Centre for Internet and Society

US pressure threatens to weaken data - localisation mandate in India's landmark data-protection bill

Sandhya Sharma — 2019-08-22T01:41:21Z

Sources say the bill may have to concede vital ground to technology companies.

The article by Sandhya Sharma was published by ET Prime on August 19, 2019. Arindrajit Basu was quoted.

Indian law-enforcement agencies have repeatedly expressed their unhappiness with America’s reticence on the sharing of critical data — whether it was around the 26/11 Mumbai attacks or procuring electronic evidence under the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) from technology companies.

Top cybersecurity sources in the government tell ET prime that India’s own Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill 2019 is in response to this. Cabinet nod to the bill is expected anytime, and it is likely to be tabled in the next session of Parliament. However, thanks to diplomatic pulls and pressures, a vital provision of the bill could end up markedly diluted. Sources in the Indian government say the US has conveyed it does not want the bill at all.

“We expect it will be a better mechanism than MLAT” for procuring data from technology companies, says a person aware of the development, while adding that the thorny question of data localisation is now a very small part of the bill. Across key bilateral engagements — US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s June visit to India, G20 meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Donald Trump, and a US trade representative delegation visiting India for talks — American unease with the growing “protectionism” in Indian policy has remained a key talking point.

"Forum members oppose data localisation policies, and we look forward to sharing our concerns when the data protection bill gets introduced in Parliament,” says Susan Ritchie, vice-president of technology, media, and telecommunications at lobby group U.S. India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF).

“An environment where regulatory coherence is a governmental priority provides industry with greater predictability and stability resulting in increased investment." A toothless treaty? According to policy experts, MLATs have been the most widely used method for cross-border data sharing. India has signed MLATs with 39 countries, including the US. These treaties give India access to data stored on the cloud and call for data stored by multinational service providers within the jurisdiction of the partner country. However, MLATs are time consuming and have failed in their basic function in the past, sources say, and hence the government was keen to hold the data of Indians back in India, including data pertaining to e-commerce transactions, banking, healthcare, etc.

According to the Justice Srikrishna Committee report, eight of the 10 most accessed websites by Indians are owned by US entities. If data is exclusively processed in India, it will potentially cut off foreign surveillance, the report also notes, while highlighting a three-pronged approach to Indian data to reduce dependence on MLATs.

Talking exclusively to ET Prime, Justice BN Srikrishna says, “MLAT is a long-drawn process and hence the process goes through several diplomatic and judicial channels. It takes anywhere between 18 months to two years to get the information from the foreign technology companies for any investigation [and] much more time for extracting information on taxation and other financial matters…. Once the data of Indian citizens is in India, it will be much easier for law enforcement agencies to take the data for investigation purposes. In the past, the technology companies have dilly-dallied on the information requests of Indian law enforcement agencies.” To be sure, the report does not claim "perfect compliance" through data localisation and it clarifies that for data owned by companies like Google a "conflict of law" might arise if the country of registration — in this case the US — also asserts jurisdiction.

According to the report, between January and June 2017, Google received 3,843 user data-disclosure requests by Indian governmental agencies. Google refused to provide data in 46% of the cases. Now with the PDP Bill, Indian officials can easily get their hands on the data of Indian citizens not residing in India, says Justice Srikrishna. US resistance US tech-industry insiders tell ET Prime on condition of anonymity that no law-enforcement agency should be allowed 100% unfettered access to information. They claim MLATs have been successful in most cases of intelligence sharing around terrorism and national security.

“National security” is a very wide concept in India, unlike in the US where it generally refers to international activities, they say. Jacob Gullish, senior director for digital economy at the lobby group US India Business Council (USIBC), says the term MLAT is often used incorrectly as a catch-all. MLATs are designed for a very narrow and a specific purpose: where the transmitted information is admissible in the foreign country’s judicial system, he says. “In these cases, information has to be handled carefully to ensure the request complies with domestic laws and the transmission is certified for authenticity and a chain of custody, as well as packaged to allow its use as evidence in a foreign court. This process takes time, and the business community supports MLAT reform.

“Just like in the physical world, due process rights for the citizens of the world’s largest and the world’s oldest democracies must be respected in the digital domain. Companies also need legal certainty when operating between different jurisdictions. The bottom line is that law enforcement agencies (LEAs) on both sides need to develop clear processes and procedures, as well as trusted relationships, which will facilitate information exchange during an investigation.” A Google spokesperson echoes Gullish. “On urging from us and other Internet companies, MLAT processes have improved and in most cases responses are provided in a week or two,” the spokesperson says.

“In addition, we are also advocating for MLAT reform, including supporting calls to invest over [USD20 million] to address insufficient staffing, and helping investigators around the world better understand the MLAT process, to help expedite requests.” Other industry insiders claim that US companies field a high volume of requests and respond quickly for the most part, and that ultimately all of this goes back to trust. In December 2011, a Delhi court had issued summons to 21 companies, including Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and YouTube, to face trial for allegedly hosting objectionable content promoting hatred or communal disharmony.

The then IT Minister Kapil Sibal had asked Google and Facebook to ensure prompt removal of offensive material, complaining that the companies had not cooperated in the past. Concerns with data-localisation norms in the present state 1. Diplomatic and political: Data-localisation mandates could impact India’s trade relationships with partners like the US. 2. Security risks (“Regulatory stretching of the attack surface”): Storing data in multiple physical centres increases the exposure to exploitation by malicious actors. 3. Economic impact: Restrictions on cross-border data flow may harm economic growth by increasing compliance costs and entry barriers for foreign service providers, thereby reducing investment or forcing businesses to pass on these costs to the consumers. The major cost pertains to setting up data centres in India.

Further, for startups looking to attain global stature, reciprocal restrictions slapped by other countries can be a serious hurdle. “Data localisation would be most effective if it is — (a) done after India updates its privacy and security standards by passing the Personal Data Protection Bill 2019; (b) done sectorally, after considering how critical it is to store the data in India; (c) done conditionally in (i) the country where data is transferred having equivalent privacy and security safeguards, both de jure and de facto and (ii) the presence of an executive data sharing agreement,” says Arindrajit Basu, senior policy officer at New Delhi-based think tank Centre for Internet and Society. This is essentially what the international community describes as “free flow of data with trust” — the G20 mandate which India recently rejected. Can the US CLOUD Act solve for the lack of information access? A section of policy experts argues that the localisation mandate proposed in India’s new bill does not solve an important problem: What happens when law-enforcement agencies need access to data relating to a foreigner stored in a server located in another jurisdiction by a company incorporated in the US? Will the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act (CLOUD Act) passed in the US last year help?

The US has recently amended the CLOUD Act after a dispute between Microsoft and the US government. The law now ensures two things: American law-enforcement agencies will get access to data held by US cloud service providers (CSPs) regardless of jurisdiction, and allow “qualified foreign governments” to access data stored by US CSPs. This has given rise to a view that the CLOUD Act could be the silver bullet countries like India need to push US tech companies to share data in a timely fashion. Basu of the Centre for Internet and Society says, “India should use the threat of data localisation to negotiate an executive arrangement under the CLOUD Act. India would fare better if it were to use the language of international law to articulate its position in the MLAT reform process, or to propel itself to a better position under the CLOUD Act (which requires countries to demonstrate a commitment to a free and open Internet) or potentially pursue negotiations for a multilateral data sharing treaty.” Siddharth Jain, assistant commissioner in Delhi Police and an expert in investigating cyber-crime issues, says Indian technology firms do provide adequate and timely information about suspicious transactions; however, US firms are lax in sharing information.

Telangana IPS officer Rema Rajeshwari concurs that it’s a problem for law-enforcement agencies to cull out information from some US technology companies. Data-protection bill already diluted? ET Prime has learned that the net result of the pulls and pressures exerted by US commercial and diplomatic interests is that data localisation now remains just a small part of India’s data-protection bill. The Ministry of External Affairs maintains that the US-India relationship is “extremely important”. After President Trump’s controversial comments on offering mediation on the Kashmir issue, ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, “We are very strong strategic partners and we have brought in deep convergences across a range of issues.

We have excellent trade and investment linkages and are moving toward high defence and technology tie-up.” It’s not just political posturing by India to maintain the tricky relationship at a time when the Trump administration is coming up with reports one after the other criticising the country’s proposed data-protection policies. The PDP Bill was listed to be tabled in Parliament in the first session of the Modi 2.0 government but is yet to see the light of the day. If India tables the draft bill without making concessions that ease the demands on US technology companies, it will severely harm the India-US technology relationship, according to some US policy lobbyists. However, government sources tell ET Prime that the bill now has “data localisation as a very small part”, meaning that it is already likely diluted due to US pressure tactics. Sources say the non-critical data of an individual like height, weight, bank-account number, etc., will not need to be mandatorily stored in India. However, biometric data will have to be stored locally.

Top policymakers who were consulted for the Justice Srikrishna Committee report say should the bill be diluted under duress, it will be a sorry statement for India’s data-protection regime. Meanwhile, with nationalistic sentiments in full flourish during the new Modi government’s first Parliament session, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a note that “the bill being prepared will address India’s sovereign data concerns and provide a framework to boost innovation in India while complying with the directives contained in the judgment of [the Honourable Supreme Court]”.

India and EU: a potential template In contrast to the Indo-US friction, India’s understanding with the European Union (EU) on the issue of data protection offers a potential template. India is looking at dialing EU to seek ‘adequacy’ status with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) once it passes the PDP Bill. Tomasz Kozlowski, EU Ambassador to India, said at the recent ET 5G Congress, “Data protection is an important element of EU-India cooperation.

With such a law in place, India will be joining the global trend of global convergence toward a modern data-protection law, and take a leadership role in the region and globally, at a time when the need to address challenges to data privacy and security requires a common approach.” Kozlowski added that the “adoption of strong data protection law will also pave way for EU-India discussions and further facilitate data flows.” Top cybersecurity sources in the Indian government point out that the US has agreed to GDPR, which is far more stringent than the Indian Bill. If so, why make noise about India’s data-localisation demands?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/et-prime-sandhya-sharma-august-19-2019-us-pressure-threatens-to-weaken-data-localisation-mandate-in-indias-landmark-data-protection-bill

India’s top science institution is trying hard to fix its “manel” problem

Admin — 2019-08-19T13:58:51Z

B Chagun Basha is a science, technology and innovation policy fellow at Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) Centre for Policy Research established by the department of science & technology (DST-CPR).

The blog post was published in Quartz India on August 16, 2019. Sunil Abraham was quoted. This piece was originally published on Connect under the headline, “We Learned (The Hard Way) Not to Have Manels.”

While organising an event at IISc, he and his colleagues realised they hadn’t paid much thought to gender inclusivity until it was explicitly pointed out to them that there were no women in their event. That sparked some introspection, as well as actions to ensure that this wasn’t repeated. In this interview, he talks about the incident and important lessons from it.

How did you first hear of the term manel?

It was when I was organising my first event of an academic nature. Every year, DST-CPR marks International Open Access Week by planning activities for the entire week, and having a panel discussion is a major part of it. We bring in experts to sensitise people about topics related to open access and how we can incorporate it in our institute through a bottom-up approach.

In October 2017, when International Open Access Week came round, we collaborated with six other groups to organise it. We had a poster competition, a panel discussion, and a few other activities like engaging with the student community about open access and how they could play a role in promoting it.

A week before the panel discussion was scheduled, we had confirmed the participation of all our speakers—five male speakers and one female speaker. The female speaker had not been included out of a conscious effort to ensure gender diversity—she happened to be on the list of names we came up with, we had written to all of them, and they had agreed to come. But a few days before the panel discussion, we received an email from her saying that she would not be able to join us.

We didn’t think it was a big deal. Instead of six participants we would have five, one of whom would be the moderator. Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) had already confirmed that he would be the moderator. He sent us an email asking for details of the panelists, so that he could communicate with them and plan and structure the discussion. But when we sent him the details, he immediately got back to us saying that he wouldn’t be able to participate in this panel discussion.

I was a little shocked—you can replace a panelist at the last minute, but finding a new moderator to curate a discussion is harder as doing so requires in-depth knowledge of this space and familiarity with open access policies at different levels. I asked Sunil what had happened—why did he have to pull out? He said that CIS had a written policy that was followed strictly: members could not participate in “manels”—a word I was hearing for the very first time. I didn’t even catch it properly when we spoke on the phone. Then he explained to me that if there was a panel on which there were only men and no women panelists—which are called “manels”—then people from his organisation avoided them completely.

What happened next?

I realised that as an organiser of an event, I wasn’t even thinking about being inclusive.

I realised that as an organiser of an event, I wasn’t even thinking about being inclusive. So we requested Sunil to suggest names of women speakers whom we could approach. I realise now that it was not a good thing to do—when somebody points out that there are no women on your panel, and for those reasons they are not going to participate, you should try harder to rectify this at your end, and not dump the responsibility for this on the person who pointed it out in the first place.

We should have put in genuine effort from our end to learn more about other women in the field whom we could approach for the panel. But at the time Sunil generously agreed and gave us a list with 12 names. We contacted all of them: two people responded, one of whom—Padmini Ray Murray, who was a faculty member at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology—happened to be in Bengaluru and agreed to participate at short notice. We were really thankful for that.

The panel discussion went off smoothly, and at the end we gave a vote of thanks, where we acknowledged our goof-up, thanked Sunil for bringing it to our notice, and we promised the audience sitting in Faculty Hall, which included the Director of NCBS and the Deputy Director of IISc, that we wouldn’t run any more manels. We said we would consciously include more women in all events we organised from then on—not just panel discussions but talks, workshops and so on. That’s more or less an official decision we took for CPR.

Did you feel like you were being put on the spot at the time?

We would often ask our superiors to suggest names for events or scout for people on our own, but actively thinking about including people of all genders was something we never really did. Now it feels like something that is really important.

And an interesting thing happened after the vote of thanks that year: other people who had been in the audience and worked in other institutes or other departments at IISc came up to talk to us during the tea break. Like us, previously they thought it wasn’t important to think about who was being invited as panelists, but they began to see it was important too.

Has that changed how you planned subsequent events?

Two months after that panel discussion, we organised a workshop. On the final day of the workshop, we presented information on how many male and female participants applied, and how many of each we selected (women formed a little over 50% of those selected). That was our indirect way of letting people know that we took gender into consideration during our selection process.

In October 2018, when International Open Access Week came around again, we organised a panel discussion as well as an event called the Global Equity Forum for librarians, because they play a key role in making open access a reality at the institutional level. We consciously included women for both events, and not just because they were women. We realised that if you put in a little effort, you can easily find competent people of all genders without having to select people only for representation’s sake.

What about the people you mentioned earlier, who came up after the panel to ask you about including more women—do you know if they ever followed up on it?

Since the 2017 panel, others have made an effort to have equal numbers on men and women in panels too. It’s been like a chain reaction—some of those who attended our panel discussion took notice and kept it in mind when they organised events themselves. For now, though, ensuring gender diversity has depended on the efforts of the individual organisers. What happens when they leave and others take their place?

I think we need to put forth a policy at an IISc-wide level for events organised on campus so that we can ensure balanced representation of women—not just on stage, but among participants of events like seminars and workshops as well. Leaving it up to personal decisions means that it may not be a sustained process, and that’s why we need to work towards having it as a departmental policy or as an institutional policy. Of course we need to push for this as individuals, but we also need the leadership on board in order for this to materialise.

Ensuring equal representation for men and women in public events may seem like a small issue, but it drives bigger issues.

Ensuring equal representation for men and women in public events may seem like a small issue, but it drives bigger issues. Everybody is supportive of gender equality and inclusion of women at some abstract level, but if we really want that to happen, it has to start at small levels and at different stages. That’s a key thing we learned from organising the 2017 panel—that it had to start with us. Inclusion in panel discussions and events is just one of the stages at which it can happen.

In an academic set-up, dialogue is one way of engaging with a larger audience. You also have events, exams, student participation, and many other such avenues at which it happens, right? We have to address inclusion at all levels. If we have a policy about gender inclusion in events on campus, it could pave the way for policies on gender inclusion in other areas like intake of students, picking members of faculty, picking members of decision-making committees, and so on.

We have to start somewhere, and we can’t rely on easy excuses not to act. It’s a fundamental issue that really needs to be addressed—and maybe then it will become the norm, and open our eyes to the need for other kinds of inclusion as well.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/news/quartz-india-august-16-2019-india-s-top-science-institution-is-trying-hard-to-fix-its-manel-problem

Call for joining the Free Knowledge movement #Wikipedia #Wikimedia

bhuvana — 2019-08-20T07:15:30Z

Every little drop makes a Mighty ocean! Join us in this Free Knowledge movement where your contributions will be used world-wide.

Access to Knowledge team of the Centre for Internet and Society is the partner of the Wikimedia Foundations and the Wikimedia movement. Our work is to support Wikipedia/ Wikimedia projects in India. We conduct and support a series of skill building initiative such as workshops, meetups, photo walks, contest, edit-a-thon etc. We also attend to build sustainable partnerships with institutions, organizations, groups and communities which support the Wikimedia communities to build and improve the content in Wikipedia and other projects.

Are you an individual or do you represent any organisation, institution, groups or enterprises? You can actually help the ‘Free Knowledge’ movement by donating photos, media, content or archives. Let us tell you how.

Wikipedia is a widely read website in the current world. According to Alexa’s rating, Wikipedia is the 5th most highly rated in the world. Also certainly we can say that after searching your query on Google (or any other search engine you use) you should have found Wikipedia as a preferable suggestion or result. We find it astonishing that all content of Wikipedia and its sister projects are created, modified and maintained by volunteers, here we need your support. There are many articles on Wikipedia which are being read by thousands of people but do not have relevant images. The problem is simple there is not any free image available. On Wikimedia/Wikipedia we take copyright very seriously and cannot use any content unless it is on public domain/ under free license/ copyright owner donates it under free license.

For example, there is an article on 2019 Kerala floods which is read by 2000 unique readers at this moment but we do not have sufficient photo coverage. Similarly, we have an article on a famous writer say, Ruskin Bond here also we do not have many photos on him or his works.

Wikimedia community is an independent community. Community decides by itself the content, its style including the media files to be included after detailed instructions. Although we cannot instruct the community we can provide resources which will definitely be of help for the free knowledge movement.

This article is an open call to “YOU” to support the free knowledge movement and Wikimedia movement by donating useful content. The content might be video, useful photos, database and audio. The content you are donating must be under Creative Commons Share-like content. You must have the copyright of the content under CC licenses,a CC license is used when an author wants to give other people the right to share, use, and build upon the work that they (the author) have created. Attributions will be given under every file details.

Think of a world where your content can also be part of the larger free knowledge movement?

This is the overall idea in a nutshell. We are eager to discuss every aspect of the process and your questions in detail. Please feel free to contact Tito Dutta(tito@cis-india.org). Let's schedule a call or meet in person.

[Currently the A2K is conducting a content donation drive and awareness campaign. This blog post was written as a part of this initiative ]

Ministry of Health's public consultation on National Digital Health Blueprint: Legal issues around telemedicine, consent, and 'egosystems' in healthcare Trisha Jalan

Trisha Jalan — 2019-08-09T14:05:14Z

“The patient should be centric to every intervention,” declared Preeti Sudan, special secretary at the Ministry of Health, at the ministry’s public consultation on the National Digital Health Blueprint 2019, held at the Constitution Club of India in New Delhi on August 6.

The article by Trisha Jalan was published by Medianama on August 8, 2019. Aayush Rathi was quoted.

The venue was packed with representatives from the government, major hospitals chains, health start-ups, associations, and civil society organisations. The blueprint — which is an evolved document of the National Health Stack 2018 (NHS) — was put in the public domain on July 15, and comments were closed on August 4. After holding consultation on the NHS, the ministry formed a committee under the chairmanship of former UIDAI head and former MeitY secretary J. Satyanarayana to create an implementation document for the NHS.

Health is a complex and interwoven subject, and deals with people’s lives, said Sudan. “The patient should be centric to every intervention,” she said. Clearly stated during the discussion was that private sector participation is important and necessary. Sudan opened the consultation by mentioning that the ministry is in the process of forming the e-pharmacy rules, “we’ve had extensive consultations on it”:

“There are issues which require assistance from all of you. We don’t have e-prescriptions on a large scale, you can’t expect government to lead e-prescriptions, we have hospitals all the country. So what can industry do, to make this application cheap and user-friendly, and have it across the system so epharmacy actually becomes possible. E-precriptions have been the norm wherever e-pharmacies have been successful.”

J. Satyanarayana, chairman of the committee (also a former UIDAI chair), wasn’t present at the consultation. Here’s a list of representatives from the government present at the consultation, some of whom were also members of the committee:

Preeti Sudan, Secretary, Ministry of Health
Sanjeeva Kumar, Special Secretary, Ministry of Health
Lav Agrawal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health
Gaur Sunder, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, Pune
Sunil Kumar, National e-Governance Division
J Rama Krishna Rao, CEO, National Institute for Smart Governance
Pallab Saha, chief architect, The Open Group

(A non-exhaustive list of stakeholders present at the consultation is available at the end of the article.)

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Non-financial incentives for adoption of EHR: “What are the incentives that could really make for early adoption for various players? There are many different approaches that it can happen to incentivize each and every player, for example, maybe let’s build a national license for actionable guidelines, define it, and set standards for that, like the government has done for SNOMED CT,” Krish Dutta from Relx Group said.

“US has shown us that throwing money at the problem doesn’t solve it,” Dutta said. “It’s the the largest investment healthcare, but there are still problems.”
One small step [we could do] would be how do you get doctors or hospitals to adopt EHR — for example, [requiring that] a copy or electronic subset of the EHR should be immediately recorded, and payments and reimbursements are made on the basis of this. “Maybe that’s can be the only document that you send to the insurer,” Dutta said.

Patient agency in ensuring EHR: Talking about his experience of working in hospitals in the US, Dr Surajit Nandy, CEO of Raxa Health, asked “What power will the citizens have to ensure that their data is pushed to the NHS? When the citizen accesses a health service, they don’t have the power to ensure that their health records are digitised and centralised, he said.

“Having practiced in the US, we often had many problems getting the data from other medical institutes — even with interoperability and other laws on the books — and this had catastrophic consequences. At Massachusetts General, we had to ensure that your data was pushed to the digital records within 24 hours of seeing the patient.” — Dr Surajit Nandy

Data privacy: legal issues, absence of Data Protection Law, and use of Aadhaar

Multiple stakeholders raised the point that Personal Data Protection Bill is still in the works, and that the blueprint, in the current form, is designed amidst the absence of a law dealing with data protection and citizen privacy.

According to Dr Vivek Gupta of AIIMS, the data privacy law is a (or should be a) mandatory prerequisite before this regulation comes into place.
According to another doctor, who has been at AIIMS and also been an IAS officer, if DISHA and/or PDP Bill don’t come into effect, then the patient won’t be established as the owner of the data, this is especially important given that legal issues have not been integrated into the NDHB document.

“We need to think through the question of data ownership, and what implications it has for things already in the NDHB, but may not be viable, said Ayush Rathi from Centre for Internet & Society. “One of the things is the de-identification of anonymised data, the PDP bill (in its current form, already criminalizes this without the consent of the data fiduciary.”

Talking about consent, he said, the NDHB does a lot in terms of seeking consent, “but a crucial component of consent is already the ease with which it can be withdrawn. It’s unclear how deletion or right to be forgotten can be included in the NDHB, a critical principle of how the PDP Bill was built. And this can deal with not just how your entire health record can be deleted, but also how specific parts of it can be deleted.” He said there has a very “solid legal assessment of the NDHB”, with what the PDP will prospectively look at.

The use of Aadhaar

The NDHB document suggests the use of Aadhaar as a possible Personal Health Identifier, since it “assures uniqueness of identity” and provides an online mechanism for authentication. Although the document defers the final decision and says that Ministry of Health may decide this in consultation of MeitY and UIDAI (FYI, the committee which drafted this blueprint was chaired a former chairman of the UIDAI), it will be no surprise if Aadhaar is indeed a preferred PHI, given its mission creep.

The only stakeholder to raise issues around Aadhaar was Aditi Chaturvedi from Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC). “The ministry should provide clarity on the use of Aadhaar, the system links very sensitive personal data with public and private, while the Act permits the use of Aadhaar only in some ccases, we aren’t able to understand where the line will stop,” she said.

Data collection and gathering, and data disclosure

Dr Vivek Gupta from AIIMS said that there needs to be clarity on whether data is going to be collected at both IPD and OPD. 5 out of the 8 mandatory data elements in Table 3.3 (see below) of the document deal with clinical data to be collected at the time of doc-patient interaction. “There are very broad terms and encompasses the entire encounter — history, observations, complaints etc. In a high load set-up such as AIIMS, where the average interaction time is very less, how does this [kind of] data gathering work out?” “Again, data is collected also for design purposes and not just for clinical purposes. Is all this data or only a part of it also supposed to flow into a central repository, only a part of it?”

Aditi Chaturvedi from SFLC, said the its concerning that we don’t know the amount of patient data that will be disclosed to private players in the system, such as insurers, pharmacies, and hospitals, among others.

Use of telemedicine and lack of legal framework around it

Telemedicine is one of the answers to the skewed doctor-patient ratio, and two areas of telemedicine need a little more stress in the document, according to Dr Karanvir Singh, Chief Medical Information Officer at Apollo Hospitals. One is the business model, a large number of organisations which started telemedicine projects have gone down because their business model doesn’t address their local concerns.

“They’re treating or giving consultation to patients in different parts of India, but the income — it does come down to income — is actually not coming to them. Because if a patient comes in via telemedicine, the consult is supposed to be free.” — Dr Karanvir Singh

Legal framework and issues surrounding telemedicine

Dr. Singh flagged another issue — the legality of telemedicine consults, whether it is telemedicine or via WhatsApp. “Karnataka has made it illegal,” he said, “so it’s an area that needs to be addressed.” Preeti Sudan, Union Health Secretary, agreed that there are ethical issues surrounding telemedicine.

She explained that the ministry had asked if the Medical Council of India (MCI) could act on it. The body, however, has been dissolved with the passage of the National Medical Commission Bill, 2019 (which has been passed in both houses of Parliament). For context, once the NMC Bill becomes an Act, it will replace the MCI as the regulatory body for medical colleges and institutions in the country.
“We need actually need some kind of policy document or legal framework as to the extent of telemedicine we can do,” said Sudan.

Sudan also pointed out that there isn’t yet a data privacy law in India, the Srikrishna Report is under consideration, and “we are eagerly awaiting it”. Elaborating on the government’s work in telemedicine, she said the ministry is forming an e-learning network in medical colleges. Teleradiology works very well in government, because because you will have that X-ray know in front of you and the doctor [can consult].

“Then there are legal issues around teleconsultation. Is there a country with a legal framework for telemedicine?” — Preeti Sudan

Colonel (Retd) Dr Ashvini Goel, vice-president of the Telemedicine Society of India, pointed out that Texas had passed its own Telemedicine Act. The society had presented a white paper on a proposed Tele-health Act to the NITI Aayog, but hasn’t heard anything on it, he said.

Tele-monitoring as a form of tele-health

Although questions were being raised about the legal issues surrounding telemedicine, Dr. Monica Thomas, a neurologist at Holy Family Hospital, pointed out that a variation of tele-health is tele-mentoring, which the hospital has been doing through extension of community health care outcomes started by Indian origin hematologist Dr Sanjeev Arora.

Tele-mentoring, she explained, takes away the risks of advising the patient directly, since “you are advising the community physician who takes care of the patient. And I would suggest that that should be multiplied much more.”
Sudan once again pointed out that tele-mentoring has indeed worked, and the government is using Dr Arora’s platform on a large scale. “The question raised that if we’re going for tele-medicine, the legal liabilities need to be defined. Only Texas has a law now.”

“We are using this echo platform of Sanjeev Arora on a very large scale now. And you’re right, this tele mentoring has worked. And we do use this platform. And it’s a good thing. But you know, I understand that and it’s being used in US also.We are extending it to our TV also now. We have a Digital Academy for Mental Health in NIMHANS. The question raised that if we’re going for telemedicine, the legal liabilities need to be defined. Only Texas has a law now.” — Preeti Sudan

‘Patient consent is paramount’, illiterate patients, and consent frameworks

The document says that data will not be available to any care provider without explicit consent of the patient, Dr Karanvir Singh from Apollo Hospitals reminded everyone. But, he said, “we have a large number of illiterate patients, patients can be unconscious, or can be children.”

There are two solutions for this:
1. All data becomes available to the current care provider, as long as it is not explicitly marked as confidential by the patient. This is the less preferable option.
2. Break the ceiling, break the glass: So a patient is brought in unconscious, there should be a mechanism defined by which the doctors in the casualty or emergency can access the data even if it’s not explicit consent by the patient.

“The issues of consent is paramount,” said Anuvinda Varkey from Christian Coalition for Health. “We should have some kind of communication measures to the public about what consent means. And in case the patient has no identifier like Aadhaar, it should be mandatory to give them care.”

EHR standards need more clarity

Aditi Chaturvedi from SFLC said that the document provides MeitY’s electronic consent framework guidelines, and the EHR standards in another section. “Although the [EHR] standards are backed by law, they’re not very clear, they lack of lot of comprehensive consent requirements present under the MeitY’s consent framwork.”

“It’ll good to learn from the data breaches happening despite there being HIPAA in the US. It’s interesting to note how the US is highlighted difficulty patients have in accessing data.” — Aditi Chaturvedi

Consent from illiterate patients, doctors wary of technologies

An audience member, who identified himself as Raghuram from the life sciences and healthcare practices at NASSCOM, said that there’s need for clarity on [obtaining] consent from illiterate citizens.

Speaking about standards, he queried if India can make an ICD-10 similar to the SNOMED standards, for which India already has a license. The standards can be adopted and the government can release it to all the techology houses, he suggested. “Or maybe India is a large enough country to have its own standards,” he said.
He also said that many of the doctors they [NASSCOM] spoke to were wary of using digital technologies for diagnostics, and so there should be some representation on the legal aspects of using digital technologies.

“The document talks about creating various registries and directories, but do we know the digital landscape of our country?” asked Antony Vipin Das, an eye surgeon at LV Prasad Eye Institute, which has been working with Microsoft India on a AI model for diagnostics. “While we’re listing registries, we need to understand where we stand at the govt and private sector,” he said. Sundar agreed that states are at various levels of development in health.

Standardisation and interoperability

“The decision support system should not be in silos, but should be interoperable.” according to Dr Prashant Mathur, director of ICMR’s National Centre for Disease Informatics and Research (NCRID) in Bangalore, which also runs the National Cancer Registry programme. “There’s a little ambiguity between repositories and registries. In the cancer registry, besides collecting incidence and trend data, we also study patterns of disease and survival studies for cancer, we have been publishing data for in breast, oral, cervical cancer.” This, he says, needs repeated contacts, information, and follow-up treatment, “does the document have clarity on whether all these events should be taken in longitudinally?” he asked.

Ministry of Health representatives also emphasisized on the need and benefits of interoperability. In cool sarkaari parlance, they said, currently the health sector has ‘egosystems‘ and not ‘ecosystems’, meaning all existing systems are siloed and don’t speak with one another, and that it’s important to do that. Stakeholders present in the meeting said. “There are already existing systems and programmes in place, so how do we knit the entire system together?” asked Sudan.

Other issues raised around standards and interoperability:

Ayush Rathi, from Centre for Internet and Society, said that the terms ‘open standards’ and ‘interoperability’ are being used as synonyms. “Open standards may be instituted but they may not be interoperable themselves.” he said.
Abhijeet, sale enablement leader at Philips, said interoperability is a low-hanging fruit, and the benefits can be seen easily and instantly. He also said the action plan is “quite” aggresive, and more specifities and details need to made visible.
Sudeep Dey, Associate VP for IT operations for India for Fortis Healthcare, said data retention has been a challenge. “We have e-precription shops coming up as mom-and-pop stores. A lot of data is getting generated, we need some kind of standards, so everyone can access the system. Fortis gets 20 requests everyday that we have a new e-prescription solution.”

Private sector setting standards?

“One of the major roles of the government will be setting standards,” said Krish Dutta of Relx Group. “Private sector can come up with solutions, but they will not be able to agree on it, because we will all have different opinions. But standard setting is very important, and should be a goal in all domains of digital health.”

Dealing with EHR standards in primary hospitals:

Talking about EHR standards in primary care hospitals, Dr Rajesh Kumar, a dean at PGI-MER, Chandigarh, said most standards like SNOMED are for tertiary care hospitals, but there are many primary care hospitals, which don’t need many elaborate standards. “So can the government some open standards for primary care centres and hospitals, which is not very demanding on softwares.”

“Secondly, we have lot of silos, can we begin within the Health Ministry where APIs can be shared to make existing softwares interoperable. Once this platform starts working, there will be great need for storage space. Our data centre is totally full, we’re looking forward to if the government can bring in guidilines for data storage?” — Dr Rajesh Kumar

To the above query, Preeti Sudan said the guidelines are available, and cloud storage can be bought on GeM platform.

We should draw inspiration from UPI, ecocystem should be ‘rich’, with private and public players:Reliance Jio

Also present in the consultation was a representative from Reliance Jio, Ganesh Kathirasen, VP for digital healthcare. He said the NDHB should be a “rich ecosystem” with both private and public players. The talk of federated architecture shouln’t be limited to just the states, but should include any provider of healthcare data and system in the country.

“People can largely be put in two buckets, providers like hospitals and clinics or consumers who are patients. Both stakeholders should be able to choose any application to enter the system, as long as the software or app adheres to certian minimum regulations by the ministry.”
He said “we can all draw inspiration from UPI, and how its been implemented”. It created a level playing field and its important to mirror something similar in the digital health domain, he said.

Issues surrounding Outcome measures in blueprint

Talking about the outcomes measures defined in the document, Dr Karanvir Singh of Apollo Hospitals, said the outcome measures aren’t clearly defined – and they will be ultimately used to make KPIs. He suggested that the outcome measures be laid out at three levels — ecosystem level, platform, and another level that we didn’t catch.

“For instance, on the ecosystem level, one KPI could the percentage of patients who have managed have a longitudinal record pulled in from various places. Another could be the percentage of doctors who are able to access this longitudinal record. The current KPIs aren’t covering all the three areas, which we can ensure by breaking them up.” — Dr Karanvir Singh

He laid out another two outcomes measures, which according to him, are flawed. “Firstly, that the test is not to be repeated,” referring to the requirement that a patient should be tested “ONCE ONLY”. “But clinically, there are many reasons for repeating a test. So rather than saying once only, which is in caps in the document, it should be to minimize duplications.”

Another outcome measure is that the patient should be treated only at one at one point of care. Based on the capacity and capability of hospitals, patients do get referred from one place to the other. If these are the KPIs, we’re going to get wrong values that the system has failed when it actually hasn’t failed.

Artificial intelligence is brought up

There wasn’t much representation or discussion around artificial intelligence in healthcare. P. Anandan, from Wadhwani Institute for AI, said AI can augment human capacity. AI, data science, and data analytics are all relevant, “however there is some myth and mystery surrounding this technology. Its important to have clarifications around how AI can help, how it should be implemented, and the regulatory aspects around AI, such that privacy and quality of care is assured.” Raghuram from NASSCOM also said AI is also “taking shape in a big way across the continent, and we should have some policies around use of AI in the digital health.”

AYUSH Ministry says it should be involved

A representative from the Ministry of AYUSH, who identified herself as Leena Chattrey, said AYUSH should be part of this document, in a sense wherein “AYUSH can use the data of UID or something similar, and share our data through common APIs. We also want the names of applications or portals developed by AYUSH to be in the document. We want complete or partial integration with building blocks, complete integration can be in patient care and other common interest areas, and partial integration can be done in AYUSH-specific activities.”

COAI marks its attendance, and other comments

Rajan Mathews, Director-General of telecom lobby COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India), expressed concern over the “minimal role operators are asked to play in this,” “you have MeitY, but not DoT”.

We have all these uncovered villages, we know about scope and scale, and even Aadhaar. Aadhaar did not become successful until you involved the operators. So their should be greater inclusion.

Mathews also recommended that there should be an international focus, particularly considering BPO businesses. “Having our requirements that comply with the EU requirements of data privacy and data control, and the American requirements on medical records and documentation, we should have that international focus in terms of the standards of the integration, because otherwise our BPO services will become subject of risk.”

Rahul Pandey from World Bank said that although he’s aware that health is a state subject, and the centre cannot dictate policies, “Many of the state government trying to innovate and thinking of various tools and processes in IT; there could be some kind of guidance to the states to make sure that there is some alignment with the centre.”

Participants in the consultation

Startups: Raxa Health, Relx Group, Wadhwani Institute for AI, mFine
Hospitals: Fortis Healthcare, Apollo Hospitals, AIIMS, PGIMER Chandigarh,
Associations in health: Telemedicine Society of India,
Other associations: NASSCOM, COAI (Cellular Operators Association of India)
Civil society: Centre for Internet & Society, SFLC (Software Freedom Law Centre)
Doctors and medical professions from: Holy Family Hospital, LV Prasad Eyecare Institute
MNCs: Philips, Johnson & Johnson
Others: Ministry of AYUSH, World Bank, ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research), Access Health

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/medianama-trisha-jalan-august-8-2019-ministry-of-health-public-consultation-on-national-digital-health-blueprint

CIS Comments on NDHB

Admin — 2019-08-07T13:11:55Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/cis-comments-on-ndhb

Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!

sneha-pp — 2019-08-07T12:29:25Z

Whose Knowledge?, the Oxford Internet Institute, and the Centre for Internet and Society are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want. This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives. Read the Call here and share your submission by September 2, 2019.

Cross-posted from the Whose Knowledge? website: Call for Contributions and Reflections

The call is available in Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, English, IsiZulu, Spanish, and Tamil.

Note: This call for contributions is in a few languages right now, but we invite our friends and communities to translate into many more! Please reach out to info (at) whoseknowledge (dot) org with your translations… thank you!

“It’s not just the words that will be lost. The language is the heart of our culture; it holds our thoughts, our way of seeing the world. It’s too beautiful for English to explain.”
– Potawatomi elder, cited in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass.”

The problem: The internet we have today is not multilingual enough to reflect the full depth and breadth of humanity. Language is a good proxy for, or way to understand, knowledge – different languages can represent different ways of knowing and learning about our worlds. Yet most online knowledge today is created and accessible only through colonial languages, and mostly English. The UNESCO Report on ‘A Decade of Promoting Multilingualism in Cyberspace’ (2015) estimated that “out of the world’s approximately 6,000 languages, just 10 of them make up 84.3 percent of people using the Internet, with English and Chinese the dominant languages, accounting for 52 per cent of Internet users worldwide.” More languages become endangered and disappear every year; 230 languages have become extinct between 1950 and 2010.

At best, then, 7% of the world’s languages are captured in published material, and an even smaller fraction of these languages are available online. This is particularly critical for communities who have been historically or currently marginalized by power and privilege – women, people of colour, LGBT*QIA folks, indigenous communities, and others marginalized from the global South (Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands). We often cannot add or access knowledge in our own languages on the internet. This reinforces and deepens inequalities and invisibilities that already exist offline, and denies all of us the richness of the multiple knowledges of the world.

Some of the issues that shape our abilities to create and share content online in our languages include:

The internet’s infrastructure (hardware, software, platforms, protocols…);
Content management tools and technologies for translation, digitization, and archiving (voice, machine-learning systems and AI, semantic web…);
The experience of those who consume and produce information online in different languages (devices like cell phones and laptops, messaging tools, micro-blogging, audio-video…);
The experience of looking for content in different languages online, through search engines and other tools.

Understanding the range of these issues will help us map the possibilities and concerns around linguistic biases and disparities on the internet.

Who we are: We are a group of three research partners who believe that the internet we co-create should support, share, and amplify knowledge in all of the world’s languages. For this to happen, we need to better understand the challenges and opportunities that support or prevent our languages and knowledges from being online. The Centre for Internet and Society (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 disabilities, 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. The Oxford Internet Institute is a multidisciplinary research and teaching department of the University of Oxford, dedicated to the social science of the Internet. Whose Knowledge? is a global campaign to centre the knowledges of marginalized communities – the majority of the world – online.

Together we are creating a State of the Internet’s Languages report, as baseline research with both numbers and stories, to demonstrate how far we are from making the internet multilingual. We also hope to offer some possibilities for doing more to create the multilingual internet we want.

Why we need YOU: This research needs the experiences and expertise of people who think about these issues of language online from different perspectives.

You may be a person who:

Self-identifies as being from a marginalized community, and you find it difficult to bring your community’s knowledge online because the technology to display your language’s script is hard to access or read
Works on creating content in languages that are from parts of the world, and from people, who are mostly invisible and unheard online
Is a techie who works on making keyboards for non-colonial languages
Is a linguist who tries to bring together communities and technologies in a way that is easy and accessible
... you may be any of these, all of these, or more!

We are looking for your experience online to help us tell the story of how limited the language capacities of the internet are, currently, and how much opportunity there is for making the internet share our knowledges in our many different languages. Most importantly: you don’t have to be an academic or researcher to apply, we particularly encourage people experiencing these issues in their everyday lives and work to contribute!

Some of the key questions we’d like you to explore:

How are you or your community using your language online?
What do you wish you could create or share in your language online that you can’t today?
What does content in your language look like online? What exists, what’s missing? (you might think about, for example, news, social media, education or government websites, e-commerce, entertainment, online libraries and archives, self-published content, etc)
How and where and using what technologies do you share or create content in your language? (you might think about, for example, video, audio, writing, social media, digitization…whatever formats, tools, processes or websites you use for creating oral, visual, textual, or other forms of content.)
What is challenging to create or share on your language online? (you might think about, for example, access, device usability, platforms, websites, apps and other tools, software, fonts, digital literacy, etc when developing digital archives, online language resources, or just making any presence on the web in general for your language.)

Submissions:

We would love to hear about your and your community’s experiences in response to any or some of the above questions!

Your contribution could be in the form of a written essay, a visualization or work of art, a video or recorded conversation – we’d be happy to interview you if that’s your preference. We would be happy to accept in any language, and will review the submissions with the support of our multilingual communities and friends.

Are you interested in participating? Please email raw [at] cis-india [dot] org a short note (of about 300 words) by 2 September at 23:59 IST (Indian Standard Time), briefly outlining your idea along with the following information:

Your name
Your location – both country of origin and your current location is useful!
Your language(s)
Your community or any other background you’d care to share with us
Which questions you’re interested in addressing, and why
Your prefered contribution format
Any requests for how we can best support your participation

Timeline:

By 2nd September 2019: Send us your submission note
By 1st November 2019: Contributors will be notified of selection
By 1st December 2019: First round of contributions are due. We’ll work with you to finalise contributions by mid January.

Selected contributors will be offered an honorarium of USD 500, and their final works will be published as part of the Decolonising the Internet – Languages Report, in early 2020.

பங்களிப்பதற்காக அழைப்பு இணைய மொழி ஆதிக்கச் சூழலை மாற்றியதில் உங்கள்அனுபவம்!

“மொழி அழிவால் சொற்கள் மட்டும் அழிவதில்லை. நம் பண்பாட்டின் சாரமே மொழி தான். மொழியே நம் எண்ணங்களை வெளிப்படுத்துகிறது. இவ்வுலகத்தை நாம் காண்பதும் மொழிவழியே தான். ஆங்கிலத்தால் அதை ஒருக்காலும் வெளிப்படுத்த முடியாது.”
– போட்டோவாடோமி எல்டர் (ராபின் வால் கிம்மெரார் எழுதிய ‘பிரெயிடிங் சுவீட்கிராஸ்’ என்ற நூலில் இருந்து)

சிக்கல்: மனித குலத்தின் பரந்துவிரிந்த பண்பாட்டுச் சூழலை வெளிப்படுத்தும் அளவுக்கு இன்றைய இணையம் பன்மொழிச் சூழல் கொண்டதாய் இல்லை. தகவல்களை அறிந்துகொள்வதற்கு மொழி ஒரு கருவியாய் இருக்கிறது. ஒவ்வொரு மொழியும் உலகத்தை வெவ்வேறுவிதத்தில் காட்டத்தக்கன. இருந்தபோதும், பெரும்பாலான அறிவுசார் தளங்கள் ஆதிக்க மொழிகளில், குறிப்பாக ஆங்கிலத்தில் அதிகளவில் இருக்கின்றன. ‘இணையவெளியில் பன்மொழிச் சூழலைக் ஊக்குவிக்க பத்தாண்டுகளில் எடுத்த முயற்சி’ (2015) என்ற யுனெசுகோ அறிக்கையில் குறிப்பிட்டுள்ளதாவது: “உலகில் பேசப்படும் சுமார் 6,000 மொழிகளில், வெறும் 10 மொழியை பேசுவோர் மட்டுமே இணையத்தின் 84.3 சதவீதம் பேராக உள்ளனர். இவற்றில், ஆங்கிலமும் மாண்டரின் சீனமும் பேசுவோர் மட்டும் 52 சதவீதத்தினர் என்பது குறிப்பிடத்தக்கது.” ஒவ்வொரு ஆண்டும் அதிகளவிலான மொழிகள் அருகி, அழிந்து வருகின்றன. 1950 – 2010 ஆகிய ஆண்டுகளுக்குள் 230 மொழிகள் அழிந்திருக்கின்றன

எல்லா உள்ளடக்கத்தையும் கணக்கில் எடுத்தால் கூட, உலகின் 7% மொழிகளில் தான் ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன. இவற்றில் சிலவே இணையத்தில் கிடைக்கின்றன. முற்காலத்தில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்டிருந்த பழங்குடியின சமூகத்தினர், அடக்குமுறைக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்த பெண்கள், நிறவெறிக்கு உட்பட்டிருந்தோர், மாற்று பாலின கருத்தியல் கொன்டோர் ஆகியோருக்கான ஆக்கங்கள் வெகு சில. பெரும்பாலானோர் இணையத்தில் தம் தாய்மொழியில் தகவல்களை தேடிப் பெற முடிவதில்லை. தம் மொழியில் கிடைக்கப்பெறாத பெரும்பாலானோருக்கு இவ்வுலகைப் பற்றிய அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்கள் மறுக்கப்பட்டு, சமமின்மை வெளிப்படுகிறது.

நம் மொழியிலேயே இணையத்தில் ஆக்கங்களை உருவாக்குவதிலும் பகிர்வதிலும் சில சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்குகிறோம். அவை:

கட்டமைப்பு வசதிக் குறைபாடு : வன்பொருள், மென்பொருள், இயங்குதளம், மரபுத்தகவு
உள்ளடக்க மேம்பாட்டுக் கருவிகளும் தொழில்நுட்பங்களும் போதிய அளவில் இல்லாமை: மொழிபெயர்ப்புக் கருவி, மின்மயமாக்கக் கருவி, சேமிப்பகம், செயற்கை நுண்ணறிவு, குரல்வழி உள்ளடக்கம்
இணையத்தில் பொருட்களை வாங்கிப் பயன்படுத்துவோரின் கருத்துக்களோ, பொருட்களைப் பற்றிய தகவலோ, இணையச் செயலிகளான செய்தியனுப்பல், வலைப்பூ போன்றவையோ தம் மொழியில் இல்லாமை
தேடுபொறிகளையும் பிற கருவிகளையும் கொன்டு வெவ்வேறு மொழிகளில் ஆக்கங்களைத் தேடிப் பழக்கம் இல்லாமை

இச்சிக்கல்களைப் புரிந்துகொள்வதன் மூலம், இணையத்தின் பன்மொழிச் சூழலுக்கான தேவைகளையும் அவற்றிற்கான குறைநிறைகளையும் சரிப்படுத்திக்கொள்ள முடியும்.

நாங்கள் யார்?: உலக மொழிகளிலான ஆக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் இடம்பெற உதவவும், ஊக்குவிக்கவும் மூன்று ஆய்வு நிறுவனங்கள் கைகோர்த்துள்ளோம். இதை நடைமுறைப்படுத்துவதற்கு முன், நாம் எதிர்கொள்ளும் சிக்கல்களையும் பெறக்கூடிய வாய்ப்புகளையும் நன்கு அறிந்துகொள்வது அவசியம் என உணர்ந்தோம்.

1. சென்டர் ஃபார் இன்டர்நெட் அன்ட் சொசைட்டி (the Centre for Internet and Society or CIS) என்ற தன்னார்வல நிறுவனம், இணையத்தையும், மின்மயமாக்கத் தொழில்நுட்பங்களையும் பற்றிய ஆய்வுகளை கொள்கை நோக்கிலும், கல்விசார் நோக்கிலும் செய்கிறது. உடற்குறைபாடு உடையோருக்கு மின்மயமாக்கிய உள்ளடக்கம், அறிவைப் பெறும் சூழல், அறிவுசார் சொத்துரிமை, திறந்தவெளி ஆக்கங்கள், இணையவழி ஆளுகை, தொழில்நுட்பச் சீர்திருத்தம், இணையவெளியில் தனியுரிமை, இணையவெளிப் பாதுகாப்பு போன்ற தலைப்புகளில் இந்நிறுவனம் கவனம் செலுத்துகிறது.

2. ஆக்சுபோர்டு இன்டர்நெட் இன்ஸ்டிடியூட் என்ற ஆய்வு நிறுவனம் ஆக்சுபோர்டு பல்கலைக்கழகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தது. இது இணையச் சமூகத்துக்காகவே தனித்துவமாக உருவாக்கப்பட்ட துறை.

3. ஹூஸ் நாலெட்ஜ் என்ற இயக்கம், உலகளவில் ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகங்களின் அறிவுசார் ஆக்கங்களை இணையவெளியில் கொண்டு வர முயற்சி எடுக்கிறது.

நாங்கள் மூவரும் இணைந்து, இணையத்தில் பயன்பாட்டிலுள்ள மொழிகளைப் பற்றிய ஆய்வறிக்கையை தயாரிக்கிறோம். புள்ளிவிவரங்களையும், தகவல்களையும் வெளியிட்டு, பன்மொழிச் சூழலில் எந்தளவு பின்தங்கி இருக்கிறோம் என்பதை உணர்த்த உள்ளோம். இணையவெளியில் ஆக்கங்களை வெளியிட எங்களால் முடிந்த சில வாய்ப்புகளையும் வழங்க உள்ளோம்.

உங்கள் உதவி எங்களுக்கு தேவைப்படுவதன் காரணம்: இத்தகைய சிக்கல்களை எதிர்நோக்கி வருவோரின் அனுபவங்களையும், அவர்கள் முயன்ற தீர்வுகளையும் பற்றி அறிந்துகொள்வதே இவ்வாய்வின் நோக்கம்.

நீங்கள்,

ஒடுக்கப்பட்ட சமூகத்தைச் சேர்ந்தவராக உணர்ந்தாலோ, உங்கள் சமூகத்தின் அறிவுசார் உள்ளடக்கங்கள் இணையவெளியில் கிடைப்பதில்லை என்று கருதினாலோ, உங்கள் மொழி எழுத்துவடிவங்கள் அணுகவும், படிக்கவும் ஏற்றவகையில் கணினிமயமாக்கப்படவில்லை என்று உணர்ந்தாலோ,
தொழில்நுட்பராக இருந்து, ஆதிக்கத்துக்கு உட்பட்டோரின் மொழிகளுக்காக விசைப்பலகைகள் செய்பவராக இருந்தாலோ,
மொழியியலாளராக இருந்து, பல்வேறு சமூகங்களை ஒருங்கிணைத்து, தொழில்நுட்பத்தை அவர்களுக்கு புரியும் வகையிலும், அணுகும் வகையிலும் கிடைக்கச் செய்தாலோ,
… உங்களைத் தான் தேடிக் கொன்டிருக்கிறோம்!

உங்கள் இணையவெளி அனுபவங்களை எங்களுக்கு தெரிவிப்பதன் மூலம், ஒவ்வொரு மொழிச் சமூகத்தின் நிலையையும் நாங்கள் அறிந்துகொள்ள உதவியாக இருக்கும். அத்துடன், எத்தகைய வாய்ப்புகளை ஏற்படுத்தித் தரலாம் என்றும் நாங்கள் சிந்திக்க உதவியாய் இருக்கும்.

உங்களிடம் நாங்கள் கேட்க விரும்பும் சில கேள்விகள்:

நீங்களும், உங்கள் மொழிச் சமூகத்தினரும் இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியை எப்படி பயன்படுத்துகிறீர்கள்?
இன்றைய நிலையில், இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியைக் கொண்டு செய்ய முடியாதது இருப்பின், அதற்கு என்ன செய்ய விரும்புவீர்கள்?
இணையவெளியில் உங்கள் மொழியில் என்னென்ன ஆக்கங்கள் இருக்கின்றன, எவை இல்லை? (எடுத்துக்காட்டாக, செய்திகள், சமுக வலைத்தளம், கல்விசார் உள்ளடக்கம், அரசுசார் உள்ளடக்கம், மனமகிழ் வீடியோக்கள், இணையவழி கற்றல், போன்றவை)
உங்கள் மொழியில் ஆக்கங்களை படைப்பதற்கு எந்த தளத்தை நாடுவீர்கள், எந்த தொழில்நுட்பத்தை பயன்படுத்துவீர்கள்? (எ.கா : ஒளி, ஒலி, உரை, உரைநடை ஒழுங்கமைவு, பிழைத்திருத்திக் கருவி போன்றவை)
உங்கள் மொழியில் எழுதுவதற்கோ, பகிர்வதற்கோ முயலும் போது என்னென்ன மாதிரியான சிக்கல்களை இணையவெளியில் சந்திக்கிறீர்கள்? (எ.கா: அணுக்கம் இன்மை, கருவியில் எழுத்துரு ஆதரவின்மை, பிழை திருத்த கருவி இன்மை)

ஆய்வேடு சமர்ப்பித்தல்:

மேற்கண்ட கேள்விகளுக்கு உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரிடமும், உங்களிடமும் அனுபவம் மூலம் விடை கிடைத்திருக்கும் என நம்புகிறோம். அவற்றைப் பற்றி தெரிந்து கொள்ள விரும்புகிறோம்!

கட்டுரையாகவோ, கலைப்படைப்பாகவோ, பதிவு செய்யப்பட்ட ஆவணமாகவோ, வேறு வடிவிலோ உங்கள் படைப்புகள் இருக்கலாம். நீங்கள் விரும்பினால் உங்களை பேட்டி காணவும் தயாராக இருக்கிறோம். உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எந்த மொழியில் இருந்தாலும் ஏற்போம். எங்களிடமுள்ள பன்மொழிச் சமூகத்திடம் உங்கள் படைப்புகளை கொடுத்து அவற்றை சீராய்வு செய்யச் சொல்வோம்.

உங்களுக்கு பங்கேற்க விருப்பமா? raw@cis-india.org என்ற மின்னஞ்சல் முகவரிக்கு, செப்டம்பர் இரன்டாம் தேதிக்கு முன்னர் அனுப்புக. 300 சொற்களுக்கு மிகாமல், கீழ்க்காணும் விவரங்களைக்

உங்கள் பெயர்
இருப்பிடம் – பிறந்த நாடும், தற்போது வாழும் நாடும்
உங்கள் மொழி(கள்)
உங்கள் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல் (அ) நீங்கள் விரும்பும் சமூகத்தினரைப் பற்றிய தகவல்
எந்தெந்த கேள்விகளுக்கு பதிலளிக்க விரும்புகிறீர்கள், ஏன்
உங்கள் படைப்பு எந்த வடிவில் உள்ளது
உங்கள் பங்களிப்பை மேம்படுத்தல் நாங்கள் ஏதும் செய்ய வேண்டுமா

காலகட்டம்:

2 செப்டம்பர், 2019: உங்கள் படைப்புகள் எங்களை வந்தடைய வேண்டிய கடைசி நாள்
1 நவம்பர், 2019: தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளர்களிடம் விவரம் தெரிவிக்கப்படும் நாள்
1 திசம்பர், 2019: முதற்கட்ட பங்களிப்பு நடைபெறும். பங்களிப்பை ஜனவரி மாத மத்தியில் முடிக்க முயற்சி செய்வோம்.

தேர்ந்தெடுக்கப்பட்ட படைப்பாளிகளுக்கு 500 அமெரிக்க டாலர்கள் ஊக்கத்தொகையாக வழங்கப்படும். நாங்கள் தயாரிக்கும் அறிக்கையில் அவர்களின் படைப்பு வெளியிடப்படும்.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/stil-2020-call

The Knowledge Base is Liberated

Subodh Kulkarni and Madhav Gadgil — 2019-08-05T23:04:33Z

The article published in Sunday supplement of Loksatta newspaper of Express group, written jointly by Madhav Gadgil & Subodh Kulkarni summarises - the status of searchable open knowledge available on web, eagerness of youth generation across the social strata to access knowledge on new gadgets and the approaches to build resources in Marathi on web harnessing potential of Wikimedia projects. It also elaborates major three breakthroughs – Free & open source software movement, Unicode revolution and development of collaborative knowledge building and sharing free platforms like Wikimedia projects easily accessible to people in their own languages.

The article by Subodh Kulkarni and Madhav Gadgil titled ज्ञानभांडार मुक्त झाले.. in Marathi was published by Loksatta on August 3, 2019.

In 2020, Maharashtra state is celebrating its 60th anniversary, it is also 100th death anniversary of Lokmanya Tilak while the state has recently celebrated 100th birth anniversaries of Lokkavi Annabhau Sathe and Lokshahir Amar Shekh. These three social reformers and prolific writers had shaped the socio-political history of Maharashtra. On this occasion, appeal is made to the Marathi community for bringing the complete works of these three reformers in Wikimedia projects in searchable & freely accessible form. It is also mentioned that these efforts are being facilitated by Centre for Internet & Society and other like-minded organisations. The aim is to complete this project before Marathi language day in February 2020.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/loksatta-august-3-2019-subodh-kulkarni-and-madhav-gadgil-the-knowledge-base-is-liberated

open_standards-event_report_2019.pdf

karan — 2019-08-02T06:49:59Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/resources/open_standards-event_report_2019.pdf

Event Report: Community Discussion on Open Standards

Karan Saini, Prem Sylvester and Anishka Vaishnav — 2019-08-02T06:51:00Z

This community discussion organised by HasGeek was held at the office of the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India on June 20, 2019.

Open standards are important for the growth and evolution of technology and practices for consumers and industries. They provide a range of tangible benefits, including, for instance, a reduction in cost of development for small businesses and organizations, facilitation of interoperability across different technologies in certain cases, and encouragement of competitiveness in the software and services market. Open standardization also encourages innovation, expansion in market access, transparency — along with a decrease in regulatory rigidity, as well as volatility in the market, and subsequently the surrounding economy, as well.

The importance of open standards is perhaps most strikingly evident when considering the ardent growth and impact the Internet — and the World Wide Web in particular — have been able to enjoy. The modern Internet has arguably been governed, at least for the most part, by the continuous development and maintenance of an array of inventive protocols and technical standards. Open standards are usually developed in a public-consultancy process, where the standards development organizations (“SDOs”) involved follow a multi-stakeholder model of decision-making. Multi-stakeholder models like this ensure equity to groups with varying interests, and also ensures that any resulting technology, protocol or standard which is developed is in accordance with the general consensus of those involved.

This event report highlights a community discussion on the state of open standardization in the age where immediately accessible cloud computing services are readily available to consumers — along with an imagined roadmap for the future; one which ensures steady ground for users as well as the open standards and open source software communities. Participants in the discussion focused on what they believed to be the key areas of open standardization, establishing a requirement for regulatory action in the open standards domain, while also touching upon the effects of market forces on stakeholders within the ecosystem, which ultimately guide the actions of software companies, service providers, users, and other consumers.

The event report can be accessed here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/event-report-community-discussion-on-open-standards

Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh

subodh — 2019-08-05T15:28:41Z

The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations shown keen interest in collaboration.

Open knowledge creation workshops were organised at four places by different organisations working on river issues. To sustain these efforts and mobilise the larger community to build knowledge on rivers, INTACH has decided to collaborate with CIS-A2K to develop long-term plan. This was the first workshop to develop structure of the project, decide the stakeholders and follow-up action plan for the future. The two day workshop was conducted on 29 & 30 July at INTACH office in Pune. Total 20 participants from seven organisations actively contributed to Wikimedia projects.

Background

As the water crisis and state of rivers is worsening day by day, the citizen's initiatives are taking more efforts to spread knowledge about it. Centre for Internet & Society representative actively participated in the River Dialogue organised by INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage) and SANDRP (South Asian Network of Dams, Rivers and People) on 20–21 April 2018 to introduce the potential of Wikimedia projects to organisations working across Maharashtra state. After this orientation, a follow-up plan is prepared with Prof. Madhav Gadgil in which various groups have expressed their readiness to start content building on water & rivers. Jeevit Nadi organisation took first initiative on 28 May 2018 to train team of activists in open knowledge and Wikimedia Projects. Total 15 activists and researchers from Jeevit Nadi, EcoUniv, Jal Biradari (Tarun Bharat Sangh), Ecological Society, Sagarmitra organisations participated in this workshop.

In the second iteration on 25 July 2018, five participants presented their work, the database and the resources with them. These include photographs, videos, training material and data collected on site. They also worked on category tree and structure of article on river. The media available in the repository were sorted and analysed for uploading. This team has started preparing the database of local issues, maps of rivers and heritage places on the banks for uploading in respective categories.

The third iteration for building content on rivers in Sangli district was organised on 7 December 2018 by Jal Biradari & Tarun Bharat Sangh organisation. In this one day workshop, 11 activists working in Agrani river basin participated. They were trained in basics of Wikipedia editing and uploading on Commons. They worked on category tree of Agrani river basin and structure of articles on water related structures.

The fourth national level iteration was conducted between 22–25 December 2018 at Tarun Bharat Sangh, Bhikampura, Alwar district, Rajasthan for activists of Jal Jan Jodo Abhiyan from eight states. The 30 participants were trained in this four day workshop. They started contributing in various languages.

In collaboration with CIS-A2K, INTACH Pune Chapter has taken initiative to organise two day workshop to build knowledge on rivers in Pune district with various organisations.

Objectives

Many organisations and communities are working for more than 10 years in water sector in an organised way. They have built cumulative knowledge through action and research with an objective to disseminate it to the masses. Hence the 'Project Jalbodh' is being evolved to integrate this approach with the Wikimedia projects for mutually beneficial impact.Knowledge is to be presented in different forms, aspects and in appealing way. The interests and attention of the seeker should be taken into account. Therefore in many areas, the text is to be blended with media, data, graphs, maps etc to give holistic sense of knowledge. The Wikimedia projects can be explored to get this integration.

Facilitators

Supriya Goturkar-Mahabaleshwarkar, Co-convenor & Coordinator, INTACH PUNE CHAPTER
Marathi Wikimedians - Aaryaa Joshi, Kalyani Kotkar

Event Details

Date : 29 & 30 July 2019
Time : 9.30 am to 5.30 pm
Place : Pune, Maharashtra, India
Venue : INTACH Pune office, Kirloskar compound, Erandwane, Pune
Participants :20

Day 1

Day one started with introductions by members of organisations - Jeevitnadi (Living River Foundation), Sajag Nagrik Manch, Parisar, Centre for Environment & Education, Jnana Prabodhini, Ecological Society and INTACH. Then workshop conveners Supriya & Subodh explained the background and objectives of the workshop. The concept of 'Project Jalbodh' was elaborated. The keynote address was given by Prof. Madhav Gadgil. He delivered upon the genesis of knowledge in human evolution and need of open knowledge for healthy development of the society. He also discussed the integration of citizen science and Wikimedia projects. The brainstorming on mobilisation of community was done after this address with valuable inputs from Prof. Gadgil.

Introduction to major Wikimedia projects was given in next session. The examples of river and water related content were taken for understanding the context. The agenda for the workshop and the details were finalised through discussion on needs. The participants then started with opening accounts on Wiki followed by basic editing skills and rules of Wikipedia & Commons. They searched for various articles, infoboxes, categories and media related to river available in Wiki projects. The extensive interaction on status of the existing content happened to arrive at gap finding and listing the same. From this thought process, the importance of developing structure for river articles was realised. Then various members with their vast experience collaboratively evolved the structure of article on river in Marathi Wikipedia. According to local context, relevant sections and sub-sections were designed. Separate project page defining this structure was created on Marathi Wikipedia under the Wiki Project Jalbodh. This was the crucial activity for the project. After this session, the organisations conducted the analysis of the content developed by them which is to be contributed in Wikimedia projects. The planning of next day was done in the last session.

Day 2

On the second day, the activity started with uploading images on Commons. Along with this, the encyclopedic content available with the organisations was discussed for giving references. The articles were created in the sandboxes by groups on similar themes. The content was created as per the manual of style. Various skills like advanced search options for finding online references, archiving of url's on Wayback machine of Internet Archive were also acquired by the participants. The relevant media repositories were also explored. The category tree for the rivers was also designed. The detailed discussions on building databases, maps and media with community involvement was conducted. In the final session, the roadmap for future activities was prepared. Three model articles on rivers - Mula, Mutha & Pavana - will be completed in the next two months. Follow-up workshops will be conducted bi-monthly which will be hosted by different organisations. The discussion on campaign - Wiki Loves River - developed enthusiasm among the members. The meeting on this theme will be organised in September to plan the campaign.

Read the full report on Wikipedia page

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-30-2019-wikimedia-workshop-on-rivers-under-project-jalbodh

July 2019 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2019-08-09T13:50:49Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) newsletter for July 2019.

Highlights for July 2019
CIS presented its comments on the proposed rules 29,30,31 of the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Govt. of India. The comments were made in response to Notification G.S.R 393(E) published in the Gazette of India on May 30, 2019. CIS submitted that in the domestic approach to modernising our copyright legislation, we must refrain from considering distribution of born-digital/ digitised works over the public Internet equivalent to the function of broadcasting works over cable/ satellite. The Indian National Trust for Art & Heritage Pune Chapter is working with various organisations to preserve the natural heritage places like rivers in Pune district of Maharashtra, India. After the presentation of 'Project Jalbodh' by CIS-A2K in River Dialogue organised by INTACH in April 2018, several organisations have shown keen interest in collaboration. Subodh Kulkarni shares some insights in his report. ICANN has Advisory Committees which help guide the policy recommendations that the ICANN community develops while its Supporting Organizations are charged with developing policy recommendations for a particular aspect of ICANN's operations. ICANN publishes a combined budget for all these bodies under the head of policy development. CIS inquired about the financial resources allocated to each of them specifically. CIS in partnership with the Internet Society organized an event on the impact of consolidation in the Internet economy. It was divided into two roundtable discussions, the first one focusing on the policies and regulation while the latter dealt with the technical evolution of the Internet. The roundtables aimed to analyze how growing forces of consolidation, including concentration, vertical and horizontal integration, and barriers to market entry and competition would influence the Internet in the next 3 to 5 years. The report by Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover provides an insight into the developments. As part of its Researchers at work programme on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society, CIS called for abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. Ten abstracts would be shortlisted by August 9 from the list of submissions and the selected authors would be requested to submit the full essay of their draft by September 15. Final versions of the essays are expected to be published in October. With the rise and popularity of app-based platforms such as Ola, Uber, Swiggy Zomato, and others, there is a growing public conversation about regulation of such 'gig-work' platforms and the working conditions of people who work for them. To explore this further CIS conducted a panel discussion at its Bangalore office. Researchers associated with the project presented their preliminary findings. Panelists preliminary field insights along with reflections on what it meant to do such studies, how they went about studying gig-work, and challenges that arose in their work. An excerpt from an essay by Maya Indira Ganesh, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives titled You auto-complete me: romancing the bot explains human relations with bots. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

CIS and the News

The following articles were authored by CIS secretariat during the month:

Fostering Strategic Convergence in US-India Tech Relations: 5G and Beyond (Justin Sherman and Arindrajit Basu; The Diplomat; July 3, 2019).
Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; July 4, 2019).
What is the problem with ‘Ethical AI’? An Indian Perspective (A rindrajit Basu and Pranav M.B; cyberBRICS; July 17, 2019).
Old Isn't Always Gold: FaceApp and Its Privacy Policies (Mira Swaminathan and Shweta Reddy; The Wire; July 20, 2019).
The worrying survival of moon landing conspiracy theorists (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 22, 2019).
India Is Falling Down the Facial Recognition Rabbit Hole (Karan Saini and Prem Sylvester; The Wire; July 23, 2019).
Why I’m not going to tell you about the dangers of apps like FaceApp (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; July 28, 2019).
The Digital Identification Parade (Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon; Indian Express; July 29, 2019). The authors acknowledge Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Amber Sinha and Arindrajit Basu for their edits and Karan Saini for his inputs.
In India, Privacy Policies of Fintech Companies Pay Lip Service to User Rights (Shweta Mohandas; The Wire; July 30, 2019).

CIS in the News

CIS secretariat was consulted for the following articles published during the month in various publications:

PIB plans a fact-checking unit to counter fake news (Smriti Kak Ramachandran; Hindustan Times; July 3, 2019).
How Sai Baba Was Made To Spy On Your Phone For Credit Ratings (Gopal Sathe; Huffington Post; July 4, 2019).
Mozilla is funding a way to support Julia in Firefox (Catalin Cimpanu; ZD Net; July 8, 2019).
Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake (Rajmohan Sudhakar; Deccan Herald; July 14, 2019).
Digital public information system design: Talk to experts, find the right way (Prachatai; July 18, 2019).
Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation (Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani; Observer Research Foundation; July 22, 2019).
For sex workers, mobile phone becomes a double-edged sword (Tushar Kaushik; Economic Times; July 23, 2019).
Twitter reacts to the India's cryptocurrency drama (Rajarshi Mitra; FXStreet; July 26, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape.

Copyright and Patent

Research on harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Submission

Comments on the Draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 concerning Statutory Licensing (Anubha Sinha; July 11, 2019). This submission presents comments to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (“DPIIT”), Ministry of Commerce and Industry pertaining to the notification G.S.R 393(E) containing the draft Copyright (Amendment) Rules, 2019 issued on 30th May 2019.

Wikipedia

Under a grant from Wikimedia Foundation we are doing a project for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Blog Entries

Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University (Subodh Kulkarni; July 19, 2019).
Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh (Subodh Kulkarni; July 30, 2019).
Re-licensing Sessions with Authors and Organisations (Subodh Kulkarni; July 31, 2019).

Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software:

Participation in Event

Learning and Understanding the Frameworks of Rights at Work (Organized by Kai Hsin Hung; IT for Change; Bangalore; July 13, 2019). Torsha and Mira attended the workshop.

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the Internet. As part of internet governance work we work on policy issues relating to freedom of expression primarily focusing on the Information Technology Act and issues of liability of intermediaries for unlawful speech and simultaneously ensuring that the right to privacy is safeguarded as well.

Freedom of Speech & Expression

Under a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, CIS is doing research on the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government and contribute studies, reports and policy briefs to feed into the ongoing debates at the national as well as international level. As part of the project we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

DIDP #34 On granular detail on ICANN's budget for policy development process (Akriti Bopanna; July 6, 2019).

Participation in Events

13th European Summer School on Internet Governance (Organized by European Summer School on Internet Governance; Meissen; July 13 - 20, 2019). Akriti Bopanna attended the school.
ICANN 65 De-briefing Meeting (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations ; July 16, 2019). Akriti Bopanna remotely presented on the Human Rights related developments that took place at the Marrakech meeting, over the course of the 4 days.

Privacy

Under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC we are doing a project on surveillance. CIS is researching the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar. As part of our ongoing research, we bring you the following outputs:

Blog Entry

The Impact of Consolidation in the Internet Economy on the Evolution of the Internet (Akriti Bopanna and Gurshabad Grover; July 3, 2019). The blog post was edited by Swaraj Barooah, Elonnai Hickok and Vishnu Ramachandran. Swagam Dasgupta provided inputs.

Participation in Events

Digital ID Forum 2019 (Organized by UNDP; Chulalongkorn University, Thailand; July 3, 2019). Sunil Abraham was one of the panelists at this event.
BIS LITD 17 meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards; New Delhi; July 3, 2019). Gurshabad Grover attended the sixteenth meeting of the Information Systems Security and Biometrics Section Committee (LITD17).
Facebook Data for Good in Bangalore (Organized by Facebook; Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore; July 25, 2019).
Roundtable with the WhatsApp leadership (Organized by WhatsApp; Mountbatten, The Oberoi, New Delhi; July 26, 2019). Will Cathcart, WhatsApp's new global head, visited India and invited Sunil Abraham for a discussion.
Facebook Data for Good in New Delhi (Organized by Facebook; University of Chicago Center, New Delhi; July 29, 2019).

IT / Information Technology

A research on the usage of systems (computers and telecommunications) for storing, retrieving and sending information as well as the IT Act:

Participation in Event

Leveraging Web Application Vulnerabilities for Reconnaissance and Intelligence Gathering (Organized by Has Geek; GRD College of Science, Coimbatore; July 5, 2019). Karan Saini gave a talk at the JSFoo Conference.

Artificial Intelligence

With origins dating back to the 1950s Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not necessarily new. However, interest in AI has been rekindled over the recent years due to advancements of technology and its applications to real-world scenarios. We conduct research on the existing legal and regulatory parameters:

Participation in Events

Roundtable Discussion on “The Future of AI Policy in India” (Organized by Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi; July 1, 2019).
Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward (Organized by HEaL (Health, Ethics, and Law Institute of Training, Research and Advocacy) of FMES (Forum for Medical Ethics Society) in collaboration with CPS (Centre for Policy Studies), Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay; July 13, 2019). Radhika Radhakrishnan, participated in a roundtable discussion on "Emerging AI technology in health care in India, health equity and justice: Critical reflections and charting out way forward."

Gender

Presentation to Amnesty International on researching the Future of Work (Organized by Amnesty Interntional, New Delhi; July 18, 2019). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon made a presentation on CIS research on Future of Work.

Telecom

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

Monthly Blog

Fix Problems Before Complete Failure (Shyam Ponappa; Organizing India Blogspot; July 4, 2019).

Researchers@Work

The researchers@work programme at CIS produces and supports pioneering and sustained trans-disciplinary research on key thematics at the intersections of internet and society; organise and incubate networks of and fora for researchers and practitioners studying and making internet in India; and contribute to development of critical digital pedagogy, research methodology, and creative practice.

Event Organized

#MappingDigitalLabour - Panel discussion on platform-work in Mumbai and New Delhi (CIS, Bangalore; July 19, 2019). Watch the session recording video here.

Blog Entries

Studying the Internet Discourse in India through the Prism of Human Rights (Deva Prasad M.; July 1, 2019).
#DigitalPedagogies (Ashutosh Potdar, Maya Dodd, Nidhi Kalra, and Ravikant Kisana; July 1, 2019).
#OpenAccessScholarlyPublishing (Abhishek Shrivastava, Dibyaduti Roy, and Nirmala Menon; July 11, 2019).
#RenarrationWeb (Anuja Mirchandaney, Deepak Prince, Dinesh and Shalini; July 23, 2019).

About CIS

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 disabilities, 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. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

Follow CIS on:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/cis_india
Twitter - Access to Knowledge: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Twitter - Information Policy: https://twitter.com/CIS_InfoPolicy
Facebook - Access to Knowledge: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
E-Mail - Researchers at Work: raw@cis-india.org
List - Researchers at Work: https://lists.ghserv.net/mailman/listinfo/researchers

Support CIS:

Please help us defend consumer and citizen rights on the Internet! Write a cheque in favour of 'The Centre for Internet and Society' and mail it to us at No. 194, 2nd 'C' Cross, Domlur, 2nd Stage, Bengaluru - 5600 71.

Collaborate with CIS:

We invite researchers, practitioners, artists, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to engage with us on topics related internet and society, and improve our collective understanding of this field. To discuss such possibilities, please write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org (for policy research), or Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Research Director, at sumandro@cis-india.org (for academic research), with an indication of the form and the content of the collaboration you might be interested in. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia projects, write to Tanveer Hasan, Programme Officer, at tanveer@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its primary donor the Kusuma Trust founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin for its core funding and support for most of its projects. CIS is also grateful to its other donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and IDRC for funding its various projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/july-2019-newsletter

Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation

Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani — 2019-07-30T01:40:24Z

Addition of data localisation to the basket of persisting trade issues warrants greater compartmentalisation and consultative approaches to US-India ties.

The article by Shashidhar KJ and Kashish Parpiani was published by Observer Research Foundation on July 22, 2019.

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) finally clarified its position eight months after it issued the controversial April 2018 circular mandating the storage of all payment data of Indians in the country and allowing the central bank “unfettered access”. The circular particularly aimed at US-based companies such as Mastercard, Visa, American Express, PayPal, Facebook and Google, as they scrambled to comply. The clarification was a welcome relief for companies seeking guidance on how to comply, what kind of data needs to be stored in India, and if the payment companies needed to move their processing infrastructure. Note, the RBI has yet to issue a formal directive with these clarifications.

Meanwhile, media reports have indicated that Facebook-owned WhatsApp would obey the RBI norm as it looks to kick off its payments business. This runs counter to what Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had told investors in April:

“You should expect that we won’t store sensitive data in countries where it might be improperly accessed because of weak rule of law or governments that can forcibly get access to your data.”

India is still debating passing a Personal Data Protection legislation, and as such, India doesn’t have any legal safeguards protecting users’ data.

This has revealed yet another faultline in the persisting trade issues between the US and India.

India is still debating passing a Personal Data Protection legislation, and as such, India doesn’t have any legal safeguards protecting users’ data.

Indian data rights vs. American IPR protectionism

New Delhi has started to assert its right over its citizens’ data as India’s footprint on the Internet increases. Moreover, without clear guidance from Personal Data Protection legislation, there has been a glut of policy prescriptions from sector regulators. The Centre for Internet and Society published a paper in which it chronicles 10 policy measures for both ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ data localisation across health, telecommunications, e-commerce, insurance and others. These measures range from storing copies of specific data, local content production requirements, or imposing conditions on cross-border data transfers that act as a localisation mandate.

This oversupply of policy prescriptions is leading to blurring of jurisdictions. Often, the policy measures given have many a slip between the cup and the lip. For example, one of the reasons for insisting on localisation is security, but even if companies localise data, there is no framework to access this data by the local security apparatus.

India’s policy thinking on the matter often begins with the idea: ‘data is the new oil.’ The thinking is that data generated by Indians should be viewed as a natural resource that must be protected by the state through localisation. This notion is problematic. Data, unlike oil, which is found in limited quantities, has different properties. Newer ideas of regulation must be thought of and that’s where Indian policy makers have not been accommodative.

Oversupply of policy prescriptions is leading to blurring of jurisdictions. Often, the policy measures given have many a slip between the cup and the lip.

A gripe that US-based companies mention is that there is a distinctive domestic tilt and that company representatives have turned away from consultations as they do not serve the “national interests.” This was best exemplified in October 2018 when a closed-door discussion between the RBI and the US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF representing the interests of US companies) broke downand the latter accused the RBI of having a bias. During the discussions, the RBI placed a lot of emphasis on the inputs from iSPIRT (Indian Software Product Industry Roundtable), an Indian think tank which has been advocating for data protectionism.

The aforementioned sentiment has been carried over to international summits. At the recently concluded G20 summit, India boycotted the Osaka Track on the digital economy as it felt that it would undermine multilateral consensus-based decisions on trade and deny policy space for digital industrialisation. The Osaka Track pushed hard for the creation of laws which would allow data flows between countries and the removal of data localisation.

India’s foreign secretary, Vijay Gokhale, mentioned that data is a new form of wealth and wanted latitude on domestic rule-making on data. And in the age of digital commerce, this may signify a broader trend of a developed-developing nations’ impasse. The tussle has now moved beyond the security angle with the United States enacting the Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data (CLOUD) Act for security agencies to procure data stored in servers regardless of whether in the US or foreign soil. With monetisation now at the core of the dispute, the discussed divergences on data localisation tie into the US’ broader, long-standing issues pertaining to US-India bilateral trade.

Divergence on data localisation issue crosses path with trade tensions

The 2019 National Trade Estimate (NTE) by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) focuses on reducing “barriers to digital trade.” Taking a tone of American stewardship on open liberal market economics, it notes:

“When governments impose unnecessary barriers to cross-border data flows or discriminate against foreign digital services, local firms are often hurt the most, as they cannot take advantage of cross-border digital services that facilitate global competitiveness.”

At a time when the Trump administration has sought to re-calibrate America’s trade relationships via the adoption of punitive sanctions that run counter to the fundamentals of the liberal world order, the aforementioned American concern for the competitiveness of foreign nation’s local firms may seem like sardonic preaching.

President Trump’s ‘America First’ worldview in many ways upended conventional tenets of US foreign policy. But on some fronts, it has presented opportunities for marginal establishment agendas. For instance, Trump’s heightened focus on ties with Israel and the US’ Sunni allies in the Middle East, complements the realisation of neoconservatives’ penchant for regime change in Iran.

At a time when the Trump administration has sought to re-calibrate America’s trade relationships via the adoption of punitive sanctions that run counter to the fundamentals of the liberal world order, the aforementioned American concern for the competitiveness of foreign nation’s local firms may seem like sardonic preaching.

On Trump’s fixation with recalibrating US trade relationships on “fair and reciprocal” footing, the American trade establishment successfully addressed US’ belated concerns over absence of digital trade rules in case of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Canada and Mexico. Similarly, the emerging divergences over data localisation with India are subsumed under the ongoing — albeit repeatedly stalled, US-India trade negotiations.

Hence, the NTE underscores India’s decision with regards to payment service suppliers to be part of trade barriers hampering digital commerce and US-India trade at-large.

Fixing the strained Carter mantra via compartmentalisation and consultation

India has approached trade talks from the standpoint of addressing the Trumpian aberration of the US pushing for reduction of its trade deficits with other countries. Whereas, USTR negotiators have approached negotiations with India with regards to, what they view as longstanding issues in bilateral trade, such as market access for dairy products and price caps on medical equipment.

In the past, those outstanding issues were downplayed in view of the promising long-term trajectory of US-India strategic ties. The same has come to be known as the understated dictum of the Carter mantra — named after former US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter and architect of the US-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative. The approach encompassed the US to focus on harnessing strategic ties and not let differences on other fronts like trade to crowd out minimal-yet-positive developments.

In recent times, that dictum has come under strain as trade tensions have resurfaced. Cases in-point being, the Trump administration’s recent revocation of India’s designation as a “beneficiary developing country” under its Generalised System of Preferences programme, and India’s imposition of retaliatory tariffs on 28 US products.

The US-India dynamic is graduating from the erstwhile top-heavy approach based on the personal relations developed between head of states, to an institutionalised format of consultative platforms on varied bureaucratic, legislative, military, and even public-private partnership levels.

Furthermore, ahead of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to New Delhi last month, the Trump administration reportedly mulled capping the issuance of H1B visas to about 15 percent for any country that “does data localisation.” It bore ominous prospects for India’s $150 billion IT sector as 70 percent of the 85,000 H1B visas issued every year go to Indians. With regards to the broader trajectory of US-India ties, the report came to be seen as another blow to the Carter mantra’s prescription for compartmentalisation of issues from promising aspects of the bilateral relationship.

Both sides however, have attempted to temper tensions, and keep the Carter mantra in place with the continued focus on evolving strategic ties — with continued impetus on US-India defence trade and force interoperability agreements.

More importantly, there seems to be an overt attempt to reinstitute a sense of compartmentalisation. For instance, Secretary Pompeo, during his visit to New Delhi eased fears by denouncing reports about the US considering H1B visa caps. Whereas, India, too, has sought to institute a sense of compartmentalisation with Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal announcing that the contentious data protection issue will be kept out of the e-commerce policy draft, and will be dealt with by the IT ministry instead.

Lastly, the US-India dynamic is graduating from the erstwhile top-heavy approach based on the personal relations developed between head of states, to an institutionalised format of consultative platforms on varied bureaucratic, legislative, military, and even public-private partnership levels. Examples of which include, the US-India 2+2 consultative platform between foreign and defense portfolio chiefs, and the India-US Strategic Energy Partnership working groups between India’s Petroleum Minister and US Energy Secretary. The upcoming editions of these forums are set to be critical in addressing outstanding issues in the strategic realm, like India’s purchase of the Russian S-400 systems inviting the prospect of American CAATSA sanctions, and India’s push for a gas-based economy in light of reduced oil purchases from Iran following recent tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Similarly, on easing the hardening American and Indian stances on data localisation, in addition to compartmentalisation, a consultative approach must be explored. Towards that end, the India-US Commercial Dialogue and India-US CEO Forum could serve as appropriate starting points for a joint working group involving a diverse set of stakeholders from the public and private realm.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/observer-research-foundation-shashidhar-kj-and-kashish-parpiani-july-22-2019-easing-the-us-india-divergence-on-data-localisation

Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake

Rajmohan Sudhakar — 2019-07-21T15:42:12Z

A case in point is the video that surfaced of an Indian journalist not so long ago.

The article by Rajmohan Sudhakar was published in Deccan Herald on July 14, 2019. Elonnai Hickok was quoted.

Now machines are learning to manipulate imagery. That is a real worry. Deepfakes for instance. They are AI-manipulated videos achieved by machine learning. Products of the humongous volume of images and videos now available online.

The danger is, this imagery could be yours or mine. Imagine artificial intelligence of neural networks creating convincing identities of our real counterparts, and starts posting videos. Absurd.

“Society has grappled with spurious and specious content in media over time. Media has been modified for various reasons, usually by those with access to significant resources and influence in the past,” says Elonnai Hickok, COO of the Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society.

From an AI and machine learning perspective, deepfakes could be understood by what is known as GAN -- generative adversarial networks, essentially two algorithms at war. One is a generator, the other a discriminator. They compete with each other based on set inputs, in time bettering the version they together help create. These are behind what are now known as deepfakes of popular figures floating around online. Barack Obama is seen saying in a purported deepfake, “stay woke bitches”, which of course he did not say.

Another deepfake has Mark Zuckerberg boasting: “I have total control of billions of people’s stolen data, all their secrets, their lives, their futures.” “Deepfakes are media modified by current technology and techniques. Easy availability of technology and media allows anyone to create, tailor or manipulate media for their own ends. Deepfakes present an opportunity for introspection and research into the contours of freedom of expression as well as societal frameworks for dealing with fake content,” explains Hickok.

One of the horrid instances of a deepfake-like attack was the video that surfaced of an Indian woman journalist not so long ago. Or the child-kidnapping rumours that spread through WhatsApp and the subsequent mob lynchings. However, there’s the view that in post-truth times, deepfakes would be seen with caution in the inherent dilemma over believing what one views online.

“In India, people do not take these so seriously, especially on social media. It is mostly entertainment for many. Now, we are seeing people with diametrically opposing views. They often view content which they like to see. It would rather work as a reinforcer of views than a transformer,” feels political analyst Sandeep Shastri.

Open source software can create basic deepfakes if someone wanted to hurt somebody. The potential scale of danger and damage looms larger for influential figures and nations at war.

“While deep fakes can be used to damage societies, it is important that collectively society takes steps to become sensitised to ways that media can be used to manipulate opinions and choices, and allow people to develop skills that build awareness and context to what they see and believe,” adds Hickok.

A video emerged recently of an ‘Iranian’ boat near an attacked oil tanker in the Persian Gulf. Deepfake or not, the authenticity of the video was questionable. If used wily, it could have triggered a war.

According to Hickok, society has to get more resilient to manipulation. “This includes spoken, written, seen as well as heard information. We have to learn to question the basis on which we confirm trust. Multiple forms of verification may help to address spurious media and information,” she says.

Deepfakes are no surprise as social media feed into the small and large divisions and differences of multitudes. Emergence of such potentially dangerous AIs isn’t taken quite seriously by the tech czars. In fact, it is a matter of economy for them.

Oscar Schwartz writes in The Guardian that ‘technological solutionism’ in the ‘attention economy’ may not be the real approach. “And herein lies the problem: by formulating deepfakes as a technological problem, we allow social media platforms to promote technological solutions to those problems – cleverly distracting the public from the idea that there may be more fundamental problems with powerful Silicon Valley tech platforms,” Schwartz warns.

“The measures do not fall on the regulators alone. I think, individuals (by introspection and building awareness), society (through education), the legal system (stringent evidentiary requirements and capacity building) industry (differentiating recreational and prejudicial content, tagging content that is manipulated, etc.) and regulators (enabling accountability, oversight, transparency and redress) can all contribute to a more resilient society,” observes Hickok.

In India, viewing a video is still considered close to truth, almost sacred by the vast majority. Necessarily, it would not require a technologically advanced deepfake, especially in the backward rural pockets, to rile up and aggravate biases and prejudices.

“Deepfakes can further existing biases and manipulate opinions and choices. They can disrupt trust inherent in societal groups to co-exist and politically, they can breed distrust in leadership and capability. That said, deepfakes can be used for humour and satire. Ultimately, the impact will be shaped by a number of factors including pre-existing biases, individual response, etc.,” Hickok elaborates.

On a lighter note, deepfakes could be helpful too. We could very well do away with some of our television news presenters.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/deccan-herald-july-14-2019-rajmohan-sudhakar-deepfakes-algorithms-at-war-trust-at-stake

Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University

subodh — 2019-08-05T15:21:16Z

CIS-A2K representatives visited PAH Solapur University, Solapur (PAHSUS) to finalise the action plan and MoU for the year 2019-20.

The collaborative project was launched with orientation programme and Wikipedia workshop for the selected students and faculty on 18 & 19 July 2019. The detailed discussions with Vice Chancellor, Registrar, Head of the departments, faculty and administrative staff were held to finalise the terms of collaboration, operational framework and action plan for the academic year. The deliberations are given in the following sections.

Collaborative open knowledge creation by PAHSUS and CIS-A2K

The MoU was done because CIS and PAHSUS have found common cause in free and open knowledge generation and dissemination. This MoU stipulates the scope of collaboration between these two entities and terms and conditions of conducting the collaborative activities.

Terms of Collaboration

To promote content generation in Indian language, especially Marathi Wikimedia projects (projects such as Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata etc. https://www.wikimedia.org/) among the institutions under University affiliation.
To organise awareness programs and training workshops to achieve this. For consistent and dedicated efforts, mechanism of subject experts and coordinators will be developed.
To integrate the academic assignments, projects etc. with knowledge building in Wikimedia projects e.g. Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons.
To facilitate content donation in the form of published thesis, University publications to free library - Wikisource. To write well referenced articles based on these research work.
To develop platform in University for outreach programs on Digital knowledge, Language & technologies, FOSS, Unicode etc. To involve other stakeholders in knowledge business like publishers, writers, printers, designers in these programs.
To take lead in accommodating open knowledge concepts, locally relevant content generation practices while designing the courses.

Operational Framework

A core team shall be constituted by representatives of this MoU for realization of the objectives of this MoU.
The core team shall prepare an action plan with specific goals for achieving the objectives of the proposal and the MoU. They shall take into consideration the academic, commercial and legal aspects of this co-operation. The action plan or work plan may be modified or improved during the academic year according to the needs-assessment of the students, and the core team’s analysis.
The proposed action plan shall be reviewed and approved by representatives of both parties.
The core team shall be supported and authorised by the University Administration to take all necessary actions to implement the action plan in an effective, speedy and dynamic manner.
Program expense sharing shall be decided on a case to case basis by the core team.

Some highlights of proposed action plan

Each department of PAHSUS will facilitate creation of 10 Wikipedia articles related to their course by the students. This activity will be taken up in first semester. The articles will be created on user sandbox or on Google Docs. After review, the articles will be moved to Wikipedia mainspace.
The projects on museum, library and archives will be taken up in the second semester by the groups of students. The photos and other media will be uploaded on Wikimedia Commons and other sister projects after analysing encyclopedic quality of these content.
PAHSUS will issue a circular for selected affiliated colleges in Maharashtra to participate actively in free knowledge creation and the Wikimedia movement. The technical support will be arranged by both the parties.
The digitisation of copyright free books in the library will be taken up under ‘Earn & Learn Scheme’. The books will be uploaded in free library - Wikisource.

Orientation Programme

The orientation programme on Wikimedia projects was conducted on 18 July for faculty and students from 4 departments. The objective was to give perspective of content generation in Wiki projects along with academics. Marathi Wikipedian Arvind Bagale shared his Wiki experiences in this session. Around 50 participants attended this session.

Wikipedia Workshop

The Wikipedia workshop for selected students of 3 departments and faculty was organised on 19 July 2019 in the Mass Communication department. Total 15 participants actively contributed to Wikipedia & Commons. Marathi Wikipedian Arvind Bagale facilitated the training process.

Media Coverage

News in Lokmat Newspaper

See the report on Wikipedia page

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/subodh-kulkarni-july-19-orientation-programme-wikipedia-workshop-and-action-plan-meeting-in-pah-solapur-university

Call for Essays — #List

sneha-pp — 2019-10-11T17:07:26Z

The researchers@work programme at CIS invites abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’. We have selected 4 abstracts among those received before August 31, 2019, and are now accepting and evaluating further submissions on a rolling basis.

For the last several years, #MeToo and #LoSHA have set the course for rousing debates within feminist praxis and contemporary global politics. It also foregrounded the ubiquitous presence of the list in its various forms, not only on the internet but across diverse aspects of media culture. Much debate has emerged about specificities and implications of the list as an information artefact, especially in the case of #LoSHA and NRC - its role in creation and curation of information, in building solidarities and communities of practice, its dependencies on networked media infrastructures, its deployment by hegemonic entities and in turn for countering dominant discourses.

From Mailing Lists to WhatsApp Broadcast Lists, lists have been the very basis of multi-casting capabilities of the early and the recent internets. The list - in terms of list of people receiving a message, list of machines connecting to a router or a tower, list of ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ ‘added’ to your social media persona - structures the open-ended multi-directional information flow possibilities of the internet. It simultaneously engenders networks of connected machines and bodies, topographies of media circulation, and social graphs of affective connections and consumptions.

As a media format that is easy to create, circulate, and access (as seen in the number of rescue and relief lists that flood the web during national disasters) or one that is essential in classification and cross-referencing (such as public records and memory institutions), the list becomes an essential trope to understand new media forms today, as the skeletal frame on which much digital content and design is structured and also consumed through.

What new subjectivities - indicative of different asymmetries of power/knowledge - do list-making, and being listed, engender? How are they hegemonic or intersectional?
What new modes of questioning and meaning-making have manifested today in various practices of list-making? What modalities of creation and circulation of lists affords their authority; what makes them legitimate information artefacts, or contentious forms of knowledge?
How and when do lists became digital, where are lists on paper? How do we understand their ephemerality or robustness; are they medium or message?
Are there cultural economies of lists, list-making, and getting listed? Who decides, and who gets invisibilized on lists?

Call for Essays

We invite abstracts for essays that explore social, economic, cultural, political, infrastructural, or aesthetic dimensions of the ‘list’.

Please submit the abstracts by Friday, August 23, 2019.

We will select 10 abstracts and announce them on Friday, August 30. The selected authors are expected to submit a full draft of the essay (of 2000-3000 words) by Monday, September 30. We will share editorial suggestions with the authors, and the final versions of the essays will be published on the researchers@work blog from November onwards. We will offer Rs. 5,000 as honorarium to all selected authors.

Please submit the abstract (300-500 words), and a short biographic note, in a single text file with the title of the essay and your name via email sent to raw@cis-india.org, with the subject line of ‘List’.

Authors are very much welcome to work with text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other mediatic forms that the internet offers.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-list

Centre for Internet and Society

US pressure threatens to weaken data - localisation mandate in India's landmark data-protection bill

India’s top science institution is trying hard to fix its “manel” problem

How did you first hear of the term manel?

What happened next?

Did you feel like you were being put on the spot at the time?

Has that changed how you planned subsequent events?

What about the people you mentioned earlier, who came up after the panel to ask you about including more women—do you know if they ever followed up on it?

Call for joining the Free Knowledge movement #Wikipedia #Wikimedia

See also

Ministry of Health's public consultation on National Digital Health Blueprint: Legal issues around telemedicine, consent, and 'egosystems' in healthcare Trisha Jalan

Electronic Health Records (EHR)

Data privacy: legal issues, absence of Data Protection Law, and use of Aadhaar

Use of telemedicine and lack of legal framework around it

‘Patient consent is paramount’, illiterate patients, and consent frameworks

Standardisation and interoperability

Issues surrounding Outcome measures in blueprint

Artificial intelligence is brought up

AYUSH Ministry says it should be involved

COAI marks its attendance, and other comments

Participants in the consultation

CIS Comments on NDHB

Call for Contributions and Reflections: Your experiences in Decolonizing the Internet’s Languages!

Cross-posted from the Whose Knowledge? website: Call for Contributions and Reflections

“It’s not just the words that will be lost. The language is the heart of our culture; it holds our thoughts, our way of seeing the world. It’s too beautiful for English to explain.”

Some of the key questions we’d like you to explore:

Submissions:

Timeline:

பங்களிப்பதற்காக அழைப்பு இணைய மொழி ஆதிக்கச் சூழலை மாற்றியதில் உங்கள்அனுபவம்!

உங்களிடம் நாங்கள் கேட்க விரும்பும் சில கேள்விகள்:

ஆய்வேடு சமர்ப்பித்தல்:

காலகட்டம்:

The Knowledge Base is Liberated

open_standards-event_report_2019.pdf

Event Report: Community Discussion on Open Standards

Wikimedia Workshop on Rivers under Project Jalbodh

Background

Objectives

Facilitators

Event Details

Day 1

Day 2

July 2019 Newsletter

CIS and the News

CIS in the News

Access to Knowledge

Copyright and Patent

Wikipedia

Openness

Internet Governance

Freedom of Speech & Expression

Privacy

IT / Information Technology

Artificial Intelligence

Gender

Telecom

Researchers@Work

About CIS

Easing the US-India divergence on data localisation

Indian data rights vs. American IPR protectionism

Divergence on data localisation issue crosses path with trade tensions

Fixing the strained Carter mantra via compartmentalisation and consultation

Deepfakes: Algorithms at war, trust at stake

Orientation programme, Wikipedia workshop & Action Plan meeting in PAH Solapur University

Collaborative open knowledge creation by PAHSUS and CIS-A2K

Orientation Programme

Wikipedia Workshop

Media Coverage

Call for Essays — #List

Call for Essays