of prioritising some data packets over others based upon their origin, or blocking of specific protocols such as voice-over-IP to prevent the functioning of certain web-based services - and continue the market distorting impacts through these other means.
Allow and define reasonable network management practices: Reasonable network management has to be allowed to enable the ISPs to manage performance on their network. However, ISPs may not indulge in acts that are harmful to users in the name of reasonable network management. Below is a set of potential guidelines to identify cases when discrimination against classes of data traffic in the name of reasonable network management can be considered justified and permissible:
- there is an intelligible differentia between the classes which are to be treated differently,
- there is a rational nexus between the differential treatment and the aim of such differentiation,
- the aim sought to be furthered is legitimate, and is related to the security, stability, or efficient functioning of the network, or is a technical limitation outside the control of the ISP, and
- the network management practice is the least harmful technical means that is reasonably available to achieve the aim.
Establish an effective enforcement mechanism: TRAI must establish an enforcement mechanism that is open to users [and groups of users] and private sector actors as current forums are insufficient. Clear and simple rules must be established ex-ante, if they are violated - ex-post regulation must be undertaken on the basis of principles listed in the TRAI consultation paper, that is “non-discrimination, transparency, affordable internet access, competition and market entry, and innovation” [1]
Take regulatory decisions now, but also conduct and commission further research to review and refine the decisions over a defined period of time
Need for better collection and proactive disclosure of statistics: TRAI publishes quarterly performance indicators statistics collected from the telecom companies about telephone, mobile, and internet sectors in India [2]. It will be very useful for researchers and analysts, and allow for a much more informed public debate on the matter, if the content and form of such data are improved in the following ways:

Content:
- Please start collection (unless already done) and publication of not only data of average incoming and outgoing MOUs, average of total outgoing SMSs, Average Revenue Per User, and average data usage per GSM and CDMA subscriber, but distributions of the same in terms of user deciles (that is in terms of representative figures for each 10% section of users in ascending order of usage),
- Provide granular data about data usage across service areas and service providers (the numbers on ‘average data usage’ and total ‘revenue from data usage’ provided at present are very insufficient for the state of public debate),
- Provide data about internet subscriber base according to network technologies (for both wired and wireless) and the service providers concerned,
- Provide data about IP-based telephony across service areas and service providers,
- Provide data separately for the North Eastern states, and
- Provide granular data (separated from the corresponding state data) for all tier-1 cities.
Form:
- Please do not publish the data only as part of the quarterly reports available in PDF format, but also as independent machine-readable spreadsheet file (preferably in CSV format),
- Do not only publish quarterly data in separate files, but also provide a combined (all quarters together) dataset that would make it much easier for researchers and analysts to use the data,
- In some exceptional cases, the data is not provided in the report directly but a diagram containing the data is published [3], which should be kindly avoided, and
- Please publish these statistics as open data, that is in open standards and under open licenses.

Further, we request TRAI to explore possibilities of distributed sourcing of data, perhaps from the users themselves, about the actual network usage experiences, including but not limited to signal strength, data transfer speed (incoming and outgoing), frequency of switches between mobile (GSM and CDMA) and wi-fi connectivity, etc.

References

[1]. http://trai.gov.in/WriteReaddata/ConsultationPaper/Document/CP-Differential-Pricing-09122015.pdf.

[2]. http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/PerformanceIndicatorsReports/1_1_PerformanceIndicatorsReports.aspx.

[3]. http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/PIRReport/Documents/Performance_Indicator_Report_Jun_2015.pdf , sections 1.43 and 1.44 (pp. 31-32).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/trai-consultation-on-differential-pricing-for-data-services

An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy

sumandro — 2016-03-17T07:40:12Z

Along with a group of individuals and organisations from academia and civil society, we have drafted and are signatories to an open letter addressed to the Union government and urging the same to "urgently take steps to uphold the constitutional basis to the right to privacy and fulfil it’s constitutional and international obligations." Here we publish the text of the open letter. Please follow the link below to support it by joining the signatories.

Read and sign the open letter.

Text of the Open Letter

As our everyday lives are conducted increasingly through electronic communications the necessity for privacy protections has also increased. While several countries across the globe have recognised this by furthering the right to privacy of their citizens the Union Government has adopted a regressive attitude towards this core civil liberty. We urge the Union Government to take urgent measures to safeguard the right to privacy in India.

Our concerns are based on a continuing pattern of disregard for the right to privacy by several governments in the past. This trend has increased as can be plainly viewed from the following developments.

In 2015, the Attorney General in the case of *K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India*, argued before the Hon’ble Supreme Court that there is no right to privacy under the Constitution of India. The Hon'ble Court was persuaded to re-examine the basis of the right to privacy upsetting 45 years of judicial precedent. This has thrown the constitutional right to privacy in doubt and the several judgements that have been given under it. This includes the 1997 PUCL Telephone Tapping judgement as well. We urge the Union Government to take whatever steps are necessary and urge the Supreme Court to hold that a right to privacy exists under the Constitution of India.

Recently Mr. Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance introduced the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill, 2016. This bill was passed on March 11, 2016 in the middle of budget discussion on a short notice as a money bill in the Lok Sabha when only 73 of 545 members were present. Its timing and introduction as a money bill prevents necessary scrutiny given the large privacy risks that arise under it. This version of the bill was never put up for public consultation and is being rushed through without adequate discussion. Even substantively it fails to give accountable privacy safeguards while making Aadhaar mandatory for availing any government subsidy, benefit, or service.

We urge the Union Government to urgently take steps to uphold the constitutional basis to the right to privacy and fulfil it’s constitutional and international obligations. We encourage the Government to have extensive public discussions on the Aadhaar Bill before notifying it. We further call upon them to constitute a drafting committee with members of civil society to draft a comprehensive statute as suggested by the Justice A.P. Shah Committee Report of 2012.

Signatories:

Amber Sinha, the Centre for Internet and Society
Japreet Grewal, the Centre for Internet and Society
Joshita Pai, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University
Raman Jit Singh Chima, Access Now
Sarvjeet Singh, Centre for Communication Governance, National Law University
Sumandro Chattapadhyay, the Centre for Internet and Society
Sunil Abraham, the Centre for Internet and Society
Vanya Rakesh, the Centre for Internet and Society

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/an-urgent-need-for-the-right-to-privacy

Aadhaar Bill 2016 & NIAI Bill 2010 - Comparing the Texts

sumandro — 2016-03-09T11:25:01Z

This is a quick comparison of the texts of the Aadhaar Bill 2016 and the National Identification Authority of India Bill 2010. The new sections in the former are highlighed, and the deleted sections (that were part of the latter) are struck out.

Source: http://cis-india.github.io/aadhaar-bill-2016/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/aadhaar-bill-2016-niai-bill-2010-text-comparison

Sean McDonald - Ebola: A Big Data Disaster

sumandro — 2016-04-21T09:57:26Z

We are proud to initiate the CIS Papers series with a fascinating exploration of humanitarian use of big data and its discontents by Sean McDonald, FrontlineSMS, in the context of utilisation of Call Detail Records for public health response during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. The paper highlights the absence of a dialogue around the significant legal risks posed by the collection, use, and international transfer of personally identifiable data and humanitarian information, and the grey areas around assumptions of public good. The paper calls for a critical discussion around the experimental nature of data modeling in emergency response due to mismanagement of information has been largely emphasized to protect the contours of human rights.

Read

Download the paper: PDF.

Preface

This study titled “Ebola: A Big Data Disaster” by Sean Martin McDonald, undertaken with support from the Open Society Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Media Democracy Fund, explores the use of Big Data in the form of Call Detail Record (CDR) data in humanitarian crisis.

It discusses the challenges of digital humanitarian coordination in health emergencies like the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, and the marked tension in the debate around experimentation with humanitarian technologies and the impact on privacy. McDonald’s research focuses on the two primary legal and human rights frameworks, privacy and property, to question the impact of unregulated use of CDR’s on human rights. It also highlights how the diffusion of data science to the realm of international development constitutes a genuine opportunity to bring powerful new tools to fight crisis and emergencies.

Analysing the risks of using CDRs to perform migration analysis and contact tracing without user consent, as well as the application of big data to disease surveillance is an important entry point into the debate around use of Big Data for development and humanitarian aid. The paper also raises crucial questions of legal significance about the access to information, the limitation of data sharing, and the concept of proportionality in privacy invasion in the public good. These issues hold great relevance in today's time where big data and its emerging role for development, involving its actual and potential uses as well as harms is under consideration across the world.

The paper highlights the absence of a dialogue around the significant legal risks posed by the collection, use, and international transfer of personally identifiable data and humanitarian information, and the grey areas around assumptions of public good. The paper calls for a critical discussion around the experimental nature of data modelling in emergency response due to mismanagement of information has been largely emphasized to protect the contours of human rights.

This study offers an important perspective for us at the Centre for Internet and Society, and our works on Privacy, Big Data, and Big Data for Development, and very productively articulates the risks of adopting solutions to issues important for development without taking into consideration legal implications and the larger impact on human rights. We look forward to continue to critically engage with issues raised by Big Data in the context of human rights and sustainable development, and bring together diverse perspectives on these issues.

- Elonnai Hickok, Policy Director, the Centre for Internet and Society

CIS Papers

The CIS Papers series publishes open access monographs and discussion pieces that critically contribute to the debates on digital technologies and society. It includes publication of new findings and observations, of work-in-progress, and of critical review of existing materials. These may be authored by researchers at or affiliated to CIS, by external researchers and practitioners, or by a group of discussants. CIS offers editorial support to the selected monographs and discussion pieces. The views expressed, however, are of the authors' alone.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/papers/ebola-a-big-data-disaster

The Aakash Tablet and Technological Imaginaries of Mass Education in Contemporary India (Excerpt)

sumandro — 2016-02-14T10:11:09Z

In a recently published paper, Jahnavi Phalkey and Sumandro Chattapadhyay explore public initiatives in technological solutions for educating the poor and the disadvantaged in independent India. Here is an edited excerpt from the paper that traces the recent history of technological solutions for mass education and unpacking the narrative of ‘failure’ that is associated with the Aakash experiment.

Students at Pardada Pardadi Education Society in Anupshahr, Uttar Pradesh, use the Aakash tablet in class as part of a pilot project introducing the low-cost computer into rural schools. Photograph by Sonali Campion, April 09, 2013: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sonalicampion/9449250639/.

In 2010, the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) of the Government of India launched a set of prototype devices of an affordable tablet computer, the development and production of which were to be supported by the Ministry as part of its larger ICTs for education project. This device later came to be known as the “Aakash” tablet, and the project went through several iterations, between 2010 and 2014, of not only technological re-designs, but also institutional arrangements to design, develop, manufacture, test, and procure the devices.

Technological Solutions for Mass Education

Our exploration of technological solutions for mass education in India has taken us through a not-so-linear history of projects that have informed the imagination and making of the Aakash project. This include the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, or SITE (1975); University Grants Commission-led Countrywide Classroom project (1984 -); the Simputer, the first hand-held device developed in India (1998); the Hole in the Wall project developed and led by Sugata Mitra (1999); the Government of India-led EDUSAT (2004); National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (2003); and finally, a national online education portal named Sakshat (2006). The Satellite Instructional Television Experiment itself terminated rather quickly, but it led to several versions of television based instruction programmes, most notably aimed at higher secondary and university students. Instruction in the broadcast-format continues to date, even after the arrival of the internet and the fact it has become the preferred medium for the Indian state. The television has not been replaced, but certainly shadowed by a variety of internet access and computing devices.

Aakash, a “Low Cost Access-Cum-Computing Device”

An early official description of the then-nameless tablet as a “low cost access-cum-computing device” is noteworthy [1]. It is difficult to imagine a contemporary computing device that does not also function as an access device (say, to the internet). Where does the need for calling it an “access-cum-computing” device come from? It comes, perhaps, from the hierarchy of priority – the device is primarily an access device, and secondarily can perform the function of a general-purpose computer. An archaeological reading of the assumptions of learning processes embodied in this device reveals an earlier layer of thinking – that of broadcasting educational programmes to television sets via satellite connection. Labelling it as “access-cum-computing” frames the object as being shaped by the residue of the Indian state’s education technological experiences of the past, including that of the SITE initiative.

“[The] Aakash tablet was my dream but it was not fulfilled”

Throughout the short history of the Aakash device, the verdict of “failed innovation” figures prominently – from the early failure of "Sakshat" [2], to allegations of the Chinese origin of the Aakash device [3], to manufacturing troubles and under-production of the device [4], to criticisms of the tablet’s built quality and computing capacity [5], to mistrust and failed collaborations between parties involved in its production [6], and intra-governmental criticisms of the implementation process [7]. Moreover, there remained a continuous tension within the government itself regarding the necessity of the project, especially fuelled by (and fuelling) the image of the project as being driven by the dreams of a specific minister [8].

To simply describe the Aakash project’s failure as one due to the unbearable heaviness of functions ranging from the technical to the symbolic and political is to fall short of a full explanation. Alongside that narrative of failure, it is critical to foreground the quiet success of the project in establishing the tablet computer as a near-essential and familiarised everyday object for access to educational material. There is an alarming accuracy in the MHRD claim that the Aakash project established a sub $100 tablet market in India – it did, even if it was not for the device they wanted to promote [9].

The Device is the Desire

We observe that the Aakash project, as well as the ones preceding it, have been driven primarily by a desire to scale up the provision of education. The initiatives towards building delivery infrastructures for such mass-scale provision of education has almost always been accompanied by a larger desire for developing capabilities in space exploration, communication, and computing – the key technologies of twentieth century geopolitics. Our study of the manufacturing of the Aakash tablet, and its surrounding discourses, foreground the technological imagination of the state after liberalisation in India (1991), and its unique arrangements and efforts to create domestic capability of technological innovation in a context of globalised production and communication networks. We see our role as one of recovering the work of technology in the history of education as understood through the interactions between the state, academia, and industry.

Archival Research in (Increasingly) Digital India

Documenting the project has been an interesting historical exercise. We have been attentive to documents disappearing from their online locations. One remarkable possibility for archival research opened up by the internet is the (limited, and often uncertain) ability to access materials that are not presently available on a website, but were part of it in the past. This possibility allowed us to access a few crucial government documents that are not directly available on the official websites any more. We have also been attentive to the reiterations and revisions that do not merely overtake or shadow earlier documents. They sometimes erase earlier documents altogether as digital revisions. We do not have access to personal correspondence or internal institutional correspondence relating to the project. We are, however, skeptical of that happening as no protocols for the archiving of digital correspondence is yet in place with the Government of India. Doing recent history of India is becoming an ever more difficult exercise that historians must urgently attend to, if we are to make the present ready to have its own past in the future.

References

[1] Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India. “The History of Aakash Low Cost Access cum Computing Device.” Sakshat. October 05, 2011. http://archive.sakshat.ac.in/pdf/Final_Note_Aakash.pdf.

[2] Mukherjee, Arindam. “Bonsai Netbooks.” Outlook. February 16, 2009. http://www.outlookindia.com/article/Bonsai-Netbooks/239719.

[3] Raina, Pamposh, and Mia Li. “India’s ‘Aakash,’ Now Made in China.” The New York Times. November 26, 2012. http://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/india%E2%80%99s-super-cheap-tablet-now-made-in-china/.

[4] Nanda, Prashant K., and Surabhi Agarwal. “Government Close to Giving Up on Aakash Project.” Mint. March 22, 2013. http://www.livemint.com/Politics/fmEi8gsOSFgOzSTFfLsw6J/Govt-almost-gives-up-on-Aakash-says-no-point-in-hardware-ob.html.

[5] Chopra, Ritika. “Kapil Sibal's Cheap Aakash Proves to be a Dud.” Mail Today. January 08, 2012. http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/kapil-sibal-cheapest-tablet-of-world-aakash-failure/1/167730.html.

[6] Julka, Harsimran. “14 Lakh Aakash Tablets Booked in 14 Days.” The Economic Times. January 03, 2012. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/hardware/14-lakh-aakash-tablets-booked-in-14-days/articleshow/11345695.cms. Parthasarathi, Ashok. “Cloudy Outlook for Aakash.” The Hindu. May 21, 2012 (Updated: May 22, 2012). http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article3439629.ece.

[7] Comptroller and Auditor General of India, Government of India. Report No. 19 of 2013 - Union Government (Civil) - Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India on Compliance Audit Observations. Government of India. 2013. http://www.cag.gov.in/content/report-no-19-2013-compliance-audit-observations-union-governmentcivil.

[8] At an event in late 2013, Kapil Sibal admitted, “[the] Aakash tablet was my dream but it was not fulfilled, I tried hard...” Quoted in Press Trust of India. “Kapil Sibal: Aakash Tablet is My Unfulfilled Dream.” Financial Express. December 24, 2013. http://www.financialexpress.com/news/kapil-sibal-aakash-tablet-is-my-unfulfilled-dream/1211284/0 .

[9] See [1].

Note: This is an edited excerpt from a paper titled ‘The Aakash Tablet and Technological Imaginaries of Mass Education in Contemporary India’ recently published in History and Technology, on 5 February, 2016. The paper can be accessed here: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07341512.2015.1136142 (the first 50 downloads are free).

Cross-posted from South Asia @ LSE Blog.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/aakash-tablet-and-technological-imaginaries-of-education-in-india-excerpt

Internet Researchers' Conference 2016 (IRC16)

sumandro — 2016-02-27T06:19:33Z

The first Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC16) will be organised at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi, on February 26-28, 2016. The focus of the Conference is on the experiences, adventures, and methods of 'studying internet in India.' We are deeply grateful to the Centre for Political Studies (CPS), JNU, for hosting the Conference, and to the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) for the generous support. It is a free and open conference. Please use the form to register.

It is our great pleasure to announce the beginning of the Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC), an annual conference series initiated by the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at CIS to gather researchers, academic or otherwise, studying internet in/from India to congregate, share insights and tensions, and chart the ways forward.

This conference series is specifically driven by the following interests: 1) creating discussion spaces for researchers studying internet in India and in other comparable regions, 2) foregrounding the multiplicity, hierarchies, tensions, and urgencies of the digital sites and users in India, 3) accounting for the various layers, conceptual and material, of experiences and usages of internet and networked digital media in India, and 4) exploring and practicing new modes of research and documentation necessitated by new (digital) forms of objects of power/knowledge.

The first edition of the Conference, IRC16, is engaging with the theme of 'studying internet in India.' The word study here is a shorthand for a range of tasks, from documentation and theory-building, to measurement and representation.

Dates and Venue

The IRC16 will take place during February 26-28, 2016, at the Convention Centre of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. We are grateful to Centre for Political Studies (CPS) at JNU for hosting the Conference, and to the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) for its generous support.

Registration and Programme

Conference programme: Download (PDF).

Programme booklet: Download (PDF).

[Important] Invitation letter to help you enter JNU campus: Download (PDF).

Please register for the Conference here: Form (Google).

We apologise for not being able to provide travel or accommodation support.

Etherpads

#Methods&ToolsForInternetResearch : https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-InternetResearch

#DigitalDesires: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-DigitalDesires.

#InternetMovements: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-InternetMovements.

#WebOfGenealogies: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-WebOfGenealogies.

#MinimalComputing: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-MinimalComputing.

#STSDebates: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-STSDebates.

#ArchiveAnarchy: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-ArchiveAnarchy.

#ManyPublicsOfInternet: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-ManyPublicsOfInternet.

#DigitalLiteraciesAtTheMargins: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-DigitalLiteraciesAtTheMargins.

#FutureBazaars: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-FutureBazaars.

#PoliticsOnSocialMedia: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-PoliticsOnSocialMedia.

#SpottingData: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-SpottingData.

#WikiShadows: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-WikiShadows.

#FollowTheMedium: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-FollowTheMedium.

#AFCinema2.0: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-AFCinema2.0.

#LiterarySpaces: https://public.etherpad-mozilla.org/p/IRC16-LiterarySpaces.

Resources

Call for sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-call.

Proposed sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-proposed-sessions.

Selected sessions: http://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-selected-sessions.

Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to take part in pre- and post-conference conversations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16

Open Data Hackathons are Great, but Address Privacy and License Concerns

sumandro — 2016-02-05T20:37:18Z

This is to cross-publish a blog post from DataMeet website regarding a letter shared with the organisers of Urban Hack 2015, Bangalore, in response to a set of privacy and license concerns identified and voiced during the hackathon by DataMeet members. Sumandro Chattapadhyay co-authored and co-signed the letter. The blog post is written by Nisha Thompson.

Hackathons are a source of confusion and frustration for us. DataMeet actively does not do them unless there is a very specific outcome the community wants like freeing a whole dataset or introducing open data to a new audience. We feel that they cause burn out, are not productive, and in general don't help create a healthy community of civic tech and open data enthusiasts.

That is not to say we feel others shouldn't do them, they are very good opportunities to spark discussion and introduce new audiences to problems in the social sector. DataKind and RHOK and numerous others host hackathons or variations of them regularly to stir the pot, bring new people into civic tech and they can be successful starts to long term connections and experiments. A lot of people in the DataMeet community participate and enjoy hackathons.

However, with great data access comes great responsibility. We always want to make sure that even if no output is achieved when a dataset is opened at least no harm should be done.

Last October an open data hackathon, Urban Hack, run by Hacker Earth, NASSCOM, XEROX, IBM and World Resource Institute India wanted to bring out open data and spark innovation in the transport and crime space by making datasets from Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) and the Bangalore City Police available to work with. A DataMeet member (Srinivas Kodali) was participating, he is a huge transport data enthusiast and wanted to take a look at what is being made available.

In the morning shortly after it started I received a call from him that there is a dataset that was made available that seems to be violating privacy and data security. We contacted the organizers and they took it down, later we realized it was quite a sensitive dataset and a few hundred people had already downloaded it. We were also distressed that they had not clarified ownership of data, license of data, and had linked to sources like Open Bangalore without specifying licensing, which violated the license.

The organizers were quite noted and had been involved with hackathons before so it was a little distressing to see these mistakes being made. We were concerned that the government partners (who had not participated in these types of events before) were also being exposed to poor practices. As smart cities initiatives take over the Indian urban space, we began to realize that this is a mistake that shouldn't happen again.

Along with Centre for Internet and Society and Random Hacks of Kindness we sent the organizers, Bangalore City Police and BMTC a letter about the breach in protocol. We wanted to make sure everyone was aware of the issues and that measures were taken to not repeat these mistakes.

You can see the letter here:

We are very proud of the DataMeet community and Srinivas for bringing this violation to the attention of the organizers. As people who participate in hackathons and other data events it is imperative that privacy and security are kept in mind at all times. In a space like India where a lot of these concepts are new to institutions, like the Government, it is essential that we are always using opportunities not only to showcase the power of open data but also good practices for protecting privacy and ensuring security.

Originally posted on DataMeet website: http://datameet.org/2016/02/02/to-hack-or-not-to-hack/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/open-data-hackathons-are-great-but-address-privacy-and-license-concerns

NASSCOM-DSCI Annual Information Security Summit 2015 - Notes

sumandro — 2016-01-19T07:58:56Z

NASSCOM-DSCI organised the 10th Annual Information Security Summit (AISS) 2015 in Delhi during December 16-17. Sumandro Chattapadhyay participated in this engaging Summit. He shares a collection of his notes and various tweets from the event.

Details about the Summit

Event page: https://www.dsci.in/events/about/2261.

Agenda: https://www.dsci.in/sites/default/files/Agenda-AISS-2015.pdf.

Notes from the Summit

Mr.G.K.Pillai ,Chairman DSCI addressing the audience @ 10th Annual Information Security Summit '15 #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/JVcwct3HSF
— DSCI (@DSCI_Connect) December 16, 2015

Mr. G. K. Pillai, Chairman of Data Security Council of India (DSCI), set the tone of the Summit at the very first hour by noting that 1) state and private industries in India are working in silos when it comes to preventing cybercrimes, 2) there is a lot of skill among young technologists and entrepreneurs, and the state and the private sectors are often unaware of this, and 3) there is serious lack of (cyber-)capacity among law enforcement agencies.

In his Inaugural Address, Dr. Arvind Gupta (Deputy National Security Advisor and Secretary, NSCS), provided a detailed overview of the emerging challenges and framework of cybersecurity in India. He focused on the following points:

#India Dy NSA Dr Arvind Gupta calls 4 #cybersecurity by #design in #ICT #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/79kq9lWGtk
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 16, 2015

Security is a key problem in the present era of ICTs as it is not in-built. In the upcoming IoT era, security must be built into ICT systems.
In the next billion addition to internet population, 50% will be from India. Hence cybersecurity is a big concern for India.
ICTs will play a catalytic role in achieving SDGs. Growth of internet is part of the sustainable development agenda.
We need a broad range of critical security services - big data analytics, identity management, etc.
The e-governance initiatives launched by the Indian government are critically dependent on a safe and secure internet.
Darkweb is a key facilitator of cybercrime. Globally there is a growing concern regarding the security of cyberspace.
On the other hand, there exists deep divide in access to ICTs, and also in availability of content in local languages.
The Indian government has initiated bilateral cybersecurity dialogues with various countries.
Indian government is contemplating setting up of centres of excellence in cryptography. It has already partnered with NASSCOM to develop cybersecurity guidelines for smart cities.
While India is a large global market for security technology, it also needs to be self-reliant. Indian private sector should make use of government policies and bilateral trust enjoyed by India with various developing countries in Africa and south America to develop security technology solutions, create meaningful jobs in India, and export services and software to other developing countries.
Strong research and development, and manufacturing base are absolutely necessary for India to be self-reliant in cybersecurity. DSCI should work with private sector, academia, and government to coordinate and realise this agenda.
In the line of the Climate Change Fund, we should create a cybersecurity fund, since it is a global problem.
Silos are our bane in general. Bringing government agencies together is crucial. Trust issues (between government, private sector, and users) remain, and can only be resolved over time.
The demand for cybersecurity solutions in India is so large, that there is space for everyone.
The national cybersecurity centre is being set up.
Thinktanks can play a crucial role in helping the government to develop strategies for global cybersecurity negotiations. Indian negotiators are often capacity constrained.

Rajendra Pawar, Chair of the NASSCOM Cyber Security Task Force, NASSCOM Cybersecurity Initiative, provided glimpses of the emerging business opportunity around cybersecurity in India:

In next 10 years, the IT economy in India will be USD 350 bn, and 10% of that will be the cybersecurity pie. This means a million job only in the cybersecurity space.
Academic institutes are key to creation of new ideas and hence entrepreneurs. Government and private sectors should work closely with academic institutes.

'Companies+Govt+Academia= High growth of the cybersecurity industry' - Rajendra Pawar at #AISS15 @DSCI_Connect
— Shivangi Nadkarni (@shivanginadkarn) December 16, 2015
Globally, cybersecurity innovation and industries happen in clusters. Cities and states must come forward to create such clusters.
2/3rd of the cybersecurity market is provision of services. This is where India has a great advantage, and should build on that to become a global brand in cybersecurity services.
Everyday digital security literacy and cultures need to be created.
Publication of cybersecurity best practices among private companies is a necessity.

Corporate disclosures of breaches being considered with Nasscom under cybersec task force: Rajendra Pawar #AISS15 @DSCI_Connect @ETtech
— Neha Alawadhi (@NehaAlawadhiET) December 16, 2015
Dedicated cybersecurity spending should be made part of the e-governance budget of central and state governments.
DSCI should function as a clearing house of cybersecurity case studies. At present, thought leadership in cybersecurity comes from the criminals. By serving as a use case clearing house, DSCI will inform interested researchers about potential challenges for which solution needs to be created.

Manish Tiwary of Microsoft informed the audience that India is in the top 3 positions globally in terms of malware proliferation, and this ensures that India is a big focus for Microsoft in its global war against malware. Microsoft India looks forward to work closely with CERT-In and other government agencies.

RSA's Kartik Shahani @DSCI_Connect #AISS15 Adopt a Deep & Pervasive Level of True Visibility Everywhere pic.twitter.com/2U8J8WkWsI
— Debjani Gupta (@DebjaniGupta1) December 16, 2015

Data localization; one of the stumbling blocks that undermine investments in #cybersecurity. #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/vrff3Amcv0
— Appvigil (@appvigil_co) December 16, 2015

Trust verification 4 embedded devices isnt complex bt much desired as people lives r dependent on that-cld cause physical damage #AISS15
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 16, 2015

"Most compromised OS in 2k15: iOS"-Riyaz Tambe, Palo Alto Networks #AISS15
— Indira Sen (@drealcharbar) December 16, 2015

Security by default in IOS architecture tho' can't verify code as noṭ open - is it security by obscurity? #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/kbPZgH8oA0
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 16, 2015

The session on Catching Fraudsters had two insightful presentations from Dr. Triveni Singh, Additional SP of Special Task Force of UP Police, and Mr. Manoj Kaushik, IAS, Additional Director of FIU.

Dr. Singh noted that a key challenge faced by police today is that nobody comes to them with a case of online fraud. Most fraud businesses are run by young groups operating BPOs that steal details from individuals. There exists a huge black market of financial and personal data - often collected from financial institutions and job search sites. Almost any personal data can be bought in such markets. Further, SIM cards under fake names are very easy to buy. The fraudsters are effective using all fake identity, and is using operational infrastructures outsourced from legitimate vendors under fake names. Without a central database of all bank customers, it is very difficult for the police to track people across the financial sector. It becomes even more difficult for Indian police to get access to personal data of potential fraudsters when it is stored in a foreign server. which is often the case with usual web services and apps. Many Indian ISPs do not keep IP history data systematically, or do not have the technical expertise to share it in a structured and time-sensitive way.

Mr. Triveni Singh talks about raiding fake call centres in Delhi NCR that scam millions every year #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/EmE4y3jux2
— pradyumn nand (@PradyumnNand) December 16, 2015

Mr. Kaushik explained that no financial fraud is uniquely committed via internet. Many fraud begin with internet but eventually involve physical fraudulent money transaction. Credit/debit card frauds all involve card data theft via various internet-based and physical methods. However, cybercrime is continued to be mistakenly seen as frauds undertaken completely online. Further, mobile-based frauds are yet another category. Almost all apps we use are compromised, or store transaction history in an insecure way, which reveals such data to hackers. FIU is targeting bank accounts to which fraud money is going, and closing them down. Catching the people behind these bank accounts is much more difficult, as account loaning has become a common practice - where valid accounts are loaned out for a small amount of money to fraudsters who return the account after taking out the fraudulent money. Better information sharing between private sector and government will make catching fraudsters easier.

@AkhileshTuteja With data overload and big data being prevalent are we considering privacy elements #AISS15 #KpmgIndiaCyber
— Atul Gupta (@AtulGup15843145) December 16, 2015

'Tech solns today designed to protect security - solns for privacy need to evolve'- @Mayurakshi_Ray #AISS15 @DSCI_Connect
— Shivangi Nadkarni (@shivanginadkarn) December 16, 2015

In-house tools important but community collaboration critical to fight security threats @tata_comm #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/ZjbCnaROXC
— aparna (@aparnag14) December 16, 2015

'Orgns in India have a long way to go b4 they internalise privacy principles' Subhash S, CISO ICICI #AISS15 @DSCI_Connect
— Shivangi Nadkarni (@shivanginadkarn) December 16, 2015

Prof PK giving an interesting brief on Academia role in Cyber Security. @ponguru @DSCI_Connect at #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/MEiO6sCJwu
— Vikas Yadav (@VikasSYadav) December 16, 2015

Potential for interaction between Academia, Government and Industry but not an established reality yet. #AISS15 #MappingCyberEducation
— Indira Sen (@drealcharbar) December 16, 2015

I have figured out why information security is not in any boardroom discussions. Cause there are no good speakers / orators . #AISS15
— Virag Thakkar (@viragthakkar) December 16, 2015

The session on Smart Cities focused on discussing the actual cities coming up India, and the security challenges highlighted by them. There was a presentation on Mahindra World City being built near Jaipur. Presenters talked about the need to stabilise, standardise, and securitise the unique identities of machines and sensors in a smart city context, so as to enable secured machine-to-machine communication. Since 'smartness' comes from connecting various applications and data silos together, the governance of proprietary technology and ensuring inter-operable data standards are crucial in the smart city.

As Special Purposed Vehicles are being planned to realise the smart cities, the presenters warned that finding the right CEOs for these entities will be critical for their success. Legacy processes and infrastructures (and labour unions) are a big challenge when realising smart cities. Hence, the first step towards the smart cities must be taken through connected enforcement of law, order, and social norms.

Privacy-by-design and security-by-design are necessary criteria for smart cities technologies. Along with that regular and automatic software/middleware updating of distributed systems and devices should be ensured, as well as the physical security of the actual devices and cables.

In terms of standards, security service compliance standards and those for protocols need to be established for the internet-of-things sector in India. On the other hand, there is significant interest of international vendors to serve the Indian market. All global data and cloud storage players, including Microsoft Azure cloud, are moving into India, and are working on substantial and complete data localisation efforts.

Session - Why should you hire Women Security Professionals?... Balancing gender diversity #AISS15 #DSCI_Connect pic.twitter.com/uIMfG9PvAb
— Jagan Suri (@jsuri90) December 16, 2015

gender Diversity in cybersecurity critical 4 India's future. @symantec partnered with @nasscom via 1000 women scholarships #AISS15
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 16, 2015

Dialogue with CERT-In .. Starting 2nd Day of #AISS15 .. B J Srinath, DG, CERT @DSCI_Connect #security #privacy pic.twitter.com/cvDcrgkein
— Vinayak Godse (@godvinayak) December 17, 2015

New #problems can't b solved w old #solutions: #India CERT DG BJ Srinath #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

17 entities within #Indian #government engaged in #cybersecurity: #India CERT head #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

Scope of activities by CERT in #India way more than its counterparts elsewhere #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

#India CERT looks 8 prediction & #prevention #cybersecurity #emergency not just #response #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

#India CERT willing to #share #information rather than just receiving #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

Savita CERTin outlines drill initiatives taken 4 preparedness-detect (protect), defend attacks wth response #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/wXrkgoLzr2
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 17, 2015

CERTin also offers incident predicatibility,Crisis mgmt plans, #cybersecurity assurance ladder (7 levels) besides 24 x 7 prevention #AISS15
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 17, 2015

#India has 7.2 million bot infected #machines: #India CERT DG Srinath #AISS15
— Deepak Maheshwari (@dmcorpaffair) December 17, 2015

Seizure & protection of electronic devices as admissible evidence (certificate u Sec 65B) imperative under Forensics investigation #AISS15
— Lokesh Mehra (@lokesh_mehra) December 17, 2015

'Law enforcement agency&corporate world must collaborate to fight cybercrime'-Atul Gupta,Partner-Risk Adv. @ #AISS15 pic.twitter.com/GwAQWhYMmK
— KPMG India (@KPMGIndia) December 17, 2015

Mr. R. Chandrasekhar, President of NASSCOM, foregrounded the recommendations made by the Cybersecurity Special Task Force of NASSCOM, in his Special Address on the second day. He noted:

There is a great opportunity to brand India as a global security R&D and services hub. Other countries are also quite interested in India becoming such a hub.
The government should set up a cybersecurity startup and innovation fund, in coordination with and working in parallel with the centres of excellence in internet-of-things (being led by DeitY) and the data science/analytics initiative (being led by DST).
There is an immediate need to create a capable workforce for the cybersecurity industry.
Cybersecurity affects everyone but there is almost no public disclosure. This leads to low public awareness and valuation of costs of cybersecurity failures. The government should instruct the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to get corporates to disclose (publicly or directly to the Ministry) security breeches.
With digital India and everyone going online, cyberspace will increasingly be prone to attacks of various kinds, and increasing scale of potential loss. Cybersecurity, hence, must be part of the core national development agenda.
The cybersecurity market in India is big enough and under-served enough for everyone to come and contribute to it.

The Keynote Address by Mr. Rajiv Singh, MD – South Asia of Entrust Datacard, and Mr. Saurabh Airi, Technical Sales Consultant of Entrust Datacard, focused on trustworthiness and security of online identities for financial transactions. They argued that all kinds of transactions require a common form factor, which can be a card or a mobile phone. The key challenge is to make the form factor unique, verified, and secure. While no programme is completely secure, it is necessary to build security into the form factor - security of both the physical and digital kind, from the substrates of the card to the encryption algorithms. Entrust and Datacard have merged in recent past to align their identity management and security transaction workflows, from physical cards to software systems for transactions. The advantages of this joint expertise have allowed them to successfully develop the National Population Register cards of India. Now, with the mobile phone emerging as a key financial transaction form factor, the challenge across the cybersecurity industry is to offer the same level of physical, digital, and network security for the mobile phone, as are provided for ATM cards and cash machines.

The following Keynote Address by Dr. Jared Ragland, Director - Policy of BSA, focused on the cybersecurity investment landscape in India and the neighbouring region. BSA, he explained, is a global trade body of software companies. All major global software companies are members of BSA. Recently, BSA has produced a study on the cybersecurity industry across 10 markets in the Asia Pacific region, titled Asia Pacific Cybersecurity Dashboard. The study provides an overview of cybersecurity policy developments in these countries, and sector-specific opportunities in the region. Dr. Ragland mentioned the following as the key building blocks of cybersecurity policy: legal foundation, establishment of operational entities, building trust and partnerships (PPP), addressing sector-specific requirements, and education and awareness. As for India, he argued that while steady steps have been taken in the cybersecurity policy space by the government, a lot remains to be done. Operationalisation of the policy is especially lacking. PPPs are happening but there is a general lack of persistent formal engagement with the private sector, especially with global software companies. There is almost no sector-specific strategy. Further, the requirement for India-specific testing of technologies, according to domestic and not global standards, is leading to entry barrier for global companies and export barrier for Indian companies. Having said that, Dr. Ragland pointed out that India's cybersecurity experience is quite representative of that of the Asia Pacific region. He noted the following as major stumbling blocks from an international industry perspective: unnecessary and unreasonable testing requirements, setting of domestic standards, and data localisations rules.

The Policy Makers' panel in #AISS15 in progress. Arvind Gupta, Head, BJP IT cell (@buzzindelhi) speaks. pic.twitter.com/9yWR0gMwf5
— Nandkumar Saravadé (@saravade) December 17, 2015

One of the final sessions of the Summit was the Public Policy Dialogue between Prof. M.V. Rajeev Gowda, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, and Mr. Arvind Gupta, Head of IT Cell, BJP.

Prof. Gowda focused on the following concerns:

We often freely give up our information and rights over to owners of websites and applications on the web. We need to ask questions regarding the ownership, storage, and usage of such data.
While Section 66A of Information Technology Act started as a anti-spam rule, it has actually been used to harass people, instead of protecting them from online harassment.
The bill on DNA profiling has raised crucial privacy concerns related to this most personal data. The complexity around the issue is created by the possibility of data leakage and usage for various commercial interests.
We need to ask if western notions of privacy will work in the Indian context.
We need to move towards a cashless economy, which will not only formalise the existing informal economy but also speed up transactions nationally. We need to keep in mind that this will put a substantial demand burden on the communication infrastructure, as all transactions will happen through these.

Mr. Gupta shared his keen insights about the key public policy issues in digital India:

The journey to establish the digital as a key political agenda and strategy within BJP took him more than 6 years. He has been an entrepreneur, and will always remain one. His approached his political journey as an entrepreneur.
While we are producing numerous digitally literate citizens, the companies offering services on the internet often unknowingly acquire data about these citizens, store them, and sometimes even expose them. India perhaps produces the greatest volume of digital exhaust globally.
BJP inherited the Aadhaar national identity management platform from UPA, and has decided to integrate it deeply into its digital India architecture.
Financial and administrative transactions, especially ones undertake by and with governments, are all becoming digital and mostly Aadhaar-linked. We are not sure where all such data is going, and who all has access to such data.
Right now there is an ongoing debate about using biometric system for identification. The debate on privacy is much needed, and a privacy policy is essential to strengthen Aadhaar. We must remember that the benefits of Aadhaar clearly outweigh the risks. Greatest privacy threats today come from many other places, including simple mobile torch apps.
India is rethinking its cybersecurity capacities in a serious manner. After Paris attack it has become obvious that the state should be allowed to look into electronic communication under reasonable guidelines. The challenge is identifying the fine balance between consumers' interest on one hand, and national interest and security concerns on the other. Unfortunately, the concerns of a few is often getting amplified in popular media.
MyGov platform should be used much more effectively for public policy debates. Social media networks, like Twitter, are not the correct platforms for such debates.

#AISS15: @rajivgowda & @buzzindelhi are talking abt proactive disclosure as a key part of #cybersecurity strategy #openData @DataPortalIndia
— sumandro (@ajantriks) December 17, 2015

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/nasscom-dsci-annual-information-security-summit-2015-notes

Internet Researchers' Conference 2016 (IRC16) - Selected Sessions

sumandro — 2016-01-18T09:23:06Z

We are proud to announce that the first Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC16), organised around the theme of 'studying internet in India,' will be held on February 26-28, 2016, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. We are deeply grateful to the Centre for Political Studies (CPS) at JNU for hosting the Conference, and to the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) for generously supporting it. Here are the details about the session selection process, the selected sessions, the Conference programme (draft), the pre-Conference discussions, accommodation, and travel grants. The Conference will include a book sprint to produce an open handbook on 'methods and tools for internet research.'

Session Selection Process

We received 23 superb session proposals for the IRC16. All the teams that submitted sessions were invited to vote for their eight favourite session in a double-blind manner - the teams did not know the names of the people who proposed other sessions, and we at CIS did not know which team has voted for which particular set of sessions. After receiving all the votes, we could not help but change the format of the Conference (as planned earlier) to accommodate 15 sessions in total. All Discussion and Workshop sessions of the Conference are double track, except for the three Discussion sessions that received most number of votes.

Selected Sessions

#DigitalDesires: Received 8.15% votes. Proposed by Silpa Mukherjee, Ankita Deb, and Rahul Kumar.
#FollowTheMedium: Received 7.60% votes. Proposed by Zeenab Aneez and Neha Mujumdar.
#STSDebates: Received 7.60% votes. Proposed by Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Jahnavi Phalkey.
#DigitalLiteraciesAtTheMargins: Received 7.06% votes. Proposed by Aakash Solanki, Sandeep Mertia, and Rashmi M.
#InternetMovements: Received 7.06% votes. Proposed by Becca Savory, Sarah McKeever, and Shaunak Sen.
#FutureBazaars: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Maitrayee Deka, Adam Arvidsson, Rohini Lakshané, and Ravi Sundaram.
#MinimalComputing: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Padmini Ray Murray and Sebastian Lütgert.
#WebOfGenealogies: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Ishita Tiwary, Sandeep Mertia, and Siddharth Narrain.
#WikiShadows: Received 5.97% votes. Proposed by Tanveer Hasan and Rahmanuddin Shaik.
#LiterarySpaces: Received 5.43% votes. Proposed by P.P. Sneha and Arup Chatterjee.
#ArchiveAnarchy: Received 4.34% votes. Proposed by Ranjani M Prasad and Farah Yameen.
#AFCinema2.0: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Akriti Rastogi and Ishani Dey.
#ManyPublicsOfInternet: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Sailen Routray and Khetrimayum Monish.
#PoliticsOnSocialMedia: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Rinku Lamba and Rajarshi Dasgupta.
#SpottingData: Received 3.80% votes. Proposed by Dibyajyoti Ghosh and Purbasha Auddy.

Dates and Venue

The IRC16 will take place during February 26-28, 2016, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi. We are delighted to announce that the Conference will be hosted by the Centre for Political Studies (CPS) at JNU, and will be generously supported by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF).

Conference Programme

Access the draft programme (v.2.1): Download (PDF).

Pre-Conference Conversations

Please join the researchers@cis-india mailing list to take part in the pre-conference conversations: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers.

Accommodation

CPS and CIS will provide accommodation to all non-Delhi-based team members of the selected sessions, during the days of the Conference.

Travel Grants

We will offer 10 travel grants, up to Rs. 10,000 each, for within-India travel. The following non-Delhi-based team members of the selected sessions have been selected for travel grants: Aakash Solanki, Dibyajyoti Ghosh, Neha Mujumdar, Purbasha Auddy, Rahmanuddin Shaik, Rashmi M, Rohini Lakshané, Sailen Routray, P.P. Sneha, and Zeenab Aneez.

The travel grants are made possible by the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/irc16-selected-sessions

Approaching Open Research via Open Data - Presentation at TERI, December 22, 2015

sumandro — 2016-01-12T14:37:38Z

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Delhi, organised a seminar on 'Open Access in Research Area: A Strategic Approach' on December 22, 2015. We supported the seminar as a knowledge partner. Sumandro Chattapadhyay was invited to deliver a special address. Here are the notes and slides from the presentation.

The brief presentation foregrounded open data as a crucial part of open research, and also as an instrument of opening up research for public consumption, discussion, and scrutiny.

The presentation started with reference to the Open Access Dialogues organised by The African Commons Project and the Centre for Internet and Society during November 2012 to March 2013 that explored the global open access agenda from a developing world perspective.

I noted that one of the key findings from the Indian participants of the online consultations organised as part of the Open Access Dialogues was the need for a broader vision of open access. Open research data is a key component of this broader vision of open access and open research.

There was a brief discussion of how to start doing and thinking about open data as an approach to open research. I highlighted the need to get started on 1) getting government to open up data relevant to research, 2) opening up academic research data, and 3) sectoral conversations on data standards (technical and semantic); as well as the need to think about 1) open data as bridge across disciplinary communities, 2) quantification of life and the widening sphere of research data, and 3) academic research and public life.

In next slides, I quickly mentioned the international processes going on in the open data landscape - the conversation on open data and Sustainable Development Data, the possibility of using big (social and telecom) data for purposes of development monitoring, and the International Open Data Charter as a set of global principles for open data.

More about the seminar: http://cis-india.org/openness/teri-seminar-on-open-access-in-research.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/approaching-open-research-via-open-data-2015

Pre-Budget Consultation 2016 - Submission to the IT Group of the Ministry of Finance

sumandro — 2016-01-12T13:34:41Z

The Ministry of Finance has recently held pre-budget consultations with different stakeholder groups in connection with the Union Budget 2016-17. We were invited to take part in the consultation for the IT (hardware and software) group organised on January 07, 2016, and submit a suggestion note. We are sharing the note below. It was prepared and presented by Sumandro Chattapadhyay, with contributions from Rohini Lakshané, Anubha Sinha, and other members of CIS.

It is our distinct honour to be invited to submit this note for consideration by the IT Group of the Ministry of Finance, Government of India, as part of the pre-budget consultation for 2016-17.

The Centre for Internet and Society is (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. We receive financial support from Kusuma Trust, Wikimedia Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, IDRC, and other donors.

We have divided our suggestions into the different topics that our organisation has been researching in the recent years.

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) is the Basis for Digital India

We congratulate the policies introduced by the government to promote use of free/libre and open source software and that of open APIs for all e-governance projects and systems. This is not only crucial for the government to avoid vendor lock-in when it comes to critical software systems for governance, but also to ensure that the source code of such systems is available for public scrutiny and do not contain any security flaws.

We request the government to empower the implementation of these policies by making open sharing of source code a necessity for all software vendors hired by government agencies a necessary condition for awarding of tenders. The 2016-17 budget should include special support to make all government agencies aware and capable of implementing these policies, as well as to build and operate agency-level software repositories (with version controlling system) to host the source codes. These repositories may function to manage the development and maintenance of software used in e-governance projects, as well as to seek comments from the public regarding the quality of the software.

Use of FLOSS is not only important from the security or the cost-saving perspectives, it is also crucial to develop a robust industry of software development firms that specialise in FLOSS-based solutions, as opposed to being restricted to doing local implementation of global software vendors. A holistic support for FLOSS, especially with the government functioning as the dominant client, will immensely help creation of domestic jobs in the software industry, as well as encouraging Indian programmers to contribute to development of FLOSS projects.

An effective compliance monitoring and enforcement system needs to be created to ensure that all government agencies are Strong enforcement of the 2011 policy to use open source software in governance, including an enforcement task force that checks whether government departments have complied with this or not.

Open Data is a Key Instrument for Transparent Decision Making

With a wider set of governance activities being carried out using information systems, the government is increasingly acquiring a substantial amount of data about governance processes and status of projects that needs to be effectively fed back into the decision making process for the same projects. Opening up such data not only allows for public transparency, but also for easier sharing of data across government agencies, which reduces process delays and possibilities of duplication of data collection efforts.

We request the 2016-17 budget to foreground the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy and the Open Government Data Platform of India as two key enablers of the Digital India agenda, and accordingly budget for modernisation and reconfiguration of data collection and management processes across government agencies, so that those processes are made automatic and open-by-default. Automatic data management processes minimise the possibility of data loss by directly archiving the collected data, which is increasingly becoming digital in nature. Open-by-default processes of data management means that all data collected by an agency, once pre-recognised as shareable data (that is non-sensitive and anonymised), will be proactively disclosed as a rule.

Implementation of the National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy has been hindered, so far, by the lack of preparation of a public inventory of data assets, along with the information of their collection cycles, modes of collection and storage, etc., by each union government agency. Specific budgetary allocation to develop these inventories will be crucial not only for the implementation of the Policy, but also for the government to get an extensive sense of data collected and maintained currently by various government agencies. Decisions to proactively publish, or otherwise, such data can then be taken based on established rules.

Availability of such open data, as mentioned above, creates a wider possibility for the public to know, learn, and understand the activities of the government, and is a cornerstone of transparent governance in the digital era. But making this a reality requires a systemic implementation of open government data practices, and various agencies would require targeted budget to undertake the required capacity development and work process re-engineering. Expenditure of such kind should not be seen as producing government data as a product, but as producing data as an infrastructure, which will be of continuous value for the years to come.

As being discussed globally, open government data has the potential to kickstart a vast market of data derivatives, analytics companies, and data-driven innovation. Encouraging civic innovations, empowered by open government data - from climate data to transport data - can also be one of the unique initiatives of budget 2016-17.

For maximising impact of opened up government data, we request the government to publish data that either has a high demand already (such as, geospatial data, and transport data), or is related to high-net-worth activities of the government (such as, data related to monitoring of major programmes, and budget and expenditure data for union and state governments).

Promotion of Start-ups and MSMEs in Electronics and IT Hardware Manufacturing

In line with the Make in India and Digital India initiatives, to enable India to be one of the global hubs of design, manufacturing, and exporting of electronics and IT hardware, we request that the budget 2016-17 focus on increasing flow of fund to start-ups and Medium and Small-Scale Manufacturing Enterprises (MSMEs) in the form of research and development grants (ideally connected to government, especially defense-related, spending on IT hardware innovation), seed capital, and venture capital.

Generation of awareness and industry-specific strategies to develop intellectual property regimes and practices favourable for manufacturers of electronics and IT hardware in India is an absolutely crucial part of promotion of the same, especially in the current global scenario. Start-ups and MSMEs must be made thoroughly aware of intellectual property concerns and possibilities, including limitations and exceptions, flexibilities, and alternative models such as open innovation.

We request the budget 2016-17 to give special emphasis to facilitation of technology licensing and transfer, through voluntary mechanisms as well as government intervention, such as compulsory licensing and government enforced patent pools.

Applied Mathematics Research is Fundamental for Cybersecurity

Recent global reports have revealed that some national governments have been actively involved in sponsoring distortion in applied mathematics research so as to introduce weaknesses in encryption standards used in for online communication. Instead of trying to regulate key-length or mandating pre-registration of devices using encryption, as suggested by the withdrawn National Encryption Policy draft, would not be able to address this core emerging problem of weak cybersecurity standards.

For effective and sustainable cybersecurity strategy, we must develop significant expertise in applied mathematical research, which is the very basis of cybersecurity standards development. We request the budget 2016-17 to give this topic the much-needed focus, especially in the context of the Digital India initiative and the upcoming National Encryption Policy.

Along with developing domestic research capacity, a more immediately important step for the government is to ensure high quality Indian participation in global standard setting organisations, and hence to contribute to global standards making processes. We humbly suggest that categorical support for such participation and contribution is provided through the budget 2016-17, perhaps by partially channeling the revenues obtained from spectrum auctions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/pre-budget-consultation-2016-submission-to-the-ministry-of-finance

RAW Lectures #02: Anil Menon on 'Undermining the Tyrant’s Protocols: Speculative Fiction and Freedom'

sumandro — 2016-02-09T08:43:57Z

Anil Menon will give a talk on 'Undermining the Tyrant’s Protocols: Speculative Fiction and Freedom' at the Centre for Internet and Society's office in Bangalore on Wednesday, January 13, 2016 at 6 pm. Please join us for tea and coffee before the lecture at 5.30 pm.

Update: The video recording of the lecture can be accessed here.

The RAW Lectures series was initiated by the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme to take stock, reflect, and chart courses into the studies of Internet in/from India. The lectures address the experiences and practices of Internet in India as plural and intertwined with longer-duration processes. The lectures also critically respond to the questions around the methods of studying Internet in/from India, and the opportunities and challenges of studying Indian society on/through the Internet.

It gives us great pleasure to announce that Anil Menon will present the second lecture of the series on Wednesday, January 13, 2016, at 6 pm.

Undermining the Tyrant’s Protocols: Speculative Fiction and Freedom

Story-telling, like the internet, depends on the existence of fixed protocols between the sender and the receiver. However, by manipulating ambiguity and contexts, speculative fiction constantly creates new and ever-changing protocols of reading. This makes it hard to define what exactly speculative fiction is. Spec-fic may be described as a catch-all term to describe genres such as magic-realism, fabulist fiction, slipstream, science-fiction, fantasy and various fusions thereof. In my talk, I will outline the history of spec-fic on the subcontinent, and show how it was used by authors such as Kylas Chundar Dutt to undermine imperialist narratives. In the last decade, the internet, which may be conceived as a speculative network, has emerged as another such tool. Internet access in India is growing at an extraordinary rate, but less well-known is the fact that Indian spec-fic is also undergoing a rather remarkable renaissance. I will show that these two threads of development are related, mutually reinforcing, and point to an interesting metaphor of speculative sovereignity, perhaps unique to India, and that serves to undermine any would-be tyrant’s protocols.

Anil Menon

Anil Menon’s research work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as Intl J. of Neural Networks, Neural Proc. Letters, IEEE Trans On Evolutionary Computation, Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, British J. of the History of Science, and Small Business Economics. His short fiction has appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies including Interzone, Interfictions, Strange Horizons, Jaggery Lit Review, and Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet. His stories have been translated into German, French, Chinese, Romanian and Hebrew. His debut novel The Beast With Nine Billion Feet (Zubaan Books, 2010) was short-listed for the 2010 Vodafone-Crossword award and the Carl Brandon Society's 2011 Parallax Award. Along with Vandana Singh, he co-edited Breaking the Bow (Zubaan Books 2012), an international anthology of speculative fiction inspired by the Ramayana epic. His most recent work is the novel Half Of What I Say (Bloomsbury, 2015).

Website: http://anilmenon.com/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/raw-lectures-02-anil-menon

Seminar on Open Access in Research Area: A Strategic Approach

sumandro — 2015-12-22T05:37:44Z

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Delhi, is organising a seminar on open access in research on Tuesday, December 22, 2015. The seminar will focus on: 1) wider access to scientific publications and research data, 2) access to scientific information, and 3) challenges and opportunities of research data. The Centre for Internet and Society is supporting the event as a Knowledge Partner.

Background

Open Access has become central importance to advancing the interests of researchers, scholars, students, business, and the public as well as librarians. Increasingly, research institutions require researchers to publish articles that report research findings openly accessible in open domain.

Open Access pursues to yield scholarly publishing to spread knowledge and allow that knowledge to be built upon. Price barriers should not stop researchers from getting access to research data. Open Access, and the open availability and search ability of scholarly research that it entails, will have a significant positive impact on everything from education to the research practice in various fields.

To explore why Open Access is so important to a number of groups, TERI Library along with The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) as Knowledge Partner is organizing a half day seminar on Open Access in Research Areas: a Strategic Approach on December 22, 2015 at TERI Seminar Hall, IHC, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

The Seminar will focus on:

wider access to scientific publications and research data
access to scientific information, and
challenges and opportunities of research data.

Schedule

No registration is required to attend the seminar. Seats are limited, and will be provided on first-come-first-served basis.

13:45 - 14:00		Registration and Networking
14:00 - 14:10		Welcome Address - Mr. Prabir Sengupta, Distinguished Fellow and Director, Knowledge Management Division, TERI
14:10 - 14:20		Special Address - Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, The Centre for Internet and Society
14:20 - 14:35		Keynote Address - Dr. K.R. Murali Mohan, Advisor, Big Data Initiatives Division, Department of Science and Technology
14:35 - 14:50		Inaugural Address - Dr. Chandrima Shaha, Director, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi
14:50 - 15:00		Setting the Theme and Vote of Thanks - Dr. P.K. Bhattacharya, Fellow and Area Convenor, Knowledge Management Division, TERI
15:00 - 15:30		Tea and Refreshments
15:30 - 17:15		Plenary Session Chair: Dr. Ramesh Sharma, Director, CEMCA Puneet Kishor, Researcher and Independent Consultant - "Science, Data, and Creative Commons" Dr. Beth Sandore Namachchivaya, Associate Dean of Libraries and Professor University of Illinois - "Developing Services, Infrastructure, and Best Practices to Conserve and Provide Access to Research Data: Challenges and Opportunities" Dr. Usha Mujoo Munshi, Librarian, Indian institute of Public Administration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/teri-seminar-on-open-access-in-research