Centre for Internet and Society

Animating the Archive – A Survey of Printed Digitized Materials in Bengali and their Use in Higher Education

sneha — 2014-04-14T07:12:32Z

With the advent of digital technologies and the internet, archival practice has seen much change in its imagination and function, such as to extend its scope beyond preservation to a collaborative, open source model which facilitates new modes of knowledge production. In this blog post, Saidul Haque reflects upon his research project on a survey of digitized materials in Bengali, and some of the impediments to their use in higher education and research.

At present a large collection of printed Bengali materials in the form of books, journals, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, etc., is scattered in various public libraries, institutions, and private collections in India and abroad.These endangered and hidden cultural resources in vernacular languages need to be digitized and shared to a networked community using an online platform not only for the sake of preservation but also for wider dissemination. A comprehensive survey of printed digitized materials in the field of Arts and Culture, Education, Politics/Economy was executed as part of a collaborative project with HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore. The survey was carried out at School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University and Centre for the Study of Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata. These are the pioneering institutions in Bengal to introduce digital preservation of cultural materials and they have ongoing digitization initiatives. Online archives/ digital repositories available in the public domain [like West Bengal Public Library Network, Society for Natural Language Technology Research (SNLTR), Digital Library of India, E-Gyankosh of Indira Gandhi National Open University(IGNOU), Rare Bengali Book section in Internet Archive, Digital South Asia Library, various public blogs] also came under this survey. Observations were gathered through interviews with resource persons involved in digitization. Discussion with students, researchers and faculty members concentrated on the use of Bengali digitized materials in higher education.

School of Cultural Texts and Records(SCTR) has digitized popular street literature and a wide collection of rare and unique texts on Bengali drama of 19th century .The revolutionary Bichitra Project of the School provides a complete online resource of Rabindranath Tagore’s works in both English and Bengali. (http://bichitra.jdvu.ac.in/index.php). Centre for Studies in Social Science, on the other hand started preserving rare documents in microfilm format from 1993 but later shifted to digitization mode. In 2008 the CSSSC and Savifa (University of Heidelberg) through a collaborative programme made available the collection of CSSSC (the early printed literature in Bengali from 1800-1950) online. The centre has also retrieved two major and endangered Bengali newspapers: Jugantar and Amrita Bazar Patrika from colonial and post–colonial Bengal. Amrita bazaar patrika is available online through the World Newspaper Archive Collection.

Online repositories like West Bengal Public Library Network and Digital Library of India also holds a large number of Bengali books but in most cases Indian language full-text contents are available in TIFF image format only.

The issue of using digitized Bengali materials in higher education sheds light on various problems related to free access, copyright issue, technological adversity, and metadata. Most of the materials available in digital domain are popular story books and hence scarcity of scholarly materials in Bengali for higher education is evident. Most of the students do not know where to search and how to search and they prefer to visit libraries. There are almost 17,000 entries in the domain of Bengali Wikipedia. But either students are unaware of their existence or don’t rely on these materials as these are not updated. Most of them are even unaware of the fact that they can edit these pages. Recently a few scholars started uploading essays in Bengali on Academia.edu. But teachers are doubtful about the quality of these materials as anyone can upload papers here. E-thesis depository spaces like Shodhganga and Vidyanidhi contain materials in English and a few in regional languages like Hindi but not in Bengali. In the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), there are only two bi-lingual journals ( Barnolipi and Pratidhwani) which publish articles in Bengali. Teachers are unanimous in the belief that online publication of Bengali research articles will bring more research citations and also decrease the rate of duplicity of same research topic. But scarcity of open access Bengali materials (digitized and born digital) online is a great hindrance in doing research in Bengali.

Researchers in Bengali language and literature may also come forward to participate actively in digitizing rare materials. Of course funding and technical equipment are great hindrance but institutions like SCTR, Jadavpur University are eager to provide scanners and other support to those who want to digitize important cultural resources. Presently the concept of online Bengali bookshops has emerged. The numbers of online e-magazines and e-newspapers in Bengali is growing day by day. What we need is to make people aware of the existence of these resources. It is a positive step on the part of people who are using social networking sites in Bengali and often bringing out creative magazines online to reach a greater audience.

Metadata of Bengali digitized materials is mostly in transliterated form and not in Bengali. Hence searching in Bengali fonts often brings no result. People engaged in digitization should be experts in handling Bengali standard key board like Avro. It would also be good if people engaged in digitization of Indic languages join in workshops and build a common standard of Metadata. Rather than following Western forms like Dublin code it may be thought of an indigenous code of metadata in Bengali. Issue of Free Access and the question of copyright go hand in hand. A large bulk of digitized Bengali materials is available in the archive room of SCTR and CSSS. These cannot be uploaded online for free access due to copyright issues or the unwillingness of the contributors of original materials. Most donors are not willing to give their works to these institutions as often they think that it will diminish their own authority and researchers will go to the University directly and not to them. Often the donors can’t trust the institutes and ask to digitize materials in their own home and return the original materials as soon as possible before they are stolen or lost. Regarding problem of digitization it is observed that most materials are fragile and digitization tasks with scanners and other technological instruments often led to the destruction of the original material.

We also need to think of preserving the large terabytes of data on one hand and original copies on the other hand. Institutional collaboration can be one way of bringing all digital materials in one single platform. In this regard, the role of C-DAC, Kolkata and SNLTR in digitization of vernacular language materials is praiseworthy.

Saidul Haque is a student of the PG course on Digital Humanities and Cultural Informatics at the School of Cultural Texts and Records, Jadavpur University, Kolkata. This research study was part of a series of projects commissioned by HEIRA-CSCS, Bangalore as part of a collaborative exercise on mapping the Digital Humanities in India. See here for more on this initiative.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/animating-the-archive

Andhra Loyola College and the Centre for Internet & Society sign MoU for Better Net Access

rahim — 2015-01-20T18:47:13Z

Andhra Loyola College (ALC) and the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge team (CIS-A2K) have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to steward the growth of Telugu Wikipedia and to make available free knowledge in Telugu to all Telugus across the globe.

Highlights

Ten theosophical books authored by Rev. Fr. P. Jojaiah, SJ released under free license (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
For the first time an educational institution in the state of Andhra Pradesh is signing an MoU with CIS-A2K to work collaboratively to qualitatively improve Telugu Wikipedia.
ALC faculty and students to create free e-content in Telugu on Telugu Wikipedia.
Digital content from the fields of Botany, Physics, Chemistry, Telugu, Statistics, Ethics and Religion, Music and Dance to be produced on Telugu Wikipedia

This is a big leap for the college in opening up itself to the internet world. The college is planning to train its faculty and students to create free econtent in Telugu. These resources will in turn be dedicated to the society.

The signing of the MoU took place in the college premises on August 14, 2014 at 2.00 p.m.

Ten theosophical books authored by Rev. Fr. P. Jojaiah, SJ was released under free license (CC-BY-SA-4.0) on the same stage.

The event was organized by ALC and CIS.

CIS-A2K has been closely working with ALC. They have organised 4 workshops for students and faculty. CIS-A2K also helped in QR coding of the institute.

Now, this MoU would further enable CISA2K and ALC to collaboratively work on creating free and open knowledge in Telugu across various disciplines on Telugu Wikipedia. This collaboration is set to benefit millions of Telugus to freely access knowledge in Telugu on the internet.

Media Coverage

ALC signs MoU for better net access (The Hindu, August 15, 2014)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/alc-cis-sign-mou-better-net-access

And now, Aadhaar-enabled smartphones for easy verification and money transfer

praskrishna — 2016-08-12T02:50:58Z

As reported earlier, the Indian government has planned to make Aadhaar-enabled smartphones , with which users would be able to self-authenticate and let businesses and banks verify the identity of their clients. This would also help in the government's aim of a cashless society.

The article was published in Business Insider on August 10, 2016. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

While applauding this plan Nandan Nikelani, former chairman of UIDAI told ET that, "Iris and fingerprint sensors are now becoming a standard feature in smartphones anyway, and this requirement will only take a minor tweak to the operating system. Once enabled, people will be able to use phones to do self-authentication and KYC (know your customer)."

In July, senior executives of UIDAI and smartphone companies met to discuss ways to allow smartphones let citizens authenticate their fingerprints and iris on the phone, so that they could avail government services from the comfort of their homes.

The most immediate use for these smartphones would be the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), a new payment system which would allow money transfer between any two parties by simply using their mobile phones and a virtual payment address.

"The two-factor authentication in UPI is now being done with mobile phone as one factor, and MPIN as the second factor. But once you have Aadhaar authentication on the phone, then the second factor can be biometric authentication through Aadhaar," said Nilekani.

With time, Aadhaar authentication will also be made open to third party apps, said another person familiar with the ongoing discussions on the condition of anonymity.

This would let users allow apps to access their biometric and iris scans, just like they grant access to other features like camera, contacts, SMS etc. However, from their end, handset makers have raised security concerns about using iris scan for Aadhar authentication.

"The primary challenge lies in safe storing of the iris scan between the time it is captured by the camera and then sent to UIDAI server seeking authentication," said an industry insider.

For this, the he proposal includes a "hardware secure zone" which would encrypt biometric data before sending it out. However, even this isn't a foolproof idea.

"Unfortunately, from the biometric sensor the data goes to the hardware secure zone via the operating system. Therefore, the biometric data can be intercepted by the operating system before it is sent to the hardware secure zone," said Sunil Abraham, executive director at Bengaluru-based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

To this, Nilekani said, "the reluctance to make changes at the vendor level is mainly coming from a desire for control of biometric data for strategic and commercial purposes. Privacy and security are bogus reasons." He added that both ends, the handset and the Aadhaar database, will be using the highest level of encryption.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/business-insider-august-10-2016-and-now-aadhaar-enabled-smartphones-for-easy-verification-and-money-transfer

Analyzing Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012

praskrishna — 2013-02-25T08:13:16Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/draft-dna-profiling-bill-2012.pdf

Analysis on the strategies of Mozilla and Wiki communities on gender gap aspects

bhuvana — 2019-10-03T11:56:37Z

There is a need for research on how Open Source communities are trying to balance the gender ratio and how they provide the safe space environment to its contributors. With this in mind I have come up with this blog as I am an active contributor of Mozilla since 5 years and also got myself recently introduced to Wikimedia and its sister projects, have interacted with few Indian women contributors in both of these communities and came out with a few observations on how I see them in India and what could be improved in both communities.

Opening note

Wikipedia community

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia of articles where many users can edit it freely and it has become so large that you run across it all the time in Google. It is so popular that it is now one of the Top 5 websites in the world! The reason behind the growth is because the articles are simple and useful.

Wikipedians are the contributors who do a communal work to improve the content by editing bits of text and cluster them to the large database. Beyond this there are other sister projects of Wikimedia which interest the audience on whichever they are expertise about. The main motivation for these contributors is their freedom to contribute in their own native language which they are more passionate about. This is a great social cause they are contributing towards.

Mozilla community

Mozilla makes browsers, apps, code and tools that put people before profit. In fact, there’s a non-profit Foundation at the heart of the enterprise.Their mission is to keep the internet open and accessible to all. Hope everyone uses or had at least at some point seen Firefox browser/logo, so this is the prime product of Mozilla. There are various projects to support the Firefox browser and they are mostly Open Source.

Mozillians are the volunteers who contribute in the improvement of these projects thus helping the world to access the internet and the Open web.Mozilla Volunteers are passionate to learn,collaborate and knowledge share among a large world-wide community and the crew is a mix of coder, non-coders, policy makers and anyone who supports Open Web. The point that drives everyone to contribute is that the community creates a vibe to contribute and to create a safe and better experience in accessing the digital world.

WikiProject Women

This a group of editors who aim to improve Wikipedia's coverage of women's topics. It brings Wikipedia users of all genders, sexual orientations, geographic locations, and personal backgrounds together to discuss and collaborate on coverage of women's content across Wikipedia.There are various streams in which women can be part of the larger mission for instance:

Art and Feminism

Women in Red

Wiki loves women

Womoz

Women & Mozilla ("WoMoz") a community composed of members from different Open Source projects.It is mainly dedicated to improving women's visibility and involvement in Free/Open Source and Mozilla, and to increase the number of women contributors. Anyone can participate in this project, regardless of sex, age, job, etc. We are united by the common goal of promoting women's visibility and involvement in open source communities. They also believe that the Internet, FLOSS projects and computing must remain open and participatory. This also means accessible in the same way to all - women and men alike.

It also believe solutions should continuously be proposed in order to improve the visibility of all minorities, who for various reasons might not have equal access to computers or the Internet. This project is an example of this, as it aims at ameliorating women's presence and participation in Mozilla and open source. But currently this group is not very active, except for a few regional contributors where they find massive necessity to focus on the women participation.

Overview of the strategies used for increasing women participation

Methodologies used

Both the communities are great supporters of the Free Softwares and licenses and so the methods that is used in addressing the gender gap issues is as follows:

Conduct gender neutral events like hack-a-thons/ edit-a-thons where the tutor is a woman or there is a large ratio of under represented community in the event.
Host monthly offline/online meetups.
Work on projects which are gender neutral based.
Following up special protocols like CoCs strictly at these events.
Days like “International Women’s Day” and on similar significant occasions some unique events will be hosted and contributors will be appreciated.

Impact on Indian communities

The WikiProject woman and WoMoz programs play a very important role among the Indian communities. Although I do not see a single or uniform progress there is always a good scale-up among the regional communities. For a country like India where there is still necessity for uplifting the presence and awareness of these type of FOSS programs I feel that most of these programs are extensively hosted in urban or developed phases of the country. Recently, the internet access has spread across but then the basic knowledge of contributing to Open Source is still abandoned. The end result and the what the contributors shall get on contributing to these communities must be emphasised more.

Closing note

My study and analysis on these two communities is drawn from personal interest and engagement with these communities since I have been contributing and interacting with the contributors for the last few years. The objective of this post is basically to bring about an awareness on the accessible resources on bridging the digital divide , and how these resources can be modified and taken further for a country like India. The efforts taken to improve the gender neutrality by the above communities is laudable but more light has to be thrown on improving the measures taken to sustain women contributors

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/

http://www.womoz.org/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/analysis-on-the-strategies-of-mozilla-and-wiki-communities-on-gender-gap-aspects-1

Analysis on the strategies of Mozilla and Wiki communities on gender gap aspects

bhuvana — 2019-08-28T13:27:08Z

Opening note

Wikipedia community

Mozilla community

WikiProject Women

Art and Feminism

Women in Red

Wiki loves women

Womoz

Overview of the strategies used for increasing women participation

Methodologies used

Both the communities are great supporters of the Free Softwares and licenses and so the methods that is used in addressing the gender gap issues is as follows:

Conduct gender neutral events like hack-a-thons/ edit-a-thons where the tutor is a woman or there is a large ratio of under represented community in the event.
Host monthly offline/online meetups.
Work on projects which are gender neutral based.
Following up special protocols like CoCs strictly at these events.
Days like “International Women’s Day” and on similar significant occasions some unique events will be hosted and contributors will be appreciated.

Impact on Indian communities

Closing note

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/contribute/

http://www.womoz.org/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/analysis-on-the-strategies-of-mozilla-and-wiki-communities-on-gender-gap-aspects

Analysis of the Report of the Group of Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security and Implications for India

Elonnai Hickok and Vipul Kharbanda — 2016-08-11T09:58:59Z

This paper analyses the report of the Group of Experts and and India’s compliance with its recommendations based on existing laws and policies. Given the global nature of these challenges and the need for nations to holistically address such challenges from a human rights and security perspective, CIS believes that the Group of Experts and similar international forums are useful and important forums for India to actively engage with.

The United Nations Group of Experts on ICT issued their report on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security in June, 2015. This paper analyses the report of the Group of Experts and and India’s compliance with its recommendations based on existing laws and policies. CIS believes that the report of the Group of Experts provides important minimum standards that countries could adhere to in light of challenges to international security posed by ICT developments. Given the global nature of these challenges and the need for nations to holistically address such challenges from a human rights and security perspective, CIS believes that the Group of Experts and similar international forums are useful and important forums for India to actively engage with.

Download: PDF (627 kb)

1. Introduction

2. Analysis of the Recommendations

2a. Consistent with the purposes of the United Nations, including to maintain international peace and security, States should cooperate in developing and applying measures to increase stability and security in the use of ICTs and to prevent ICT practices that are acknowledged to be harmful or that may pose threats to international peace and security

2b. In case of ICT incidents, States should consider all relevant information, including the larger context of the event, the challenges of attribution in the ICT environment and the nature and extent of the consequences

2c. States should not knowingly allow their territory to be used for internationally wrongful acts using ICTs; of the Recommendations

2d. States should consider how best to cooperate to exchange information, assist each other, prosecute terrorist and criminal use of ICTs and implement other cooperative measures to address such threats. States may need to consider whether new measures need to be developed in this respect

2e. States, in ensuring the secure use of ICTs, should respect Human Rights Council resolutions 20/8 and 26/13 on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet, as well as General Assembly resolutions 68/167 and 69/166 on the right to privacy in the digital age, to guarantee full respect for human rights, including the right to freedom of expression

2f. A State should not conduct or knowingly support ICT activity contrary to its obligations under international law that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or otherwise impairs the use and operation of critical infrastructure to provide services to the public

2g. States should take appropriate measures to protect their critical infrastructure from ICT threats, taking into account General Assembly resolution 58/199 on the creation of a global culture of cybersecurity and the protection of critical information infrastructures, and other relevant resolutions

2h. States should respond to appropriate requests for assistance by another State whose critical infrastructure is subject to malicious ICT acts. States should also respond to appropriate requests to mitigate malicious ICT activity aimed at the critical infrastructure of another State emanating from their territory, taking into account due regard for sovereignty

2i. States should take reasonable steps to ensure the integrity of the supply chain so that end users can have confidence in the security of ICT products. States should seek to prevent the proliferation of malicious ICT tools and techniques and the use of harmful hidden functions

2j. States should encourage responsible reporting of ICT vulnerabilities and share associated information on available remedies to such vulnerabilities to limit and possibly eliminate potential threats to ICTs and ICT-dependent infrastructure

2k. States should not conduct or knowingly support activity to harm the information systems of the authorized emergency response teams (sometimes known as computer emergency response teams or cyber security incident response teams) of another State. A State should not use authorized emergency response teams to engage in malicious international activity

3. Conclusion

1. Introduction

Cyberspace[1] touches every aspect of our lives, has enormous benefits, but is also accompanied by a number of risks. The international community at large has realized that cyberspace can be made stable and secure only through international cooperation. Traditionally, though there are a number of bilateral agreements and forms of cooperation the foundation of this cooperation has been the international law and the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.

To this end, on December 27, 2013 the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution No. 68/243 requesting the" Secretary General, with the assistance of a group of governmental experts,…… to continue to study, with a view to promoting common understandings, existing and potential threats in the sphere of information security and possible cooperative measures to address them, including norms, rules or principles of responsible behaviour of States and confidence-building measures, the issues of the use of information and communications technologies in conflicts and how international law applies to the use of information and communications technologies by States……. and to submit to the General Assembly at its seventieth session a report on the results of the study. "In pursuance of this resolution the Secretary General established a Group of Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security; the report was agreed upon by the Group of Experts in June, 2015. On 23 December 2015, the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted resolution 70/237[2] which welcomed the outcome of the Group of Experts and requested the Secretary-General to establish a new GGE that would report to the General Assembly in 2017.

The report developed by governmental experts from 20 States addresses existing and emerging threats from uses of ICTs, by States and non-State actors alike. These threats have the potential to jeopardize international peace and security. The experts gave recommendations which have built on consensus reports issued in 2010 and 2013, and offer ideas on norm-setting, confidence-building, capacity-building and the application of international law for the use of ICTs by States. Among other recommendations, the Report lays down recommendations for States for voluntary, non-binding norms, rules or principles of responsible behaviour to promote an open, secure, stable, accessible and peaceful ICT environment.

As larger international dialogues around cross border sharing of information and cooperation for cyber security purposes take place between the US and EU, it is critical that India begin to participate in these discussions.[3] It is also necessary to take cognizance of the importance of implementing internal practices and policies that are recognized and set strong standards at the international level.

This paper marks the beginning of a series of questions we will be asking and processes we will be analysing with the aim of understanding the role of international cooperation for cyber security and the interplay between privacy and security. The report analyses the existing norms in India in the backdrop of the recommendations in the Report of Experts to discover how interoperable Indian law and policy is vis-à-vis the recommendations made in this report as well as making recommendations towards ways India can enhance national policies, practices, and approaches to enable greater collaboration at the international level with respect to issues concerning ICTs and security.

2. Analysis of the Recommendations

The Group of Experts took into account existing and emerging threats, risks and vulnerabilities, in the field of ICT and offered the following recommendations for consideration by States for voluntary, non-binding norms, rules or principles of responsible behaviour.

2a. Consistent with the purposes of the United Nations, including to maintain international peace and security, States should cooperate in developing and applying measures to increase stability and security in the use of ICTs and to prevent ICT practices that are acknowledged to be harmful or that may pose threats to international peace and security

1. India has been working with a number of countries such as Belarus, Canada, China, Egypt, and France on a number of ICT-related isues thereby increasing international cooperation in the ICT sector, such as:

(i) setting up the India-Belarus Digital Learning Centre (DLC-ICT) to promote

development of ICT in Belarus;

(ii) sending an official business delegation to Canada to attend the 2^ndJoint Working Group meeting in ICTE;

(iii) holding Joint Working Groups on ICT with China.[4]

As can be seen from this, most of the cooperation with other countries is currently government to government (or government institution to government institution) cooperation. However, it must be noted that the entire digital revolution, including ICT necessarily involves ICT companies, and thus the role of the private sector in participating in these negotiations as well as the responsibilities of private sector ICT companies in cross border cooperation. Furthermore, the above examples are a few of the many agreements, Memoranda of Understanding (MOU), and negotiations that India has with other countries on cross border cooperation. It is important that, to the extent possible, these negotiations and transparent and easily publicly available.

2. The primary legislation governing ICT in India is the Information Technology Act, 2000 ("IT Act") which was passed to provide legal recognition for the transactions carried out by means of electronic data interchange and other means of electronic communication. The IT Act contains a number of provisions that declare illegal activities that threatenICT infrastructure, data, and individuals as illegal and provide for penalties for the same. These activities are:

Section 43 - Penalty and Compensation for damage to computer, computer system, etc.: If any person without permission: (i) accesses a computer, computer system or network; (ii) downloads, copies or extracts any data from such computer, computer system or network; (iii) introduces any computer contaminant or computer virus into, destroys, deletes or alters any information on, damages or disrupts any computer, computer system or network; (iv) denies or causes the denial of access to any computer, computer system or network by any means; (v) helps any person to access a computer, computer system or network in contravention of the Act; (vi) charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person through manipulation; or (vii) Steals, conceals, destroys or alters or causes any person to steal, conceal, destroy or alter any computer source code used for a computer resource with an intention to cause damage, he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation to the person so affected.

Section 66 - Computer Related Offences: If any person, dishonestly, or fraudulently, does any act referred to in section 43, he shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two three years or with fine which may extend to Rs. 5,00,000/- or with both.

Section 66B - Punishment for dishonestly receiving stolen computer resource or communication device: Whoever dishonestly receives or retains any stolen computer resource or communication device knowing or having reason to believe the same to be stolen computer resource or communication device, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years or with fine which may extend to Rs. 1,00,000/- or with both.

Section 66C - Punishment for identity theft: Whoever, fraudulently or dishonestly make use of the electronic signature, password or any other unique identification feature of any other person, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to rupees one lakh.

Section 66D - Punishment for cheating by personation by using computer resource: Whoever, by means of any communication device or computer resource cheats by personation, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine which may extend to Rs. 1,00,000/-.

Section 66E - Punishment for violation of privacy: Whoever, intentionally or knowingly captures, publishes or transmits the image of a private area of any person without his or her consent, under circumstances violating the privacy of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment which may extend to three years or with fine not exceeding Rs. 2,00,000 or with both.

Section 66F - Punishment for cyber terrorism: (1) Whoever,- (A) with intent to threaten the unity, integrity, security or sovereignty of India or to strike terror in the people or any section of the people by -

Denying or cause the denial of access to computer resource; or
Attempting to penetrate a computer resource; or
Introducing or causing to introduce any computer contaminant and by means of such conduct causes or is likely to cause death or injuries to persons or damage to or destruction of property or disrupts or knowing that it is likely to cause damage or disruption of supplies or services essential to the life of the community or adversely affect the critical information infrastructure, or

(B) knowingly or intentionally penetrates a computer resource and by by doing so obtains access to information that is restricted for reasons of the security of the State or foreign relations; or any restricted information with reasons to believe that such information may be used to cause or likely to cause injury to the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence, or to the advantage of any foreign nation, group of individuals or otherwise, commits the offence of cyber terrorism.

(2) Whoever commits or conspires to commit cyber terrorism shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to imprisonment for life.

Section 67 - Publishing of information which is obscene in electronic form: Whoever publishes or transmits in the electronic form, any material which is lascivious or appeals to the prurient interest or if its effect is such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons, shall be punished on first conviction with a maximum imprisonment upto 2 years and a maximum fine upto Rs. 5,00,000 and for a second or subsequent conviction with a maximum imprisonment upto 5 years and also a maximum with fine upto Rs. 10,00,000.

Section 67A - Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material containing sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form: Whoever publishes or transmits in the electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act or conduct shall be punished on 1st conviction with a maximum imprisonment for 5 years and a maximum fine of upto Rs. 10,00,000 and for a 2nd or subsequent conviction with a maximum imprisonment of 7 years and a maximum fine upto Rs. 10,00,000.

Section 67B - Punishment for publishing or transmitting of material depicting children in sexually explicit act, etc. in electronic form: Whoever,- (a) publishes or transmits material in any electronic form which depicts children engaged in sexually explicit act or conduct; or (b) creates text or digital images, collects, seeks, browses, downloads, advertises, promotes, exchanges or distributes material in any electronic form depicting children in obscene or indecent or sexually explicit manner; or (c) cultivates, entices or induces children to online relationship with one or more children for and on sexually explicit act or in a manner that may offend a reasonable adult on the computer resource; or (d) facilitates abusing children online; or (e) records in any electronic form own abuse or that of others pertaining to sexually explicit act with children, shall be punished on first conviction with a maximum imprisonment upto 5 years and a maximum fine upto Rs. 10,00,000 and in the event of a 2nd or subsequent conviction with a maximum imprisonment upto 7 years and also a maximum fine upto Rs. 10,00,000.[5]

Section 72 - Breach of confidentiality and privacy: Any person who, in pursuance of any of the powers conferred under this Act, has secured access to any electronic record, book, register, correspondence, information, document or other material without the consent of the person concerned discloses the same to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine which may extend to Rs. 1,00,000 or with both.

Section 72-A - Punishment for Disclosure of information in breach of lawful contract: Any person including an intermediary who, while providing services under the terms of lawful contract, has secured access to any material containing personal information about another person, with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful loss or wrongful gain discloses such material to any other person shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with a fine which may extend to Rs. 5,00,000 or with both.

3. The broad language and wide terminology used IT Act seems to cover most of the cyber crimes faced in India as of now, though the technical abilities to prevent the crimes still leave a lot to be desired. The prevention of cyber crime is not the domain of the IT Act and is rather the responsibility of the law enforcement authorities (note: there is no specific authority created under the IT Act, the Act is enforced by the police and other law enforcement authorities). That said, it may be a useful exercise to briefly compare these provisions with the crimes mentioned in the Convention on Cybercrime, 2001 (Budapest Convention), an international treaty that seeks to addresses threats in cyber space by promoting the harmonization of national laws and cooperation across jurisdictions, to examine if there are any that are not covered by the IT Act. A comparison of the principles in Budapest Convention and the IT Act is below:

S. No.	Article of the Budapest Convention	Provisions of the IT Act which cover the same
1	Article 2 - Illegal Access	Section 43(a) read with Section 66
2	Article 3 - Illegal Interception	Section 69 of the IT Act read with section 45 as well as Section 24 of the Telegraph Act, 1885
3	Article 4 - Data interference	Sections 43(d) and 43(f) read with section 66
4	Article 5 - System interference	Sections 43(d), (e) and (f) read with section 66
5	Article 6 - Misuse of devices	Not specifically covered
6	Article 7 - Computer related forgery	Computer related forgery is not specifically covered, but it is possible that when such a case comes to light, the provisions of Section 43 read with section 66 as well as provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 would be pressed into service to cover such crimes
7	Article 8 - Computer related fraud	While not specifically covered by the IT Act, it is possible that when such a case comes to light, the provisions of Section 43 read with section 66 as well as provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 would be pressed into service to cover such crimes
8	Article 9 - Offences relating to child pornography	Section 67B

As can be seen from the above discussion, most of the criminal acts elucidated in the Budapest Convention are covered under the IT Act except for the provision on misuse of devices, which requires the production, dealing, trading, etc. in devices whose sole objective is to violate the provisions of the IT Act, though it is possible that provisions of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 dealing with conspiracy and aiding and abetment may be pressed into service to cover such incidents.

4. Further, there are a number of laws which deal with critical infrastructure in India, however since these are mostly sectoral laws dealing with specific infrastructure sectors, the one most relevant to ICT is the Telegraph Act, 1885, which makes it illegal to interfere with or damage critical telegraph infrastructure. The specific penal provisions are listed below:

Section 23 - Intrusion into signal-room, trespass in telegraph office or obstruction: If any person - (a) without permission of competent authority, enters the signal room of a telegraph office of the Government, or of a person licensed under this Act, or (b) enters a fenced enclosure round such a telegraph office in contravention of any rule or notice not to do so, or (c) refuses to quit such room or enclosure on being requested to do so by any officer or servant employed therein, or (d) wilfully obstructs or impedes any such officer or servant in the performance of his duty, he shall be punished with fine which may extend to Rs. 500.

Section 24 - Unlawfully attempting to learn the contents of messages: If any person does any of the acts mentioned in section 23 with the intention of unlawfully learning the contents of any message, or of committing any offence punishable under this Act, he may (in addition to the fine with which he is punishable under section 23) be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year.

Section 25 - Intentionally damaging or tampering with telegraphs: If any person, intending - (a) to prevent or obstruct the transmission or delivery of any message, or (b) to intercept or to acquaint himself with the contents of any message, or (c) to commit mischief, damages, removes, tampers with or touches any battery, machinery, telegraph line, post or other thing whatever, being part of or used in or about any telegraph or in the working thereof, he shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine or with both.

Section 25A - Injury to or interference with a telegraph line or post: If, in any case not provided for by section 25, any person deals with any property and thereby wilfully or negligently damages any telegraph line or post duly placed on such property in accordance with the provisions of this Act, he shall be liable to pay the telegraph authority such expenses (if any) as may be incurred in making good such damage, and shall also, if the telegraphic communication is by reason of the damage so caused interrupted, be punishable with a fine which may extend to Rs. 1000:

5. The telecom service providers in India have to sign a license agreement with the Department of Telecommunications for the right to provide telecom services in various parts of India. The telecom regulatory regime in India has gone through a lot of turmoil and evolution and currently any service provider wanting to provide telecom services is issued a Unified License (UL) and has to abide by the terms of the UL. Whilst most of the prohibited activities under the UL refer to specific terms under the UL itself such as non payment of fees and not fulfilling obligations under the UL, section 38 provides for certain specific prohibited activities which may be relevant for the ICT sector. These prohibited activities include:

(i) Carrying objectionable, obscene, unauthorized or any other content, messages or communications infringing copyright and intellectual property right etc., which may be prohibited by the laws of India;

(ii) Provide tracing facilities to trace nuisance, obnoxious or malicious calls, messages or communications transported through his equipment and network, to the authorised government agencies;

(iii) Ensuring that the Telecommunication infrastructure or installation thereof, carried out by it, should not become a safety or health hazard and is not in contravention of any statute, rule, regulation or public policy;

(iv) not permit any telecom service provider whose license has been revoked to use its services. Where such services are already provided, i.e. connectivity already exists, the license is required to immediately sever connectivity immediately.

2b. In case of ICT incidents, States should consider all relevant information, including the larger context of the event, the challenges of attribution in the ICT environment and the nature and extent of the consequences

The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) has released the XIIth Five Year Plan on the information technology sector and the report of the Sub-Group on Cyber Security in the plan recognizes that cyber security threats emanate from a wide variety of sources and manifest themselves in disruptive activities that target individuals, businesses, national infrastructure and Governments alike. [6] The primary objectives of the plan for securing the country's cyber space are preventing cyber attacks, reducing national vulnerability to cyber attacks, and minimizing damage and recovery time from cyber attacks. The plan takes into account a number of focus areas to achieve its stated objectives, which are described briefly below:

Enabling Legal Framework - Setting up think tanks in Public-Private mode to identify gaps in the existing policy and frameworks and take action to address them including addressing the privacy concerns of online users.
Security Policy, Compliance and Assurance - Enhancement of IT product security assurance mechanism (Common Criteria security test/evaluation, ISO 15408 & Crypto Module Validation Program), establishing a mechanism for national cyber security index leading to national risk management framework.
Security Resarch&Development (R&D) - Creation of Centres of Excellence in identified areas of advanced Cyber Security R&D and Centre for Technology Transfer to facilitate transition of R&D prototypes to production, supporting R&D projects in thrust areas.
Security Incident - Early Warning and Response - Comprehensive threat assessment and attack mitigation by means of net traffic analysis and deployment of honey pots, development of vulnerability database.
Security awareness, skill development and training - Launching formal security education, skill building and awareness programs.
Collaboration - Establishing a collaborative platform/ think-tank for cyber security policy inputs, discussion and deliberations, operationalisation of security cooperation arrangements with overseas CERTs and industry, and seeking legal cooperation of international agencies on cyber crimes and cyber security.

2c. States should not knowingly allow their territory to be used for internationally wrongful acts using ICTs

As mentioned in response to (a) above, the primary legislation in India that deals with information technology and hence ICT as well is the Information Technology Act, 2000. The IT Act contains a number of penal provisions which make it illegal to indulge in a number of practices such as hacking, online fraud, etc. which have been recognised internationally as wrongful acts using ICT ( Please refer to answer under section (a) above for details of the penal provisions). Further section 1(2) of the IT Act provides that it also applies to any offence or contravention hereunder committed outside India by any person. This means that the IT Act also covers internationally wrongful acts using ICTs.

2d. States should consider how best to cooperate to exchange information, assist each other, prosecute terrorist and criminal use of ICTs and implement other cooperative measures to address such threats. States may need to consider whether new measures need to be developed in this respect

There are a number of ways in which states can share information by using widely accepted formal processes precisely for this purpose. Some of the most common methods of international exchange used by India are given below.

MLATs

Although the exact process by which intelligence agencies in India share information with other agencies internationally is unclear, India is a member of Interpol and the Central Bureau of Investigation, which is a Federal/Central investigating agency functioning under the Central Government, Department of Personnel & Training and is designated as the National Central Bureau of India. A very useful tool in the effort to establish cross-border cooperation is Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties (MLATs). MLATs are extremely important for law enforcement agencies, governments and the private sector, since they act as formal mechanisms for access to data which falls under different jurisdictions. India currently has MLATs with the following 39 countries [7]

Although MLATs are considered to be a useful mechanism to ensure international cooperation, there are certain criticisms of the MLAT mechanism, such as:

The Lack of Clear Time Tables: Although MLATs do provide for broad time frames, they do not provide for more specific time tables and usually do not have any provision for an expedited process, for eg. it is believed that for requests to the U.S., processing can take from six weeks (for requests with minimal issues complying with U.S. legal standards) to 10 months.[8] Such a long time frame is clearly a burden on the investigation process and has been criticised for being ineffectual as they may not provide information fast enough;
Variation in Legal Standards: The legal standards for requesting information, for eg. the circumstances under which information can be requested or what information can be requested, differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. These differences are often not understood by requesting nations thus causing problems in accessing information;[9]
Inefficient Legal Process: The legal process to carry out requests through the MLAT process is often considered too cumbersome and inefficient.
Non-incorporation of Technological Challenges: MLATs have not been updated to meet the challenges brought about by technology, especially with the advent of networked infrastructure and ICT which raise issues of attribution and cross-jurisdictional access to information. [10]

Extradition

Extradition generally refers to the surrender of an alleged or convicted criminal by one State to another. More precisely, it may be defined as the process by which one State upon the request of another surrenders to the latter a person found within its jurisdiction for trial ~~and punishment~~ or, if he has been already convicted, only for punishment, on account of a crime punishable by the laws of the requesting State and committed outside the territory of the requested State. Extradition plays an important role in the international battle against crime and owes its existence to the so-called principle of territoriality of criminal law, according to which a State will not apply its penal statutes to acts committed outside its own boundaries except where the protection of special national interests is at stake. India currently has extradition treaties with 37 countries and extradition arrangements with an additional 8 countries.[11]

Letters Rogatory

A Letter Rogatory is a formal communication in writing sent by the Court in which an action is pending to a foreign court or Judge requesting that the testimony of a witness residing within the jurisdiction of that foreign court be formally taken under its direction and transmitted to the issuing court making the request for use in a pending legal contest or action. This request entirely depends upon the comity of courts towards each other and usages of the court of another nation.

Apart from the above methods, India also regularly signs Bilateral MoUs with various countries on law enforcement and information sharing specially in cases related to terrorism. India also regularly helps and gets helps from Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organisation for purposes of investigation, arrests and sharing of information.[12]

Other than these formal methods states sometimes share information on an informal basis, where the parties help each other purely on the basis of goodwill, or sometimes even coercion. A recent example of informal cooperation between the security agencies of India and Nepal, although not in the realm of cyber space, was the arrest of YasinBhatkal, leader of the banned organisation Indian Mujahideen (IM) where the Indian security agencies allegedly sought informal help from their Neapaelese counterparts to arrest a person who was wantedhad long been wanted by the Indian security agencies for a long time. [13]

In the current environment of growing ICT and increased cross-border information sharing between individuals, the role of private companies who carry this information has become much more pronounced. This changed dynamic raises new problems, especially because manyin light of thesefact that a number of these companies do not have a physical presence in all the countries where they offer services over the internet. This leads to problems for states in terms of law enforcement, speciallyespecially if they want information from these companies who do not have an incentive or desire to provide itagainst their will. These circumstances lead to a number of prickly situations where states are often frustrated in using legal and formal means and often resort to informal pressure to get the companies to agree to data localization requests, encryption/decryption standards and keys, back doors, and other requests. etc., Tthe most famous of these in the Indian context being the disagreement/ heated exchange between the Indian government and Canada based Blackberry Limited (formerly Research in Motion) for data requests on their Blackberry enterprise platform.

2e. States, in ensuring the secure use of ICTs, should respect Human Rights Council resolutions 20/8 and 26/13 on the promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights on the Internet, as well as General Assembly resolutions 68/167 and 69/166 on the right to privacy in the digital age, to guarantee full respect for human rights, including the right to freedom of expression

Right to Privacy

The right to privacy has been recognised as a constitutionally protected fundamental right in India through judicial interpretation of the right to life which is specifically guaranteed under the Constitution of India. Since the right to privacy was read into the constitution by judicial pronouncements, it could be said that the right to privacy in India is a creature of the courts at least in the Indian context. For this reason it may be useful to list out some of the major cases which deal with the right to privacy in India:

i. Kharak Singh v. Union of India¸[14] (1962)

a. For the first time, the courts recognized the right to privacy as a fundamental right, although in a minority opinion.

b. The decision lLocated the right to privacy under both the right to personal liberty as well as freedom of movement.

ii. Govind v. State of M.P.,[15] (1975)

a. Adopted the minority opinion of Kharak Singh as the opinion of the Supreme Court and held that the right to privacy is a fundamental right.

b. An individual deDerivesd the right to privacy from both the right to life and personal liberty as well as freedom of speech and movement.

c. The right to privacy was said to encompass and protect the personal intimacies of the home, the family marriage, motherhood, procreation and child rearing.

d. The court established that the rRight to privacy can be violated in the following circumstances (i) important countervailing interest which is superior, (ii) compelling state interest test, and (iii) compelling public interest.

iii. R. Rajagopal v. Union of India,[16] (1994)

a. Recognised that the rRight to privacy is a part of the right to personal liberty guaranteed under the constitution.

b. Recognizeds that the right to privacy can be both a tort (actionable claim) as well as a fundamental right.

c. Established that aA citizen has a right to safeguard the privacy of his own, his family, marriage, procreation, motherhood, child-bearing and education among other matters and nobody can publish anything regarding the same unless (i) he consents or voluntarily thrusts himself into controversy, (ii) the publication is made using material which is in public records (except for cases of rape, kidnapping and abduction), or (iii) he is a public servant and the matter relates to their discharge of official duties.

iv. People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India,[17] (1996)

a. Extended the right to privacy to include communications privacy..

b. Laid down guidelines which form the backbone for checks and balances in interception provisions.

v. District Registrar and Collector, Hyderabad and another v. Canara Bank and another, [18] (2004)

a. Refers to personal liberty, freedom of expression and freedom of movement as the fundamental rights which give rise to the right to privacy.

b. The rRight to privacy deals with persons and not places.

c. Intrusion into privacy may be by - (1) legislative provisions, (2) administrative/executive orders and (3) judicial orders.

vi. Selvi and others v. State of Karnataka and others,[19] (2010)

a. The Court acknowledged the distinction between bodily/physical privacy and mental privacy

b. Subjecting a person to techniques such as narcoanalysis, polygraph examination and the Brain Electrical Activation Profile (BEAP) test without consent violates the subject's mental privacy
Although the judgements in the above cases (except for the case of People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India) were pronounced given in a non telecomnot delivered in a telecommunications context, however the ease with which these principles were applied in the case of People's Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India, suggests that these principles, where applicable, would be applied even in the context of ICT and are not limited to only the non-digital world.
It must however be noted that dueDue to some incongruities in the interpretation of the earlier judgments, the Supreme Court has recently referred the matter regarding the existence and scope of the right to privacy in India to a larger bench so as to bring clarity regarding the exact scope of the right to privacy in Indian law. The very concept that the Constitution of India guarantees a right to privacy was challenged due to an "unresolved contradiction" in judicial pronouncements. This "unresolved contradiction" arose because in the cases of M.P. Sharma & Others v. Satish Chandra & Others,[20] and Kharak Singh v. State of U.P. & Others, [21](decided byEigheighttandsixSixJudges respectively) the majority judgment of the Supreme Court had categorically denied the existence of a right to privacy under the Indian Constitution.

However somehow the later case of Gobind v. State of M.P. and another,[22] (which was decided by a two Judge Bench of the Supreme Court) relied upon the opinion given by the minority of two judges in Kharak Singh to hold that a right to privacy does exist and is guaranteed as a fundamental right under the Constitution of India without addressing the fact that this was a minority opinion and that the majority opinion had denied the existeance of the right to privacy. Thereafter a large number of cases have held the right to privacy to be a fundamental right, the most important of which are R. Rajagopal& Another v. State of Tamil Nadu & Others,[23] (popularly known as Auto Shanker's case) and People's Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) v. Union of India & Another.[24] However, as was noticed by the Supreme Court in its August 11, 2015 order, all these judgments were decided by two or three Judges only which could not have overturned the judgments given by larger benches.[25] It was to resolve this judicial incongruity that the Supreme Court referred this issue to a larger bench to decide on the existence and scope of the right to privacy in India.

Freedom of Expression

Freedom of expression is one of the most important fundamental rights guaranteed under the constitution and has been vehemently protected by the judiciary on a number of occasions whenever it has been threatened. With the advent of social media, the entire dynamics of the freedom of speech and expression have changed in that it is now possible for every individual, with an internet connection and a Facebook/Twitter/Whatsapp account to reach millions of people without spending any extra money. This ability to reach a much larger and wider audience also led to greater friction between people holding different opinions. As the ease of the internet removed the otherwise filtering effects of geography and made it easier for people to communicate with each other, the advent of social media made it easier for them to communicate with a larger number of people at the same time. This ability to communicate within a group also gave rise to "debates" which often turngot ugly, highlighting giving way to concerns of how easy it is to harass people on social media.
This concern over of harassment led a number of people to call for greater censorship of social media and it was perhaps this concern which gave rise to the biggest challenge to the freedom of speech and expression in the online world, in the form of section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 which made it an offense to send information which was "grossly offensive" (s.66A(a)) or caused "annoyance" or "inconvenience" while being known to be false (s.66A(c)). This section was used widely seen by Oonline activists, including the Centre for Internet and Society, widely considered this section as a tool for the government to silence those who criticised it. In fact, statistics compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau from 2014 revealed that 2,402 people, including 29 women, were arrested in 4,192 cases under section 66A which accounted for nearly 60% of all arrests under the IT Act, and 40% of arrests for cyber crimes in 2014. [26]
The section was finally struck down by the Supreme Court in 2015 in the case of Shreya Singhalv. Union of India, [27] on the ground of being too vague. This decision was seen as a huge victory for the campaign for freedom of speech and expression in the virtual world since this section was frequently used by the state (or rather government in power) to muzzle free speech against the incumbent government or political leaders. The offending section 66A made it an offence to send any information that was "grossly offensive or has menacing character" or "which he knows to be false, but for the purpose of causing annoyance, inconvenience, danger, obstruction, insult, injury, criminal intimidation, enmity, hatred, or ill will, persistently makes by makinguse of such computer resource or a communication device,". These terms quoted above were held by the Court to be too vague and wide and falling foul of the limited restrictions constitutionally imposed on the freedom of expression. The Supreme Court therefore, and were therefore struck down section 66A by the Supreme Court.

2f. A State should not conduct or knowingly support ICT activity contrary to its obligations under international law that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or otherwise impairs the use and operation of critical infrastructure to provide services to the public

The researchers of this report could not locate any norms in India which address this issue. To the best of their knowledge, India does not support any ICT activity that intentionally damages critical infrastructure or impairs the use and operation of critical infrastructure.

2g. States should take appropriate measures to protect their critical infrastructure from ICT threats, taking into account General Assembly resolution 58/199 on the creation of a global culture of cybersecurity and the protection of critical information infrastructures, and other relevant resolutions

1. Section 70 of the IT Act gives the government the authority to declare any computer system which directly affects any critical information infrastructure to be a protected system. The term "critical information infrastructure" (CII) is defined in the IT Act "the computer resource, the incapacitation or destruction of which, shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety." Once the government declares any computer resource as a protected system it gets the authority to prescribe information security practices for such as system as well as identify the persons who are authorised to access such systems. Any person who accesses a protected system in contravention of the provision of Section 70 of the IT Act shall be liable to be imprisoned for a maximum period of 10 years and also pay a fine. Further, section 70A of the IT Act gives the government the power to name a national nodal agency in respect of CII and also prescribe the manner for such agency to perform its duties. In pursuance of the powers under sections 70A the government has designated the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) situated in the JNU campus as the nodal agency [28]. This agency is a part of and under the administrative control of the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) [29].

2. The functions and manner of performing such functions by the NCIIPC has been prescribed in the Information Technology (National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre and Manner of Performing Functions and Duties) Rules, 2013.[30] According to these Rules the functions of the NCIIPC include, inter alia, (i) the protecting and giving advice to reduce the vulnerabilities of CII against cyber terrorism, cyber warfare and other threats; (ii) identification of all critical infrastructure elements so that they can be notified by the government; (iii) providing strategic leadership and coherence across the government to respond to cyber security threats against CII; (iv) coordinating, sharing, monitoring, analysing and forecasting national level threats to CII for policy guidance, expertiese sharing and situational awareness for early warning alerts; (v) assisting in the development of appropriate plans, adoption of standards, sharing best practices and refinining procurement processes for CII; (vi) undertaking and funding research and development to innovate future technologies and collaborate with PSUs, academia and international partners for protection of CII; (vii) organising training and awareness programmes and development of audit and certification agencies for protection of CII; (viii) developing and executing national and international cooperation strategies for protection of CII; (ix) issuing guidelines, advisories and vulnerability notes relating to CII and practices, procedures, prevention and responses in consultation with CERT-In and other organisations; (x) exchanging information with CERT-In, especially in relation to cyber incidents; and (xi) calling for information and giving directions to critical sectors or persons having a critical impact on CII, in the event of any threat to CII.[31]

3. The NCIIPC had in the year 2013 released (non publicly) Guidelines for the Protection of National Critical Information Infrastructure [32] (CII Guidelines) which presented 40forty controls and respective guiding principles for the protection of CII. It is expected that these controls and guiding principles will help critical sectors to draw a CII protection roadmap to achieve safe, secure and resilient CII for India. The 'Guidelines for forty Critical Controls' is considered by the NCIIPC to be a significant milestone in its efforts for the protection of nation's critical information assets. These fort controls can be found in Section 6 (Best Practices, Controls and Guidelines) of the CII Guidelines. It must be noted that the CII Guidelines were drafted after taking inputs from a number of stakeholders such as the national Stock Exchange, the Airports Authority of India, National Thermal Power Corporation, Reserve Bank of India, Indian Railways, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited, etc. This exercise of taking inputs from different stakeholders as well as developing a standard of as many as 40forty aspects of security seems to suggest that the NCIIPC is taking steps in the right direction.

4. The Recommendations on Telecommunication Infrastructure Policy issued by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India in April, 2011 are silent on the issue of security of critical information infrastructure.s. However, the National Policy on Information Technology, 2012 (NPIT) does address the issue of security of cyber space by saying that the government should make efforts to do the following:

"9.1 To undertake policy, promotion and enabling actions for compliance to international security best practices and conformity assessment (product, process, technology & people) and incentives for compliance.

9.2 To promote indigenous development of suitable security techniques & technology through frontier technology research, solution oriented research, proof of concept, pilot development etc. and deployment of secure IT products/processes

9.3 To create a culture of cyber security for responsible user behavior & actions including building capacities and awareness campaigns.

9.4 To create, establish and operate an 'Information Security Assurance Framework'."

5. The Department of Information and Technology has formed the Computer Emergency Response Term of India (CERT-In) to enhance the security of India's Communications and Information Infrastructure through proactive action and effective collaboration. The Information Security Policy on Protection of Critical Infrastructure released by the CERT-In considers information recorded, processed or stored in electronic medium as a valuable asset and is geared towards protection of such "valuable asset". The policy recognises the importance of critical information infrastructure network and says that any disruption of the operation of such networks is likely to have devastating effects. The policy prescribes that personnel with program delivery responsibilities should also recognise the importance of security of information resources and their management. Thus Ddue to this recognition of the growing networked nature of government as well as critical organisations and the need to have a proper vulnerability analysis as well as effective management of information security risks, the Department of Technology prescribes the following information security policy:

"In order to reduce the risk of cyber attacks and improve upon the security posture of critical information infrastructure, Government and critical sector organizations are required to do the following on priority:

Identify a member of senior management, as Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), knowledgeable in the nature of information security & related issues and designate him/her as a 'Point of contact', responsible for coordinating security policy compliance efforts and to regularly interact with the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), Department of Information Technology (DIT), which is the nodal agency for coordinating all actions pertaining to cyber security;
Prepare information security plan and implement the security control measures as per ISI/ISO/IEC 27001: 2005 and other guidelines/standards, as appropriate;
Carry out periodic IT security risk assessments and determine acceptable level of risks, consistent with criticality of business/functional requirements, likely impact on business/ functions and achievement of organisational goals/objectives;
Periodically test and evaluate the adequacy and effectiveness of technical security control measures implemented for IT systems and networks. Especially, Test and evaluation may become necessary after each significant change to the IT applications/systems/networks and can include, as appropriate the following:

➢ Penetration Testing (both announced as well as unannounced)

➢ Vulnerability Assessment

➢ Application Security Testing

➢ Web Security Testing

Carry out Audit of Information infrastructure on an annual basis and when there is major upgradation/change in the Information Technology Infrastructure, by an independent IT Security Auditing organization;..........

Report to CERT-In the cyber security incidents, as and when they occur and the status of cyber security, periodically."

6. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY) released the National Policy on Electronics in 2012 which contained the government's take on the electronics industry in India. Section 5 of the said policy talks about cCyber sSecurity and states that to create a complete secure cyber eco-system in the country, careful and due attention is required for creation of well-d defined technology and systems, use of appropriate technology and more importantly development of appropriate products and& solutions. The priorities for action should be suitable design and development of indigenous appropriate products through frontier technology/product oriented research, testing and& validation of security of products meeting the protection profile requirements needed to secure the ICT infrastructure and cyber space of the country.

7. In addition the CERT-In has issued an Information Security Management Implementation Guide for Government Organisations. [33] CERT-In has also prescribed progressive steps for implementation of Information Security Management System in Government & Critical Sectors as per ISO 27001. The steps prescribed are as follows:

Identification of a Point-of-Contact (POC) / Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) for coordinating information security policy implementation efforts and communication with CERT-In
Information Security Awareness Programme
Determination of general Risk environment of the organization (low / medium / hHigh) depending on the nature of web and& networking environment, criticality of business functions and impact of information security incidents on the organization, business activities, assets / resources and individuals
Status appraisal and gap analysis against ISO 27001 based best information security practices
Risk assessment covering evaluation of threat perception and technical and &operational vulnerabilities
Comprehensive risk mitigation plan including selection of appropriate information security controls as per ISO 27001 based best information security practices
Documentation of agreed information security control measures in the form of information security policy manual, procedure manual and work instructions
Implementation of information security control measures (Managerial, Technical and& operational)
Testing & evaluation of technical information security control measures for their adequacy & effectiveness and audit of IT applications/systems/networks by an independent information security auditing organization (penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, application security testing, web security testing, LAN audits, etc)
Information Security Management assessment and certification against ISO 27001 standard, preferably by an independent & accredited organization

8. The Unified License for providing various telecommunication services also discusses contains certain terms which talk about how to engagedeal with telecommunication infrastructure in light of national security, which include the following recommendations:

Providing necessary facilities to the Government to counteract espionage, subversive act, sabotage or any other unlawful activity;
Giving full access to its network and equipment to the authorised persons for technical scrutiny and inspection;
Obtaininggettting security clearance for all foreign nationals deployed on for installation, operation and maintenance of the network;
Being completely responsible for the security of its network and having organizational policy on security and security management of its network including Network forensics, Network Hardening, Network penetration test, Risk assessment;
Auditing its network or getting the network audited from security point of view once in a financial year from a network audit and certification agency;
Inducting only those network elements into its telecommunications network, which have been got tested according tos per relevant contemporary Indian or International Security Standards;
Including all contemporary security related features (including communication security) as prescribed under relevant security standards while procuring the equipment and implementing all such contemporary features into the network;
Keeping requisite records of operations in the network;
Monitoring of all intrusions, attacks and frauds on his technical facilities and provide reports on the same to the Licensor.

Further statutory restrictions on tampering critical infrastructure are already contained in the Telegraph Act and have been discussed above, though the penalties provided may need to be increased if they are to act as a deterrent in this age where the stakes are much higher.

2h. States should respond to appropriate requests for assistance by another State whose critical infrastructure is subject to malicious ICT acts. States should also respond to appropriate requests to mitigate malicious ICT activity aimed at the critical infrastructure of another State emanating from their territory, taking into account due regard for sovereignty

There is yet to be a publicly acknowledged request from a foreign government asking the Indian government to take steps to prevent malicious ICT acts originating from its territory.

2i. States should take reasonable steps to ensure the integrity of the supply chain so that end users can have confidence in the security of ICT products. States should seek to prevent the proliferation of malicious ICT tools and techniques and the use of harmful hidden functions;

Section 4 of the National Electronics Policy, 2012 talks about "Developing and Mandating Standards" and says that in order to curb the inflow of sub-standard and unsafe electronic products the government should mandate technical and safety standards which conform to international standards and do the following:

Develop Indian standards to meet specific Indian conditions including climatic, power supply, and handling and other conditions etc., by suitably reviewing existing standards.

Mandate technical standards in the interest of public health and safety.

Set up an institutional mechanism within Department of Information Technology for mandating compliance to standards for electronics products.

Develop a National Policy Framework for enforcement and use of Standards and Quality Management Processes.

Strengthen the lab infrastructure for testing of electronic products and encouraging development of conformity assessment infrastructure by private participation.

Create awareness amongst consumers against sub-standard and spurious electronic products.

Build capacity within the Government and public sector for developing and mandating standards.

Actively participate in the international development of standards in the Electronic System Design and Manufacturing sector.

2j. States should encourage responsible reporting of ICT vulnerabilities and share associated information on available remedies to such vulnerabilities to limit and possibly eliminate potential threats to ICTs and ICT-dependent infrastructure

Under section 70B of the IT Act, India has established a Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) to serve as the national agency for incident responses. The functions mandated to be performed by CERT-In as per the IT Act are:

Collection, analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents;
Forecasting and alerts of cyber security incidents;
Emergency measures for handling cyber security incidents;
Coordination of cyber incidents response activities;
Issuing ofe guidelines, advisories, vulnerability notes and white papers relating to information security practices, procedures, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents;
Such other functions relating to cyber security as may be prescribed.

CERT-In also publishes information regarding various cyber threats on its websites so as to keep internet users aware of the latest threats in the online world. Such information can be accessed both on the main page of the CERT-In website or under the Advisories section on the website. [34]

2k. States should not conduct or knowingly support activity to harm the information systems of the authorized emergency response teams (sometimes known as computer emergency response teams or cyber security incident response teams) of another State. A State should not use authorized emergency response teams to engage in malicious international activity.

There are no official or public reports of India using its CERT-In to harm the information systems of another state, although it is highly unlikely that any state would publicly acknowledge such activities even if it was indulging in them.

3. Conclusion

As can be seen from the discussion above, the statutory, regulatory and policy regime in India does seem to address most of the cyber security norms in some manner or the other, but these efforts almost always fall short of meeting some of the norms. While the Information Technology Act along with the Rules thereunder, as being the umbrella legislation for digital transactions in India, does address some of the issues mentioned above, it does not address some of the problems that arise out of a greater reliance on the internet such as spamming, trolling, and, online harassment, etc. Although some of these acts may be addressed by regular legislation by applying them in the online world however this does not always take into account the unique features and complexities of committing these acts/crimes in the online world.

In the area of exchange of information between states, India has entered into a number of MLATs and extradition treaties, and frequently issues Letters of Rogatory. Yet however these mechanisms may not be adequate to address the needs of crime prevention of crimes in the age of ICT, as crime prevention it often requires exchange of information inon r a real time basis which is not possible with the bureaucratic procedures involved in the MLAT process. There also needsd to be stronger standards which are applicable to ICT equipment, including imported equipment especially in light of the fact that security concerns related to Chinese ICT equipment that from China have been raised quite frequently in the past. There also needs to be a better system of reporting ICT vulnerabilities to CERT-In or other authorized agencies so that mitigation measure can be implemented in time.

It should be noted that the work of the Group of Experts is not complete since the General Assembly has asked the Secretary General to form a new Group of Experts which would report back to the Secretary General in 2017. It is imperative that the Government of India realise the importance of the work being done by the Group of Experts and take measures to ensure that a representative from India is included in or atleast the comments and concerns of India are included and addressed by the Group of Experts. Meanwhile, India can begin by strengthening domestic privacy safeguards, improving transparency and efficiency of relevant policies and processes, and looking towards solutions that respect rights and strengthen security. Brutent force solutions such as demands for back doors, unfair and unreasonable encryption regulation, and data localization requirements will not help propel India forward in international discussions, dialogues, or agreements on cross-border sharing of information. Though the recommendations from the Group of Experts are welcome, beyond a preliminary mention of privacy and freedom of expression, the rights of individuals - and the ways in which these can be protected, various components that go into supporting those rights including redress, transparency, and due process measures - was inadequately addressed.

[1] The terms "cyberspace" has been defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs. Although the scope of this paper is not to discuss the meaning of this term, it was felt that a simple definition of the term would be useful to better define the parameters of the discussion.

[2] https://s3.amazonaws.com/unoda-web/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/A-RES-70-237-Information-Security.pdf

[3] https://www.justsecurity.org/29203/british-searches-america-tremendous-opportunity/

[4] http://deity.gov.in/content/country-wise-status

[5] Provided that the provisions of section 67, section 67A and this section does not extend to any book, pamphlet, paper, writing, drawing, painting, representation or figure in electronic form-

(i) The publication of which is proved to be justified as being for the public good on the ground that such book, pamphlet, paper writing, drawing, painting, representation or figure is in the interest of science, literature, art or learning or other objects of general concern; or

(ii) which is kept or used for bona fide heritage or religious purposes

Explanation: For the purposes of this section, "children" means a person who has not completed the age of 18 years.

[6] http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/Plan_Report_on_Cyber_Security.pdf

[7] List of the countries is available at http://cbi.nic.in/interpol/mlats.php

[8] https://www.lawfareblog.com/mlat-reform-some-thoughts-civil-society

[9] Peter Swire& Justin D. Hemmings, "Re-Engineering the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty Process", http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/SHB2015/Swire.docx, cf. https://www.lawfareblog.com/mlat-reform-some-thoughts-civil-society .

[10] MLATS and International Cooperation for Law Enforcement Purposes, available at http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/presentation-on-mlats.pdf

[11] The full list of the countries with which India has agreed an MLAT is available at http://cbi.nic.in/interpol/extradition.php

[12] http://cbi.nic.in/interpol/assist.php

[13] http://www.firstpost.com/india/how-the-police-tracked-and-arrested-im-founder-yasin-bhatkal-1071755.html

[14] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=3641

[15] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=6014

[16] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=11212

[17] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=14584

[18] http://www.judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=26571

[19] http://dspace.judis.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/26592/1/36303.pdf

[20] AIR 1954 SC 300. In para 18 of the Judgment it was held: "A power of search and seizure is in any system of jurisprudence an overriding power of the State for the protection of social security and that power is necessarily regulated by law. When the Constitution makers have thought fit not to subject such regulation to constitutional limitations by recognition of a fundamental right to privacy, analogous to the American Fourth Amendment, we have no justification to import it, into a totally different fundamental right, by some process of strained construction."

[21] AIR 1963 SC 1295. In para 20 of the judgment it was held: "… Nor do we consider that Art. 21 has any relevance in the context as was sought to be suggested by learned counsel for the petitioner. As already pointed out, the right of privacy is not a guaranteed right under our Constitution and therefore the attempt to ascertain the movement of an individual which is merely a manner in which privacy is invaded is not an infringement of a fundamental right guaranteed by Part III."

[22] (1975) 2 SCC 148.

[23] (1994) 6 SCC 632.

[24] (1997) 1 SCC 301.

[25] http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/right-to-privacy-in-peril

[26] http://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/hindustan-times-august-20-2015-aloke-tikku-stats-from-2014-reveal-horror-of-scrapped-section-66-a-of-it-act

[27] http://supremecourtofindia.nic.in/FileServer/2015-03-24_1427183283.pdf

[28] http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/S_O_18(E).pdf

[29]

[30] http://deity.gov.in/sites/upload_files/dit/files/GSR_19(E).pdf

[31] Rule 4 of the Information Technology (National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre and Manner of Performing Functions and Duties) Rules, 2013.

[32] Since these Guidelines were not publicly released they are not available on any government website. In this paper we have relied on a version available on a private website at http://perry4law.org/cecsrdi/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Guidelines-For-Protection-Of-National-Critical-Information-Infrastructure.pdf

[33] Available at http://www.cert-in.org.in/

[34] http://www.cert-in.org.in/

List of Acronyms

ICTs – Information Communication Technologies
GGE – Group of Experts
EU – European Union
DLC-ICT – India-Belarus Digital Learning Center
IT Act – Information Technology Act, 2000
UL - Unified License
DEITY – Department of Electronics and Information Technology
IT – Information Technology
ISO – International Organization for Standardisation
CERT – Computer Emergency Response Team
CERT-In - Computer Emergency Response Team, India
MLAT – Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty
CII – Critical Information Infrastructure
NCIIPC - National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre
NTRO - National Technical Research Organisation
NPIT - National Policy on Information Technology
CISO - Chief Information Security Officer

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analysis-report-experts-information-telecommunications-security-implications-india

Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010

pranesh — 2011-09-21T06:01:54Z

CIS analyses the Copyright (Amendment) Bill, 2010, from a public interest perspective to sift the good from the bad, and importantly to point out what crucial amendments should be considered but have not been so far.

The full submission that CIS and 21 other civil society organizations made to the Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on HRD (which is studying the Bill) is available here. Given below is the summary of our submissions:

Existing Copyright Act

The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 has been designed from the perspective of a developing country. It has always attempted a balance between various kinds of interests. It has always sought to ensure that rights of authors of creative works is carefully promoted alongside the public interest served by wide availability and usability of that material. For instance, our Copyright Act has provisions for:

compulsory and statutory licensing: recognizing its importance in making works available, especially making them available at an affordable rate.
cover versions: recognizing that more players lead to a more vibrant music industry.
widely-worded right of fair dealing for private use: recognizing that individual use and large-scale commercial misuse are different.

These provisions of our Act have been lauded, and India has been rated as the most balanced copyright system in a global survey conducted of over 34 countries by Consumers International.

The Indian Parliament has always sought to be responsive to changing technologies by paying heed to both the democratisation of access as well as the securing of the interests of copyright holders. This approach needs to be lauded, and importantly, needs to be maintained.

Proposed Amendments

Some positive amendments

Fair Dealings, Parallel Importation, Non-commercial Rental: All works (including sound recordings and cinematograph films) are now covered the fair dealings clause (except computer programmes), and a few other exceptions; parallel importation is now clearly allowed; and non-commercial rental has become a limitation in some cases.
Persons with disabilities: There is finally an attempt at addressing the concerns of persons with disabilities. But the provisions are completely useless the way they are currently worded.
Public Libraries: They can now make electronic copies of works they own, and some other beneficial changes relating to public libraries.
Education: Some exceptions related to education have been broadened (scope of works, & scope of use).
Statutory and compulsory licensing: Some new statutory licensing provisions (including for radio broadcasting) and some streamlining of existing compulsory licensing provisions.
Copyright societies: These are now responsible to authors and not owners of works.
Open licences: Free and Open Source Software and Open Content licensing is now simpler.
Partial exemption of online intermediaries: Transient and incidental storage of copyrighted works has been excepted, mostly for the benefit of online intermediaries.
Performer’s rights: The general, and confusing, exclusive right that performers had to communicate their performance to the public has been removed, and instead only the exclusive right to communicate sound/video recordings remains.
Enforcement: Provisions on border measures have been made better, and less prone to abuse and prevention of legitimate trade.

Some negative amendments

WCT and WPPT compliance: India has not signed either of these two treaties, which impose TRIPS-plus copyright protection, but without any corresponding increase in fair dealing / fair use rights.
Increase in duration of copyright: This will significantly reduce the public domain, which India has been arguing for internationally.
Technological Protection Measures: TPMs, which have been shown to be anti-consumer in all countries in which they have been introduced, are sought to be brought into Indian law.
Version recordings: The amendments make cover version much more difficult to produce.
Moral rights: Changes have been made to author’s moral rights (and performer’s moral rights have been introduced) but these have been made without requisite safeguards.

Missed opportunities

Government-funded works: Taxpayers are still not free to use works that were paid for by them. This goes against the direction that India has elected to march towards with the Right to Information Act.
Copyright terms: The duration of all copyrights are above the minimum required by our international obligations, thus decreasing the public domain which is crucial for all scientific and cultural progress.
Criminal provisions: Our law still criminalises individual, non-commercial copyright infringement.
Libraries and archives: The exceptions for ‘public libraries’ are still too narrow in what they perceive as ‘public libraries’.
Educational exceptions: The exceptions for education still do not fully embrace distance and digital education.
Communication to the public: No clear definition is given of what constitute a ‘public’, and no distinction is drawn between commercial and non-commercial ‘public’ communication.
Internet intermediaries: More protections are required to be granted to Internet intermediaries to ensure that non-market based peer-production projects such as Wikipedia, and other forms of social media and grassroots innovation are not stifled.
Fair dealing and fair use: We would benefit greatly if, apart from the specific exceptions provided for in the Act, more general guidelines were also provided as to what do not constitute infringement. This would not take away from the existing exceptions.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/copyright-bill-analysis

Analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012

pranesh — 2013-11-12T14:13:04Z

There are some welcome provisions in the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012, and some worrisome provisions. Pranesh Prakash examines five positive changes, four negative ones, and notes the several missed opportunities. The larger concern, though, is that many important issues have not been addressed by these amendments, and how copyright policy is made without evidence and often out of touch with contemporary realities of the digital era.

The Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 has been passed by both Houses of Parliament, and will become law as soon as the President gives her assent and it is published in the Gazette of India. While we celebrate the passage of some progressive amendments to the Copyright Act, 1957 — including an excellent exception for persons with disabilities — we must keep in mind that there are some regressive amendments as well. In this blog post, I will try to highlight those provisions of the amendment that have not received much public attention (unlike the issue of lyricists’ and composers’ ‘right to royalty’).

Welcome Changes

Provisions for Persons with Disabilities

India now has amongst the most progressive exception for persons with disabilities, alongside countries like Chile. Under the amendments, sections 51(1)(zb) and 31B carve out exceptions and limitations for persons with disabilities. Earlier s.52(1)(zb) dealt only with formats that were “special designed only for the use of persons suffering from visual, aural, or other disabilities”. Thanks to a campaign mounted by disability rights groups and public interest groups such as CIS, it now covers “any accessible format”. Section 52(1)(zb) allows any person to facilitate access by persons with disabilities to copyrighted works without any payment of compensation to the copyright holder, and any organization working the benefit of persons with disabilities to do so as long as it is done on a non-profit basis and with reasonable steps being taken to prevent entry of reproductions of the copyrighted work into the mainstream. Even for-profit businesses are allowed to do so if they obtain a compulsory licence on a work-by-work basis, and pay the royalties fixed by the Copyright Board. The onerousness of this provision puts its utility into question, and this won’t disappear unless the expression “work” in s.31B is read to include a class of works.

Given that the Delhi High Court has — wrongly and per incuriam, since it did not refer to s.14(a)(ii) as it was amended in 1994 — held parallel importation to be barred by the Copyright Act, it was important for Parliament to clarify that the Copyright Act in fact follows international exhaustion. Without this, even if any person can facilitate access for persons with disabilities to copyrighted works, those works are restricted to those that are circulated in India. Given that not many books are converted into accessible formats in India (not to mention the costs of doing so), and given the much larger budgets for book conversion in the developed world, this is truly restrictive.

Extension of Fair Dealing to All Works

The law earlier dealt with fair dealing rights with regard to “literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works”. Now it covers all works (except software), in effect covering sound recordings and video as well. This will help make personal copies of songs and films, to make copies for research, to use film clips in classrooms, etc.

Creative Commons, Open Licensing Get a Boost

The little-known s.21 of the Copyright Act, which deals with the right of authors to relinquish copyright, has been amended. While earlier one could only relinquish parts of one’s copyright by submitting a form to the Registrar of Copyrights, now a simple public notice suffices. Additionally, s.30 of the Act, which required licences to be in writing and signed, now only requires it to be in writing. This puts Creative Commons, the GNU Public Licence, and other open licensing models, on a much surer footing in India.

Physical Libraries Should Celebrate, Perhaps Virtual Libraries Too

Everywhere that the word “hire” occurs (except s.51, curiously), the word “commercial rental” has been substituted. This has been done, seemingly, to bring India in conformance with the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) and the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty (WPPT). The welcome side-effect of this is that the legality of lending by non-profit public libraries has been clarified. The amendment states:

"2(1)(fa) “commercial rental” does not include the rental, lease or lending of a lawfully acquired copy of a computer programme, sound recording, visual recording or cinematograph film for non-profit purposes by a non-profit library or non-profit educational institution."

Even after this, the overwhelming majority of the ‘video lending libraries’ that you see in Indian cities and towns continue to remain illegal.

Another welcome provision is the amended s.52(1)(n), which now allows “non-commercial public libraries” to store an electronic copy of a work if it already has a physical copy of the work. However, given that this provision says that the storage shall be “for preservation”, it seems limited. However, libraries might be able to use this — in conjunction with the fact that under s.14 of the Copyright Act lending rights of authors is limited to “commercial rental” and s.51(b) only covers lending of “infringing copies” — to argue that they can legally scan and lend electronic copies of works in the same manner that they lend physical copies. Whether this argument would succeed is unclear. Thus, India has not boldly gone where the European Commission is treading with talks of a European Digital Library Project, or where scholars in the US are headed with the Digital Public Library of America. But we might have gone there quietly. Thus, this amendment might help foster an Indian Internet Archive, or help spread the idea of the Open Library in India.

On a final note, different phrases are used to refer to libraries in the amendment. In s.2(1)(fa), it talks about "non-profit library"; in s.52(1)(n) and (o), it refers to "non-commercial public library"; and in s.52(1)(zb), it talks of "library or archives", but s.52(1)(zb) also requires that the works be made available on a "non-profit basis". The differentiation, if any, that is sought to be drawn between these is unclear.

Limited Protection to Some Internet Intermediaries

There are two new provisions, s.52(1)(b) and 52(1)(c), which provide some degree of protection to 'transient or incidental' storage of a work or performance. Section 52(1)(b) allows for "the transient or incidental storage of a work or performance purely in the technical process of electronic transmission or communication to the public", hence applying primarily to Internet Service Providers (ISPs), VPN providers, etc. Section 52(1)(c) allows for "transient or incidental storage of a work or performance for the purpose of providing electronic links, access or integration, where such links, access or integration has not been expressly prohibited by the right holder, unless the person responsible is aware or has reasonable grounds for believing that such storage is of an infringing copy". This seems to make it applicable primarily to search engines, with other kinds of online services being covered or not covered depending on one’s interpretation of the word 'incidental'.

Compulsory Licensing Now Applies to Foreign Works Also

Sections 31 ("compulsory licence in works withheld from public") and 31A ("compulsory licence in unpublished Indian works") used to apply to Indian works. Now they apply to all works, whether Indian or not (and now s.31A is about "compulsory licence in unpublished or published works", mainly orphan works). This is a welcome amendment, making foreign works capable of being licensed compulsorily in case it is published elsewhere but withheld in India. Given how onerous our compulsory licensing sections are, especially sections 32 and 32A (which deal with translations, and with literary, scientific or artistic works), it is not a surprise that they have not been used even once. However, given the modifications to s.31 and s.31A, we might just see those starting to be used by publishers, and not just radio broadcasters.

Worrisome Changes

Term of Copyright for Photographs Nearly Doubled

The term of copyright for photographs has now gone from sixty years from publication to sixty years from the death of the photographer. This would mean that copyright in a photograph clicked today (2012) by a 20 year old who dies at the 80 will only expire on January 1, 2133. This applies not only to artistic photographs, to all photographs because copyright is an opt-out system, not an opt-in system. Quite obviously, most photoshopping is illegal under copyright law.

This has two problems. First, there was no case made out for why this term needed to be increased. No socio-economic report was commissioned on the effects of such a term increase. This clause was not even examined by the Parliamentary Standing Committee. While the WCT requires a ‘life + 50′ years term for photographs, we are not signatories to the WCT, and hence have no obligation to enforce this. We are signatories to the Berne Convention and the TRIPS Agreement, which require a copyright term of 25 years for photographs. Instead, we have gone even above the WCT requirement and provide a life + 60 years term.

The second problem is that it is easier to say when a photograph was published than to say who the photographer was and when that photographer died. Even when you are the subject of a photograph, the copyright in the photograph belongs to the photographer. Unless a photograph was made under commission or the photographer assigned copyright to you, you do not own the copyright in the photographs. (Thanks to Bipin Aspatwar, for pointing out a mistake in an earlier version, with "employment" and "commission" being treated differently.) This will most definitely harm projects like Wikipedia, and other projects that aim at archiving and making historical photographs available publicly, since it is difficult to say whether the copyright in a photograph still persists.

Cover Versions Made More Difficult: Kolaveri Di Singers Remain Criminals

The present amendments have brought about the following changes, which make it more difficult to produce cover versions:

Time period after which a cover version can be made has increased from 2 years to 5 years.
Requirement of same medium as the original. So if the original is on a cassette, the cover cannot be released on a CD.
Payment has to be made in advance, and for a minimum of 50000 copies. This can be lowered by Copyright Board having regard to unpopular dialects.
While earlier it was prohibited to mislead the public (i.e., pretend the cover was the original, or endorsed by the original artists), now cover versions are not allowed to "contain the name or depict in any way any performer of an earlier sound recording of the same work or any cinematograph film in which such sound recording was incorporated".
All cover versions must state that they are cover versions.
No alterations are allowed from the original song, and alteration is qualified as ‘alteration in the literary or musical work’. So no imaginative covers in which the lyrics are changed or in which the music is reworked are allowed without the copyright owners’ permission. Only note-for-note and word-for-word covers are allowed.
Alterations were allowed if they were "reasonably necessary for the adaptation of the work" now they are only allowed if it is "technically necessary for the purpose of making of the sound recording".

This ignores present-day realities. Kolaveri Di was covered numerous times without permission, and each one of those illegal acts helped spread its popularity. The singers and producers of those unlicensed versions could be jailed under the current India Copyright Act, which allows even non-commercial copyright infringers to be put behind bars. Film producers and music companies want both the audience reach that comes from less stringent copyright laws (and things like cover versions), as well as the ability to prosecute that same behaviour at will. It is indeed ironic that T-Series, the company that broke HMV’s stranglehold over the Indian recording market thanks to cover versions, is itself one of the main movers behind ever-more stringent copyright laws.

Digital Locks Now Provided Legal Protection Without Accountability

As I have covered the issue of Technological Protection Measures (TPM) and Rights Management Information (RMI), which are ‘digital locks’ also known as Digital Rights Management (DRM), in great detail earlier, I won’t repeat the arguments at length. Very briefly:

It is unclear that anyone has been demanding the grant of legal protection to DRMs in India, and We have no obligation under any international treaties to do so. It is not clear how DRM will help authors and artists, but it is clear how it will harm users.
While the TPM and RMI provisions are much more balanced than the equivalent provisions in laws like the US’s Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMC), that isn’t saying much. Importantly, while users are given certain rights to break the digital locks, they are helpless if they aren’t also provided the technological means of doing so. Simply put: music and movie companies have rights to place digital locks, and under some limited circumstances users have the right to break them. But if the locks are difficult to break, the users have no choice but to live with the lock, despite having a legal right.

Removal of Parallel Importation

In past blog posts I have covered why allowing parallel imports makes sense in India. And as explained above, the Delhi High Court acted per incuriam when holding that the Copyright Act does not allow parallel importation. The Copyright Act only prohibits import of infringing copies of a work, and a copy of a book that has been legally sold in a foreign country is not an “infringing copy”. The government was set to introduce a provision making it clear that parallel importation was allowed. The Parliamentary Standing Committee heard objections to this proposal from a foreign publishers’ association, but decided to recommend the retention of the clause. Still, due to pressure from a few publishing companies whose business relies on monopolies over importation of works into India, the government has decided to delete the provision. However, thankfully, the HRD Minister, Kapil Sibal, has assured both houses of Parliament that he will move a further amendment if an NCAER report he has commissioned (which will be out by August or September) recommends the introduction of parallel imports.

Expansion of Moral Rights Without Safeguards

Changes have been made to author’s moral rights (and performer’s moral rights have been introduced) but these have been made without adequate safeguards. The changes might allow the legal heir of an author, artist, etc., to object to ‘distortion, mutilation, modification, or other act’ of her ancestors work even when the ancestor might not have. By this amendment, this right continues in perpetuity, even after the original creator dies and even after the work enters into the public domain. It seems Indian policymakers had not heard of Stephen Joyce, the grandson of James Joyce, who has “brought numerous lawsuits or threats of legal action against scholars, biographers and artists attempting to quote from Joyce’s literary work or personal correspondence”. Quoting from his Wikipedia page:

In 2004, Stephen threatened legal action against the Irish government when the Rejoyce Dublin 2004 festival proposed public reading of excerpts of Ulysses on Bloomsday. In 1988 Stephen Joyce burnt a collection of letters written by Lucia Joyce, his aunt. In 1989 he forced Brenda Maddox to delete a postscript concerning Lucia from her biography Nora: The Real Life of Molly Bloom. After 1995 Stephen announced no permissions would be granted to quote from his grandfather’s work. Libraries holding letters by Joyce were unable to show them without permission. Versions of his work online were disallowed. Stephen claimed to be protecting his grandfather’s and families reputation, but would sometimes grant permission to use material in exchange for fees that were often "extortionate".

Because in countries like the UK and Canada the works of James Joyce are now in the public domain, Stephen Joyce can no longer restrict apply such conditions. However now, in India, despite James Joyce’s works being in the public domain, Stephen Joyce’s indefensible demands may well carry legal weight.

Backdoor Censorship

As noted above, the provision that safeguard Internet intermediaries (like search engines) is very limited. However, that provision has an extensive removal provision:

Provided that if the person responsible for the storage of the copy has received a written complaint from the owner of copyright in the work, complaining that such transient or incidental storage is an infringement, such person responsible for the storage shall refrain from facilitating such access for a period of twenty-one days or till he receives an order from the competent court refraining from facilitating access and in case no such order is received before the expiry of such period of twenty-one days, he may continue to provide the facility of such access;

There are two things to be noted here. First, that without proof (or negative consequences for false complaints) the service provider is mandated to prevent access to the copy for 21 day. Second, after the elapsing of 21 days, the service provider may 'put back' the content, but is not mandated to do so. This would allow people to file multiple frivolous complaints against any kind of material, even falsely (since there is no penalty for false compalaints), and keep some material permanently censored.

Missed Opportunities

Fair Dealing Guidelines, Criminal Provisions, Government Works, and Other Missed Opportunities

The following important changes should have been made by the government, but haven’t. While on some issues the Standing Committee has gone beyond the proposed amendments, it has not touched upon any of the following, which we believe are very important changes that are required to be made.

Criminal provisions: Our law still criminalises individual, non-commercial copyright infringement. This has now been extended to the proposal for circumvention of Technological Protection Measures and removal of Rights Management Information also.
Fair dealing guidelines: We would benefit greatly if, apart from the specific exceptions provided for in the Act, more general guidelines were also provided as to what do not constitute infringement. This would not take away from the existing exceptions, but would act as a more general framework for those cases which are not covered by the specific exceptions.
Government works: Taxpayers are still not free to use works that were paid for by them. This goes against the direction that India has elected to march towards with the Right to Information Act. A simple amendment of s.52(1)(q) would suffice. The amended subsection could simply allow for “the reproduction, communication to the public, or publication of any government work” as being non-infringing uses.
Copyright terms: The duration of all copyrights are above the minimum required by our international obligations, thus decreasing the public domain which is crucial for all scientific and cultural progress.
Educational exceptions: The exceptions for education still do not fully embrace distance and digital education.
Communication to the public: No clear definition is given of what constitute a ‘public’, and no distinction is drawn between commercial and non-commercial ‘public’ communication.
Internet intermediaries: More protections are required to be granted to Internet intermediaries to ensure that non-market based peer-production projects such as Wikipedia, and other forms of social media and grassroots innovation are not stifled. Importantly, after the terrible judgment passed by Justice Manmohan Singh of the Delhi High Court in the Super Cassettes v. Myspace case, any website hosting user-generated content is vulnerable to payment of hefty damages even if it removes content speedily on the basis of complaints.

Amendments Not Examined

For the sake of brevity, I have not examined the major changes that have been made with regard to copyright societies, lyricists and composers, and statutory licensing for broadcasters, all of which have received considerable attention by copyright experts elsewhere, nor have I examined many minor amendments.

A Note on the Parliamentary Process

Much of the discussions around the Copyright Act have been around the rights of composers and lyricists vis-à-vis producers. As this has been covered elsewhere, I won’t comment much on it, other than to say that it is quite unfortunate that the trees are lost for the forest. It is indeed a good thing that lyricists and composers are being provided additional protection against producers who are usually in a more advantageous bargaining position. This fact came out well in both houses of Parliament during the debate on the Copyright Bill.

However, the mechanism of providing this protection — by preventing assignment of “the right to receive royalties”, though the “right to receive royalties” is never mentioned as a separate right anywhere else in the Copyright Act — was not critically examined by any of the MPs who spoke. What about the unintended consequences of such an amendment? Might this not lead to new contracts where instead of lump-sums, lyricists and music composers might instead be asked to bear the risk of not earning anything at all unless the film is profitable? What about a situation where a producer asks a lyricist to first assign all rights (including royalty rights) to her heirs and then enters into a contract with those heirs? The law, unfortunately at times, revolves around words used by the legislature and not just the intent of the legislature. While one cannot predict which way the amendment will go, one would have expected better discussions around this in Parliament.

Much of the discussion (in both the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha) was rhetoric about the wonders of famous Indian songwriters and music composers and the abject penury in which some not-so-famous ones live, and there was very little discussion about the actual merits of the content of the Bill in terms of how this problem will be overcome. A few MPs did deal with issues of substance. Some asked the HRD Minister tough questions about the Statement of Objects and Reasons noting that amendments have been brought about to comply with the WCT and WPPT which were “adopted … by consensus”, even though this is false as India is not a signatory to the WCT and WPPT. MP P. Rajeeve further raised the issue of parallel imports and that of there being no public demand for including TPM in the Act, but that being a reaction to the US’s flawed Special 301 reports. Many, however, spoke about issues such as the non-award of the Bharat Ratna to Bhupen Hazarika, about the need to tackle plagiarism, and how the real wealth of a country is not material wealth but intellectual wealth.

This preponderance of rhetoric over content is not new when it comes to copyright policy in India. In 1991, when an amendment was presented to increase term of copyright in all works by ten years (from expiring 50 years from the author’s death to 60 years post-mortem), the vast majority of the Parliamentarians who stood up to speak on the issue waxed eloquent about the greatness of Rabindranath Tagore (whose works were about to lapse into the public domain), and how we must protect his works. Little did they reflect that extending copyright — for all works, whether by Tagore or not — will not help ‘protect’ the great Bengali artist, but would only make his (and all) works costlier for 10 additional years. Good-quality and cheaper editions of Tagore’s works are more easily available post-2001 (when his copyright finally lapsed) than before, since companies like Rupa could produce cheap editions without seeking a licence from Visva Bharati. And last I checked Tagore’s works have not been sullied by them having passed into the public domain in 2001.

Further, one could find outright mistakes in the assertions of Parliamentarians. In both Houses, DMK MPs raised objections with regard to parallel importation being allowed in the Bill — only in the version of the Bill they were debating, parallel importation was not being allowed. One MP stated that “statutory licensing provisions like these are not found anywhere else in the world”. This is incorrect, given that there are extensive statutory licensing provision in countries like the United States, covering a variety of situations, from transmission of sound recordings over Internet radio to secondary transmission of the over-the-air programming.

Unfortunately, though that MP did not raise this issue, there is a larger problem that underlies copyright policymaking in India, and that is the fact that there is no impartial evidence gathered and no proper studies that are done before making of policies. We have no equivalent of the Hargreaves Report or the Gowers Report, or the studies by the Productivity Council in Australia or the New Zealand government study of parallel importation.

There was no economic analysis conducted of the effect of the increase in copyright term for photographs. We have evidence from elsewhere that copyright terms are already too long, and all increases in term are what economists refer to as deadweight losses. There is no justification whatsoever for increasing term of copyright for photographs, since India is not even a signatory to the WCT (which requires this term increase). In fact, we have lost precious negotiation space internationally since in bilateral trade agreements we have been asked to bring our laws in compliance with the WCT, and we have asked for other conditions in return. By unilaterally bringing ourselves in compliance with WCT, we have lost important bargaining power.

Users and Smaller Creators Left Out of Discussions

Thankfully, the Parliamentary Standing Committee went into these minutiae in greater detail. Though, as I have noted elsewhere, the Parliamentary Standing Committee did not invite any non-industry groups for deposition before it, other than the disability rights groups which had campaigned really hard. So while changes that would affect libraries were included, not a single librarian was called by the Standing Committee. Despite comments having been submitted to the Standing Committee on behalf of 22 civil society organizations, none of those organizations were asked to depose. Importantly, non-industry users of copyrighted materials — consumers, historians, teachers, students, documentary film-makers, RTI activists, independent publishers, and people like you and I — are not seen as legitimate interested parties in the copyright debate. This is amply clear from the the fact that only one MP each in the two houses of Parliament raised the issue of users’ rights at all.

Concluding Thoughts

What stands out most from this process of amendment of the copyright law, which has been going on since 2006, is how out-of-touch the law is with current cultural practices. Most instances of photoshopping are illegal. Goodbye Lolcats. Cover versions (for which payments have to be made) have to wait for five years. Goodbye Kolaveri Di. Do you own the jokes you e-mail to others, and have you taken licences for quoting older e-mails in your replies? Goodbye e-mail. The strict laws of copyright, with a limited set of exceptions, just do not fit the digital era where everything digital transaction results in a bytes being copied. We need to take a much more thoughtful approach to rationalizing copyright: introduction of general fair dealing guidelines, reduction of copyright term, decriminalization of non-commercial infringement, and other such measures. If we don’t take such measures soon, we will all have to be prepared to be treated as criminals for all our lives. Breaking copyright law shouldn’t be as easy as breathing, yet thanks to outdated laws, it is.

This was reposted in infojustice.org on May 25, 2012

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/analysis-copyright-amendment-bill-2012

Analysis of Institutional Partnerships: University of Mysore and Guru G Learning Labs

hasan — 2015-12-15T07:39:15Z

University of Mysore considered to be one of the most prestigious institutions in the country has been famous for its innovative pedagogic techniques and opening up for students various avenues of knowledge acquisition.

The Kannada Encyclopedia project that was taken up by the Kuvempu Kannada Adhyana Samsthe, (KIKS), Manasagangothri, Mysore was one of its kind during its inception. It is safe to say that though Kannda has seen many other projects and attempts towards compiling encyclopedias, to this day the Vishwakoshas produced by University of Mysore are among the top picks regarding quality of the content, scope of the information and its reach with the general public. Many other encyclopedia projects such as “Bala Vignana Kosha” compiled by Shivaram Karanth, “Jnana Gangothri” by Niranjana, the “Kananda Sahitya Vishwakosha” from the Kannada University, Hampi have provided encyclopedic content to the Kannada readers.

The idea of the University of Mysore complied Vishwakoshas was simple. It seeked to provide basic and elemenatry information about key topics all around the universe (physical, spiritual, material, cultural, social, behavioural, political and many other domains of knowledge) to the general public. The intention was to make information accessible and easily understandable. It was not expected to educate or assist people in gaining profieciency regarding a certain topic but was expected to provide salient features, brief history and concise introduction.

Rationale for Institutional partnership:

The compilation of topics that were to be part of the Vishwakosha was done alphabetically and till date 13 Vishwakoshas have been produced along with one Kannada Vishaya Vishwakosha which exclusively deals with matters pertaining to Kannada land, language, literature, politics, culture, entertainment and other aspects of Kannada life. The Vishwakosha project was a method to democratise the process of production of knowledge. People from all walks of life were invited to contribute to the Vishwakosha along with the academicians and researchers. The submissions were then scrutinised by the review committee and was edited, information added as per the requirements. As this was not a text only Vishwakosha many attempts were made to source images as well. These were not used as ornamental or page filling purpose but was also informative in its own way with adequate meta data.

These encyclopedias have been extremely popular with the Kannada audience both for the content and for its competitive pricing. Prasaranga, the publication division of University of Mysore had also offered an discount for people who would purchase the entire set of Vishwakoshas at a special rate. The Vishwakosha project faced many problems and the last volume of the Vishwakosha was released in the year , while the first volume was released in . University of Mysore has also digitised the Vishwakoshas and made it avaialable for general public on a CD.

Plan of Action:

Access to Knowledge team sought to bring these treasure troves of Knowledge onto the digital platform and update the information available on these Vishwakoshas. It was a shot in the arm for the activities being conducted by CIS-A2K when University of Mysore agreed to re-release all of its encyclopedias under free licence for the benefit of larger Kannada community. University of Mysore also agreed to handover soft copies of the few encyclopedias (that were already digitised) to create and redirect content towards Kannada Wikipedia.

A2K team has conducted three skill building and Wikipedia orientation workshops with the students of University of Mysore in order to kick start the content generation activities. These workshops were received very positively by the students. However due to lack of an active community and serious infrastructural issues the students could not continue with the activities that had been planned. Due to the inactivity of these new volunteers we have witnessed a decrease in the activity of content generation effort as aimed earlier.

CIS-A2K facilitated extracting the legacy text from the soft-copies, converting them to Unicode, distributing the files among volunteers and Christ University interns and uploading them to Kannada Wikisource. These articles will serve as primary material for new content generation on Kannada Wikipedia. CIS-A2K celeberated Open Knowledge Day in collaboration with University of Mysore.

The non availability of infrastructual requirement, administrative difficulties such as scheduling of academic calendar offered the A2K team many invaluable lessons towards fostering an institutional partnership. A2K team adopted corrective measures and has been using the encyclopedias donated by University of Mysore as a primary reference for the subsequent edit-a-thons. A2K has also created a project page on Meta to attract Kannada Wikimedians towards content generation.

Outcome and Output:

A2K team utilised its institutional partnership with Christ University in the initial stages and digitised volumes of Kannada Encyclopedias. These were used both as references for the edit-a-thons conducted by CIS-A2K and as a primary reference material that was curated into an independent article on Kannada Wikipedia. Many Kannada Wikimedians have joined hands with A2K in acheiving this. This is an on-going activity.

Plans for Future:

As University of Mysore has rich archival collection particulalry in Indian Languages, A2K team intends to talk to individual departments to bring this content to Open Knowledge repositiries.

A2K team would like to involve various Departments to dedicate some staff on an hourly basis towards speedy completion of the project.

The existing MoU is understood as a one time activity of content donation (print and e copy of Vishwakosha) where as A2K would like to continue this activity as a long term engagement that will facilitate in building research skills and writing skills.

A2K team intends to request to University of Mysore should select/suggest some student volunteers for the digitisation project. With the inclusion of Kannada PA A2K team would collaborate with key Departments at the University of Mysore to conduct digitisation and translation sprints that will be facilitated by and other Wikimedians.

A2K team would like to collate all the new articles created with the help of the content donated by University of Mysore and circulate it as a newsletter on a monthly basis and sent to the Kannada community and University of Mysore.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/analysis-of-institutional-partnerships-university-of-mysore-and-guru-g-learning-lab

Analysis of CLOUD Act and Implications for India

elonnai — 2018-08-22T14:53:50Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/analysis-of-cloud-act-and-implications-for-india

An Urgent Need for the Right to Privacy

sumandro — 2016-03-17T07:40:12Z

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

Read and sign the open letter.

Text of the Open Letter

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

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

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

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

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

Signatories:

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

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

An Overview of Telecommunications Policy and Regulation Framework in India

Admin — 2022-04-08T11:36:07Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/overview-telecommunications-policy-regulation-framework-india

An Overview of Accessibility Work (2008 - 2016)

nirmita — 2016-09-24T16:09:53Z

India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and accessibility policies. CIS campaigns for change in this area.

The progress made over the years can be accessed below:

Publications

E-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities (Nirmita Narasimhan, G3ict and ITU; November 23, 2010): The handbook was compiled and edited by Nirmita Narasimhan. Nirmita also contributed to the original toolkit.
Universal Service for Persons with Disabilities (CIS, G3ict and Hans Foundation; December 27, 2011). Nirmita Narasimhan was a co-author.
Web Accessibility Policy Making (CIS, G3ict and Hans Foundation; February 28, 2012). Nirmita Narasimhan was a contributor.
Making Mobile Phones and Services Accessible for Persons with Disabilities (ITU and G3ict; August 2012). Nirmita Narasimhan was a co-author.
Accessibility of Government Websites in India: A Report (CIS and Hans Foundation; September 26, 2012). Nirmita Narasimhan was a co-author.
Opening New Avenues for Empowerment (UNESCO; February 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan was the project coordinator from Asia Pacific.
Inclusive Financial Services for Seniors and Persons with Disabilities: Global Trends in Accessibility Requirements (G3ict and CIS; February 2015). Nirmita Narasimhan was a co-author.
National Compendium of Laws, Policies and Programmes for Persons with Disabilities (CIS and Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, Department of Disability Affairs, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Govt. of India; January 3, 2016). Nirmita Narasimhan was one of the contributors.

Reports

NIVH Annual Report 2011-12 (NIVH; 2012)
Inclusive Disaster and Emergency Management for Persons with Disabilities (Nirmita Narasimhan and Deepti Samant Raja; September 17, 2013). The report was submitted to the National Disaster Management Authority of India for their action.
Banking and Accessibility in India: A Report (Nirmita Narasimhan; August 12, 2013)
Accessibility of Political Parties Websites in India (Nirmita Narasimhan; March 24, 2014).
Enabling Elections (Nirmita Narasimhan and Centre for Law and Policy Research; March 2014).

Policy Submissions and Feedback

CIS worked with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology and civil society and industry partners such as the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP), Microsoft Corporation, National informatics Centre (NIC), etc., to formulate and implement a National Electronic Accessibility Policy to ensure that all Indian information and communication technologies and electronic infrastructure (including the Internet) and research which is publically funded, is accessible to persons with disabilities. Nirmita Narasimhan was part of the policy drafting committee.
Accessibility in the New Telecom Policy 2011: CIS made a submission to the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India on December 9, 2011. CIS was one of the 27 organisations that sent a joint letter requesting that accessibility for persons with disabilities be included specifically within the goals and objectives of the policy.
Pilot Project Scheme - Access to ICTs and ICT Enabled Services for Persons with Disabilities in Rural India: CIS worked with USOF of India to design a scheme to launch projects for persons with disabilities. CIS prepared a background paper for the USOF, compiled a comprehensive global report which was later published in cooperation with G3ict and helped to convene a stakeholders meeting in September 2011 to launch the scheme and invite project applications.
Comments to the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014 (Nirmita Narasimhan and Anandhi Viswanathan; October 30, 2014). The comments were submitted to the Parliamentary Standing Committee in October 2014.
CIS joined hands with Daisy Forum of India member Arushi in Bhopal to submit a request for a notification mandating that all communication by the Government of Madhya Pradesh should be accessible to persons with disabilities. The state government issued a notification in Hindi requesting all departments to comply with WCAG 2.0 and use Unicode font. Nirmita Narasimhan drafted this submission.
Accessible ICT Procurement: CIS along with 20 other organisations petitioned the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Information Technology, Govt. of India to bring in accessibility considerations within the draft Procurement Bill.
Comments to the GIGW (Nirmita Narasimhan; April 30, 2015): CIS submitted its comments to the National Informatics Centre for making Indian government websites conform to the notified standards of the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites.
Recommendations on Accessible ICT Procurement (Pranesh Prakash; May 9, 2016). CIS along with 20 other organisations petitioned the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Information Technology to bring in accessibility considerations within the draft Procurement Bill.

WIPO

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO and regularly participates in the meetings of the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) held in Geneva. CIS is actively involved in matters being discussed there such as the TVI. As part of its work, CIS provides comments at the SCCR and advises the Indian government on these matters through policy briefs, research and interactive discussions and meetings. CIS has given several statements on Treaty for the Visually Impaired and prepared an analysis of the consensus document on an international instrument on limitations and exceptions for persons with disabilities with the Third World Network which was widely circulated amongst the negotiators at the SCCR. CIS’ statements at the SCCR in June 2013, July 2012, December 2011, June 2011, and November 2010 are available on the CIS website.

CIS took part in the WIPO Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities in Marrakesh, Morocco, June 17 to 28, 2013. The conference concluded with the adoption of the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons who are Blind, Visually Impaired, or otherwise Print Disabled. CIS's Closing Statement at Marrakesh on the Treaty for the Blind can be seen here.

At the national level CIS has been campaigning for right to read, attending meetings with ministries such as the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Department of Electronics and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, and giving feedback on the Copyright Amendment Bills. Earlier this year, CIS gave a detailed analysis of the Copyright (Amendment) Bill 2012 examining the positive changes and the negative ones.

Events

National Workshop on Web Accessibility (Organized by CIS and Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment; September 25-26, 2009).
National Conference on ICTs for Differently Abled / Under privileged Communities in Education, Employment & Entrepreneurship — NCIDEEE 2009 (Loyola College, Chennai, December 1 – 3, 2009): The event was co-organised by Dr. A. Albert Muthumalai S. J, Principal, Loyola College, & Prof. J. Jerald Inico, Faculty In-charge, Resource Centre for the Differently Abled (RCDA), Loyola College, in association with NASSCOM, Computer Society of India and CIS.
CIS organized Right to Read campaigns in the 4 metro cities of Chennai Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai. The campaign has gathered thousands of supporters and has succeeded in bringing the problems of the print disabled to the notice of policy makers and the general public.
EdICT 2010 (New Delhi, October 27 to 30, 2010): CIS in collaboration with G3ict, UNESCO, ITU, WIPO, The Deafway Foundation, DEF and SPACE and with the support from Hans Foundation and the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology organised this event. Twenty-nine experts made presentations on a variety of topics, ranging from discussing challenges and solutions in educational institutions, to technology development and policy formulation and implementation. A total of 77 participants attended this event.
Websites Accessibility Evaluation Methodologies at Twentieth International World Wide Web Conference (Hyderabad, March 30 – 31, 2011): CIS co-organised this with G3ict and W3C. The panel discussed web accessibility evaluation methodologies and their challenges and technical survey methodologies alternatives. The panel was moderated by Nirmita Narasimhan and featured four speakers — Shadi Abou Zahra, Neeta Verma, Srinivasu Chakravartula and Glenda Sims.
ITU Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility (India International Centre, New Delhi, March 14 – 15, 2012): In cooperation with the ITU-APT Foundation of India, CIS hosted a two-day Tutorial on Audio Visual Media Accessibility from March 14 to 15, 2012 at the India International Centre, New Delhi, India.
Girls in ICT Day (Organized by CIS and Mithra Jyothi; Bangalore; April 25, 2013).

Internet Governance Forum
CIS has been organising workshops and participating regularly at IGF events since 2008 on topics like accessibility, access to knowledge, openness, internet governance, freedom of expression, etc. Details given below: IGF 2008, Hyderabad, India: CIS joined the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards and also contributed to the authoring of the Agreement on Procurement in Support of Interoperability and Open Standards. CIS is now a part of the DCOS secretariat. IGF 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt: Nirmita Narasimhan presented on Accessibility Policy Making: An International Perspective at the Global Internet Access for Persons with Disabilities workshop organised by ITU and EBU on November 16. CIS also co-organised the workshop on ‘Content Regulation, Surveillance and Sexuality Rights – Privacy, Agency and Security’, together with the Association for Progressive Communications, Women’s Networking Support Programme and the Alternative Law Forum. IGF2010, Vilnius, Lithuania: At the UNESCO Open Forum, Anja Kovacs presented the research study ‘Exploring ICT-enabled Education Initiatives for Persons with Disabilities in the Asia-Pacific Region’. The study was undertaken by CIS in cooperation with G3ICT and UNESCO. Besides this, CIS co-organised these workshops: Freedom of Expression or Access to Knowledge: Are We Taking the Necessary Steps towards an Open and inclusive Internet? with the Center for Technology and Society, Brazil, ‘Sexual Rights, Openness and Regulatory Systems’, with the Association for Progressive Communications and the Alternative Law Forum, Open Standards: Ensuring Accessibility and Inclusiveness with the World Wide Web Consortium and the workshop on Data in the Cloud: Where Do Open Standards Fit In? IGF 2011, Nairobi, Kenya: Use of Digital Technologies for Civic Engagement and Political Change: Lessons Learned and Way Forward and Open Spectrum for Development in the Context of the Digital Migration. These workshops were organized by CIS.

Awards

Nirmita Narasimhan was awarded the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on December 3, 2010 on the occasion of the World Disability Day. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The award function took place at Vigyan Bhavan in New Delhi and was telecast live on Doordarshan.
Nirmita Narasimhan received the NIVH Excellence Award from Justice AS Anand (retd), former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun on December 3, 2011. The Tribune covered the award ceremony.
Girls in ICT Day 2013 (organized by ITU-APT Foundation of India with support from CMAI - Association of India Communication and Infrastructure, FICCI Auditorium, Tansen Marg, New Delhi, May 7, 2013). Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan got a felicitation for her contribution and achievements in the field of Information and Communication Technology. The honour was conferred during the celebration of this event.
Nirmita Narasimhan won the NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Award in the "Persons with Disabilities" category. The awards aim to raise awareness about accessibility.

Articles and Interviews

Technology for Accessibility in Higher Education: Nirmita Narasimhan wrote an article in Enabling Access for Persons with Disabilities to Higher Education and Workplace - Role of ICT and Assistive Technologies. The IIMB Journal was brought out on the occasion of the conference ‘never-the-less’.
The Business Case for Web Accessibility: NASSCOM Foundation published "Understanding Web Accessibility — A Guide to create Accessible Work Environments". In this handbook on web accessibility, Nirmita Narasimhan authored a chapter titled “The Business Case for Web Accessibility”.
Barriers to Access in a Connected World: Hans Foundation published its Annual Review of 2011. Nirmita Narasimhan wrote an article in it. She wrote that accessibility is an imperative to achieve a truly inclusive and participatory society and every individual, corporation, organization and government has a crucial role to play in nurturing it.
Girls in ICT Portal (November 28, 2011): ITU interviewed Nirmita and published her profile on their website.
An India Where the Disabled have a Choice (Dataquest, August 5, 2016). Nirmita Narasimhan spoke to Dr. Archana Verma about the problems faced by the disabled while using technology.
We Tested 18 Government Apps, and Most are not Fully Accessible to the Disabled (Nirmita Narasimhan; Factor Daily, August 31, 2016).
Mobile Apps Are Excluding Millions Of Indians Who Want To Use Them (Nirmita Narasimhan; Huffington Post; September 22, 2016).

Media Coverage

Nirmita Narasimhan gave inputs to the following media coverage:

DFI and Cambridge University Press join hands for getting print access to the “print impaired” (The Bookseller; November 27, 2009).
WIPO Proposals Would Open Cross-Border Access To Materials For Print Disabled (IP Watch; May 28, 2010).
Disability groups in India welcome progress on treaty for blind persons (The Times of India; December 20, 2012).
Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired (IP Watch; February 16, 2013).
How tech brings self-reliance to students with disabilities (The Times of India; May 29, 2016).
How India’s top firms fare in employing women and persons with disabilities (Livemit; August 9, 2016).
Using technology to address issues (The Hindu; August 14, 2016).
India has a long road ahead in becoming a disabled-friendly country (Your Story; August 31, 2016).

NVDA and eSpeak

Hans Foundation is funding CIS to do a project on developing a text-to-speech software in 15 Indian languages over a period of two-and-a-half years. Following are the monthly programmatic reports indicating the progress made in the project:

Monthly Reports

2014

		March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December

2015

January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December

2016

January	February	March	April	May	June	July	August

Training Programmes

Following are the reports of the training programmes that were conducted across several locations in India:

15 days Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Hindi (April 10; 2015).
15 days Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Gujarati (April 16, 2015).

15 days Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Oriya (April 30, 2015).
eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA (May 4 – 8, 2015).
Training in Basic Computing with use of NVDA and eSpeak in Assamese (May 9 – 10, 2015).
Training in the Use of eSpeak for Indian Languages during TOT (May 11 – 20, 2015).
Tamil Language (May 25 – 29, 2015).
Training on the Use of eSpeak Hindi on Windows and Android Platforms (May 28, 2015).
Report on 30 Days Summer Course on Basic Computer Competencies and Language Proficiency (May 1 – 30, 2015).
Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop (Organized by NVDA team: Anne Jane Ask with Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli; June 3 – 7, 2015).
Report on eSpeak Tamil Computing with NVDA Training Workshop in Tirunelveli (Organized by NVDA team; Anne Jane Askwith Higher Secondary School for the Visually Impaired, Palayamkottai, Tirunelveli; June 3 - 7, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by NVDA team; National Association for the Blind; Nashik; June 22 - 23, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by NVDA team; SIES College, Sion, Mumbai; June 28, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Marathi (Organized by CIS; Atmadepam Society; August 22 – 23, 2015).
Training in eSpeak Hindi (Organized by NVDA team; Jeevan Jyoti School for the Blind; Varanasi; August 26 - 28, 2015).
eSpeak Training in Hindi Language (Organized by CIS and National Association for the Blind; Kullu; September 3 – 4, 2015).
Training in use of eSpeak Bengali with NVDA (Organized by CIS; Turnstone Matruchaya, Siligudi, West Bengal; September 7 – 9, 2015).
5 day TOT for Training in Use of eSpeak Kannada with NVDA (Organized by CIS, Mithra Jyoti, Enable India and NFB, Bangalore; September 21 – 25, 2015; Bangalore).
Training in the use of eSpeak Hindi with NVDA (Organized by CIS and Lakshay for the Differently Abled; September 29 – 30, 2015; Ranchi). The event was conducted online by Dr. Homiyar with local support from Mritunjay Kumar and Zainab.
Report on eSpeak with NVDA Screen Reader and Assistive Technology for Visually Challenged (Organized by National Association for the Blind, New Delhi, Centre for Differently Abled Persons, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, and CIS; January 21, 2016; Tiruchirappalli).
Report on NVDA with E-Speak and BookShare Online Library (Organized by Karna Vidya Technology Centre, Computer and Internet Society, and CIS; February 27, 2016; Chennai).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/resources/cis-accessibility-work-overview

An Open Letter on Internet Governance to the UN Internet Governance Forum

sachia — 2011-08-02T07:40:02Z

This open letter brings up concerns of democratic deficit in internet governance worldwide, and is addressed to the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It is to be delivered at the IGF's 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th December, 2008. The signatories are Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi, Free Software Foundation - India, IT for Change, Bangalore, and Knowledge Commons, New Delhi.

This open letter brings up concerns of democratic deficit in internet governance worldwide, and is addressed to the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF). It will be delivered at the IGF's 3rd Annual Meeting at Hyderabad, India, from 3rd to 6th December, 2008.

The letter includes an information sheet exemplifying some of the problems of democratic deficit in internet governance.

The text of the letter is as follows:
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The IGF must ACT NOW against the threat to the public-ness and the egalitarian nature of the Internet

The undersigned wish to express their deep concern that the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), created by the World Summit on the Information Society in 2005 as an Internet ‘policy dialogue’ forum, is largely failing to address key public interest and policy issues in global Internet governance – including that of democratic deficit.

Who shapes the Internet, as the Internet shapes our new social context?

The Internet represents the single most important technical advance of our society in a long time, so much so that it defines a new emerging social paradigm. The basic characteristics of the Internet determine the contours of the emerging social order in many important ways. The Internet was conceived as, and still largely is, an extensive communication system which is democratizing, and has little respect for established social hierarchies. Interactions and associations built over this new ‘techno-social’ system have, therefore, held the promise of a more egalitarian society.

The era of innocence of the Internet however appears to be fast approaching its end. Today, the Internet of the future – the very near future – is being shaped insidiously by dominant forces to further their interests. (See the fact-sheet on the following page for some illustrations of this.) Unfortunately, global policy forums have largely failed to articulate, much less act on, crucial Internet policy issues, which concern the democratic possibilities for our societies.

The IGF needs to act now!

As the Internet Governance Forum convenes for its third annual meeting, between 3rd and 6th December, 2008, in Hyderabad, India, it must take immediate steps to anchor and discuss important global public interest and policy issues involved in Internet governance. If it does not act now, it may get seen as a space that only provides an illusion of a public policy dialogue, and, consequently, as being co-opted in furthering the agenda of dominant forces that are shaping the Internet as per their narrow interests. We therefore strongly urge the IGF to directly address the following key global public interest and policy issues:

Increasing corporatisation of the Internet
Increasing proprietisation of standards and code that go into building the Internet
Increasing points of control being embedded into the Internet in the name of security and intellectual property violations
Huge democratic deficit in global Internet governance

We exhort the IGF to adopt clear directions for engaging with these crucial public policy issues. The IGF should come out with a clear work plan at its forthcoming meeting in Hyderabad to address the four key areas listed above.

The global community – comprising not only people who currently have access to the Internet, but also the un-connected billions who are being impacted by it nevertheless – will judge the meaningfulness and legitimacy of the IGF in terms of what progress it is able to make on these issues.

Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore
Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore
Delhi Science Forum, New Delhi
Free Software Foundation - India
IT for Change, Bangalore
Knowledge Commons, New Delhi

Information Sheet
How the Public-ness and Egalitarian Nature of the Internet is Threatened
– Some Examples

Corporatisation of the Internet
Largely unsuspected by most of its users, the Internet is rapidly changing from being a vast ‘public sphere’, with a fully public ownership and a non-proprietary nature, to a set of corporatised privately-owned networks.

On the one hand, telecom companies are carving out the Internet into privately-owned networks – controlling the nature of transactions over these networks. They seek to differentially charge content providers, while also building wholly private networks offering exclusive content relay services. Developments like video/TV over Internet Protocol and the provision of controlled and selective Internet services over mobiles are contributing to increasing network-operators’ control over the Internet, with a corresponding erosion of its public-ness.

On the other hand, the commons of the Internet is also being overwhelmed and squeezed out by a complete domination of a few privately owned mega-applications such as Google, Facebook, Youtube etc.

Proprietarisation of standards and code that build the Internet

One of the main ways of appropriating the commons of the Internet is through the increasing use of proprietary and closed standards and code in building the Internet system. Such appropriation allows the extortion of illegitimate rent out of the many new forms of commons-based activities that are being made possible through the Internet.

Embedding control points in the Internet

A growing confluence of corporatist and statist interests has led to the embedding of more and more means of control into the Internet in a manner that greatly compromises citizens’ rights and freedoms. Whether it is the pressure on Internet
Service Providers to examine Internet traffic for ‘intellectual property’ violations; or imposition of cultural and political controls on the Internet by states within their boundaries; or ITU’s work on IP trace-back mechanisms; or the tightening of US
control over the global Internet infrastructure in the name of securing the root zone file and the domain name system, these new forms of controlling the Internet are being negotiated among dominant interests away from public scrutiny and wider public interest-based engagements.

Democratic deficit in global Internet governance
The current global Internet governance regime – a new-age privatized governance system professing allegiance mostly to a single country, the US – has proven to be an active instrument of perpetuation of dominant commercial and geo-political interests. Lately, OECD countries have begun some work on developing public policy principles that, due to the inherently global nature of the Internet, can be expected to become globally applicable. It is quite unacceptable that OECD countries shirk from discussing the same public policy issues at global public policy forums like the IGF that they discuss among themselves at OECD meetings. Apparently, developing countries are expected to focus on finding ways to reach connectivity to their people, and not burden themselves with higher-level Internet governance issues!

People’s and communities’ right to self-determination and participation in governance of issues that impact their lives should underpin global Internet governance.

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You can download the letter here (.pdf format).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/an-open-letter-on-internet-governance-to-the-un-internet-governance-forum