Centre for Internet and Society

WIPO SCCR 43: Notes from Day 1

shweta — 2023-04-28T12:01:31Z

Member states delivered opening statements and deliberated on the progress, substantive provisions, and method of work on the draft broadcasting treaty text. This blog post summarises positions and contentions that supported: 1)The need for balance between rights of broadcasters and that of users and researchers 2) Questions around fixation and signal piracy 3) Need for consensus and towards a diplomatic conference

Opening Statements by Group Coordinators

Uruguay on behalf of the GRULAC spoke about the Marrakesh treaty and highlighted how this was the first treaty that looked at human rights and copyright. Uruguay also mentioned the need to look at exclusion and the need for dissemination of knowledge.

On behalf of the Baltic states, Poland expressed their interest in discussing the Limitations and Exceptions (L&E) agenda, with focus on persons with other disabilities, as well as conveyed their interest in examining the T oolkit on Preservation.

The African group coordinator Ghana, highlighted the need to look at the contribution to Sustainable Development Goals, they also showed support for Senegal and Congo on their work on artist copyright and resale rights.

Singapore made the statements on behalf of the Asia and the Pacific Group (APG) group coordinator Indonesia, they commented on the need to work towards a fair and balanced broadcast treaty, and to narrow existing gaps which would require a delicate balance. They also stated that the treaty needs to be comprehensive and inclusive, with limitations and expectations for Libraries, Archives and Museums and areas of cultural importance, as well as access to broadcast content for education and research.

Agenda Item 5: Protection of Broadcasting Organisations

The need for Balance between rights of broadcasters and that of users and researchers

China, Ghana, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, in their statements highlighted the need for balance between the rights of the broadcasters with suitable limitations and exceptions. Iran in their statements also highlighted the work of libraries, archives and museums in education. Iran also highlighted that different parameters for Limitations and Exceptions in member states' national legislations has the potential to cause barriers in the free flow of data for researchers and educators.

Colombia spoke about their concerns regarding the fixation rights laid out in the treaty and the working of limitations and exceptions under Article 11. Colombia stated that the use of the term “may” in Article 11 could result in countries ignoring the limitations and exceptions provisions when they adopt this treaty into their national legislations. They suggested the changing of the wording in Article 11 from “may” to “shall” to reflect a balanced and progressive treaty.

Nigeria in their statement highlighted the difficulties that were faced by students and educators during Covid 19, when schools and libraries were closed. They also shed light on how limitations and exceptions were not granted uniformly.

Pakistan also emphasised on the need to look at the interests of educators, and supported the inclusion of mandatory limitations and exceptions while protecting the rights of the creators.

Questions around fixation and signal piracy

The Central European and Baltic States Group (CEBS) group, The United Kingdom (UK) , Canada, Tajikistan and The United States of America and Japan in their statements mentioned the need to protect broadcasters especially with respect to stopping piracy. The CEBS group stated that in the era of rapidly evolving technologies and changing digital environments there was a need to extend international protection against piracy to different types of transmissions of broadcasting organizations, including those over computer networks. Similarly, the United Kingdom also highlighted the rapid advancements in technology, which enables signal piracy through redirecting. The UK stated that Article 7 of the draft treaty did not provide sufficient protection, an issue that needed more deliberations.

Need for consensus and progress towards a diplomatic conference

Pakistan, China, Kingdom of Eswatini, The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) in their statements mentioned that they were looking forward to a diplomatic conference. Pakistan highlighted the need for open and inclusive negotiation in the diplomatic conference.

India expressed that the scope of protection in the revised draft is more comprehensive and in line with technological developments. The definition of the term broadcasting has also been made more comprehensive with the inclusion of the word “any means”. The definition provided for fixation has been provided along with the rights of fixation under Article 7, which may be the most relevant steps to prevent unauthorised exploitation by a third party to the values represented by the signal. India also stated that the treaty is capable of covering piracy in the digital environment and includes broadcasting of all types of broadcast. India also stated that they support the finalisation of the treaty, maintaining the interest of all member states on fundamental issues.

Presentation by the Chair and Vice Chair

On Article 11 the Chair stated that the list could be made clearer, and also clarified that the list is not a closed list. With respect to the works in the public domain the Chair clarified that the broadcasting and distributing of works in public domain, only the work carrying the signal will be under the treaty.
With regard to the scope of fixation the Chair clarified that the scope of fixation is only for the entity emitting the signal. The focus of the treaty is to limit the rights to signal based rights.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-43-notes-from-day-1

CIS Statement in WIPO SCCR 43

Shweta Mohandas and Anubha Sinha — 2023-03-28T14:12:21Z

Shweta Mohandas delivered a statement on behalf of CIS, on day 1 of the 43rd WIPO SCCR session on the Broadcast Treaty.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’m speaking on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India.

The second revised draft text for the WIPO Broadcasting Organisations Treaty presents certain concerns.

The absence of a provision on term allows perpetual rights to both traditional broadcasters and streamers. Further, the provision on limitations and exceptions is narrow, and not mandatory. It undermines the existence of open-licensing models on the internet. In the absence of a strong mandatory limitations and exceptions provision, the text gives broadcasters rights over openly-licensed content and works in the public domain.

Thank you.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/cis-statement-in-wipo-sccr-43

CensorWatch: On the Implementation of Online Censorship in India

divyank — 2023-03-15T11:58:56Z

Results from a nation-wide empirical study on web censorship

Abstract: State authorities in India order domestic internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to websites and services. We developed a mobile application, CensorWatch, that runs network tests to study inconsistencies in how ISPs conduct censorship. We analyse the censorship of 10,372 sites, with measurements collected across 71 networks from 25 states in the country. We find that ISPs in India rely on different methods of censorship with larger ISPs utilizing methods that are harder to circumvent. By comparing blocklists and contextualising them with specific legal orders, we find concrete evidence that ISPs in India are blocking different websites and engaging in arbitrary blocking, in violation of Indian law.

The paper authored by Divyank Katira, Gurshabad Grover, Kushagra Singh and Varun Bansal appeared as part of the conference on Free and Open Communications on the Internet (FOCI '23) and can be accessed here.

The authors would like to thank Pooja Saxena and Akash Sheshadri for contributing to the visual design of Censorwatch; Aayush Rathi, Amber Sinha and Vipul Kharbanda for their valuable legal inputs; Internet Freedom Foundation for their support; ipinfo.io for providing free access to their data and services. The work was made possible because of research grants to the Centre for Internet and Society from the MacArthur Foundation, Article 19, the East-West Management Institute and the New Venture Fund. Gurshabad Grover’s contributions were supported by a research fellowship from the Open Tech Fund.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/censorwatch-on-the-implementation-of-online-censorship-in-india

Civil Society’s second opinion on a UHI prescription

Pallavi Bedi and Shweta Mohandas — 2023-02-15T08:20:15Z

On January 13, Pallavi Bedi and Shweta Mohandas from CIS participated in an online collaboration organised by Internet Freedom Foundation for a joint submission to the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India released by the National Health Authority.

The article originally published by Internet Freedom Foundation can be accessed here.

The National Health Authority (NHA) released the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India on December 14, 2022. The deadline for submission of comments was January 13, 2023. We collaborated with the Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, & the Forum for Medical Ethics Society to submit comments on the paper.

Background

The UHI is proposed to be a “foundational layer of the Ayushman Bharat Digital Health Mission (ABDM)” and is “envisioned to enable interoperability of health services in India through open protocols”. The ABDM, previously known as the National Digital Health Mission, was announced by the Prime Minister on the 74th Independence Day, and it envisages the creation of a National Digital Health Ecosystem with six key features: Health ID, Digi Doctor, Health Facility Registry, Personal Health Records, Telemedicine, and e-Pharmacy. After launching the programme in six Union Territories, the National Health Authority issued a press release on August 26, 2020 announcing the public consultation for the Draft Health Data Management Policy for NDHM. While the government has repeatedly claimed that creation of a health ID is purely voluntary, contrary reports have emerged. In our comments as part of the public consultation, our primary recommendation was that deployment of any digital health ID programme must be preceded by the enactment of general and sectoral data protection laws by the Parliament of India; and meaningful public consultation which reaches out to vulnerable groups which face the greatest privacy risks.

As per the synopsis document which accompanies the consultation paper, it aims to “seek feedback on how different elements of UHI should function. Inviting public feedback will allow for early course correction, which will in-turn engender trust in the network and enhance market adoption. The feedback received through this consultation will be used to refine the functionalities of UHI so as to limit any operational issues going forward.” The consultation paper contains a set of close-ended questions at the end of each section through which specific feedback has been invited from interested stakeholders. We have collaborated with the Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, & the Forum for Medical Ethics Society to draft the comments on this consultation paper.

Our main concern relates to the approach the Government of India and concerned Ministries adopt to draft a consultation paper without explicitly outlining how the proposed UHI fits into the broader healthcare ecosystem and quantifying how it improves it rendering the consultation paper and public engagement efforts inadequate. Additionally, it doesn’t allow the public at large, and other stakeholders to understand how it may contribute to people’s access to quality care towards ensuring realisation of their constitutional right to health and health care. The close-ended nature of the consultation process, wherein specific questions have been posed, restricts stakeholders from questioning the structure of the ABDM itself and forces us to engage with its parts, thereby incorrectly assuming that there is support for the direction in which the ABDM is being developed.

Our submissions

A. General comments

a. Absence of underlying legal framework

Ensuring health data privacy requires legislation at three levels- comprehensive laws, sectoral laws and informal rules. Here, the existing proposal for the data protection legislation, i.e., the draft Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 (DPDPB, 2022) which could act as the comprehensive legal framework, is inadequate to sufficiently protect health data. This inadequacy arises from the failure of the DPDPB, 2022 to give higher degree of protection to sensitive personal data and allowing for non-consensual processing of health data in certain situations under Clause 8 which relates to “deemed consent”. Here, it may also be noted that the DPDPB, 2022 fails to specifically define either health or health data. Further, the proposed Digital Information Security in Healthcare Act, 2017, which may have acted as a sectoral law, is presently before the Parliament and has not been enacted. Here, the absence of safeguards allows for data capture by health insurance firms and subsequent exclusion/higher costs for vulnerable groups of people. Similarly, such data capture by other third parties potentially leads to commercial interests creeping in at the cost of users of health care services and breach of their privacy and dignity.

b. Issues pertaining to scope

Clarity is needed on whether UHI will be only providing healthcare services through private entities, or will also include the public health care system and various health care schemes and programs of the government, such as eSanjeevani.

c. Pre-existing concerns

Exclusion: Access to health services through the Unified Health Interface should not be made contingent upon possessing an ABHA ID, as alluded to in the section on ‘UHI protocols in action: An example’ under Chapter 2(b). Such an approach is contrary to the Health Data Management Policy that is based on individual autonomy and voluntary participation. Clause 16.4 of the Policy clearly states that nobody will “be denied access to any health facility or service or any other right in any manner by any government or private entity, merely by reason of not creating a Health ID or disclosing their Health ID…or for not being in possession of a Health ID.” Moreover, the National Medical Commission Guidelines for Telemedicine in India also does not create any obligation for the patient to possess an ABHA ID in order to access any telehealth service. The UHI should explicitly state that a patient can log in on the network using any identification and not just ABHA.
Consent: As per media reports, registration for a UHID under the NDHM, which is an earlier version of the ABHA number under the ABDM, may have been voluntary on paper but it was being made mandatory in practice by hospital administrators and heads of departments. Similarly, reports suggest that people who received vaccination against COVID-19 were assigned a UHID number without their consent or knowledge.
Function creep: In the absence of an underlying legal framework, concerns also arise that the health data under the NDHM scheme may suffer from function creep, i.e., the collected data being used for purposes other than for which consent has been obtained. These concerns arise due to similar function creep taking place in the context of data collected by the Aarogya Setu application, which has now pivoted from being a contact-tracing application to “health app of the nation”. Here, it must be noted that as per a RTI response dated June 8, 2022 from NIC, the Aarogya Setu Data Access And Knowledge Sharing Protocol “has been discontinued".
Issues with the United Payments Interface may be replicated by the UHI: The consultation paper cites the United Payments Interface (UPI) as “strong public digital infrastructure” which the UHI aims to leverage. However, a trend towards market concentration can be witnessed in UPI: the two largest entities, GooglePay and PhonePe, have seen their market share hover around 35% and 47% (by volume) for some time now (their share by value transacted is even higher). Meanwhile, the share of the NPCI’s own app (BHIM) has fallen from 40% in August 2017 to 0.74% in September 2021. Thus, if such a model is to be adopted, it is important to study the UPI model to understand such threats and ensure that a similar trend towards oligopoly or monopoly formation in UHI is addressed. This is all the more important in a country in which the decreasing share of the public health sector has led to skyrocketing healthcare costs for citizens.

B. Our response also addressed specific questions about search and discovery, service booking, grievance redressal, and fake reviews and scores. Our responses on these questions can be found in our comments here.

Our previous submissions on health data

We have consistently engaged with the government since the announcement of the NDHM in 2020. Some of our submissions and other outputs are linked below:

IFF’s comment on the Draft Health Data Management Policy dated May 21, 2022 (link)
IFF’s comments on the consultation Paper on Healthcare Professionals Registry dated July 20, 2021 (link)
IFF and C-HELP Working Paper: ‘Analysing the NDHM Health Data Management Policy’ dated June 11, 2021 (link)
IFF’s Consultation Response to Draft Health Data Retention Policy dated January 6, 2021 (link)
IFF’s comments on the National Digital Health Mission’s Health Data Management Policy dated September 21, 2020 (link)

Important documents

Response on the Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India by Centre for Health Equity, Law & Policy, the Centre for Internet & Society, the Forum for Medical Ethics Society, & IFF dated January 13, 2023 (link)
NHA’s Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India dated December 14, 2022 (link)
Synopsis of NHA’s Consultation Paper on Operationalising Unified Health Interface (UHI) in India dated December 14, 2022 (link)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/civil-society-second-opinion-on-uhi-prescription

Exploring Knowledge Repositories on Water Resources in India

subodh — 2022-10-21T13:23:24Z

This research study explores knowledge repositories on water resources in India, with a focus on how the digital transition has impacted the process of creation & access to these resources and possible collaborations to build open digital repositories around water. The research was undertaken by Subodh Kulkarni, with editorial inputs by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Chiara Furtado. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2021–2022.

Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

Water is the most precious natural resource for the existence of all living organisms on earth. As human beings have not treated it respectfully in recent years, there are increasing challenges with accessibility and availability of water across large parts of the world today. In India, the groundwater levels are depleting at an alarming rate due to over exploitation^.[1] The quality of surface water reserves is degenerating due to pollution caused by discharge of wastewater, sewage and untreated industrial effluents.^[2] The condition of rivers is getting worse due to illegal and unregulated use of these resources across India. Due to damming almost all the rivers flow for only 8-10 months in a year. Above all, the pollution caused due to solid wastes and effluents have destroyed living organisms and aquatic life. Therefore most of the rivers in India are called ‘dying rivers’.^[3] There have been several discussions and debates happening around this degradation of rivers, especially in the last decade.^[4]

Efforts by various organisations are afoot to document the state of affairs, spread awareness and undertake activities on the ground with community participation. Citizen-led efforts have also been instrumental in strengthening several water conservation efforts in India. It is seen that these peoples’ movements have been further strengthened due to empowerment through enhanced awareness of these issues around conservation, and better access to knowledge on the subject, especially through scientific studies.

CIS-A2K has initiated Project Jalbodh in 2017 in collaboration with a few organisations to generate water related content. During one of the ‘River dialogues’, a CIS-A2K member was invited to introduce Wikimedia projects to the organisations working on water resources. In the discussions, it was revealed that there is negligible content about rivers, water pollution, floods, irrigation system etc. in Wikimedia projects. Following this, an analysis of content on these subjects on Marathi, Hindi & English Wikipedia and media on Wikimedia Commons was undertaken. The need to develop structured categorisation of content was also felt. As the organisations are trying their best to disseminate knowledge about water issues, they realised the potential of Wikimedia projects due to the high level of searchable content available on these platforms which can be accessed by the general public. In keeping with these objectives, over the last two years, various workshops were conducted with organisations working at the grassroots to develop the structure of articles, categorisation and re-licensing of source material on these topics across various Wikimedia projects. Tarun Bharat Sangh is leading this process, and has uploaded 90 books & reports on Wikimedia Commons under free licences, and created articles on rivers in Marathi, Hindi and English Wikipedia projects.

During these content generation events it was realised that the organisations are working closely with communities which are conversant mostly with local or regional Indian languages only. The availability and access to water related resources in these languages is therefore an important issue. The communities are in need of simple, accessible and ready to use content in various forms. They also require a platform on which they can document/archive their water conservation efforts for other communities to take lessons and motivation from these projects.

Research Questions

This study was framed by the following questions:

How has the digital transition impacted the process of creation and access to water related resources in India.
What are possible collaborations and processes to build open digital repositories around water, with special reference to rivers.

Methods

The study adopted a qualitative approach, with the method comprising online/offline, semi-structured interviews with organisations working in the water resources sector. Based on desk research and conversations with existing partners in the sector, a long list of organisations was developed.(See Annexure I). Further, eight organisations were shortlisted for interviews based on their experience and impact of work in the water conservation sector. Due to various constraints, eventually interviews with three organisations were completed. The interview questionnaire focused on the nature, objective and scope of the offline and online resources available, human resources involved, language aspects, documentation practices, methods of dissemination, utility, accessibility, training value of the material, intellectual property rights (IPR) policies and public outreach efforts. These interviews were conducted online and in-person and recorded with consent from the participants, along with a clear explanation on the objectives of the study and the data collection. As mentioned above, there were a few constraints with the research process and methods adopted, as well as external factors. These included restrictions on travel and in-person meetings due to the COVID 19 pandemic, and challenges with online platforms. Some of the organisations were not comfortable with online or telephonic interviews and insisted upon physical interactions. The online interviews were less effective with the organisations as they were unaware about the free & open knowledge platforms like Wikimedia, Internet Archive etc. In addition to this, introductory sessions were conducted to give them a background to the work of the programme and context of the study. A general challenge here was also logistical issues related to scheduling conversations etc. given that personnel were located across different departments.

Description of Organisations Interviewed

Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management [ACWADAM]'

ACWADAM is an organisation dedicated to establish a groundwater management agenda in India. It is a premier education and action research institution engaged in developing and disseminating knowledge on groundwater management. It is also involved in facilitation of projects on groundwater management through action research programmes, training and policy advocacy, with a collaborative, participatory approach. ACWADAM's mission is to facilitate groundwater management programmes in partnership with various organisations spread across the country. Over the years, it has developed expertise on aquifer-based groundwater management based on the science of hydrogeology.

Action for Agricultural Renewal in Maharashtra [AFARM]

AFARM was founded in 1969 as an apex Institution to coordinate programmes of voluntary organisations engaged in providing drinking water and agricultural extension services to villages in drought affected Maharashtra. It is one of the pioneering networking organisations in the country working in the areas of sustainable agriculture, irrigation, disaster relief and drinking water resource management. It acts as a platform for several civil society organisations for the promotion of sustainable and equitable development. The emphasis is on capacity building of organisations through action research, advocacy and field projects at grassroots. AFARM is providing support and consultancy at the policy level.

BAIF Development Research Foundation [BAIF]

BAIF was established on the strong foundation of Gandhian values with the aim to improve quality of life through development research and capacity building. BAIF’s vision is to build a self-reliant rural society assured of food security, safe drinking water, good health, gender equity, low child mortality, literacy, high moral values and clean environment. It is striving towards the mission to create opportunities of gainful self-employment for the rural and tribal families with a focus on disadvantaged sections, ensuring sustainable livelihood, healthy environment, better quality of life and good human values. BAIF believes in field research, effective use of local resources, extension of appropriate technologies and upgradation of skills and capabilities with community participation.

Observations

Availability of digital datasets on water resource projects: Many organisations in the sector rely on online information and databases on sites such as – Census of India, IMD, Google Earth, Bhuvan, CGWB, GSDA, MRSAC, Bhumi Abhilekh, Survey of India, India Water Portal, Agriculture Department, Irrigation Department, Forest Department, Maharain etc. Many of the global datasets on water resources and related topics such as agriculture, population, topography, forestry, climate change etc. are also in the public domain. However, the updating of data is not done regularly. For example, we have to refer to census data for 2011 even in 2022. Many of the datasets are also at a macro level, providing very little granular data. The water resource projects mostly need micro level data which is collected through on-ground surveys.

Effectiveness of digital platforms, and challenges with internet coverage: Organisations have found the use of digital platforms and tools effective for quick exchange of common training modules, process videos, drawings and manuals, as part of their water resource projects. The digital format has also been very effective for dissemination of advisories, alerts etc. through smartphones, which have enabled better access to information on gadgets quickly. However, two-way communication is necessary when timely solutions to queries of the farmers are to be provided, and that has been difficult to set up in a sustained manner through a digital format.
Many organisations in the sector also engage in capacity-building efforts for staff, volunteers and communities. When building these communities and mobilising them for action, the process needs spontaneous feedback, live conversations, reading the expressions and actual interactions with each other. All these things are completely missing from virtual interactions. These organisational processes and capacity-building efforts were grossly hampered during the pandemic due to a reliance on online meetings alone.
There are still challenges of internet connectivity in rural and remote areas where the communities are involved in water management projects. The consistency of bandwidth is a major issue when it comes to streaming of audio-visual content, uploading of content, online workshops, etc.

Lack of documentation skills, and challenges with language: Most of the documents used in water resources related projects are technical in nature. The technical team invests more time in the implementation, hence the time and skills required for documentation are limited. This gap between technical skills and documentation skills is challenging. There are ample structures, technological methods, apps etc. for collecting the data but at the same time, the resources for data collection or structured data development are not sufficiently provided. There are also several language-related challenges at the field level. Crucial parts of the training and awareness material need to be translated in the local languages as well.

Mobilisation and motivation for communities and wider public: The offline and online content is not very effective to mobilise or motivate the people involved in action at the field level in water conservation efforts. The organisers are exploring all the modes of communication and content available, but there is no alternative for human leadership.
Some organisations like Paani Foundation have beautifully captured the success stories of these efforts in dramatic short films. These films inspire the public temporarily, but the content can not be used often. Also, the production costs of such content are high resulting in very few options for wider outreach to engage a general audience.

Negligible content about water sector in public domain or Wikimedia projects in local languages: All the organisations agree upon the lack of searchable content on water related topics on the internet and in the public domain through projects like Wikimedia. The activists looking for solutions on some technical issues, the community searching for good projects in other parts of India or the planners looking for some structured databases on impact of projects, all of them get very little content on the internet. The local language content on water resources has almost negligible presence.

Need for a comprehensive portal giving information to stakeholders at different levels: The different stakeholders concerned with water resources seek information and data on various levels and diverse formats according to application and purpose. As of now, no such comprehensive platform in multiple languages exists which caters to these needs. The requirements include a wide range like, sample design of water conservation structures, contour maps of region, rainfall data, estimates of raw material, ground water aquifer maps, water pollution parameters, operation of dams, irrigation systems, water policies, water treaties, government notifications, etc. A well structured and categorised knowledge repository and database on water resources is the need of the hour. Such a knowledge base would strongly support the actions on the ground.

Recommendations

Developing a Process Documentation Strategy: The continuous changes in knowledge resources and data regarding various topics related to water resources need to be documented from time to time. The dynamic nature of water related issues requires a proactive process documentation strategy for the organisation as well as the citizen science groups in the society. The ideal example is the trajectory of the monsoon season in India every year and the rainfall in various agro-climatic regions. The watershed conservation projects, river rejuvenation programs, pollution control projects are long term processes with long term impacts. The journey of several years is painstaking, needs patience and struggles on the ground with constant motivational efforts. The persons directly engaged in these efforts may not be able to spend time on documentation of the many resources that are a result of these efforts. Hence, a solid process documentation strategy is required. The process documentation is also crucial for assessment of project impact on environment, livelihoods, economy, geography and people. There are also citizen movements which have been active for a long time, which are instrumental in giving birth to new laws, rules, guidelines, notifications, etc. The different milestones and turning points in these processes are to be documented in time. This documentation can guide the larger citizens’ movements to design their strategies and to resolve issues arising during the course of this work, and across different thematic areas as well.

Accessible datasets open for all in the public domain: There is an important need to compile the datasets on water resources developed by different agencies with people’s participation and government funding for the planning of public works or schemes. The open access to such reliable and factual datasets in the public domain serves the purpose of transparency and accountability of public infrastructure programmes. This facility for society would provide impetus to rigorous analysis, studies, research and innovative designing of public infrastructure. The processing and presentation of data in visual formats, including infographics can boost understanding, awareness, and logical thinking processes among enthusiasts who would like to engage with water conservation efforts. Different perspectives can emerge after relating and comparing datasets. The networking of agencies, organisations, experts and citizen forums would further develop complementary datasets. This synergy will definitely create a community data pool beneficial for everyone.

Digital and open access content development for capacity building of field level activists: Various organisations have developed training material for field level activists in different formats. Most of this is not online or digitised. Through networking efforts, the integration could be done to develop systematic modules for capacity building. The modules would be hosted as Open Educational Resources (OERs) on Wikimedia projects or other free knowledge platforms. The topic wise categories will make the selection easier. These categories can include local water source, rivers, waste water disposal, pollution, water based livelihoods, water conservation treatments etc. The format combining course work with some hands-on experiments is beneficial to facilitate the process of self-study, self-assessment and self-design. This online repository can be accessed by the field activists working on water resources anytime, anywhere when they need guidance to resolve issues or trouble-shooting on site.

Orientation of organisations towards free knowledge platforms and Wikimedia projects: Over the years, the organisations working in this sector have created valuable material for wider circulation to create awareness and empower communities. These resources have been used effectively and in a few locations for a certain period of time. The outreach and dissemination through integration of these resources will have more impact in the coming years if digital platforms are utilised efficiently. The basic orientation of the organisations regarding such free knowledge digital platforms, including copyright issues, Creative Commons licences, digitisation process and internet technologies is necessary to kick start this knowledge dissemination movement. Some pilot projects could be executed to demonstrate the potential of Wikimedia projects in database generation, documentation of case studies, audio-visual repositories and reference libraries.

References

"Groundwater". edugreen.teri.res.in. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
"‘Discharge of untreated industrial effluents, sewage major source of river pollution’". The Indian Express. 2018-12-21. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
Naresh Singaravelu & Harshita Mishra (6 June 2019). "Rivers in India: a reality check". https://www.thehindu.com/. The Hindu. Retrieved 28 Sep 2022.
"Living rivers, dying rivers: Everything you wanted to know about rivers in India | India Water Portal". www.indiawaterportal.org. Retrieved 2022-09-28.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-exploring-knowledge-repositories-on-water-resources-in-india

Infrastructural Needs of Indian Language Wikisource Projects

Puthiya Purayil Sneha — 2022-10-21T13:21:20Z

This is a short study on identifying the infrastructural gaps on Indian language Wikisource projects, and potential strategies to address the same. The study was undertaken by Jayantha Nath, Puthiya Purayil Sneha and Satdeep Gill, with writing and editorial oversight by Puthiya Purayil Sneha and an external review by Divyank Katira. This is part of a series of short-term studies undertaken by the CIS-A2K team in 2021-22.

Read this report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

This research project is an effort to understand some of the infrastructural needs of Wikisource platforms in India. With a focus on technological capacity, resources and training, this short pilot study collected baseline data from Indian language Wikisource communities to identify key knowledge gaps and areas of improvement. The final report here offers an overview of the current challenges in this space, and some learnings and recommendations on potential strategies to address these gaps, including through collaborative intervention and training.

Context

Wikisource projects have been an important part of the open knowledge movement in India, as it is a hub of out of copyright and freely licensed texts in a number of languages from across the world. With a focus on creating a ‘growing free content online library of source texts, as well as translations of source texts in any language', it functions as an important open knowledge repository that supports content development on various sister projects such as Wikipedia, Wikiquote etc. Wikisource projects in Indian languages have seen tremendous growth, especially over the last decade with increased efforts in content donation under free licences, digitization initiatives and availability of source texts. There have also been several advancements in Indic language computing and availability of digital infrastructure, such as more Indian language fonts, many with Unicode support, and increased flexibility in working with texts due to Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies. There has also been a general growth in awareness about the need for sourcing and making available more content in Indian languages, and better access to platforms like Wikisource has aided these efforts to a great extent.

However, several Indian language communities also continue to grapple with persistent challenges in this space, across diverse Wikimedia projects. Similarly, with Wikisource, there have been concerns about a lack of active participation and efforts towards bringing more content on the platform, including translations, and encouraging the use of source texts across projects among others. While a majority of the contributors are comfortable with transcribing texts, more technical tasks such as importing new books, creating Index pages and transcluding books are left to a very small number of contributors. These point to a lack of not just awareness and resources, but also a need for capacity-building efforts to address the skill gaps, improvements in digital infrastructures to resolve basic issues with platforms, and diversification of the scope of work undertaken. For instance, the most recent Community Wishlist Survey 2022 highlights some basic fixes that need attention− such as bugs with the search and replace function to improve search and mass uploads −to more advanced work such as expanding existing functionality in indexing, integrating structured data and translation tools and functionalities across Indian languages, to name a few.

A research needs assessment survey conducted by CIS-A2K last year also highlighted the need for better technological support for Wikimedia projects, and capacity-building in important areas of work in the Indian language communities. While this is not specific to Wikisource alone, observations by community members and active Wikisource contributors over the last few years illustrate that many of these concerns and knowledge gaps are prevalent in this community as well. This study was therefore an attempt to identify these challenges, by collecting baseline data on key areas of work in Indian language Wikisource projects, beginning with a focus on selected language communities, and areas of interest. The attempt was also to enable contributors to achieve a more detailed understanding of the requirements of communities, in the contexts of certain languages, and aid in developing potential strategies to address them.

Research objectives

The study had two areas of focus:

What are the key challenges with working on Indian language Wikisource projects currently? These may include anything from obstacles in Wikisource workflow, policies and open licences, to challenges such as quality of content and lack of community engagement?
What are gap areas and spaces for improvement in the infrastructure of these platforms, especially related to technological capacity, resources and training?

Research methods

The study adopted a mixed methods approach, comprising a survey and interviews with community members. The survey focussed on key areas of ongoing work, and potential challenges for Wikisource projects in India - including technological support, skill-building, policies on content donation and curation, and open access and licensing. The survey was opened to all Wikisource communities and publicised on relevant mailing lists and community platforms. Simultaneously, a detailed interview questionnaire was also prepared, along with the selection criteria for interviews with community members. The project team worked with one short-term research assistant over a 2–3-month period for the data collection through interviews and surveys. The research assistant also provided translation support as needed and worked closely in coordinating with community members.

The criteria considered for selection of the language communities for the study were language family and size, amount of content on Wikisource (according to bytes/number of proofread pages), recent activity and a good track record/sustained progress and challenges with the same over the last several years. External factors, such as visibility and prevalence of the languages on other online platforms, technical and cultural resources and complexities of working with certain languages etc. were also considered during the selection process. Keeping these in mind, the languages selected for this study were as follows:

Tamil Wikisource (One of the largest Wikisource communities in India, which has considerable content, is active and has seen steady growth over the last few years)
Assamese Wikisource (A growing Wikisource community, which has also seen a lot of activity in recent years)
Malayalam Wikisource (A large and active Wikisource community, which in recent years has some decline in engagement, despite good resources and activity on other Wiki platforms)

Using a purposive sampling technique, the team identified community members for interviews across these three languages and reached out over the course of six months in order to conduct semi-structured interviews. The criteria for selection of interviewees included a mix of senior/experienced and new contributors, those working across several projects and languages, those with expertise in specific/advanced technical areas of Wikisource, licensing and content donation efforts, and keeping in mind gender parity within the sample. There were however several challenges with this exercise, including basic barriers such as bad internet and phone connectivity, digital fatigue and unavailability of people due to the second wave of the pandemic, and limited time on Wikimedia projects. As a result, this method was unsuccessful, as it managed to gather very limited data for the study. The timeline of the survey was also extended as a result, and it received a total of 21 responses. The survey data offers several insights into some of these key areas of work and challenges, and the following is a report based on an analysis of this limited data set and observations on the same. Given the limited sample size and final dataset, it would be important to note that we may need several steps before the observations/findings may be considered to be representative at any scale.

Observations and Learnings

As mentioned earlier, the dataset comprised of 21 respondents on the survey, many of them contributors across diverse Wikimedia projects including English and Indian language Wikipedia projects, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons, software such as Media Wiki, and initiatives like Wikimedia in Education. The respondents ranged across nine languages (in alphabetical order) – Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil. Several of them are also part of user groups working in some of these languages. The experience of the contributors’ ranges from 6 months to 12 years. Almost all the respondents note that contributions towards proofreading, and bringing more content on the Wikisource projects (including work on related processes by the Volunteer Response Team, previously known as Open Source Ticket Request System, and OCR) have been key milestones in their work, either as individuals or communities. Some respondents have also pointed out some new work such as audio books, and working on technological aspects, especially with gadgets and best practices shared by other global communities. The data offers some key insights into the kinds of challenges currently faced by Indian language Wikisource contributors, and what could be potential areas of improvement. As noted in Fig.1, an overwhelming percentage of the respondents noted that ‘capacity-building and training’ (81%) is an area that needs the most improvement, followed closely by ‘community engagement’ (66%) and ‘technological infrastructure’ (57%). These are key areas that show repetitive patterns across the data set, in terms of recurring challenges as well. As noted by respondents, training in Wikisource workflows, procedure and guidance, learning to use advanced templates/techniques, recruiting new volunteers etc. have been key challenges. Community engagement has seen a dip, especially over last year with the pandemic and related decline in activity on projects, as well as events and therefore opportunities to meet. There is a need for more contributors and strategies to encourage work and retain them on the projects. Scanning and post-production processing of scans emerged as a significant challenge, given lack of resources and infrastructure, and related issues such as poor quality of scanned work and no uniformity in the book selection criteria. There are also some areas of technical support such as broken tools on Wikisource projects, missing symbols in some language tool bars, and an abundance of formatting tags which could present barriers for new contributors. The following are some of the responses and observations in specific areas mentioned above:

As mentioned earlier, the dataset comprised of 21 respondents on the survey, many of them contributors across diverse Wikimedia projects including English and Indian language Wikipedia projects, Wikisource, Wikibooks, Wikidata, Wikiquote, Wiktionary, Wikivoyage, Wikimedia Commons, software such as Media Wiki, and initiatives like Wikimedia in Education. The respondents ranged across nine languages (in alphabetical order) – Assamese, Bengali, English, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Malayalam, Punjabi, Telugu and Tamil. Several of them are also part of user groups working in some of these languages. The experience of the contributors’ ranges from 6 months to 12 years.

Almost all the respondents note that contributions towards proofreading, and bringing more content on the Wikisource projects (including work on related processes by the Volunteer Response Team, previously known as Open Source Ticket Request System, and OCR) have been key milestones in their work, either as individuals or communities. Some respondents have also pointed out some new work such as audio books, and working on technological aspects, especially with gadgets and best practices shared by other global communities. The data offers some key insights into the kinds of challenges currently faced by Indian language Wikisource contributors, and what could be potential areas of improvement.

As noted in Fig.1, an overwhelming percentage of the respondents noted that ‘capacity-building and training’ (81%) is an area that needs the most improvement, followed closely by ‘community engagement’ (66%) and ‘technological infrastructure’ (57%). These are key areas that show repetitive patterns across the data set, in terms of recurring challenges as well. As noted by respondents, training in Wikisource workflows, procedure and guidance, learning to use advanced templates/techniques, recruiting new volunteers etc. have been key challenges. Community engagement has seen a dip, especially over last year with the pandemic and related decline in activity on projects, as well as events and therefore opportunities to meet. There is a need for more contributors and strategies to encourage work and retain them on the projects. Scanning and post-production processing of scans emerged as a significant challenge, given lack of resources and infrastructure, and related issues such as poor quality of scanned work and no uniformity in the book selection criteria. There are also some areas of technical support such as broken tools on Wikisource projects, missing symbols in some language tool bars, and an abundance of formatting tags which could present barriers for new contributors.

The following are some of the responses and observations in specific areas mentioned above:

Capacity-building and training

As most contributors would be well aware, capacity-building and technological infrastructure are two closely connected aspects of Wikimedia projects. The responses under this thematic reflect the same, in terms of a need for better training in optimising the use of available and advanced technical skills for Wikisource projects. This includes training on specific skills and processes such as scanning, text conversion, formatting, sourcing, transclusion, creating gadgets, writing bots. There is a need for better writing and spelling skills to improve the quality of content generated. The survey also suggested potential ways to address these skill gaps, all of which were seen as relevant by a majority of respondents (66.7%). [See Fig 2]

Community Engagement

Community engagement ranked second in terms of the challenges noted by respondents on the survey. The survey also looked at engagement in comparison with Wikipedia projects, as it has been observed that the latter see more active participation. This was confirmed by some of the responses as well. Some of the main reasons for lack of participation as noted by respondents is that Wikisource is a specialised project, that needs a specific skill-set and demands time and effort, hence may not appeal to all contributors. Also, it has lesser content and visibility compared to some of the Wikipedias or other projects which may be more easily updated. Thus, there is a need for actively recruiting new volunteers, and capacity-building to enable more contributions, as well as targeted outreach efforts in spaces related to literature and books to enhance discoverability. Some respondents also mentioned that a lack of awareness, coordination and interaction among contributors could be potential reasons. Finally, there are also external factors such as balancing volunteer work with other commitments such as family and financial problems, many contributors being students who move on to full-time careers, effects of the pandemic and paucity of time and interaction, and loss of interest over time in the projects.

Again, efforts to address community engagement need some strategic measures, including but not limited to community interaction, incentives and better visibility for work in, as noted in Fig.3.

Technological infrastructure

Technological infrastructure, which is one of the key areas of focus for this study, has also been a persistent challenge for Indian language communities, also given the resource-heavy work any form of computing with Indic languages entails. While some respondents did not notice any specific issues in their communities, there were some patterns or gaps that were reflected across communities. There is a need for basic hardware like scanners and good computers, or rather centralised facilities for scanning and good internet connectivity in order to cover more collections and regional areas. In addition to this, there is also a need for technical improvements such as easy-to-use widgets, gadgets and better tags to enhance formatting work as part of the transcription of texts, incorporating certain signs and symbols within toolbars, spell-checker, full list of syntaxes while proofreading, and stages for fixing mistakes and adding formatting tags. An important observation was that some language communities access and edit Wikisource on mobile phones, so there is a need for a mobile application that can provide a seamless editing experience, and connect more people with the projects. As mentioned earlier, there are also several technical fixes such as a number of pending bugs in projects. A related requirement therefore is for MediaWiki developers with good language skills to work on translation of interfaces. A few respondents also mentioned additional challenges such as improvement of new books, Graphical User Interface (GUI) and page layout, and the functionality to view Wikisource in other formats as well.

Some specific areas of improvement were also assessed on the survey, drawing upon a review of the community wishlists for the last few years. These included Optical Character Recognition (OCR), translation, visual editor, transclusion, user interface, search function and export of books. While all these functionalities did not receive responses from the entire set, many found these to be key challenges. OCR received the most responses (19), with 31.6% assessing this at 1 (needs minimal updates, functional with space for innovation). Translation received 18 responses, with 38.9% marking this at 4 (major challenges, requires focused work). Similarly, transclusion also received 18 responses with about 27.8% voting at 5 (significant challenges, requires long-term effort and resources). Visual editor, search function and export of books all received 17 responses each, with a majority in all three assessing these as 5. Of these search function had more people assessing the functionality at 5 (41.2%), followed closely by visual editor and export of books (35.3% each). User interface received 16 responses, with 31.3 % of respondents assessing it at 5 as well.

Open Access and Content Creation

In addition to the above, content curation and related aspects of open access and relicensing are also spaces with prevalent knowledge gaps in terms of protocols and best practices, which poses a challenge for content generation on Wikisource projects. Lack of awareness about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and relicensing in fact has been a significant impediment in content donation efforts, across projects. In this survey, a large number of respondents (42.6%) also said they were either unaware of these issues with Wikisource or about IPR itself, or mentioned that it was not applicable in this context. Among the challenges/issues mentioned, the need for simple, easily accessible advocacy material in print about open access was prominent, in order to encourage content creators/authors to share work on open licences. It was also noted that this process may be difficult for people who are not well-versed in the technical/legal aspects of the project, especially in terms of tracking down individual creators for consent to re-license and share their work. Respondents also noted that this work needs support from institutions to help set up collaborations, such as with educational organisations, publishing houses and authors, as also an understanding of official documentation and wider promotion etc. which may encourage more people to share content on open licences.

All of these aspects are further reflected in terms of strategies to address these issues as well, as observed in Fig. 4.

A similar disparity exists with content curation best practices as well, with a majority of respondents noting that their respective communities do not have clearly defined protocols for content curation. While such benchmarking is naturally difficult given several socio-cultural and linguistic subjectivities of each project, this also means that what makes it to Wikisource in a particular language can be defined by many factors, which also informs the quality, types and formats of content produced. Potential methods to address this include developing guidelines for content creation, and forms of review by experts as well as community members, all of which ranked high in the survey responses. ( See Fig 5)

As we did not receive enough responses on the interview questionnaires, there was not much additional qualitative data that could be gathered. There are however resonances with the survey responses, namely in terms of technical/hardware challenges such as poor quality of scanning, and the need for an app which is user-friendly and will further facilitate mobile editing, especially in areas with limited digital infrastructure and access. Some observations include the importance of the OTRS process in adding new content, and the need for better online and offline training, especially for new volunteers, in technical skills. Similarly, collaborations with educational institutions and local print media could be useful in creating more awareness, and therefore tapping into more content and resources in terms of new volunteers. Additionally, there are also some interesting observations on individual communities working on connecting work across projects, for example Wikisource and Wikiquote.

Conclusions and Recommendations

While the scope of the study had to be reduced significantly given several methodological challenges and external factors as mentioned earlier, the analysis of data does offer some significant learnings on the current challenges prevalent across Indian language Wikisource projects. Needless to say, many of these are also fairly contextual and nuanced, depending on how well-resourced certain languages are, given factors such as basic internet connectivity and digital literacy. The following is a short summary of key recommendations from this exercise.

Technological Infrastructure: Across the board, gaps in development of technological infrastructure have been prominent, ranging from basic fixes to advanced tools and user-friendly apps that may help mitigate some of the issues related to access. It is also notable that early challenges such as OCR and translation do not present as significant obstacles here (but continue to remain areas of ongoing work); features such as the visual editor, search and export functionalities emerged as continual challenges. The need for a user-friendly mobile app is also an important observation here. Some of this work is also quite resource-intensive in terms of funding; it would be prudent to look at collaborations with related organisations and local fundraising efforts that may help facilitate the same.

Capacity-Building: Similarly, capacity-building efforts need to be strengthened within communities, given the nature of work which is specialised and often quite technical( for example the process of transclusion). In addition to bringing in new volunteers, and equipping them with the requisite skill-sets to contribute effectively, there is a need for contributors with advanced skill-sets who may be able to address more technical challenges. Efforts here could include reaching out to the wider free and open source communities for external expertise, and working on a collaborative model of workshopping around strategic issues, and developing relevant skill-sets. Community-engagement: As noted by many respondents, bringing in new volunteers and their retention on projects has been a continual challenge, also due to the factors mentioned above. Improvements in technical infrastructure and capacity-building would help address some of these challenges as well. In addition to this, as noted by respondents, developing proactive collaborations with diverse institutions and individuals (educational/media/creative practice) would help widen networks, hence creating better awareness and visibility for work, such as through social media content and may also foster better engagement.

Content Curation and Open Access: As is widely understood, discourse around open access and relicensing is layered, and the protocols often vary widely depending on linguistic factors and cultural context. Instead of developing benchmarks, it may be prudent therefore to develop accessible content on existing, global relicensing protocols, in translation across languages. These may be further used by communities to understand and engage better with efforts in content donation. Guidelines for content curation will again need to be similarly developed and modified, keeping in mind how policies also evolve and change. An important consideration here in addition to quality, is also that of ethics of access and use, especially by communities themselves.

This short study was an effort to map some of the prevalent infrastructural challenges that underlie work on Indian language Wikisource projects. The observations from this report may offer useful insights in thinking through and developing strategies to address these gaps, through collaborative efforts in training and building resources for projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-infrastructural-needs-of-indian-language-wikisource-projects

Mapping Content on Gender and Sexuality in Indian Languages

Yashashwini Srinivas — 2022-10-21T13:03:20Z

This research study explores content production processes on gender and sexuality in Indian languages, its digital documentation and factors that affect its availability and use on open access platforms. The research was undertaken by Yashashwini Srinivas, with editorial inputs by Puthiya Purayil Sneha, and Torsha Sarkar. This research was part of short-term studies undertaken at the CIS-A2K programme 2021-22.

Read the report on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki here.

Introduction

Mapping Content on Gender and Sexuality in Indian languages is a research project that studies the content production process on gender and sexuality in Indian languages and challenges it with its digital documentation. It examines the diverse nature of content creation on these topics, processes of its digitalisation and related challenges that contribute to the disparity in its availability and use on open knowledge platforms such as Wikimedia projects, and potential strategies to address the same.

Through conversations with individuals and institutions working on gender, sexuality and allied topics like feminism, with a focus on women, non-binary and LGBTQIA+ related content, the study explores various aspects of content creation across multiple Indian languages, its access and use. Based on analysing this data and drawing on ongoing work within the mainstream discourse on gender and sexuality, the report offers a set of observations on ways to address challenges related to the gender gap in the content creation process on open knowledge platforms.

Context and Methods

Collaborative knowledge production platforms such as Wikimedia projects have recognised the existence of a gender gap and bias across its projects, understood largely as disparities in participation by and content related to women and, by extension, individuals across diverse gender and sexual identities. As observed in global literature as well as by work done by Indian language communities (with a focus largely on women Wikimedians), the gap is a result of various infrastructural and socio-cultural factors, including limited access to devices and the internet; balancing professional, domestic and volunteer work; lack of technical capacity-building and communication skills; limited presence in leadership positions, and the need for safe and healthy working environments among others. Several efforts have been made globally and in Indian language communities to address these challenges.

The issue of the gender gap, or indeed the challenges identified, are not unique to Wikimedia projects alone but are reflective of gender disparities in the public sphere and across the internet more broadly. Key learning from previous work in this space has been the need to connect these conversations and efforts to bridge the gender gap with the wider public discourse related to content creation on gender and sexuality online and in Indian languages. This study aimed to map such content with perspectives drawn from diverse gender and sexual identities. Importantly, it sought to understand better some of the infrastructural and cultural factors that shape creating such content and making it publicly available in diverse languages.

This study was done across four Indian languages - Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu (while English remained inevitable), focusing on content under two sub-themes– a. Cultural History and b. Feminist Production/Publication. The respondents in the study included organisations and individuals working in the areas of gender, sexuality and allied areas like feminist interventions and publishing, with a focus on writers, translators, artists, and multi-format content creators and curators. The study adopted a qualitative approach and comprised 19 semi-structured interviews (including four focused group discussions with organisations). Owing to the pandemic, all interactions for this study were done through telephonic conversation, email and virtual conferencing. These interactions have helped us understand the process of content creation in these areas. These problems manifest as gendered disparities in engagement with online platforms and potential solutions to address the same.

Key Research Areas

The three major thematic areas this research study focused on are as follows.

Nature of the Knowledge Produced
Content production on gender and sexuality in Indian languages spans several areas, including education, activism, advocacy and rights and justice, to name a few, given the location of much early writing in this space within the women’s rights and several other social movements in India. Important observations on the nature of this content by respondents include the emergence of a feminist critique across fields and disciplines, active interventions in the public discourse around gender and sexuality and the need for an intersectional approach to the process of content production. The growth of content in Indian languages and their increased availability on online platforms is also an important step towards addressing the predominance of Anglocentric and academic perspectives in these areas of research and work.

Digital Spaces, and movement of Content from Paper to Pixel
The cohort of the participants of this study has pointed out the evolution of the internet and digital tools from a luxury to a necessity but also acknowledged the widespread disparity in their access and use. However, the interesting outcome of this has been the transformation of traditional publishing methods and the emergence of cost-efficient space to produce content in various formats (like on social media) which fosters wider dissemination and engagement. However, increasing digital content production also comes with the need for advancements in digital literacy, resources and infrastructure. Digitalisation and open access to content on gender and sexuality in Indian languages is, therefore, a resource-intensive process, with related challenges such as copyright restrictions and technical limitations to access and use of Indian language content etc.

Indian Languages
The content creation process on gender and sexuality in Indian languages is complex given the country's diversity. Still, socio-cultural factors continue to determine the growth and use of languages, often resulting from asymmetries of power amongst diverse communities. This includes the marginalisation of certain forms of language use and content production processes that are not seen as within the ambit of dominant languages. Further, the lack of a gender-neutral vocabulary across many Indian languages and the significant challenges in the translation are important issues that emerged in this space. While the translation of content on gender and sexuality into Indian languages from English and other foreign languages is challenging due to the lack of a gender-neutral and conceptual vocabulary, as noted earlier; the lack of reverse translations and limitations within publishing and wider circulation of content are some of the factors that continue to affect work in this space.

Learnings

The learnings from this study outline the many challenges in content production on gender and sexuality, especially in Indian languages and its availability in digital spaces. These include the need to recognise that gendered disparities result from asymmetries of power, thus calling for a more critical outlook and intersectional approach towards the processes of content production (and related work such as translation, digitisation and archiving). They also offer several strategies and best practices drawn from observations by the respondents to address some of these gaps in content creation and circulation to ensure sustainable knowledge production ecosystems.

These include the dire need to bridge technical and infrastructural gaps, facilitate visibility and engagement with content through collaborations with key institutions and individuals in this space, and capacity-building through developing pedagogy and tools. Further, there is a need to diversify the approach towards creating and sourcing content and creating safe working environments by developing redressal mechanisms for marginalised and vulnerable communities. As Wikimedia projects constitute a major part of the digital knowledge ecosystem and have been working towards more diversity and inclusion across their projects, a sustained approach to bridge these gaps may be adopted in the Indian context. This would contribute immensely to efforts to bridge the gender gap across Wikimedia projects and in the larger digital public sphere.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/research-mapping-content-on-gender-and-sexuality-in-indian-languages

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

subodh — 2022-10-11T14:53:58Z

The digitization project of O Bharat, a historic biweekly published between 1912 to 1949 in Goa was completed through collaboration of different organizations. The trustees of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust initiated the project in collaboration with Marathi department of Goa University, Bhakti Dnyan Marg Sanstha and Goa Central Library. The Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge Programme facilitated the project with technical and financial assistance. Two local students scanned 12000 pages in 8 days. The year wise volumes of O Bharat are now freely available on Wikimedia Commons in the form of archive.


Above: Front page of O Bharat in Portuguese	Above: Front page of O Bharat in Marathi

Context

It all started like this. During the Wikimedia session at Goa University in October 2021, it was realised that there is very little documentation about the ‘Goa Liberation Struggle’ on Wikimedia projects. So, in the meeting Prof. Vinay Madgaonkar from the Marathi language department took the lead to develop a project around this theme.

The exhaustive list of freedom fighters, major incidents in history, the places related with struggle, monuments and memorials was prepared. The next day, to have a glimpse of the situation on ground, we toured a few places and monuments in South Goa. As we were shocked to see the sorry state of the memorials, we came across a monument of Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai known as Bharatkar (an editor of O Bharat), in a lush green forest near Quepem village. Being curious to know about the history of O Bharat publication, Prof. Vinay introduced us to the grandson of Bharatkar, Adv. Khagendra Desai who founded Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust, non-profit organisation in Goa to archive the works of Bharatkar.

As both of us share the same vision, CIS-A2K partnered with Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust, to relicense and digitise freedom fighter Bharatkar’s ‘O Bharat,’ a Marathi-Portuguese bilingual weekly, currently housed at Goa Central Public Library.

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Freedom fighter, social reformer and journalist 'Bharat'kar Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai, (7th Nov 1885 - 15th Aug 1949), started 'O Bharat' (in Portuguese) or 'Bharat' (in Marathi) on 6th November 1912. For 36 years thereafter, Bharatkar courageously protested the Portuguese occupation, relentlessly advocated radical and progressive social reforms and doggedly championed the cause of an independent and sovereign Indian Goa.

Partnerships

The partnerships with various stakeholders were developed after a series of discussions and official communications. The Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust obtained official permissions from the State Government departments for the access of O Bharat volumes in the library. Goa Central Public Library provided access to the bound volumes of O Bharat and permission to scan them. Another local organisation, Bhakti Dnyan Marg Sanstha in association with Goa University Marathi Department identified few students for the digitisation.

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

The trustees of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust relicensed the two volumes of selected editorials published in 2018 and the whole O Bharat issues into CC-BY-SA 4.0. We conducted digitisation training with Prof. Vinay Madgaonkar and students, Shravani Parab and Shridhar Raut, from Goa University to scan 12000 pages in 8 days. The officials of Goa Central Public Library cooperated in access to original volumes and in the process of digitisation. The Chief Minister of Goa inaugurated the project on Wikimedia Commons on India’s 75th Independence day, 15 August 2022. The year wise volumes of ‘O Bharat’ are now freely accessible to anyone in the world at any time anywhere. The uploading of the volumes is in progress.

Media links

The event of launching digitised content on Wikimedia was very well received by the people in Goa. The researchers, students, readers and journalists will have this reference value content while exploring the history of Goa. Various national and local media published the news covering all the aspects of this archive. The links are given below -

This was originally published on Wikimedia Blog in September 2022

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-of-o-bharat

Digitisation of O Bharat, a bilingual biweekly published in Goa from 1912 to 1949

subodh — 2022-10-11T13:11:15Z

Context

About the 36 Year Run of ‘O Bharat’ upto India’s Independence

Partnerships

Digitisation process and launch on Wikimedia Commons

Media links

This was originally published on Wikimedia Blog in September 2022

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/digitisation-o-bharat

NHA Data Sharing Guidelines – Yet Another Policy in the Absence of a Data Protection Act

Shweta Mohandas and Pallavi Bedi — 2022-09-29T15:17:24Z

In July this year, the National Health Authority (NHA) released the NHA Data Sharing Guidelines for the Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PM-JAY) just two months after publishing the draft Health Data Management Policy.

Reviewed and edited by Anubha Sinha

Launched in 2018, PM-JAY is a public health insurance scheme set to cover 10 crore poor and vulnerable families across the country for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation. Eligible candidates can use the scheme to avail of cashless benefits at any public/private hospital falling under this scheme. Considering the scale and sensitivity of the data, the creation of a well-thought-out data-sharing document is a much-needed step. However, the document – though only a draft – has certain portions that need to be reconsidered, including parts that are not aligned with other healthcare policy documents. In addition, the guidelines should be able to work in tandem with the Personal Data Protection Act whenever it comes into force. With no prior intimation of the publication of the guidelines, and the provision of a mere 10 days for consultation, there was very little scope for stakeholders to submit their comments and participate in the consultation. While the guidelines pertain to the PM-JAY scheme, it is an important document to understand the government’s concerns and stance on the sharing of health data, especially by insurance companies.

Definitions: Ambiguous and incompatible with similar policy documents

The draft guidelines add to the list of health data–related policies that have been published since the beginning of the pandemic. These include three draft health data management policies published within two years, which have already covered the sharing and management of health data. The draft guidelines repeat the pattern of earlier policies on health data, wherein there is no reference to the policies that predated it; in this case, the guidelines fail to refer to the draft National Digital Health Data Management Policy (published in April 2022). To add to this, the document – by placing the definitions at the end – is difficult to read and understand, especially when terms such as ‘beneficiary’, ‘data principal’, and ‘individual’ are used interchangeably. In the same vein, the document uses the terms ‘data principal’ and ‘data fiduciary’, and the definitions of health data and personal data, from the 2019 PDP Bill, while also referring to the IT Act SDPI Rules and its definition of ‘sensitive personal data’. While the guidelines state that the IT Act and Rules will be the legislation to refer to for these guidelines, it is to be noted that the IT Act under the SPDI Rules covers ‘body corporates’, which under Section 43A(1), is defined as “any company and includes a firm, sole proprietorship or other association of individuals engaged in commercial or professional activities;”. It is difficult to add responsibility and accountability to the organisations under the guidelines when they might not even be covered under this definition.

With each new policy, civil society organisations have been pointing out the need to have a data protection act before introducing policies and guidelines that deal with the processing and sharing of the data of individuals. Ideally, these policies – even in draft form – should have been published after the Personal Data Protection Bill was enacted, to ensure consistency with the provisions of the law. For example, the guidelines introduce a new category of governance mechanisms under the data-sharing committee headed by a data-sharing officer (DSO). The responsibilities and powers of the DSO are similar to that of the data protection officer under the draft PDP Bill as well as the National Data Health Management Policy (NHDMP). This, in turn, raises the question of whether the DSO and the DPOs under both the PDP Bill and the draft NDMP will have the same responsibilities. Clarity in terms of which of the policies are in force and how they intersect is needed to ensure a smooth implementation. Ideally, having multiple sources of definitions should be addressed at the drafting stage itself.

Guiding Principles: Need to look beyond privacy

The guidelines enumerate certain principles to govern the use, collection, processing, and transmission of the personal or sensitive personal data of beneficiaries. These principles are accountability, privacy by design, choice and consent, openness/transparency, etc. While these provisions are much needed, their explanation at times misses the mark of why these principles were added. For example, in the case of accountability, the guidelines state that the ‘data fiduciary’ shall be accountable for complying with measures based on the guiding principles However, it does not specify who the fiduciaries would be accountable to and what the steps are to ensure accountability. Similarly, in the case of openness and transparency, the guidelines state that the policies and practices relating to the management of personal data will be available to all stakeholders. However, openness and transparency need to go beyond policies and practices and should consider other aspects of openness, including open data and the use of open-source software and open standards. This again will add to transparency, in that it would specify the rights of the data principal, as the current draft looks at the rights of the data principal merely from a privacy perspective. In the case of purpose limitation as well, the guidelines are tied to the privacy notice, which again puts the burden on the individual (in this case, beneficiary) when the onus should actually be on the data fiduciary. Lastly, under the empowerment of beneficiaries, the guidelines state that the “data principal shall be able to seek correction, amendments, or deletion of such data where it is inaccurate;”. The right to deletion should not be conditional on inaccuracy, especially when entering the scheme is optional and consent-based.

Data sharing with third parties without adequate safeguards

The guidelines outline certain cases where personal data can be collected, used, or disclosed without the consent of the individual. One of these cases is when the data is anonymised. However, the guidelines do not detail how this anonymisation would be achieved and ensured through the life cycle of the data, especially when the clause states that the data will also be collected without consent. The guidelines also state that the anonymised data could be used for public health management, clinical research, or academic research. The guidelines should have limited the scope of academic research or added certain criteria to gain access to the data; the use of vague terminology could lead to this data (sometimes collected without consent) being de-anonymised or used for studies that could cause harm to the data principal or even a particular community. The guidelines state that the data can be shared as ‘protected health information’ with a government agency for oversight activities authorised by law, epidemic control, or in response to court orders. With the sharing of data, care should be taken to ensure data minimisation and purpose limitations that go beyond the explanations added in the body of the guidelines. In addition, the guidelines also introduce the concept of a ‘clean room’, which is defined as “a secure sandboxed area with access controls, where aggregated and anonymised or de-identified data may be shared for the purposes of developing inference or training models”. The definition does not state who will be developing these training models; it could be a cause of worry if AI companies or even insurance companies have the potential to use this data to train models that could eventually make decisions based on the results. The term ‘sandbox’ is explained under the now revoked DP Bill 2021 as “such live testing of new products or services in a controlled or test regulatory environment for which the Authority may or may not permit certain regulatory relaxations for a
specified period for the limited purpose of the testing”. Neither the 2019 Bill nor the IT Act/Rules defines ‘sandbox’; the guidelines should have ideally spent more time explaining how the sandbox system in the ‘Clean Room’ works.

Conclusion

The draft Data Sharing Guidelines are a welcome step in ensuring that the entities sharing and processing data have guidelines to adhere to, especially since the Data Protection Bill has not been passed yet. The mention of the best practices for data sharing in annexures, including practices for people who have access to the data, is a step in the right direction, which could be made better with regular training and sensitisation. While the guidelines are a good starting point, they still suffer from the issues that have been highlighted in similar health data policies, including not referring to older policies, adding new entities, and the reliance on digital and mobile technology. The guidelines could have added more nuance to the consent and privacy by design sections to ensure other forms of notice, e.g., notice in audio form in different Indian languages. While PM-JAY aims to reach 10 crore poor and vulnerable families, there is a need to look at how to ensure that consent is given according to the guidelines that are “free, informed, clear, and specific”.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/nha-data-sharing-guidelines

The Government’s Increased Focus on Regulating Non-Personal Data: A Look at the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy

Digvijay Chaudhary and Anamika Kundu — 2022-06-30T13:24:35Z

Digvijay Chaudhary and Anamika Kundu wrote an article on the National Data Governance Framework Policy. It was edited by Shweta Mohandas.

Introduction

Non Personal Data (‘NPD’) can be understood as any information not relating to an identified or identifiable natural person. The origin of such data can be both human and non-human. Human NPD would be such data which has been anonymised in such a way that the person to whom the data relates cannot be re-identified. Non-human NPD would mean any such data that did not relate to a human being in the first place, for example, weather data. There has been a gradual demonstrated interest in NPD by the government in recent times. This new focus on regulating non personal data can be owed to the economic incentive it provides. In its report, the Sri Krishna committee, released in 2018 agreed that NPD holds considerable strategic or economic interest for the nation, however, it left the questions surrounding NPD to a future committee.

History of NPD Regulation

In 2020, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MEITY’) constituted an expert committee (‘NPD Committee’) to study various issues relating to NPD and to make suggestions on the regulation of non-personal data. The NPD Committee differentiated NPD into human and non-human NPD, based on the data’s origin. Human NPD would include all information that has been stripped of any personally identifiable information and non-human NPD meant any information that did not contain any personally identifiable information in the first place (eg. weather data). The final report of the NPD Committee is awaited but the Committee came out with a revised draft of its recommendations in December 2020. In its December 2020 report, the NPD Committee proposed the creation of a National Data Protection Authority (‘NPDA’) as it felt this is a new and emerging area of regulation. Thereafter, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 (‘JPC’) came out with its version of the Data Protection Bill where it amended the short title of the PDP Bill 2019 to Data Protection Bill, 2021 widening the ambit of the Bill to include all types of data. The JPC report focuses only on human NPD, noting that non-personal data is essentially derived from one of the three sets of data - personal data, sensitive personal data, critical personal data - which is either anonymized or is in some way converted into non-re-identifiable data.

On February 21, 2022, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (‘MEITY’) came out with the Draft India Data Accessibility and Use Policy, 2022 (‘Draft Policy’). The Draft Policy was strongly criticised mainly due to its aims to monetise data through its sale and licensing to body corporates. The Draft Policy had stated that anonymised and non-personal data collected by the State that has “undergone value addition” could be sold for an “appropriate price”. During the Draft Policy’s consultation process, it had been withdrawn several times and then finally removed from the website. The National Data Governance Framework Policy (‘NDGF Policy’) is a successor to this Draft Policy. There is a change in the language put forth in the NDGF Policy from the Draft Policy, where the latter mainly focused on monetary growth. The new NDGF Policy aims to regulate anonymised non-personal data (‘NPD’) kept with governmental authorities and make it accessible for research and improving governance. It wishes to create an ‘India Datasets programme’ which will consist of the aforementioned datasets. While MEITY has opened the draft for public comments, is a need to spell out the procedure in some ways for stakeholders to draft recommendations for the NDGF policies in an informed manner. Through this piece, we discuss the NDGF Policy in terms of issues related to the absence of a comprehensive Data Protection Framework in India and the jurisdictional overlap of authorities under the NDGF Policy and DPB.

What the National Data Governance Framework Policy Says

Presently in India, NPD is stored in a variety of governmental departments and bodies. It is difficult to access and use this stored data for governmental functions without modernising collection and management of governmental data. Through the NDGF Policy, the government aims to build an Indian data storehouse of anonymised non-personal datasets and make it accessible for both improving governance and encouraging research. It imagines the establishment of an Indian Data Office (‘IDO’) set up by MEITY , which shall be responsible for consolidating data access and sharing of non-personal data across the government. In addition, it also mandates a Data Management Unit for every Ministry/department that would work closely with the IDO. IDO will also be responsible for issuing protocols for sharing NPD. The policy further imagines an Indian Data Council (‘IDC’) whose function would be to define frameworks for important datasets, finalise data standards, and Metadata standards and also review the implementation of the policy. The NDGF Policy has provided a broad structure concerning the setting up of anonymisation standards, data retention policies, data quality, and data sharing toolkit. The NDGF Policy states that these standards shall be developed and notified by the IDO or MEITY or the Ministry in question and need to be adhered to by all entities.

The Data Protection Framework in India

The report adopted by the JPC, felt that it is simpler to enact a single law and a single regulator to oversee all the data that originates from any data principal and is in the custody of any data fiduciary. According to the JPC, the draft Bill deals with various kinds of data at various levels of security. The JPC also recommended that since the Data Protection Bill (‘DPB’) will handle both personal and non-personal data, any further policy / legal framework on non-personal data may be made a part of the same enactment instead of any separate legislation. The draft DPB states that what is to be done with the NDP shall be decided by the government from time to time according to its policy. As such, neither the DPB, 2021 nor the NDGF Policy go into details of regulating NPD but only provide a broad structure of facilitating free-flow of NPD, without taking into account the specific concerns that have been raised since the NPD committee came out with its draft report on regulating NPD dated December 2020.

Jurisdictional overlaps among authorities and other concerns

Under the NDGF policy, all guidelines and rules shall be published by a body known as the Indian Data Management Office (‘IDMO’). The IDMO is set to function under the MEITY and work with the Central government, state governments and other stakeholders to set standards. Currently, there is no sign of when the DPB will be passed as law. According to the JPC, the reason for including NPD within the DPB was because of the impossibility to differentiate between PD and NPD. There are also certain overlaps between the DPB and the NDGF which are not discussed by the NDGF. NDGF does not discuss the overlap between the IDMO and Data Protection Authority (‘DPA’) established under the DPB 2021.

Under the DPB, the DPA is tasked with specifying codes of practice under clause 49. On the other hand, the NDGF has imagined the setting up of IDO, IDMO, and the IDC, which shall be responsible for issuing codes of practice such as data retention, and data anonymisation, and data quality standards. As such, there appears to be some overlap in the functions of the to-be-constituted DPA and the NDGF Policy.

Furthermore, while the NDGF Policy aims to promote openness with respect to government data, there is a conflict with open government data (‘OGD’) principles when there is a price attached to such data. OGD is data which is collected and processed by the government for free use, reuse and distribution. Any database created by the government must be publicly accessible to ensure compliance with the OGD principles.

Conclusion

Streamlining datasets across different authorities is a huge challenge for the government and hence the NGDF policy in its current draft requires a lot of clarification. The government can take inspiration from the European Union which in 2018, came out with a principles-based approach coupled with self-regulation on the framework of the free flow of non-personal data. The guidance on the free-flow of non-personal data defines non-personal data based on the origin of data - data which originally did not relate to any personal data (non-human NPD) and data which originated from personal data but was subsequently anonymised (human NPD). The regulation further realises the reality of mixed data sets and regulates only the non-personal part of such datasets and where the datasets are inextricably linked, the GDPR would apply to such datasets. Moreover, any policy that seeks to govern the free flow of NPD ought to make it clear that in case of re-identification of anonymised data, such re-identified data would be considered personal data. The DPB, 2021 and the NGDF, both fail to take into account this difference.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/national-data-governance-framework-policy

WIPO SCCR 42: Statement by CIS on the Limitations and Exceptions Agenda Item

sinha — 2022-05-12T08:41:01Z

Anubha Sinha delivered a statement on behalf of CIS, on day 3 of the 42nd WIPO SCCR session on the Limitations and Exceptions Agenda Item.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I’m speaking on behalf of the Centre for Internet and Society, India.

The Proposal by the African Group for a Draft work program on Exceptions and Limitations has the potential to address issues faced in the domains of access to information, culture and education, keeping in mind that there have been systemic shifts in the knowledge ecosystem since pandemic, which will endure in the long term as well.

In India, researchers at public and private institutions in both in science and social science disciplines over the period of 2020-2021, submitted to a court of law that they faced serious challenges in remotely accessing research, especially journal articles during the pandemic.In the same vein, a study by the Confederation of Open Access Repositories found that copyright and licensing were an impediment to discovery of, and access to, COVID-19 research outputs, inhibiting research collaborations.

At WIPO, in the past few years, numerous exercises such as action plans and regional seminars implemented by this committee recognised limitations and exceptions for education and research as a priority. Digital Preservation emerged as a consensual solution that could be acted on - as identified in the regional seminar report as well.

We believe that the Proposal by the African Group for a Draft work program on Exceptions and Limitations effectively prioritises these actionable aspects without prejudging the outcome of the negotiations on the limitations and exceptions agenda. Hence, we look forward to member states making progress by constructively considering and acting on the way forward laid in the Proposal.

Thank you.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/wipo-sccr-42-statement-by-cis-on-the-limitations-and-exceptions-agenda-item

Studying Platform Work in Mumbai & New Delhi

Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, Simiran Lalvani and Noopur Raval — 2022-05-05T17:13:10Z

A report by Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) and Azim Premji University (APU) maps platform work in India and notes from four studies of workers driving taxis and delivering food for platform companies.

Introduction

With the arrival and rapid spread of gig platforms in India and across the world, scholars across fields – from economics and sociology to digital and new media studies – started to investigate how app-based gig platforms are affecting large and small-scale social and economic transformations. In the ‘first wave’ of gig economy research, scholars questioned the nomenclature itself, debating whether it should be called the ‘sharing economy’, gig economy, or rental economy. The impetus for these debates was, perhaps, that we already had some existing models for the sharing economy that largely drew on the idea of ‘the commons’ – or the general understanding that highly networked environments would offer people the opportunity to share their knowledge and spare resources freely, without charge, thus bypassing established corporate oligopolies as well as national and international laws that restricted free movement and access to knowledge and resources – especially for people from the so-called ‘developing’ world. To that effect, there exists valuable research now that bridges the moment of the sharing economy with the gig economy. For instance, Lampinen and colleagues studied older platforms and communities, like Couch Surfing, which allowed people to host and live on other people’s couches (or in their spare rooms) for no cost. The same set of scholars also studied Air Bnb and offered comparative understandings of how norms and expectations around partaking in (someone’s) idle resources change when the ‘gig logic’ enters the frame and platforms become real-time marketplaces for the exchange of goods and services, as against a temporally slower and more altruistic community-based model of sharing.

The ‘second wave’ of gig economy research, mostly originating in and responding to technological,social, and economic developments in North America and Western Europe, has focused on the disruptive effects of gig platforms on employment trends and the future of work. To elaborate, these scholars argue that gig platforms, by offering the promise of flexible work and quick earnings, but not the benefits of full-time, standard employment,are contributing to the ongoing casualisation and precaritisation of work at large. As marketplaces powered by algorithmic decision-making,platforms often argue that the resultant prices as well as earnings are not a product of human or organisational decisions but rather a result of algorithmic decisions and data points. Since these algorithmic systems are ‘black boxed’ or treated as highly confidential intellectual property, there is little scope to audit or ‘peek’ into their workings to understand how or why ‘real-time dynamic surge pricing’ works the way it does. A related host of issues concerns over the employment status of gig platform workers. As critics of platforms have noted, while platform companies classify workers as ‘independent contractors’ or‘vendors’, gig workers satisfy all the requirements of the employment test and thus deserve tobe recognised and compensated as full-time employees. In a landmark case brought forth by gig worker representatives in the UK, the court did recognise platform workers as employees and called for companies to reclassify them as such. Underlying debates around employment classification, compensation, and job security are united by a centralised theme that resonates with labour scholars globally – the (in)formalisation of work.

Reclassifying gig workers as full-time employees would further make them eligible for paid sick leave, maternity leave, and other health benefits, and would possibly make them eligible for minimum wage as well, thus leading to the formalisation and increased regulation of gig work.As scholars of platform work (including crowdwork) outside of industrialised countries have noted, even reclassification or simply recognising these jobs as a part of the formal sector may not necessarily translate to similar benefits or increased salaries in the longer term. Juxtaposed against a landscape of ubiquitous informality, as in the case of India, gig work does offer some features and affordances of formal work, such as financialisation, formal contracts, and the ability to at least appeal unfair practices, albeit to a limited degree. However, formalisation for its own sake in traditional legal and economistic terms may neither be possible nor entirely in response to the unique moment of precarity in the global South, where youth unemployment and skill and job misalignment, among other structural issues, inform the horizon of what kinds of futures are possible and how to attain them.

However, investigating questions of work, futures, and digital participation are not merely about finding answers to challenges in structural economic development and long- and short-term policy-making. The present, so to speak, is far from being determined by, or lived out in, the service of state or corporate visions; it is not the result of what happens between people as they participate on digital platforms. What happens to urban spaces; notions of kinship, publicity, social relationships, and hierarchies; and quotidian understandings of money, desire, aspirations, respect, morals, and justice is equally rich and important when understanding social transformation and the contribution of digital media to social change. Further, rather than approach economic, social, and cultural encounters as separate, we find it valuable to unpack platform encounters and exchanges, as we describe them in this report, as socio-technical and digital-cultural texts that hold within them the working out of macro and micro phenomena. Why and how rural, urban, migrant, and local workers take up gig work and invest in certain kinds of smartphones, cars, scooters, friendships, relationships, and uniforms cannot be attributed only to economic rationality or macro-sociological factors. But, simultaneously, in addition to these material cues, the conversations between gig workers, the norms they hold, and the norms that are in the process of being worked out as they go through their daily motions and emotions, their changing fashioning of the self, the perplexity resulting from daily work within an environment where they get very little information beforehand – all these are important forms of evidence to understand the human-machine encounter within a global South context and the resultant transformation of the self and society. Class, gender, and caste power in urban India are constantly being asserted, challenged, and reworked, not just through visible, large-scale social movements, but also through habits of consumption, intimate conversation, and encounters with the ‘other’. In the field reports that follow, researchers have tried to mine and attend to these daily intimate platform encounters to produce traces of what is ongoing and still being worked out: the process of platformisation and its social, cultural, and digital effects.

When we imagined this project, we were responding to some of the gaps as well as the disciplinary orthodoxy of scholarship that dictates platform studies and digital labour scholarship. We deliberately wanted to follow and replicate more generative approaches to the study of capitalisms and platform capitalism in this case. To that effect, we wanted to focus on the life worlds and laboring practices of gig workers, looking beyond the money they make through apps, how they are treated by platform companies, and how they resist their algorithmic management. As we succeeded in some measure through each field report, our aim was to recentre gig platform scholarship around who these workers are as urban dwellers, as gendered, caste, and class-ed bodies navigating Indian city spaces, and how their aspirations, constraints, and understandings of success, money, safety, and respect inform their encounters with the platform company, customers, police personnel, and the app itself.

We, the team at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, as well as co-principal investigator (PI), Noopur Raval, and field researchers, Anushree Gupta, Rajendra Jadhav, Sarah Zia, and Simiran Lalvani, are grateful to the Azim Premji University Research Grants Programme for their generous sponsorship and support for the project. This project contributes to thinking about the Future(s) of Work theme that is an active area of inquiry within the university and beyond. To reiterate, digital labour and platform studies scholarship in India and the global South is still at a nascent stage. Since the time we conceptualised, conducted, and analysed this gig work research, more studies have emerged (including studies by other researchers at CIS), and our report adds to this growing field of inquiry. The insights we present far from foreclose the questions or even the lines of inquiry that we open here. The report is structured as follows: we begin by reflecting on the changes in the gig work landscape after the COVID-19 pandemic, specifically in terms of how the pandemic has affected working-class communities, and, by extension, those who work in the platform economy. Subsequently, we present individual field reports by three field researchers, Sarah Zia, Simiran Lalvani, and Anushree Gupta, who reflect on their studies of gig work in Mumbai and Delhi, respectively. The report ends with a short conclusion and some methodological reflections that we gathered during the project.

Access the full report here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-and-apu-studying-platform-work-in-mumbai-and-new-delhi

Decoding India’s Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)

Vipul Kharbanda — 2022-04-06T09:13:48Z

In her budget speech presented in the Parliament on 1 February 2022, the Finance Minister of India – Nirmala Sitharaman – announced that India will launch its own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) from the financial year 2022–23. The lack of information regarding the Indian CBDC project has resulted in limited discussions in the public sphere. This article is an attempt to briefly discuss the basics of CBDCs such as the definition, necessity, risks, models, and associated technologies so as to shed more light on India’s CBDC project.

1. What is a CBDC?

Before delving into the various aspects of a CBDC, we must first define it. A CBDC in its simplest form has been described by the RBI as “the same as currency issued by a central bank but [which] takes a different form than paper (or polymer). It is sovereign currency in an electronic form and it would appear as liability (currency in circulation) on a central bank’s balance sheet. The underlying technology, form and use of a CBDC can be moulded for specific requirements. CBDCs should be exchangeable at par with cash.”

2. Policy Goals

Launching any CBDC involves the setting up of infrastructure, which comes with notable costs. It is therefore imperative that the CBDC provides significant advantages that can justify the investment it entails. Some of the major arguments in favour of CBDCs and their relevance in the Indian context are as follows.

Financial Inclusion: In countries with underdeveloped banking and payment systems, proponents believe that CBDCs can boost financial inclusion through the provision of basic accounts and an electronic payment system operated by the central bank. However, financial inclusion may not be a powerful motive in India, where at least one member in 99% of rural and urban households have a bank account, according to some surveys. Even the US Federal Reserve recognises that further research is needed to assess the potential of CBDCs to expand financial inclusion, especially among underserved and lower-income households.

Access to Payments: – It is claimed that CBDCs provide scope for improving the existing payments landscape by offering fast and efficient payment services to users. Further, supporters claim that a well-designed, robust, open CBDC platform could enable a wide variety of firms to compete to offer payment services. It could also enable them to innovate and generate new capabilities to meet the evolving needs of an increasingly digitalised economy. However, it is not yet clear exactly how CBDCs would achieve this objective and whether there would be any noticeable improvements in the payment systems space in India, which already boasts of a fairly advanced and well-developed payment systems market.

Increased System Resilience: Countries with a highly developed digital payments landscape are aware of their reliance on electronic payment systems. The operational resilience of these systems is of critical importance to the entire payments landscape. The CBDC would not only act as a backup to existing payment systems in case of an emergency but also reduce the credit risk and liquidity risk, i.e., the risk that payment system providers will turn insolvent and run out of liquidity. Such risks can also be mitigated through robust regulatory supervision of the entities in the payment systems space.

Increasing Competition: A CBDC has the potential to increase competition in the country’s payments sector in two main ways, (i) directly – by providing an alternative payment system that competes with existing private players, and (ii) by providing an open platform for private players, thereby reducing entry barriers for newer players offering more innovative services at lower costs.

Addressing Illicit Transactions: Cash offers a level of anonymity that is not always available with existing payment systems. If a CBDC offers the same level of anonymity as cash then it would pose a greater CFT/AML (Combating Financial Terrorism/ Anti-Money Laundering) risk. However, if appropriate CFT/AML requirements are built into the design of the CBDC, it could address some of the concerns regarding its usage in illegal transactions. Such CFT/AML requirements are already being followed by existing banks and payment systems providers.

Reduced Costs: If a CBDC is adopted to the extent that it begins to act as a substitute for cash, it could allow the central bank to print lesser currency, thereby saving costs on printing, transporting, storing, and distributing currency. Such a cost reduction is not exclusive to only CBDTs but can also be achieved through the widespread adoption of existing payment systems.

Reduction in Private Virtual Currencies (VCs): Central banks are of the view that a widely used CBDC will provide users with an alternative toexisting private cryptocurrencies and thereby limit various risks including credit risks, volatility risks, risk of fraud, etc. However if a CBDC does not offer the same level of anonymity or potential for high return on investment that is available with existing VCs, it may not be considered an attractive alternative.

Serving Future Needs: Several central banks see the potential for “programmable money” that can be used to conduct transactions automatically on the fulfilment of certain conditions, rules, or events. Such a feature may be used for automatic routing of tax payments to authorities at the point of sale, shares programmed to pay dividends directly to shareholders, etc. Specific programmable CBDCs can also be issued for certain types of payments such as toward subway fees, shared bike fees, or bus fares. This characteristic of CBDCs has huge potential in India in terms of delivery of various subsidies.

3. Potential Risks

As with most things, CBDCs have certain drawbacks and risks that need to be considered and mitigated in the designing phase itself. A successful and widely adopted CBDC could change the structure and functions of various stakeholders and institutions in the economy.

Both private and public sector banks rely on bank deposits to fund their loan activities. Since bank deposits offer a safe and risk-freeway to park one’s savings, a large number of people utilise this facility, thereby providing banks with a large pool of funds that is utilised for lending activities. A CBDC could offer the public a safer alternative to bank deposits since it eradicates even the minute risk of the bank becoming insolvent making it more secure than regular bank deposits. A widely accepted CBDC could adversely affect bank deposits, thereby reducing the availability of funds for lending by banks and adversely affecting credit facilities in the economy. Further, since a CBDC is a safer form of money, in times of stress, people may opt to convert funds stored in banks into safer CBDCs, which might cause a bank run. However, these issues can be mitigated by making the CBDC deposits non-interest-bearing, thus reducing their attractiveness as an alternative to bank deposits. Further, in times of monetary stress, the central bank could impose restrictions on the amount of bank money that can be converted into the CBDC, just as it has done in the case of cash withdrawals from specific banks when it finds that such banks are undergoing extreme financial stress.

If a significantly large portion of a country’s population adopts a private digital currency, it could seriously hamper the ability of the central bank to carry out several crucial functions, such as implementing the monetary policy, controlling inflation, etc.

It may be safe to say that the question of how CBDCs may affect the economy in general and more specifically, the central bank’s ability to implement monetary policy, seigniorage, financial stability, etc. requires further research and widespread consultation to mitigate any potential risk factors.

4. The Role of the Central Bank in a CBDC

The next issue that requires attention when dealing with CBDCs is the role and level of involvement of the central bank. This would depend not only on the number of additional functions that the central bank is comfortable adopting but also on the maturity of the fintech ecosystem in the country. Broadly speaking, there are three basic models concerning the role of the central bank in CBDCs:

(i) Unilateral CBDCs: Where the central bank performs all the functions right from issuing the CBDC to carrying out and verifying transactions and also dealing with the users by maintaining their accounts.

(ii) Hybrid or Intermediate Model: In this model, the CBDCs are issued by the central bank, but private firms carry out some of the other functions such as providing wallets to end users, verifying transactions, updating ledgers, etc. These private entities will be regulated by the central bank to ensure that there is sufficient supervision.

(iii) Synthetic CBDCs: In this model, the CBDC itself is not issued by the central bank but by private players. However, these CBDCs are backed by central bank liabilities, thus providing the sovereign stability that is the hallmark of a CBDC.

The mentioned models could also be modified to suit the needs of the economy; e.g., the second model could be modified by not only allowing private players to perform the user-facing functions, but also offering the same functions either by the central bank or even some other public sector enterprise. Such a scenario has the potential to offer services at a reduced price (perhaps with reduced functionalities) thereby fulfilling the financial inclusion and cost reduction policy goals mentioned above.

5. Role of Blockchain Technology

While it is true that the entire concept of a CBDC evolved from cryptocurrencies and that popular cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ether are based on blockchain technology, recent research seems to suggest that blockchain may not necessarily be the default technology for a CBDC. Additionally, different jurisdictions have their own views on the merits and demerits of this technology, for example, the Bahamas and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank have DLT-based systems; however, China has decided that DLT-based systems do not have adequate capacity to process transactions and store data to meet its system requirements.

Similarly, a project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Currency Initiative and the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston titled “Project Hamilton” to explore the CBDC design space and its technical challenges and opportunities has surmised that a distributed ledger operating under the jurisdiction of different actors is not necessarily crucial. It was found that even if controlled by a single actor, the DLT architecture has downsides such as performance bottlenecks and significantly reduced transaction throughput scalability compared to other options.

6. Conclusion

Although a CBDC potentially offers some advantages, launching one is an expensive and complicated proposition, requiring in-depth research and detailed analyses of a large number of issues, only some of which have been highlighted here. Therefore, before launching a CBDC, central banks issue white papers and consult with the public in addition to major stakeholders, conduct pilot projects, etc. to ensure that the issue is analysed from all possible angles. Although the Reserve Bank of India is examining various issues such as whether the CBDC would be retail or wholesale, the validation mechanism, the underlying technology to be used, distribution architecture, degree of anonymity, etc., it has not yet released any consultation papers or confirmed the completion of any pilot programmes for the CBDC project.

It is, therefore, unclear whether there has been any detailed cost–benefit analysis by the government or the RBI regarding its feasibility and benefits over existing payment systems and whether such benefits justify the costs of investing in a CBDC. For example, several of the potential advantages discussed here, such as financial inclusion and improved payment systems may not be relevant in the Indian context, while others such as reduced costs and a reduction in illegal transactions may be achieved by improving the existing systems. It must be noted that the current system of distribution of central bank money has worked well over the years, and any systemic changes should be made only if the potential upside justifies such fundamental changes.

The Government of India has already announced the launch of the Indian CBDC in early 2023, but the lack of public consultation on such an important project is a matter of concern. The last time the RBI took a major decision in the crypto space without consulting stakeholders was when it banned financial institutions from having any dealings with crypto entities. On that occasion, the circular imposing the ban was struck down by the Supreme Court as violating the fundamental right to trade and profession. It is, therefore, imperative that the government and the Reserve Bank conduct wide-ranging consultations with experts and the public to conduct a detailed and thorough cost–benefit analysis to determine the feasibility of such a project before deciding on the launch of an Indian CBDC.

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Comments on InDEA 2.0

divyank — 2022-03-22T06:26:39Z

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