Centre for Internet and Society

NTIA to give up control of the Internet's root

pranesh — 2014-03-18T18:21:40Z

On Friday evening the U.S. government's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced that it was setting into motion a transition to give up a few powers that it holds over some core Internet functions, and that this would happen by September 2015. Pranesh Prakash provides a brief response to that announcement.

As it noted in the NTIA's press release:

NTIA’s responsibility includes the procedural role of administering changes to the authoritative root zone file – the database containing the lists of names and addresses of all top-level domains – as well as serving as the historic steward of the [Domain Name System (DNS)]. NTIA currently contracts with [the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN] to carry out the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions and has a Cooperative Agreement with Verisign under which it performs related root zone management functions. Transitioning NTIA out of its role marks the final phase of the privatization of the DNS as outlined by the U.S. Government in 1997.

This move was welcomed by "Internet technical leaders".

While this announcement cannot be said to be unexpected, it is nonetheless an important one and is also a welcome one. The NTIA seems to have foreclosed any option of the US government's role being performed by any government-led organization by noting in their press release, "NTIA will not accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution," once again reaffirming their belief in American exceptionalism: the NTIA could fulfil its role despite being a government, but now even a body involving multiple stakeholders can't replace the NTIA's role if it is going to be government-led.

Unfortunately, this announcement to relax American "stewardship" or "oversight" over some aspects of the Internet's technical functioning cannot restore the trust that has been lost due to actions taken by the US government and US companies. This new announcement won't change the US government's ability to 'tap' the Internet, nor will it affect their ability to unilaterally seize .com/.net/.name/.org/.edu/.tv/.cc/.us and other US-based domain names. Nor will a shift away from NTIA oversight lead to any of the chilling visions that some believe might lie in our future: the fears of the Association of National Advertisers and of some politicians and members of the US Congress is based on ignorance of what NTIA's role is.

The European Commission in a communiqué last month noted: "recent revelations of large-scale surveillance have called into question the stewardship of the U.S. when it comes to Internet governance". Unfortunately, the U.S. giving up that stewardship role will not prevent the continuation of their large-scale surveillance, just as the lack of such a stewardship role has not prevented other governments — U.K., India, Canada, Sweden, France, etc. — from engaging in large-scale surveillance.

There are three main benefits from the U.S. giving up this role.

First, it will put an end to the political illegitimacy of the U.S. government having a core authority in a global system, somehow making it first among equals;
Second, will focus light on ICANN, which under US oversight performs the IANA functions, and might, one hopes, lead to needed reform in ICANN's other functions;
Third, it will allow us to collectively move on from this dreaded political issue at the heart of Internet governance, which nevertheless is of little practical consequence if ICANN's accountability mechanisms are strengthened. As difficult as it may be, ICANN has to be accountable not just to one government or another but to the world, and ensuring that accountability to all doesn't become accountability to none, as NetChoice's Steve DelBianco put it, is the formidable task ahead of us.

Yet, all the ICANN reform in the world will still not lead to a less spied-upon, more open, and more equitable Internet.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/ntia-to-give-up-control-of-internets-root

NSA leaks helping India become 'Big Brother' state?

praskrishna — 2013-11-19T09:45:13Z

While the US and Britain fend off accusations of Big Brother-style spying, other countries are learning lessons from fugitive ex-US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden's leaks and, critics say, developing the same kind of mass-surveillance.

This post was published in BBC on October 31, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

India is one of those in the frame.

Its authorities are bringing in new measures against foreign cyber-snooping, including a plan to move internet traffic inside its borders and banning officials from using Gmail and other external email services.

Simultaneously, campaigners say the Indian government is loosening controls on electronic snooping by its own spies.

It is also stepping up efforts to build its own mass-surveillance system, which critics have dubbed "India's PRISM" - a reference to one of the US spy programmes revealed by Mr Snowden.

This is the downside of Mr Snowden's leaks, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, an Indian advocacy group.

"Governments like India are now cherry-picking the worst practices, in a race for the bottom in terms of human rights".

Documents released by Mr Snowden to journalist Glenn Greenwald showed America's National Security Agency (NSA) was hoovering up billions of chunks of Indian data, making the country its fifth most important target worldwide.

'Not actually snooping'

But unlike other states that have discovered the US is siphoning off their secrets, India has conspicuously avoided joining the chorus of criticism. That may be because it doesn't want to draw attention to its own activities.

Its foreign minister Salman Khurshid even appeared to excuse American monitoring, saying it "was not actually snooping".

When the German chancellor Angela Merkel erupted over reports the NSA had been bugging her mobile phone, the Indian prime minister's office was untroubled by the possibility he too had been targeted.


Indian PM Manmohan Singh does not use a mobile phone or Gmail, his spokesman says

"There are no concerns", a spokesman for Manmohan Singh told the BBC, because "he does not use a mobile phone or Gmail".

Many Indian officials do. But from this December the government is planning to bar them from using their private email accounts for any official business - in direct response to evidence of US prying. Instead, they will have to use government email.

The latest reports of even deeper NSA penetration of Google is likely to further spur such moves.

It won't be an easy change to make though, judging from the BBC's own experiences dealing with Indian officials. Many prefer to use Gmail or Yahoo rather than their official accounts because the government email system so often crashes.

More ambitious still is a plan to bring all internal Indian internet traffic inside its borders. Currently, an email sent from say Delhi to Calcutta is more likely to travel via the US or Europe, partly because of the way the internet is designed but also because of a lack of Indian capacity.

But at a summer meeting to assess Mr Snowden's leaks, one of India's security chiefs called for "100%" of emails and files sent between Indians to stay in the country to limit snooping by "foreign elements".

As other governments take similar measures, these changes may not just mean a tougher job for spies but also a more fragmented internet under tighter state control.

Critics say India was already on the road to creating a Big Brother state, long before anyone had heard of Edward Snowden.

Their biggest concern is a secret mass-surveillance project the government has reportedly been building for the past few years. The Central Monitoring System (CMS) is supposed to give security agencies the ability to listen or record all communications nationwide and track individuals, in real time - like some of the US programmes that have been revealed.

If the few details that have emerged are correct, Indian cyber-spies would have even more freedom, bypassing internet and telecom companies and tapping straight into the cables and servers carrying the traffic.

Mirroring America's defence of its spying programmes, the government says the monitoring system is to protect against terrorists and other national security threats. But a lack of concrete information has only heightened fears about its intentions.

A draft privacy bill which was supposed to allay some concerns has been watered down in the light of Mr Snowden's revelations.

According to Sunil Abraham, "India's intelligence agencies argued: Look at what the US can do. Why curtail what we can do?"

In any case, India's spies are not troubled by any parliamentary or judicial oversight. In the world's largest democracy, the intelligence agencies still report straight to the prime minister and the home minister.

India needs to "protect its sovereign rights", says Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court advocate and cyber-law specialist. But these are "unprecedented powers".

Right now, these are minority concerns in India, which is far more consumed with the early political sparring before next year's elections.

Meanwhile, the Indian government is learning many lessons from the NSA's troubles. But Mr Duggal says, "Sooner or later it will have to address the issue of greater accountability."

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/bbc-october-31-2013-nsa-leaks-helping-india-become-big-brother-state

Now, police use apps to catch a criminal

Ketaki Desai — 2019-03-31T15:47:00Z

Recently, Punjab police detained three suspects on a tip-off. The cops clicked their photographs, uploaded them on an app called the Punjab Artificial Intelligence System or PAIS which uses facial recognition, and immediately got the lowdown on their criminal history, which involved a contract killing and looting. Four stolen vehicles and five weapons were recovered from them.

The article by Ketaki Desai with inputs from Sanjeev Verma in Chandigarh was published in the Times of India on March 31, 2019. Arindrajit Basu was quoted.

Police forces around the country are increasingly relying on artificial intelligence as both a crime-busting and prevention tool despite concerns about the inbuilt biases of algorithms, and the worry that policing may win over privacy.

Atul Rai, founder CEO of Gurgaon-based firm Staqu Technologies, which developed the app used by Punjab police, says they collect data from various state agencies and have built a database on criminals. “An NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) report showed that 70% of crimes are committed by repeat criminals. Our facial recognition software works even on low-resolution photos and videos.” Police departments in UP, Uttarakhand and Rajasthan are armed with similar apps. And how likely is it that this facial recognition tech makes mistakes? It has 98% accuracy, claims Rai.

Other companies are also in the fray. Chennai’s FaceTagr has built a database of 75,000 photographs, and claims its app – currently being used in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Puducherry – is able to identify faces with an accuracy of 99.4%.

Facial recognition doesn’t just help catch the bad guys, it can also help trafficked kids reunite with their families. Vijay Gnanadesikan, CEO of FaceTagr, says they have begun to work with the Indian Railways to facilitate this. “Often, a child is not able to tell police officers where they are from. Now if a child is reported missing in Mumbai, and found in Bengaluru, the parents can be found if both police departments upload his or her photo.”

UP’s Trinetra app, developed by Staqu Tech, was launched in December, 2018. I-G (crime) S K Bhagat says, “We didn’t have any centralised criminal database in UP before this.” The app informs the cops of the status of each person in custody, and whether they are out on bail. This means that if a chain-snatching takes place in Lucknow, they can filter suspects and also show the victim their photos for identification. “Right now we’re in the first phase of using the app; beat officers still don’t yet have direct access but their SHO does.” To prevent misuse, a centralised monitoring system has been developed.

Staqu also offers predictive analytics— they collect data from news sites and blogs, aggregate information about crime patterns across the country, and create a ‘heat map’ for law enforcement agencies. Using this, they are able to make predictions about where, how and by whom a crime might be committed.

But predictive policing is problematic, points out Vidushi Marda of human rights organisation Article 19. “Data is often imperfect, and it’s easy for a deeply unequal, biased outlook of society to be embedded in data. This means that people who have always been arrested for no reason will continue to be arrested for no reason. And because it’s an algorithm, we can’t refute it,” she says.

Uncanny Vision, a Bengaluru-based company, makes smart CCTVs that are deployed in ATMs and number plate readers that are used on national highways in Kerala to curb speeding. Co-founder Navaneethan Sundaramoorthy says, “Our ATM CCTVs don’t use facial recognition, they just look at the actions. We take the video, convert it into information and toss away the video.” He thinks that privacy concerns are important. “Is it possible for the government to use it in any big-brother scenario? Yes, but that has always been the case. With this technology, we can control who has access to the information that comes from CCTVs, and there is a clear footprint about who has accessed the information,” he says.

Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, points out that there are no regulatory safeguards in place. “The first thing surveillance needs is a statutory framework—what is its purpose, how is it being carried out, and what limits they cannot go beyond. These surveillance systems are being made without adequate civil society engagement. There needs to be a third-party data protection authority to audit their activities.”

Arindrajit Basu, senior policy officer at the Centre for Internet and Society, says the advantages of AI in tracking crime have to be balanced with accountability. “The government can be taken to court for violation of a fundamental right, including the recently recognised right to privacy. But, most of this tech is being rolled out in collaboration with private actors. You can’t take a private company to court for this.” The solution might lie in private companies sharing liability with the government, he says. “That will ensure that they consider the ethical consequences of their products.”

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/times-of-india-march-31-2019-ketaki-desai-now-police-use-apps-to-catch-a-criminal

Now, Aadhaar details displayed in Mizoram too

praskrishna — 2017-04-27T16:59:37Z

Contrary to the Centre’s assurances, government websites are revealing digital details of the poor, leaving them vulnerable to financial frauds and identity theft.

The article by Sebastian PT was published in the National Herald on April 26, 2017. Sunil Abraham was quoted.

Could there be a method to the madness? Or is it just carelessness? From the Jharkhand Government to the Union Territory of Chandigarh to the Union Ministry of Water and Sanitation to even Mizoram’s Food and Civil Supplies Department, government websites are found to have displayed Aadhaar details of citizens, a crime under the law.

In Jharkhand, details of 16 lakh beneficiaries – their bank account details, ration card and the 12-digit Aadhaar number – were displayed on the website of the Directorate of Social Security. Similar blunders were witnessed from different corners of the country from Chandigarh to Kerala, where details of 35 lakh people have been breached. This flies in the face of the Government’s repeated claims on data privacy, that Aadhaar details are completely safe.

The law doesn’t allow this. The displaying of the Aadhaar data, for instance, is in clear violation of Section 29 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016. The provision clearly says that “no” Aadhaar number or core biometric information of an Aadhaar number holder shall be “published, displayed or posted publicly”.

“There appears to be no regulation worth the name as far as the Aadhaar project is concerned,” says economist Reetika Khera from IIT Delhi.

So, will these officials responsible be punished according to the Act? More importantly, what about the damage of leaking such sensitive, apparently confidential data?

Irreparable Damage

Several cyber security experts have been warning of the possibility of precisely such leaks and Opposition parties were vociferously pointing this out while the Centre was brazenly violating the Supreme Court’s orders and forcibly extending Aadhaar to almost everything – including it being linked to one’s Permanent Account Number (PAN), used for filing income tax.

“What has been broken through technology, can’t be fixed with the law,” says Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of Bangalore-based research organisation, the Centre for Internet and Society.

The data breach just made it easy for players in the black market for ID (identification) documents to be lapped up to create false ID cards, for instance.

When demonetisation was being implemented, sources say that black money hoarders apparently bought fake IDs which were made from stolen Aadhaar details to get the old notes exchanged – one way for doing this was perhaps by opening new bank accounts or to, say, utilise unused Jan Dhan accounts to deposit the money. Now, one can only imagine what terrorists can do with these details.

So far, perhaps, the only solace is that the biometric details of the beneficiaries weren’t leaked. But, in the backdrop of the lax attitude of the various government departments, even that too is just waiting to happen, fear experts.

Abraham warns that Aadhaar was always a risky proposition as it was based on biometrics, which “made it very insecure”. He terms it as a “mass surveillance technology” – that too a poorly-designed technology – which, in fact, “undermines security”. Once biometric data are compromised, it cannot be secured again. Instead of biometrics, he suggests the UIDAI shift to using smart cards.

The unfettered forcible linking of almost everything – from bank accounts to one’s PAN card – to Aadhaar only makes things worse. “The Centre is ‘seeding’ the various data bases with the Aadhaar number, which is a very bad move. And, involving various private and public agencies in this only makes the entire thing very precarious,” warns Abraham. He points out that, for instance, when the PAN cards are linked with the Aadhaar number, breach made possible.

Instead, he says, the government should adopt the ‘tokenisation approach’, instead of the ‘seeding approach’. What this means is that, say, if the PAN card is to be linked to Aadhaar, then UIDAI issues a token number and not the original 12-digit Aadhaar number. So, even if a breach happens, the hacker will not be able to get all the Aadhaar details, he says.

However, the government does not seem to be taking the issue of privacy very seriously. What perhaps is not being understood is that this is not just a privacy issue, but making the masses vulnerable to frauds. Instead of treading cautiously in implementing Aadhaar, the government seems to be in a hurry to extend it to almost every possible silo in an individual’s life.

“Given the callous attitude of central and state governments, I hope that the Supreme Court will stop the government from a forced linking of Aadhaar, on the one hand, and bank accounts and PAN numbers on the other hand,” says Khera.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/national-herald-sebastian-pt-april-26-2017-now-aadhaar-details-displayed-in-mizoram-too

Now Streaming on Your Nearest Screen

nishant — 2011-12-24T08:58:13Z

Digital cinema, especially the kinds produced using mobile devices and travelling on Internet social networking systems like YouTube and MySpace, are often dismissed as apolitical and ‘merely’ a fad. Moreover, content in the non-English language, due to incomprehensibility or lack of understanding of the cultural context of the production, is labeled as frivolous, or inconsequential, writes Nishant Shah in this peer reviewed essay published in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Volume 3, Issue 1, June 2009.

Contextualising new digital cinema through Kuso[1]

Deploying the aesthetic framework of kuso as political engagement, this essay analyzes how its ‘aesthetic’ form of expression offers spaces of political participation and negotiation for the ‘Strawberry Generation’ digital natives in Taiwan. This paper draws from various youth phenomena like the emergence of the ‘BackDorm Boys’ as iconic representations of flawed stardom, the adoption of kuso lifestyles and the consumption/distribution cycles of cinema on the web to see the possibilities they offer for political engagement and participation through cultural expressions and productions, that are otherwise dismissed in contemporary discourse.

New digital technologies, initially developed for surveillance and strategic communication, because of the proliferation of the internet/s and the cyberspaces, have now become freely available at very inexpensive rates around the world. The easy availability of these technologies enables new conditions of production of hitherto privileged art forms. The new globalised circuits of un-contextualized distribution lead to the imagination of a deterritorialized community of consumers who share common systems of making meaning and receiving these objects. As has been noted in earlier cybercultures studies, objects found on the internet/s – the people and the narratives that they produce - are often consumed as outside of time and geographical space. William J. Mitchell (1996) in his now much critiqued conception of the ‘Infobahn’, conflates all geographical distinction in his imagining of the larger neural circuits of digital information and economy. Similarly, in his extraordinary book. Everything is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger (2007), explores the role that digital dissemination and distribution (as also storage and archiving) play in evolving a new miscellaneous form of sorting and classification, thus deconstructing established coda of knowledge determination. Weinberger, despite the keen insight into the importance of metadata and user-based personalised galaxies of information, is unable to talk of the entire range of phenomena as rooted in particular geo-political contexts. In fact, as Gasser and Palfresy (2008) make evident in their book Born Digial, whenever a body is referred to within cybercultures studies, it is the body of a white, upper class, masculine body; whenever a place is evoked, it is unequivocally the economic centres of the North-West; Time, which is an affiliate of the space and the body, is also then the linear and historical time determined by these concrete referents.

The West, with its wide consumer base and widespread proliferation of new digital technologies, often becomes the hegemonic legitimising authority as objects produced elsewhere are understood through ‘foreign’ aesthetics and logistics. Imagining the internet/s as residing outside of the time-space continuums, allows for a cyclical re-assertion of the Western paradigms as credible and authentic, and other forms as parodic or derivative in nature. New forms of cultural expression and narrativisation, received outside of the context of their production or the circuits of distribution and reception, are often mis-read and interpreted to fit the existing modes of making meaning.

This paper is an attempt to look at a specific form of new digital cinema in North East Asia that challenges the west-centric modes of understanding these objects. New digital cinema is a category that needs to be more sharply defined. In the last three decades of extensive technological advent and deployment in the fields of cinematic production, many different forms have claimed the space of new digital cinema. Post-celluloid cinema,[2] production of movies augmented by technologies, studio house experiments in animation and 3D technologies, distribution of movies and the networks of piracy that come into being with peer2peer networks,[3] conditions of reception and movie watching with digitally owned copies of movies,[4] the emergence of multiplex cinema and conditions of consumption,[5] etc. have been looked upon by different theoreticians and practitioners as new digital cinema.

I use the term ‘new digital cinema’ in the rest of the paper in a very specific sense of the phrase to make a very clear point of departure from the aforementioned approaches, which, though exploring the possibilities that digital technologies offer, still, often, stay with contained and unquestioned understanding of the established cinematic practices of production, authorship, distribution and spectatorship. New digital cinema is located in the new wave of cinematic forms produced by people who are enabled to do so by the easy availability of conditions of production and distribution that are framed by new digital technologies. Instead of looking at movies being produced by ‘film-makers’ or ‘film-studios’, maintaining the distinctions of authorship, readership and distribution circuits, I explore movies which are produced by people who are otherwise relegated to the realm of spectatorship and consumption. For the scope of this paper, new digital cinema refers to the cheaply produced cinematic forms, shot through inexpensive and slowly-becoming ubiquitous camera enabled devices. Geared towards an almost obscene abundance of details and demanding an untiring self-narrativisation,[6] these sites of social networking and expression have led to the production of videos and distribution of the self in unprecedented ways. These videos are further marked in their distribution through cyberspatial forms like YouTube, MySpace, and Google video, Television based reality shows based that run on user based programming consisting of personal videos, personal webcam sites, and MMS forums, to millions of users who enter into an interaction that is no longer limited to spectatorship.

There are three dialectic processes around the ‘personal’ videos broadcast on such sites of digital social networking and sharing, that need to be mapped in order to understand the impulse of this paper as well as to look at the dialectic reconstruction of earlier categories as understood by non-digital, pre-internet cultural forms. The first trope of dialectic comes in the form of continuity. Histories of technology taking the When Old Technologies were New (Marvyn, 1988) approach, often produce these digital moving images as bearing a relational value with the emergence of earlier technological forms and the use of these forms to produce personal narratives – print, camera, video, to name the three most influential forms of self expression and narrativisation. Such a historical narrative, unless carefully inflected with the growth and development of indigenous technologies and the indigenisation of these technologies, reads both, the technological development as well as the cultural forms thus produced, only through a West-centric paradigm of aesthetics, glossing over the differences that might be present in the very process and methods of reading such technologised forms. This non-disruptive, uninterrupted historicisation, while it is fruitful in questioning some presumed categories in the process of cultural production,[7] still reinforce these digital moving images as merely a new form of old cinema.

The second tension that needs to be mapped out occurs in the form of carefully maintained distinctions between the Sacred Cow of originality and the much maligned miasma of derivative, plagiarised, copied (left, right, centre), forms that have been facilitated by the proliferation of copy-paste digital technologies and internet networks. In the public as well as the theoretical discourse around these digital moving images, there is almost a Universal original (generally Western, otherwise canonised by the Western gaze in other geo-political contexts), to which everything else has a relation that is either praodic or uniformly derivative in nature. Even within the West, these videos on youtube and myspace are easily dismissed as plagiarised or unoriginal, often leading to a wide range of public controversy and exchange.[8]

The third dialectic is in the blurring of the pre-digital accepted terms of producers, spectators and processes of reading that these digital moving images produce. It is necessary to realise that the context of not only the production but also that of the reader is crucial to understanding the aesthetics of cyberspatial forms. The author in the digital world is as digital and ephemeral as the object itself. The tension between the corporeal and the digital has been effectively resolved by conceptualising the ‘interface’ – the space between the two conflicting and tense oppositional ideas- as the bearer of thought, idea, meaning and intention for digital objects. Such a complex structuring challenges the earlier crystalised practices authorship, spectatorship, distribution and reception, thus marking new digital cinema as not merely a cinematic practice augmented by technology but as a new form of cinema that challenges, quite radically, the earlier cinematic forms, in very much the same way that, in another historical and cultural moment, the print did to the manuscript.

This paper locates itself in these three dialectical flows to explore new digital cinema as a form of popular and cultural expression in Asia, specifically in Taiwan. It hopes to dismantle the myth of the universal/accessible/west-centric view of new digital cinema and demonstrate the need to assert the geo-socio-cultural contexts of their origin through exploring the aesthetics and genre of Kuso.

Knowing Miso from Kuso

Kuso, though it is a relatively new term, is highly popular in describing the new cybercultural forms that emerged with the proliferation of the internet/s. Anime fans are familiar with Kuso as an expletive or an interjection, used as the English equivalent of ‘Shit!’ Though Japanese in origin, it was made popular as a word, an aesthetic and a lifestyle in Taiwan around 2000, subsequently spreading to Hong Kong and China. Now, Kuso, along with other N.E. Asian products like Hentai,[9] and Manga, is a popular way of identifying cybercultural forms. The wikipedia mentions that

[t]he roots of Taiwanese “Kuso’ was Kuso-ge’s from Japan. The word Kuso-ge is a portmanteau of Kuso and game, which means, quite literally, “shitty games.” The introduction of such a category is to teach gamers how to appreciate and enjoy a game of poor quality – such as appreciating the games’ outrageous flaws instead of getting frustrated at them.
(Wikipedia, 2006)

It was an attempt to not only identify or locate flaws but to celebrate them and encourage an active production of them. Kuso, for the younger generation in Taiwan (and the thousands of fans all around the world, who subscribe to Kuso Bulletin Boards and discussion forums) is not just a cursory form of parody but a lifestyle. A Taiwanese artist, Yeh Yi-Li, in her solo exhibition, seems to suggest that as well. Her introduction to her exhibition titled ‘KUSO – Red, Spring Snow, Orange Flower’ says

In Taiwan’s pop culture, internet subculture and video gamers’ communities, it (Kuso) became a trendy term that suggests “making fun of anything, playing practical jokes on everything.” KUSO subverts conventional values and turns things into garbage. It has no limits, history, agendas or logic. Like an amoeba, it is a subculture phenomenon that has no rules. (Yi-Li, 2006)

Making a list of characteristics of what might be Kuso is futile. As Yi-Li seems to suggest, Kuso, on the surface, is located on the ‘fun’ and ‘hilarity’ of an object. However, Kuso actually resides in the processes of subversion and resistance. Kuso not only makes ‘things into garbage’ but also, by logical corollary, turns ‘garbage into things’. It started as a subculture phenomenon but is now highly popular in mainstream cultures – on reality TV on youth oriented channels like MTV and Channel V, in local performances and spectacles, and in Stephen Chou movies. Kuso seems to refer to not just the discourse around a particular object but a subjective mode of representing the self into different narrative conditions enabled by new digital technologies. Kuso is about the ability to create fluid and transitory spectacles of the self as a trope of social interaction and communication. While Yi-Li might look upon Kuso as without ‘limits, history, agendas or logic’, she forgets that Kuso has been the way for organising political protests, flash mobs and social awareness collectives in many part of Asia.[10] It is in this very ‘free’ and ‘excessive’ structure of Kuso that one can locate the politics and processes by which New Digital Cinema can be understood.

In her Kuso exhibition, Yi-Li created the ‘Worm-man’ that

drags its body and slithers in the ever-changing world. In different kinds of worlds, the Worm-man develops into different phases. As phenomena are happening, it is also transforming. The Worm-man has multipe possibilities, multiple personalities and multiple identities.
(Yi-Li, 2006)

While Kuso is often understood as parody, trash culture or camp humour, and is even attributed to MTV style movies by enthusiasts, for the large section of Kuso consumers, it is the governing principle for social interaction, dressing and appearance, hair and accessories, consumption of products and modes of expression. Kuso seems to be a way in which they produce themselves as parodic forms of themselves – producing themselves in conditions of constant transformation with ‘multiple possibilities, multiple personalities and multiple identities.’ As Yi-Li suggests in her art, Kuso is not just about producing parodies and mimicking popular art forms but it is also a way of producing the spectacle of the self. It is not surprising then, that Kuso emerges as an aesthetic with the proliferation of technologies and tools which allow for a narrativisation of the self for distribution and consumption in the public.

Contexualising Kuso

I look at two specific instances of Kuso to understand and frame the concept in this paper. The first emerged out of my own involvement with some of the students and their scheduled performances at the annual sports day.[11] My Chinese language teacher Mandy Hua, who is an undergraduate student at the NCU, is also a professional hip hop dancer. For her annual day performance at the university, Mandy chose (with some inputs from me) a popular Bollywood song that was creating raves in India at that time.[12] Mandy chose the song, edited the audio to make it tighter and shorter in duration and started the practice. Along with a flock of dancers from other schools on the campus, Mandy replicated an ‘Indian’ aesthetic for the song, doing elaborate costumes which included a lot of flowing skirts, veils, sequins and shimmer – the kind that was shown in the song. The female performers were in a state of erotic relationship – not only in their imitation of the seductive postures and movements of the dance sequence in the original movie song but also in presenting themselves as eroticised objects of glamour and desire to a young audience made primarily of students. The expected reactions of cat calls, of hooting, of lascivious laughter and of gasps of wonder and awe were all present in the crowd. However, a brief minute into the performance, their narrative of seduction, eroticism and obvious parody-imitation was disrupted and somehow harmoniously irrupted by a group of boys, wearing glasses, their bodies far from the perfectly sculpted eroticised bodies of the female performers, wearing clumsy looking ill-fitting karate dresses and making unrehearsed animal movements around the female performers.

It was the introduction of these dancers that completely displaced the element of parody within which I understood the performance. The male performers, who were completely unfamiliar with the original song, were imitating the female dancers on the ground. They were not interested in replicating either the movements of the female dancers or the sequences they were following. They were more interested in undermining the very aesthetic that the female dancers were trying to replicate or produce. Their movements were jerky, unpractised, bordering on the ridiculous. Their half naked bodies were un-sculpted and uneroticised. These were not the college hunks or super jocks coming out to parade their masculinities but the ‘geeks’ or the ‘dorks’ who were ravelling in their un-eroticised status and celebrating it with gusto.

What was more interesting was the way in which the audience was receiving these male performers. In spite of the engaged erotic relationship with the female performers, the audience was extremely appreciative of the male performers’ attempts at overthrowing the female performers’ spectacle. The audience was egging them to constantly be more ridiculous, be more flamboyant, be more self mocking, guiding their movements and actions, leading to a final mock chase sequence, where the male performers chased the female performers off the ground, stripped themselves to their shorts, flexed their un-muscled bodies and made their exit among huge cheering and applause. They were obviously the star attraction of the performance. Such a response was puzzling. It was the women who had put in hours of practice to produce themselves as erotic objects of consumption. The audience, in the beginning had engaged with them at that level. And yet, it was this bunch of slightly ‘with an L on my head’ guys who emerged in their buffoonery and antics as the heroes of the minute.

My first impulse was to read in it, the dynamics of a gendered space and a certain mock valorisation of this hyper masculinity. While gendered readings of the performance are indeed valuable and might offer an entry into looking at the construction of eroticism, desire, spectacle and the performative self, I am going to focus on the Kuso in this performance. My own gendered impulses were quickly overshadowed by the repeated use of the word Kuso that the members of the audience were using in order to explain the male performances. It was obvious that these male performers, in spite of their actions, were not really clowns but some sort of heroes and embodying this peculiar word – Kuso.

When I started asking around for Kuso, people pointed at several different objects, from Stephen Chou movies to Reality TV on Channel V, from personal videos to popular Kuso shows where people engaged in a set of ludicrous, often bizarre performances to make a public spectacle of themselves. The more I encountered these Kuso forms, the more difficult and incomprehensible it became to understand either the appeal or the aesthetic of the form. It looked like cheesy camp or an extension of a certain MTV aesthetic as a result of vulgarisation of technologies. When I crawled on the web looking at discussion forums that were devoted to Kuso, I found a huge number of people sharing my incomprehensibility and raised eyebrows at the Kuso objects, trying to figure out what it was that was attracting thousands of users to produce and consume Kuso with such dedication.

Especially in the context of Taiwan, Kuso belongs to the realm of what is called the ‘Strawberry Generation’ (Tsao-Mei Yi-Dai). The Strawberry generation in Taiwan refers to the people born between 1981 and 1991, and, despite its suggestions in English, carries negative connotations with it. The three most popular characteristics of the Strawberry generation – a phrase that has huge currency in popular media – have been severally explained. Rachel, who writes on the National Central University’s (Taiwan) website, explains:

In Taiwan, the Strawberry Generation refers to those who were born between 1981 and 1991, ranging from the 22-year-old university students to the 12-year-old junior high school students. This generation is labeled as “strawberry” due to two reasons: first, this generation of youth was raised in a better environment, as strawberries grown and nourished in a greenhouse, than the earlier generation. Second, strawberries are known for their beauty, delicacy and high price, suggesting that the young people can not withstand pressure, difficulties, and frustration as they grew up in a nice and comfortable environment and are able to get almost whatever they ask for.
(Rachel, 2008)

Henrry (2006), a student who also belongs to the Strawberry Generation, writes in his classroom assignment, ‘People of this generation are said to be fragile when facing pressure, just like the strawberries.’ He further goes on to suggest that the problems of the Strawberry Generation are largely economic in nature and might lead to serious problems for Taiwan’s economy. Myr Lim (2006) also looks at the economic and political instability of this generation and describes them as ‘Like the fruit, they look extremely good and sinfully juicy, who wouldn’t want one? But they have a very limited shelf life.’ Built into this criticism is also the understanding that the Strawberry Generation is also in a state of political disavowal.

And yet, when introduced to the different manifestations of Kuso, there was a very clear idea of resistance, subversion and mobilisation. A local incident, which made temporary heroes of two teenage boys who stripped in Public, on a university campus, was read as a sign of resisting the University’s attempts at regulating dress-codes for the students.[13] Other videos which were made for internet circulation had the digital natives refusing the Western models of masculinity or heroism and producing buffoon-like images to correspond with the glorified pop icons from the West – often producing infantile and juvenile forms of behaviour to exaggerate the effect. Other Kuso manifestations were in consumption, as different objects which were seemingly ‘cute’ (se-jiao) or ‘innocent’ were invested with sinister or often ludicrous intent.[14] The same kinds of aesthetics were also seen on the ‘LOL Cat’[15] and ‘All your base are belong to us’[16] internet memes which have gained currency online. It is while browsing through these worlds that I was introduced to a Kuso phenomenon which was garnering huge media and popular attention globally. This was a phenomenon which has now popularly been dubbed as the Backdorm Boys.

BackDorm Boys were three graduate students, two of whom became instant celebrities – Huang Yi Xin and Wei Wei - from the Guangzhu Academy of Fine Arts in China, who shot to instant fame when, in a state of boredom, they made a lip-sync cover version of popular Backstreet Boys singles, using nothing more than cheap digital cameras on their computers, in the restrictive space of their dormitories, and distributing them through video sharing spaces like YouTube, MySpace and other blogs (The Full Plate, 2008). These weren’t, at a first glance, very different from the ‘funny’ videos that one encounters online all the time – cheaply produced, shot with a webcam mounted on the screen, an almost unedited, uninterrupted full frontal frame, and an exaggerated attempt creating a certain Kitsch video that have gained popularity in the past. However, within my own contexts, the BackDorm Boys had strong resonances with the earlier dance performance I described. Once again, the three students in the videos were not the hyper eroticised masculinities that the boy bands like Backstreet Boys have embodied in popular cultures. Given the Confucian model of academia and studentship, students are not easily granted such erotic value to begin with. These were also not students who were particularly talented at singing. In fact, they were not singing at all, they were lip synching the songs in their videos. The videos did not involve any attempts at shooting but were in the full-frontal, almost pornographic frames of spectacle where the camera was mounted over the screen and the two performers were being caught in that frame. Dressed in identical clothes, the two main performers sang with extraordinary histrionics, the otherwise mellow and slightly cliché ridden love ballads that the Backstreet Boys had made their signature. In the background, one of their other dorm mates, played a Kuso-ge called Quaker throughout the video. He occasionally simulated the actions of a music mixer or a DJ or sometimes helped them with props.[17]

There was, at the first glance, nothing spectacular about the Backdorm Boys. As one of the responders on a blog dedicated to the Backdorm Boys very succinctly puts it:

Let’s face it: it doesn’t take a lot of talent to make faces. They didn’t write the song, didn’t sing the song, didn’t play any musical instructions, etc. Their sole accomplishment is they made faces at a camera. That’s not talent, man!!! And if they weren’t Chinese—i.e., didn’t have the freak factor of Chinese boys lip-synching to Backstreet Boys songs—NOBODY will notice this.
Da Xiangchang 2005

And yet, the Backdorm Boys, apart from cults developing around them and various internet memes devoted to them,[18] were featured live on NBC and both dropped out of their academic programmes to become hugely successful brand ambassadors and spokespersons for some of the largest mass media brands in China. They have both acquired a celebrity status and are role models and now popular media persons on TV channels, hosting their own shows.[19] In trying to understand these Kuso products in the realm of parody one starts asking the wrong kind of questions: where is the talent? Several respondents, including Da Xiangchang very pointedly pointed out that ‘it takes very little talent to make a fool out of yourselves.’ The more interesting question to ask would be the question that Yi-Li asked in her exhibition: How does Kuso manage to make garbage out of things? And further, is it possible, to read into Kuso, a new politics which guises itself as ‘fun’ or ‘hilarity’.

Differentiating between parody and Kuso

The Western gaze will only allow Kuso to be understood in a relationship of parody. However, looking at the contexts within which Kuso emerges and its ability to ‘make garbage out of things’, Kuso changes the relationship between the ‘original’ and the ‘discursive’ objects. parody, as a literary and a narrative form, resides more in the object being parodied (original) rather than in the parodic creation (discursive). To understand, appreciate or enjoy the discursive object, it becomes necessary to be familiar with, sometimes at a very intimate level, with the original object. The chief aim of a parody is to invoke the original object by introjecting it into new frames of references and meaning making, establishing a tenuous relationship of invocation between the original and the discursive objects. Parody seeks, not to replace the original but add to the ‘aura’ of the original object. Legends, myths, cult-stories and folklores can be understood as parodic in nature as they add to the understanding of the original or the core object. In the case of cinema especially, parody is not simply a process of poking fun at an earlier cinematic form or object but is an effort to evoke the original as a way of making meaning and seeking sense in the narrative.

The relationship between the original object and the discursive object is one of invocation where the parody invokes, glorifies and seeks justification for its existence through the original object. parody also resides in a certain historical reading of cinema as it produces often unintentional but present residues of earlier forms. parody can be looked upon as enabling a certain genealogical reading of cinematic narratives and forms. In the non-linear consumption patterns of cinema reception, especially with cable television and global distribution, the boundaries between the original and the discursive are often blurred and reconfigured. Often the audiences and consumers encounter the discursive before they get familiar with the original and hence they change the way in which the original object is understood or received, often mis/reading it through the lens of the parody instead of the other way round. Cinema also makes more visible, the ways in which the parody can also work through different genres and media – be it in the production of books that try to appropriate the cinematic language of telling stories or in the production of movies that are based on books or sometimes try to deploy the narrative conditions of books in the cinematic narratives. The only way to talk of parody is to read it in the cinematic object itself and in the invocations that it produces with the imagined or the real object. The concept of an original is necessary to the understanding of the parody.

It is exactly this relationship between the original and the parody that Kuso disrupts from the within. Kuso does not produce the definitive terminal points of the original and the discursive objects that parody requires. In the instance of any Backdorm Boys video, there is no presumed knowledge of either the Backstreet Boys videos or the kind of globalised consumption that they can be contextualised under. While there are many references – almost at the level of invocation, in the clothes that they wear, in the choices they make in songs etc. – they are not necessarily the frameworks through which their videos can be made meaning of. If it was merely a question of parody of Backstreet Boys, their subsequent videos where they also ‘Kuso-ed’ other performers and local artists would not have worked for their fans.

Like a network, the relationship between the original and the discursive objects of Kuso is masked so that each constantly feeds back into the other. Hence, in the case of the Backdorm Boys, if you tried to understand their work as simply a Chinese/Asian parody of a Western form of popular culture, you end up bewildered, unable to account for the huge popularity and success. However, if we place their production as Kuso, it allows us to realise that the objects being parodied in the videos, are not American popular cultural forms or specifically Backstreet Boys videos. What is being parodied is the original self of the performers.

Instead of the framework of parody or intertextuality, we can locate the Backdorm Boys Kuso videos as embedded in a particular lifestyle choices and consumption of cultural forms, accessories, appearances, class differences, language and most importantly the conditions made available by technologies. The original object is the three boys and their ‘real’ or ‘original’ status in their lived practices. The discursive object is also the three boys and their projected selves or desired selves which they are expected to either appropriate or wish for. The Kuso is in exaggerating the differences between these two and celebrating the obvious flaws in them and making them available as a public spectacle. While I shall steer away from discussions of talent, it becomes more evident that Kuso allows for us to recognise the aesthetics, politics and proliferation of these new digital cinema artefacts which earlier notions of parody did not.

Kuso establishes more non-linear, sometimes disruptive relationships, between different objects that it refers to in its production. The relationship between the various objects is not invocative but evocative in nature. The Kuso narrative does not presume specific knowledge of some other object being invoked. Instead, it produces a redolent relationship where the different objects mutually explain each other. Like any cyberspatial form, Kuso seems to produce a system of self-referential, almost cannibalistic meaning making where a range of objects seem to co-exist in improbably frames of non-real and in-credible, each forming a node through which the others are understood. The references Kuso makes in its narrative, are not to the other, original object in a wistfully reconstructed or imagined past but to the other back-tracking objects present in the narrative itself. This produces an almost infinite chain of inter-referencing objects that justify each others’ existence. Kuso thus disrupts the more linear and historical constructions that parody (and the subsequent attempts to read parody as a relationship between new digital cinema and Cinema) establishes. It is located in the materiality of the object, its reception, its manipulation, its distribution, its transformation and its ability to escape the more effective-causal circuits of meaning making.

While parody seeks to reaffirm the similarities between the original and the discursive objects, Kuso emphasises the inability of the original to explain the discursive, thus producing a relationship of difference rather than one of similarity. While parody deals with the questions of representation, Kuso enters into conditions of simulation. It is this evocative relationship that allows me to locate Kuso as an aesthetic of understanding New Digital Cinema in Asia and to materialise it as a lifestyle and as a condition of reception in the body of the Asian consumer.

Politicising Kuso

An uncontextualised notion of Kuso only allows for a relationship at the level of the Parodic. Hence, the discussants of the Backdorm Boys were always in a condition of unintelligibility about why these slightly clownish characters would become imitable heroes for a particular generation. Given the highly polarized nature of political orientations in Taiwan, it has been the despair of many educators and practitioners that the Strawberry Generation, which is also the largest subscriber base to Kuso, has no apparent interest in politics. It is a generally lamented as a generation that is unashamedly devoted only to having fun. I propose, in my reading and understanding of Kuso objects and Kuso as an aesthetic, that the participatory and performative nature of Kuso paradigm, offers space for negotiation and expression of political intent. I shall demonstrate this particular argument at two levels – the level of the body and the personal, and at the level of the public and the national.

The question of the body becomes central to almost all representation studies. Analysis of Kuso videos or objects lends itself easily to see how the accessorisation and the freedom to produce unsupervised spectatorial narratives of the self lead to new spaces of negotiation. There is also, very clearly, a definite deconstruction of the traditional, masculine and often imported forms of masculinity, femininity and sexuality which the videos lend themselves to. Cross dressing, excessive make-up, exaggerated actions, etc. all create a fluid world where gender structures used to define the body are dismissed and indeed, enter into parodic relationship with traditional perceptions or expectations. However, for the scope of this paper, I shall more narrowly focus on the construction of the heroic body in the Kuso videos.

The body comes to materialise Kuso through various practices and becomes the site upon which the Kuso self is enacted. As Kuso celebrates the flaws and exaggerates the imperfections, it allows for a certain masked relationship between the private self and the public politics. As is demonstrated in the case of the Backdorm Boys, Kuso, with its self referential boundaries, allows for a critical engagement with the very practices of the generation that subjects them to sever criticism. The Kuso bodies or the narratives of self are not longer in relation with the imagined body of the star or the aura of the star vehicle but in masked relationship with the larger politics of its time. The bewilderment or unintelligibility that the discussants of the Backdorm videos exhibit, is not particularly about why or how the video was created but how heroism or stardom was created by the celebration of the un-iconic or the unheroic.

And it is to answer this question that we go back to the Strawberry Generation again. The Strawberry Generation in Taiwan was not merely marked by economic transitions and infidelity. It is also a generation that has seen a severely politicised state of nationalism and national identity in Taiwan. The younger generation that grew up after the removal of the martial law has engaged in serious consumerism as a part of their national identity. As Chen Kuan Hsing (1998) points out, ‘From 1994 onwards…the cultural atmosphere was mediated through commodity structures.’ Chen further goes on to explain how the political economy and the question of the national are intrinsically linked. Given the hegemonic presence of the West in the cultural galaxy of Taiwan and the constant negotiations between the political position vis-à-vis China as well as the cultural imperialism of Japan, the Taiwanese Strawberry Generation finds itself without a particular model of national identity to follow. Along with these are the allegations of widespread corruption and the complete disinterest of the current political parties in the ill-effects of liberalisation (Asian Economic News, 2007) which contribute to a high rate of mental ill-health and suicides in the Strawberry Generation (The China Post, 2008). Given such a murky situation, the Strawberry Generation has indeed withdrawn from active political participation of fighting in the streets and has taken to new forms of expression, which, outside of the context, appear as solipsistic or merely for fun.

Kuso, as an aesthetic then, transcends the analysis of gender and sexuality, performativity and spectatorship, and becomes a site of national representation and subversion and the Kuso stars like the BackDorm boys embody these positions for a Strawberry Generation in Taiwan. The notion of flawed heroism, which simultaneously mocks the ubiquitous presence of the pop-culture from the West, the inability of the local cultural industries to produce original works of art, the apathy of the younger generation caught in the mechanisms of a liberalised globalisation, and the unavailability of spaces for political negotiations that they are built in. This is the defence that many of the Taiwanese and other Chinese speaking individuals produce on the discussions around Kuso. On the discussions on the Sinosplice blog, one of the most vocal defenders, John, who starts with calling this condition, a ‘rare talent’ goes on to say,

Have you ever tried to make a funny video? It’s much harder than you give these boys credit for. The fact that they were able to do it merely by lip synching is testament to their talent. If they’re using certain cultural expectations for humorous effect, then that’s further evidence of talent.
(John, Sinosplice, 2005)

However, John’s idea of ‘playing with cultural expectation’ remains a solitary voice. The other discussants go on to talk about how this particular series is only interesting because of the ‘freak value’ of the videos. Karen, another participant who introduces herself as a student in the West, writes

I have to reluctantly admit, as politically incorrect and offensive (sic) some of the comments may be, they are mostly valid in my opinion. I’m not saying that the “Back Dormitory Boys’” talent doesn’t play a part in why it’s so funny but the fact that the they’re Chinese with no doubt plays a huge role in the humour that that you could easily find elsewhere. How hard is it to find a few college students making goofball videos and putting them on the internet?
(Karen, Sinosplice, 2005)

The opinions that Karen and XiangChang express, resonate with the general perception of the BackDorm boys on many different discussion groups and media talks around the world. As they gained more popularity and exposure, there were more and more people exclaiming at why these antics were being heralded as heroic. However, there were no explanations which were forwarded. The interesting part is that a similar predecessor called the ‘Numa Numa Boy’ (Wolk, 2006), who also had a parodic relationship with the Romanian song, while he gained equal amounts of popularity, was not at the centre of any debate. His claim to fame was slapstick humour and very clearly complied with the Western understanding of parody. However, in the case of the Backdorm Boys, the debates continue as the existing understanding of parody as a universal value fail to account for the aura that surrounds them.

Kuso, as a way of looking at it, offers that the Backdorm Boys were not mere imitators. Imitation would have been in them trying to do a representation of the original Backstreet Boys videos. Instead, the Backdorm Boys are in a world of simulation, where they are simulating the flawed masculinities and identities that are excluded within popular cultures. In this method of simulation, they are able to produce a new and perhaps more believable ‘reality’ which needs to be dealt with in the larger context of the production.

The reason why Kuso makes garbage of things is because that is the only way to deal with the way things are – demolish them, look at their flaws, and find, within those flaws, interstices of negotiation and interaction, which are no longer available. The Kuso, refuses to identify a homogeneous way of understanding digital cinema on the web and insists on thus, contextualising the cultural products through their geo-political status. Because of the geographical origins of digital technologies – the West, and the generally assumed audience and paradigms of understanding it – the West again, most of these new digital cinema forms are looked upon as derivative or engaging in a parodic relationship with the original which is placed in the West. Kuso is a way of complicating the relationship between the two.

This is the first step in thinking about ways in which one can formulate a digital aesthetic which does not presume a homogenised community online but asserts, not only the physical bodies that are behind the production of these narratives but also the geographical boundaries and socio-cultural locations, without which the objects become incomprehensible and indecipherable. Moreover, it is necessary to rescue such ‘popular’ ‘aesthetic’ forms from discussions that confine them to the realms of performance or solipsism and look at the larger potential they have in creating new conditions of political engagement. For Taiwan’s Strawberry Generation, Kuso is a lifestyle, by which they are able to establish discursive and subversive relationships with the very actions and practices which subject them to sever criticism. The wave of new digital cinema, streaming on a screen near us, thus emphasise the need to revisit the relationship between aesthetics and politics on the one hand and the connections between the universal and the contextual on the other.

References

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China Post, The. 2008. “Disturbing Suicide Rate Among Young People”. Retrieved on 11th August, 2008 from http://www.chinapost.com.tw/editorial/taiwan%20issues/2008/08/01/168122/Disturbing-suicide.htm
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Lim, Myr. 2006. Retrieved on 5th March, 2008 from her blog titled ‘Wanderlust’ available at http://myr_fashionstylist.blogs.friendster.com/myr/2006/08/strawberry_gene.html
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[1].A first draft of this article was first presented at the ‘New Cinemas in Asia’ conference organized by the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society at the Christ University, Bangalore. The paper owes its gratitude to S.V. Srinivas for his support both for my journey to Taiwan and for the confidence required to write such an essay on cultures and phenomena that I cannot with confidence claim to be my own.
[2]. The Jadavpur University Film and Media Lab, as recently as November 2008, organized a conference to discuss The Future of Celluloid,where, there were many engrossing presentations on what celluloid can mean in the digital age and where its futures reside. Ashish Rajadhyaksha, in his key-note speech, made a significant remark that the Celluloid is the original object that the digital shall always invoke in its manifestation; not merely in its aesthetics, which might change, but in the sheer capacity that the digital has to pay unprecedented attention to the moving image and reconstruct it for new meanings.
[3]. Hervé Fischer, in The Decline of The Hollywood Empire, arrives in a long line of prophets who have been announcing the demise and the end of Celluloid Cinema as we know it. Fischer announces, quite early in the book, ‘[d]igital distribution will end this archaic system of distribution and hasten the decline of the Hollywood Empire: Two giant steps forward for film in one fell step!’
[4]. The large undivided screen gets replaced by a small ‘Window’ on the right hand corner of the monitor which also houses various other contesting media forms that vie for the users’ attention. Sherry Turkle, in her study of MUD users also talks of how the Window has become a metaphor of our times.
[5].In a much more measured tone, Kim Soyoung, in her formulation of a trans-cinema and new public spheres simulated by Korean Cinema, suggests that ‘new digital cinema…attentive to the transformation of its production, distribution and reception modes as shown by independent digital filmmaking and its availability on the net’. She further goes on to propose ‘digital and net, cinema LCD screens (installed in subways, taxis and buses) and gigantic electrified display boards (chonkwangpan in Korean) should be seen as spaces into which cinema theories and criticism should intervene.’ This paper adds to the list, the extremely personalised but virtually public and shared space of the computer monitor and portable media devices.
[6]. In another essay exploring the aesthetics of social networking and blogging (especially with the increasing implementation of Web 2.0), I make a claim at these sites being sustained through a constant and incessant production of both the virtual persona of the author as well as the body of the author that serves as an anchor to the virtual reality. I further suggest that this process of continuous translation leads to the self as being recognised and gratified only in a state of performativity over inter-looped surfaces.
[7]. Lawrence Liang, in his forthcoming essay, “The History of the Internet from the 15th to the 18th Century”, examines the history of the print and pre-print cultures, to make a brilliant argument around the questions of knowledge, the authority of the knowledge, and the problems of legitimacy or authenticity that have surrounded the Wikipedia in recent years.
[8]. The anxiety around such objects primarily circulates around questions of copyright infringements and piracy. The Music And Film Independent Association, for instance, claims that due to the re-mix, unlicensed distribution, and/or re-working of their material, they are suffering a heavy financial loss, leading to ridiculous legal cases that seem to hold no legitimacy in their sense or sensibility. Lawrence Lessig looks at a recent controversy on youtube where a mother, who broadcast digital moving images of her 13 month old son dancing to Prince’s song Let’s go Crazy was accused of copyright violation by the License owners who demanded the withdrawal of the video from YouTube.
[9]. In A short History of Hentai, Marc Mclelland, defines Hentai as follows: “Hentai is a Sino-Japanese compound term widely used in modern Japanese to designate a person, action or state that is considered queer or perverse, particularly in a sexual sense. Unlike the English term 'queer', however, hentai does not have predominantly homosexual connotations but can be used to describe any sexual acts or motivations other than what might be termed 'normal' sexual relations. Indeed the loanword nōmaru (normal) is sometimes used as an antonym for hentai. Apart from this general use of the term hentai, it can also be used to designate a specific genre of Japanese manga and animation that features extreme or perverse sexual content and it is in this sense that hentai has become well-known among western fans of Japanese popular culture.”
[10]. Professor Yu-Fen Ko (2000) at the Hsih-Shin University in Taipei, locates similar receptions of the ‘Hello Kitty’ phenomenon in Taiwan. Yu-Fen Ko examines how, the larger reception of popular cultural artifacts fail to look at the political potential that these objects have in the way they reconfigure the existing relationship between the personal and the political.
[11]. This paper owes great intellectual and emotional debt to many people. Mandy Hua, who, apart from teaching me Chinese, also helped me get introduced to the intricacies of youth fashion and trends in Taiwan. Ted Cheng, who introduced me to many different Kuso objects and helped, whenever my own skills at access or analysis flailed. Amie Parry, Naifei Ding, David Barton, Chen Kuan-Hsing and Josephine Ho who made my stay in Taiwan so fruitful, providing emotional support, and listened to me patiently, correcting me when I was wrong and directing me to people and resources that helped me frame this argument and understand the entire new digital cinema phenomenon in a new light.
[12]. After much screening and watching of Indian movie songs from Bollywood, we finally narrowed down to “Kajrare Kajrare” from the movie Bunty aur Bubly, with Aishwarya Rai doing a special dance number.
[13]. The particular video can be viewed at http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=9NlZaDGPEOg The original video that is supposed to make this particular kind of Kuso-streaking is the video which also shot two young men into becoming Television celebrities and can be viewed at http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=0caIbkYfWTY
[14]. One of the most popular icons of such consumption is in the popularity of Hello Kitty – a young female cat without a mouth (and hence without speech or the need to eat) - and has elicited much popular discourse. An example of how Hello Kitty is used as a way of also resisting the Western, Disneyfied, Barbie concepts of femininity can be seen in the video available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFBHPbEtfqA
[15]. LOLCat started as an internet meme which displayed a set of cat pictures, with cheeky captions, parodying ot only the internet slang known as ‘netspeak’ but also reflecting upon how central internet discussions and arguments were to the lives of the digital natives. Some of the most famous examples of LOLCat captions are ‘I can haz cheezburger’, ‘Ceiling Cat’ and then subsequently ‘Basement Cat’. More information and almost an exhaustive range of pictures can be seen at http://icanhascheezburger.com/ More interesting LOLCat phenomena also include the under construction LOLCat Bible translation project available at
http://www.lolcatbible.com/
[16]. ‘All your base are belong to us’ started as a successful parody of the obsession with UFO and space travel in the late nineties. The meme borrows this slightly cryptic line from European Sega Mega Drive Version of the video game Zero Wing, where it signified victory and total takeover of enemy territories by aliens, and specializes in putting up the caption on different familiar images taken from contemporary as well as historical times. A large collection of ‘All your base are belong to us’ images can be found at http://www.allyourbasearebelongtous.com/
[17]. A full list of their videos is available to view and download at http://twochineseboys.blogspot.com/
[18]. A quick glimpse of their popularity can be obtained on fan and internet monitoring sites like http://www.milkandcookies.com/tag/backdormboys/ and http://www.tian.cc/2005/10/asian-backstreetboys.html
[19]. This trajectory from Reality TV to popular cultural icons is not unfamiliar or new. Various popular shows like American Idol in the USA, Big Brother in the UK, SaReGaMaPa in India, and Kuso Kuso in China, have all spawned instant celebrities who have cashed their media presence and fame to bag roles in featured television programming, cinema, etc. This particular ability of making one’s self popular and recognizable, often by using the internet as a medium for the same, and then penetrating more corporatized and affluent mass media markets, is a ploy that many aspiring media professionals are employing these days.

Click for the PDF document, 297 kB (305086 bytes)
Click to read the original published in the Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Volume 3, Issue 1, June 2009

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/streaming-on-your-nearest-screen

November 2019 Newsletter

Admin — 2019-12-31T14:53:11Z

CIS newsletter for November 2019

Highlights for November 2019
If you think that Indian languages are as important as international languages, like English, then, you are on the same page with this article. Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill explains this in their blog posts published in multiple languages: English, Punjabi, Hindi and Telugu. Gurshabad Grover was nominated through the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to be a member of the Advisory Group AG) on Open Source Software for ISO/IEC JTC 1. CIS is a partner on the project 'Gender, Health Communications and Online Activism in the Digital Age'. The project is lead by Dr. Carolina Matos, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Media in the Department of Sociology at City University. Ambika Tandon, Policy Officer at CIS, conducted fieldwork for the project in May and June 2019 as a research assistant. Dr. Carolina Matos's presentation can be accessed here. The need for intervention in the cybersecurity imagery in media publications was realised during a brainstorming workshop that was conducted by CIS with illustrators, designers, and cybersecurity researchers. Towards this CIS compiled a handbook introducing Cybersecurity Visuals Media. CIS, along with Design Beku launched the Cybersecurity Visuals Media Handbook. This handbook has been conceived to be a concise guide for media publications to understand the specific concepts within cybersecurity and use it as a reference to create visuals that are more informative, relevant, and look beyond stereotypes. Anusha Madhusudhan authored a research paper titled "Blockchain: A primer for India". The paper aims to provide a comprehensive review of existing research and major debates surrounding Blockchain technology and its developments in select jurisdictions with a specific focus on India. Vipul Kharbanda authored a research paper titled Draft Security Standards for The Financial Technology Sector in India. This document includes draft information security standards, which seek to ensure that not only the data of users is dealt with in a secure and safe manner but also that the smaller businesses in the fintech industry have a specific standard to look at in order to limit their liabilities for any future breaches. Pukhraj Singh, a cyber threat intelligence analyst who has worked with the Indian government and security response teams of global companies authored a guest blog post titled "Before cyber norms, let’s talk about disanalogy and disintermediation". Pukhraj looks at the critical fissures – at the technical and policy levels – in global normative efforts to secure cyberspace. CIS was acknowledged in the final report of the Global Commission on Stability of Cyberspace.

CIS and the News

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

India’s Role in Global Cyber Policy Formulation (Arindrajit Basu; Lawfare; November 7, 2019). The article was reviewed and edited by Elonnai Hickok and Justin Sherman.
The Telecom Crisis is an NPA Problem (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 7, 2019).

CIS in the News

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

Why having more CCTV cameras does not translate to crime prevention (Manasa Rao; News Minute; September 3, 2019). Published on the CIS website on December 5, 2019.
Activists demand judicial probe into WhatsApp snooping (K.V. Kuramath; Hindu Businessline; November 1, 2019).
Cyber law experts asks why CERT-In removed advisory warning about WhatsApp vulnerability (Megha Mandavia; ET Tech.com; November 4, 2019).
WhatsApp spy attack and after (Theres Sudeep; Deccan Herald; November 6, 2019).
Should online political advertising be regulated? (P.J. George; Hindu; November 8, 2019).
India facial recognition: How effective will it be? (Al Jazeera; November 8, 2019).
Proposals to regulate social media run into multiple roadblocks ( Saumya Tewari and Abhijit Ahaskar; Livemint; November 27, 2019).

Access to Knowledge

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

Wikipedia

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

Blog Entries

Project Tiger 2.0 (Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill; November 22, 2019). in English
Project Tiger 2.0 (Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill; November 22, 2019). in Punjabi
Project Tiger 2.0 (Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill; November 22, 2019). in Hindi
Project Tiger 2.0 (Suswetha Kolluru and Nitesh Gill; November 22, 2019). in Telugu

Internet Governance

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

Freedom of Speech & Expression

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

Blog Entry

Reliance Jio is using SNI inspection to block websites (Gurshabad Grover and Kushagra Singh, and edited by Elonnai Hickok; November 7, 2019).

Participation in Events

Roundtable Discussion on Intermediary Liability (Organized by SFLC and the Dialogue; New Delhi; October 17, 2019). Tanaya Rajwade participated in a roundtable discussion on intermediary liability.

Gender

Blog Entry

Project on Gender, Health Communications and Online Activism with City University (Ambika Tandon; November 28, 2019).

Cyber Security

Research Paper

Introducing the Cybersecurity Visuals Media Handbook (Handbook concept, content and design by: Padmini Ray Murray and Paulanthony George; Blog post authored by: Saumyaa Naidu and Arindrajit Basu; With inputs from: Karan Saini; Edited by: Shweta Mohandas; November 15, 2019).

Blog Entry

Before cyber norms, let’s talk about disanalogy and disintermediation (Pukhraj Singh; November 15, 2019).

Information Technology / Financial Technology

Research Papers

Draft Security Standards for The Financial Technology Sector in India (Vipul Kharbanda with inputs from Prem Sylvester; November 15, 2019).
Blockchain: A primer for India (Anusha Madhusudhan; with inputs from Karan Saini and Mira Swaminathan; edited by Elonnai Hickok, Siddharth Sonkar and Aayush Rathi; November 18, 2019).

Blog Entry

Event Report: Consultation on Draft Information Technology (Fintech Security Standards) Rules (Anindya Kanan; reviewed and edited by Vipul Kharbanda, Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu; November 12, 2019).

Privacy

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

Participation in Event

IETF106 (Organized by IETF; Singapore; November 16 - 22, 2019). Gurshabad Grover participated in the meeting.

Researchers@Work

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

Event Organized

Domestic Work in the ‘Gig Economy’ (Organized by CIS and Domestic Workers’ Rights Union; November 16, 2019; Student Christian Movement of India, Mission Road, Bangalore).

Telecom

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

Monthly Blog

The Telecom Crisis is an NPA Problem (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard and Organizing India Blogspot; November 7, 2019).

About CIS

CIS is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

Follow CIS on:

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

Support CIS:

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

Collaborate with CIS:

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

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

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

November 2018 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-12-19T02:41:01Z

Our newsletter for the month of November.

Highlights

CIS has published a statement on its website in response to the serious allegations against CIS members and the CIS workplace on social media. CIS has taken note of the concern raised on a social platform, and its Internal Committee (IC), constituted as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, has taken some critical steps. CIS has engaged POSH at Work to review the case and make recommendations to the Executive Director of CIS.
Anubha Sinha attended the 37th meeting of WIPO SCCR held in Geneva in the month of November 2018. During the week she made two statements on behalf of CIS and participated in a panel discussion and a closed door meeting to brief government delegates from the Asia pacific region on the WIPO limitations and exceptions agenda. CIS made statements on limitations and exceptions and the proposed treaty for the protection of broadcasting organizations. Transcript of her talk can be accessed here.
A memorandum outlining India's strategy to global cyber norms formulation processes authored by Elonnai Hickok and Arindrajit Basu and edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad. The memorandum seeks to summarise the state of the global debate in cyberspace; outline how India can craft it’s global strategic vision and finally, provides a set of recommendations for the Ministry of External Affairs as they craft their cyber diplomacy strategy.
The institution of open standards is as a formidable regulatory regime governing the Internet while facilitating its growth as a network of networks. As a nation digitising rapidly and facing concerns in cybersecurity and Internet governance, there is a need for the Government of India to meaningfully participate at standards development organisations to represent the interests of the Indian populace and become a voice for the global South. Authors Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham examine this in a policy brief.
The Convention on Cybercrime adopted in Budapest (“Convention”) is the first and one of the most important multilateral treaties addressing the issue of internet and computer crimes. Vipul Kharbanda has analyzed this in his research paper titled Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act.
Amber Sinha was one of the stakeholders who provided inputs to the Danish Expert Group on Data Ethics in June 2018 during their visit to New Delhi. The Expert Group has prepared and submitted its final report.
For the fourth edition of the Internet Researchers’ Conference (IRC19), CIS invited sessions that engage critically with the form, imagination, and politics of the *list*. The list of proposed sessions are finalized and posted on this page.

Articles

Lessons from US response to cyber attacks (Arindrajit Basu; edited by Elonnai Hickok; Hindu Businessline; October 30, 2018). Mirrored on CIS website on November 1.
Digital Native: One Selfie Does a Tragedy Make (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 11, 2018).

CIS in the Media

Open Street Maps help tackle disasters: Experts (Deccan Chronicle; November 21, 2018).
Are connected tech toys too smart for their own good? (Abhijit Ahaskar; Livemint; November 22, 2018).
Girls' schools, women's PGs: The shocking results when you Google 'bitches near me' (News Minute; November 26, 2018).
Amazon launches Machine Learning-based platform for healthcare space (Kul Bhushan; Hindustan Times; November 28, 2018).
Report: From Oppression to Liberation: Reclaiming the Right to Privacy (Privacy International; November 28, 2018).
Are Chinese video apps violating the Indian law? (Nilesh Christopher; Economic Times; November 30, 2018).

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Access to Knowledge
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Our Access to Knowledge programme currently consists of two projects. The Pervasive Technologies project, conducted under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), aims to conduct research on the complex interplay between low-cost pervasive technologies and intellectual property, in order to encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The Wikipedia project, which is under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation, is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Copyright and Patent

Blog Entries

37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).
37th SCCR: CIS Statement on the Agenda on Limitations and Exceptions (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).
Views on on the proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations at side-event organised by Knowledge Ecology International (Anubha Sinha; November 29, 2018).

►Wikipedia

As part of the project grant from the Wikimedia Foundation we have reached out to more than 3500 people across India by organizing more than 100 outreach events and catalysed the release of encyclopaedic and other content under the Creative Commons (CC-BY-3.0) license in four Indian languages (21 books in Telugu, 13 in Odia, 4 volumes of encyclopaedia in Konkani and 6 volumes in Kannada, and 1 book on Odia language history in English).

Blog Entry

Aditya 365 (Pavan Santhosh; November 7, 2018).

►Openness

Our work in the Openness programme focuses on open data, especially open government data, open access, open education resources, open knowledge in Indic languages, open media, and open technologies and standards - hardware and software. We approach openness as a cross-cutting principle for knowledge production and distribution, and not as a thing-in-itself.
Teaching

Lecture on Open Access and Open Content Licensing at ICAR (short course) (ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research; Bangalore; November 13 - 22, 2018). Anubha Sinha delivered a lecture.

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and IDRC) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on restrictions that the Indian government has placed on freedom of expression online.

►Cyber Security

Research Papers

Budapest Convention and the Information Technology Act (Vipul Kharbanda; November 20, 2018).
Cyberspace and External Affairs:A Memorandum for India Summary (Arindrajit Basu and Elonnai Hickok; edited by Aayush Rathi and Shruti Trikanad; November 30, 2018).
Regulating the Internet: The Government of India & Standards Development at the IETF (Aayush Rathi, Gurshabad Grover and Sunil Abraham; November 30, 2018).

Event Co-organized

Workshop on Cybersecurity Illustrations (CIS, Bangalore; November 15, 2018).

Participation in Events

Connections 2018 (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangalore; October 31 - November 1, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.
IETF103 (Organized by Internet Engineering Task Force; Bangkok; November 3 - 9, 2018). Gurshabad Grover attended the event.

►Free Speech and Expression

Research Paper

ICANN Workstream 2 Recommendations on Accountability (Akriti Bopanna; November 23, 2018).

Blog Entry

DIDP #32 On ICANN's Fellowship Program (Akriti Bopanna; November 12, 2018).

Participation in Event

Internet Freedom at Crossroads - Common Paths towards Strengthening Human Rights Online (Organized by Freedom Online; Berlin; November 28 - 30, 2018). Elonnai Hickok was a speaker.

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Clarification on the Information Security Practices of Aadhaar Report (Amber Sinha and Srinivas Kodali; November 5, 2018).

Participation in Events

Building a Community of Practice: Reflections from 2nd All Partners (Organized by Partnership on AI; San Francisco, California; November 14 - 15, 2018). Elonnai Hickok spoke on the panel on the PAI working groups and co-lead the AI Labor and Economy working group meeting as co-chair of the group.
Briefing on BBC News pan-India research on how 'fake news' / digital misinformation spreads (Organized by BBC; New Delhi; November 16, 2018).
DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet (Organized by Data Security Council of India; 10K NASSCOM Startup Warehouse; Bangalore; November 22, 2018). Gurshabad Grover and Karan Saini attended the DSCI Bangalore Chapter meet.
Informational Privacy in India: An Emerging Discourse (Organized by Centre for Policy Research and supported by Omidyar Network; New Delhi; November 29, 2018). Amber Sinha was a speaker on the first panel on privacy and its tradeoffs.
Facebook Privacy Design Sprint (Organized by Facebook and Quicksand; WeWork, Bangalore; November 30, 2018). Pranav Bidare and Saumyaa Naidu participated in the event.

►Miscellaneous

Event Co-organized

SOTM Asia 2018 (Co-organized by CIS and Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore; November 17-18, 2018). Saumyaa Naidu, Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event.

Participation in Events

Speculative Futures Lab on Artificial Intelligence in Media, Entertainment, and Gaming (Organized by Quicksand; Bangalore; November 16 - 18, 2018). Pranav Bidare was a panelist.
Future Tech and Future Law (Organized by Dept. of IT & BT, Government of Karnataka as part of Bengaluru Tech Summit; November 29 - December 1, 2018). Aayush Rathi was a speaker.

►Gender

Statement

Statement on Serious Allegations against CIS Members and the CIS Workplace on Social Media (Sunil Abraham; November 24, 2018).

Participation in Events

Roundtable on Intermediary Liability and Gender Based Violence at the Digital Citizen Summit, 2018 (Organized by Digital Empowerment Foundation; India International Centre, New Delhi; November 1, 2018).
International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 2018 (Co-organized by Feminist Approaches to Bioethics and Sama - A Resource Centre for Women and Health; St. John's Medical College; Bangalore; December 3 - 5, 2018). Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon participated in the event as speakers. Aayush presented a paper 'Sexual Surveillance and Data Regimes: Development in the Data Economy' co-authored by himself and Ambika.

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Telecom
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CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

A great start on Wi-Fi reforms (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 1, 2018 and Organizing India Blogspot; November 1, 2018).

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Researchers at Work
-----------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by an emerging need to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It aims to produce local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

IRC19

List of proposed sessions:

#AyushmanBhavah - Arya Lakshmi and Adrij Chakraborty
#ButItIsNotFunny - Madhavi Shivaprasad and Sonali Sahoo
#CallingOutAndIn - Usha Raman, Radhika Gajjala, Riddhima Sharma, Tarishi Varma, Pallavi Guha, Sai Amulya Komarraju, and Sugandha Sehgal
#DigitalPlatformAttributes - Nandakishore K N and Dr. V. Sridhar
#EnlistingPrivacy - Pawan Singh and Pranjal Jain
#FOMO - Pritha Chakrabarti and Dr. Baidurya Chakrabarti
#LegitLists - Form follows function: List by design - Akriti Rastogi, Ishani Dey, and Sagorika Singha
#ListInterface - Bharath Sivakumar, Rakshita Siva, and Deepak Prince
#ListsAsDatabase - Ria De and Samata Biswas
#LoSHAandWhatFollowed - Anannya Chatterjee, Arunima Singh, Bhanu Priya Gupta, Renu Singh, and Rhea Bose
#PowerListing - Dr. Shubhda Arora, Dr. Smitana Saikia, Prof. Nidhi Kalra, and Prof. Ravikant Kisana
#SocialMediationAsGenderedJustice - Esther Anne Victoria Moraes and Manasa Priya Vasudevan
#StoriesRecordsLegendsRituals - Priyanka, Aditya, Bhanu Prakash GS, Aishwarya, and Dinesh

-----------------------------------
About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2018-newsletter

November 2017 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2018-01-10T01:57:29Z

November 2017 Newsletter

Dear readers,

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Anubha Sinha took part in the 35th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (“SCCR”) at Geneva from 13 November, 2017 to 18 November, 2017. She posed a question on the agenda 'Other Matters' on behalf of CIS on Day 5, 17 November, 2017. CIS also gave statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and GRULAC Proposal for Analysis of Copyright in the Digital Environment. CIS-A2K signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Telangana Government’s IT, Electronics & Communications Department with to catalyse the development of the Wikimedia movement in Telangana and improve the state of free-licensed digital content in Telugu and Urdu. The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India has published the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW). Nirmita Narasimhan on behalf of the Centre for Internet & Society gave comments on GIGW. The government has already set up a Nudge unit; now, it should apply the Nobel laureate's insights on auctions relating to essential infrastructure wrote Shyam Ponappa in an article in the Business Standard on November 1, 2017. DataMeet and CIS have collaborated on identifying and addressing the challenges to open up and integrate data and information in the water sector. CIS commented on the Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in Telecom Sector published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 9, 2017. CIS published a report that compares laws and regulations in the United Kingdom and India to see the similarities and disjunctions in cyber security policy between them. CIS sent comments on TRAI consultation paper on promoting local telecom equipment manufacturing. The submission drew on research primarily done in the Pervasive Technologies project.

Highlights

Anubha Sinha took part in the 35th Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization (“WIPO”) Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (“SCCR”) at Geneva from 13 November, 2017 to 18 November, 2017. She posed a question on the agenda 'Other Matters' on behalf of CIS on Day 5, 17 November, 2017. CIS also gave statements on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives and GRULAC Proposal for Analysis of Copyright in the Digital Environment.
CIS-A2K signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Telangana Government’s IT, Electronics & Communications Department with to catalyse the development of the Wikimedia movement in Telangana and improve the state of free-licensed digital content in Telugu and Urdu.
The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India has published the Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW). Nirmita Narasimhan on behalf of the Centre for Internet & Society gave comments on GIGW.
The government has already set up a Nudge unit; now, it should apply the Nobel laureate's insights on auctions relating to essential infrastructure wrote Shyam Ponappa in an article in the Business Standard on November 1, 2017.
DataMeet and CIS have collaborated on identifying and addressing the challenges to open up and integrate data and information in the water sector.
CIS commented on the Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in Telecom Sector published by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on August 9, 2017.
CIS published a report that compares laws and regulations in the United Kingdom and India to see the similarities and disjunctions in cyber security policy between them.
CIS sent comments on TRAI consultation paper on promoting local telecom equipment manufacturing. The submission drew on research primarily done in the Pervasive Technologies project.

CIS in the News:

Big Data for governance (Alekhya Hanumanthu; Telangana Today; November 4, 2017).
How tech is making life easier for differently-abled (Shalini Umachandrani; November 7, 2017).
India Today Conclave Next 2017: Aadhaar was rushed, says MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar (Priya Pathak; India Today; November 8, 2017).
What You Need To Worry About Before Linking Your Mobile Number With Aadhaar (Roopa Raju and Shekhar Rai; Youth Ki Awaaz; November 8, 2017).
OPINION | Data is New Oil and Human Mind the New Battlefield. India Must Wake Up Now (Lt. General (Retd.) D. S. Hooda; News18.com; November 11, 2017).
Aadhaar seeding: benefits and concerns (Shaikh Zoaib Saleem; Livemint; November 14, 2017).
Privacy issues exist even without Aadhaar (Ronald Abraham; November 15, 2017).
Advocating for Openness: Nine Ways Civil Society Groups Have Mobilized to Defend Internet Freedom (Centre for International Media Assistance; November 15, 2017).
Govt working to set up financial CERT to tackle cyber threats (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 16, 2017).
Financial CERT to combat cyber threats, says MoS home affairs (CISO MAG; November 17, 2017).
UIDAI admits 210 government websites made Aadhaar details public (Financial Express; November 20, 2017).
India’s internet missionaries: The women Google is relying on to spread its Next Billion message (Sunny Sen; Livemint; November 21, 2017).
FCC’s plan to repeal net neutrality may not impact India (Surabhi Agarwal; Economic Times; November 23, 2017).
Indian activists slam FCC decision to ditch net neutrality (Kul Bhushan; Hindustan Times; November 23, 2017).
FCC’s plan to repeal net neutrality may not impact India (Surabhi Agarwal; Economic Times; November 23, 2017).
Why should you keep a close eye on the net neutrality debate in the US (Subhrojit Mallick; Digit; November 24, 2017).
Cyberattacks a significant threat to democracy: Modi (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 24, 2017).
Aadhaar verification at airports raises need for stricter data privacy regulations (Aman Sethi; Hindustan Times, November 27, 2017).
IDAP Interview Series: Interview with Nirmita Narasimhan (IDIA Law; November 27, 2017).
Govt releases white paper on data protection framework (Komal Gupta; Livemint; November 28, 2017).
Bengalureans to receive Helen Keller award (Deccan Herald; November 30, 2017).

-------------------------------------
Accessibility & Inclusion
-------------------------------------
India has an estimated 70 million persons with disabilities who don't have access to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. As part of our endeavour to make available accessible content for persons with disabilities, we are developing a text-to-speech software in 15 languages with support from the Hans Foundation. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

Submission

Comments on Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (Nirmita Narasimhan; November 26, 2017).

►Copyright & Patent

35th SCCR: CIS Statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; November 15, 2017).
35th SCCR: CIS Statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (Anubha Sinha; November 17, 2017).
35th SCCR: CIS' Question to Dr. Rostama on her Study on the Impact of the Digital Environment on Copyright Legislation (Anubha Sinha; November 19, 2017).

►Wikipedia

Blog Entry

CIS-A2K signs MoU with Telangana Government (Manasa Rao; November 8, 2017).

►Openness

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entries

A Comparison of Legal and Regulatory Approaches to Cyber Security in India and the United Kingdom (Divij Joshi; edited by Elonnai Hickok; November 12, 2017).
Counter Comments on TRAI's Consultation Paper on Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in Telecom Sector (Amber Sinha; November 23, 2017).

Participation in Event

BIS International Seminar on Internet of Things (Organized by BIS; November 15, 2017; India Habitat Centre, New Delhi). Amber Sinha attended the event.
Internet Universality Indicators for a Safe, Secure and Inclusive Cyberspace for Sustainable Development (Organized by UNESCO in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and IT, Government of India; UNESCO Conference Room, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi; November 17, 2017). Amber Sinha attended the event.

Roundtable on Data Integrity and Privacy (Organized by Observer Research Foundation; November 18, 2017). The round table discussion was chaired by Shri Baijayant Panda, Hon'ble Member of Parliament.

►Cyber Security

Blog Entry

Breach Notifications: A Step towards Cyber Security for Consumers and Citizens (Amelia Andersdotter; November 14, 2017).

Event Organized

Roundtable on Enhancing Indian Cyber Security through Multi-Stakeholder Cooperation (Indian Islamic Centre; Lodhi Road; New Delhi; November 4, 2017).
Open House on Security Practices in FinTech (Organized by CIS and Has Geek; November 17, 2017).

Participation in Event

Multinational Cyber Security Forum at University of Haifa (Organized by Center for Cyber, Law and Policy and University of Haifa in collaboration with the Hewlett Foundation Cyber Initiative; November 5 - 7, 2017). Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting held in Israel.
Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC) (Organized by GCSC; November 21, 2017; New Delhi). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.

-----------------------------------
Telecom
-----------------------------------

CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources, and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

Article

Nobel Laureate Richard Thaler's Views On Auctions (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 1, 2017).

Submission

Comments on TRAI Consultation Paper on Promoting Local Telecom Equipment Manufacturing (Anubha Sinha; November 26, 2017).

Articles

Digital native: Rebellion by Google Doc (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 4, 2017)
Digital native: Let there be life (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 19, 2017).

-----------------------------------

About CIS
-----------------------------------
The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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E-Mail - Access to Knowledge: a2k@cis-india.org
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► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2017-newsletter

November 2016 Newsletter

praskrishna — 2017-02-06T12:52:38Z

Welcome to the November 2016 newsletter of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS).

Dear readers,

As we bring in the new year here at CIS, we thank you for your continued interest and support.

Over the course of the previous year, government services and functions became more dependent on information technologies, concerns over cybersecurity and the vulnerability of electronic infrastructure grew, and new developments and challenges arose in the fields of Internet governance and free speech and expression.

In the wake of this major year of developments, the work that CIS does is even more important. We look forward to engaging with these and other emerging issues, in 2017 and beyond.

Previous issues of the newsletters can be accessed here.

Highlights
Geethanjali Jujjavarapu and Udbhav Tiwari undertook a high-level literature review of the most commonly used technological tools and processes in the big data life cycle. In the research paper the authors have argued that big data life cycle is a conceptual construct that can be used to study the various stages that typically occur in collecting, storing and analysing big data, along with the principles that can govern these processes. Nirmita Narasimhan in a blog post published by Your Story has thrown light on the various challenges which persons with disabilities have to overcome. She has stressed that promoting use of technology and open source software and imparting training at an early age will go a long way in making students with disabilities self-sufficient and independent. Government of India's work is not available under free and open licenses as is the case in various other nations. Tito Dutta has called upon the Indian government to make its work freely licensed, wherever possible and applicable. The 33rd WIPO-SCCR was held in Geneva from November 14 - 18, 2016. Anubha Sinha attended the meeting. CIS made its statements on the GRULAC Proposal for Analysis of Copyright in the Digital Environment and the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations. What if our phones were to go silent? Would you be able to deal with the silence? Nishant Shah has explored this in an article published in the Indian Express. In a consolidated compilation titled Privacy after Big Data we have put together a series of articles that we have developed as we explore the impacts – positive and negative – of big data. This is a growing body of research that we are exploring and is relevant to multiple areas of our work including privacy and surveillance. CIS has called for comments for this compilation. The second Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC17) is scheduled to take place in Bengaluru between March 3 - 5, 2017. From the 23 submitted session proposals CIS will select 10 to be part of the final Conference agenda. The selection will be done through votes casted by the teams that have proposed the sessions. This will take place in December 2016.

CIS in the news:

Using Kannada in technology made easier with smartphones (New Indian Express; November 1, 2016).
'Delink ICANN from US jurisdiction' (Deccan Herald; November 12, 2016).
Google, Facebook will not place ads on sites distributing fake news (John Riberio; IDG News Service and CIO; November 14, 2016).
How The U.K. Got A Better Deal From Facebook Than India Did (Payaswini Upadhyay; Bloomberg Quint; November 17, 2016).
The thrill of saving India from cybercrime (Peerzada Abrar; Hindu; November 20, 2016).
Free Net advocates flay Trai's public Wi-Fi paper (Anita Babu; Business Standard; November 20, 2016).
Popular apps are inaccessible to millions of disabled: Study (Arpita Raj; The Times of India and ET Brand Equity; November 21, 2016).
Caught in a filter bubble (Chethana Divya Vasudev; November 22, 2016).
A world apart (Meera Siva; Hindu Businessline; November 27, 2016).
Disabled kid? sorry, no admission! (New Indian Express; November 28, 2016).
Guru Gomke is a Stylish Ol Chiki Typeface for India’s Santali Speakers (AIGA.org; November 29, 2016).

CIS members wrote the following articles

Where Are There So Few Books For The Print-Impaired? (Nirmita Narasimhan; Huffington Post; November 3, 2016).
4 tips for DIY makers (Subhashish Panigrahi; November 18, 2016).
Digital native: The Voices in Our Heads (Nishant Shah; November 20, 2016).
The Quest for Education – Persons with Disabilities, Severely Challenged (Nirmita Narasimhan; Your Story; November 24, 2016).
Demonetisation Survey Limits the Range of Feedback that can be Provided by the User (Udbhav Tiwari; November 24, 2016).

Jobs

CIS is presently seeking applications for the following positions

Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Senior Policy Officer (Cyber Security)
Intern (Pervasive Technologies Project) - Application accepted throughout the year
Internship - Application accepted throughout the year
Survey Participants for Research on Musician Livelihood

►Copyright & Patent

Blog Entries

33rd SCCR: Opening Statement by India on behalf of the Asia and the Pacific Group (Anubha Sinha; November 14, 2016).
33rd SCCR: CIS Statement on the Proposed Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (Anubha Sinha; November 16, 2016).
33rd SCCR: CIS Statement on the GRULAC Proposal for Analysis of Copyright in the Digital Environment (Anubha Sinha; November 18, 2016).

►Wikipedia

Event Organized

Sambalpur University Workshop (Sambalpur; November 27, 2016).

Participation in Event

CIIPC-NLUD Workshop on Wikipedia Editing and Open Source Knowledge Sources (Organized by Centre for Innovation, Intellectual Property, and Competition (CIIPC), National Law university, Delhi; November 11 - 12, 2016). Rohini Lakshané and Tanveer Hasan conducted and facilitated this workshop.

Blog Entries

Wikipedia Asian Month — 2016 iteration starts on 1 November (Tito Dutta; November 1, 2016)
100 Wikidays: The Journey so Far (Tito Dutta; November 23, 2016)
Free Knowledge and Indian Government Work (Tito Dutta; November 26, 2016).
Improving Telugu Village Articles (Pavan Santhosh; November 26, 2016).

-----------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------

►Privacy

Blog Entry

Conference on the Digitalization of the Indian Legal System (Leilah Elmokadem; November 16, 2016)

Participation in Event

Industry Consultation Panel on Data Retention - DSCI (Organized by the Data Security Council of India; New Delhi; November 23, 2016). Udbhav Tiwari was a panelist.

►Big Data

Blog Entry

Privacy after Big Data: Compilation of Early Research (Saumyaa Naidu; November 12, 2016).
Big Data in India: Benefits, Harms, and Human Rights - Workshop Report (Vidushi Marda, Akash Deep Singh and Geethanjali Jujjavarapu; November 14, 2016).

►Cyber Security

Blog Entry

CERT-In's Proactive Mandate - A Report on the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team’s Proactive Mandate in the Indian Cyber Security Ecosystem (Udbhav Tiwari; November 19, 2016).

►Free Speech and Expression

Blog Entries

If the DIDP Did Its Job (Asvatha Babu; November 3, 2016)
Internet's Core Resources are a Global Public Good - They Cannot Remain Subject to One Country's Jurisdiction (Vidushi Marda; November 9, 2016)
How Workstream 2 Plans to Improve ICANN's Transparency (Asvatha Babu; November 10, 2016).
ICANN Begins its Sojourn into Open Data (Padmini Baruah and Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 11, 2016).
Navigating the 'Reconsideration' Quagmire (A Personal Journey of Acute Confusion).

Participation in Events

ICANN 57 (Organized by Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India; Hyderabad International Convention Centre; November 3 - 9, 2016). Vidushi Marda was a speaker.
10th NLSIR Symposium - Regulating E-Commerce in India (Organized by National Law School of India University, Bengaluru; November 27, 2016). Vidushi Marda was a panelist.

Blog Entry

Internet Researchers' Conference 2017 (IRC17) - Selection of Sessions (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 16, 2016).

Event Organized

CISxScholars Delhi - William F. Stafford (CIS; New Delhi; November 3, 2016).

-----------------------------------

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2016-newsletter

November 2015 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2016-01-03T12:42:42Z

Our newsletter for the month of November 2015 is below:

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is happy to share the eleventh issue of CIS newsletter (November 2015). Previous editions of the newsletter can be accessed at http://cis-india.org/about/newsletters.

-------------------------------
Highlights
-------------------------------

The Internet Governance Forum was held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme for IGF 2015 was Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Jyoti Panday participated. Overall CIS spoke in 10 panels. Jyoti Panday has summarized the developments.
Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of implementation of WSIS Outcomes was released on 4 November 2015. Comments were sought on the Draft Outcome Document from diverse stakeholders. CIS responded to the call .
The first draft of the National IPR Policy was released last December. Comments and suggestions were submitted to the DIPP on this. Akshath Mithal in his blog post analysed the comments available online and the trends that he was able to find.
Ramya Chandrasekhar wrote a blog post that has deconstructed and explained some aspects of the various proposals to enhance ICANN's accountability.
Mangalore based cultural centre Maand Sobhaann recently relicensed 3 of their publications under a free license so that the books could be digitised on Konkani Wikisource and enrich Konkani Wikipedia. Rahmanuddin Shaik and Tanveer Hasan have captured the development in a blog post.
Japreet Grewal in a blog post has attempted to understand the domain in which censorship laws are penetrating today giving the example of the role of group admin in Whatsapp.
Elonnai Hickok in a policy brief has reviewed different oversight mechanisms from the US, UK, and Canada and provides recommendations for ways in which India can strengthen its present oversight mechanisms for state surveillance and the intelligence community.
Rohan George has reviewed the literature surrounding big data and predictive policing and has provided an analysis of the legal implications of using predictive policing techniques in the Indian context.
Large blocks of underused spectrum lie tantalizingly out of reach, waiting for enabling regulation, administration, and to some extent technology, to accelerate our move towards Digital India, according to Shyam Ponappa's column published in the Business Standard.
CIS in collaboration with T.A.J. Residency & SKE Projects and or-bits.com developed Silicon Plateau Vol-1. This book marks the beginning of an interdisciplinary artistic project, Silicon Plateau, the scope of which is to observe how the arts, technology and society intersect in the city of Bangalore.
P.P. Sneha has outlined a few questions/conflicts that the digital practitioners in arts and humanities disciplines are grappling with in the first among seven sections that has been published.
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society and CIS has set up the CSCS Digital Innovation Fund. The objective is to encourage, host, and provide seed funding for the development of digital tools and infrastructure for arts, humanities, and social science research in India. The fund will be administered by the RAW programme at CIS.

----------------------------------------------
Accessibility and Inclusion
----------------------------------------------
Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing a project on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

# Monthly Updates

November 2015 Report (Suman Dogra; November 30, 2015).

►Other

International Day of People with Disability (Organized by Capgemini; Bangalore; November 30, 2015). Nirmita Narasimhan was a panelist.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Access to Knowledge
-----------------------------------------------------------
As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

►Pervasive Technologies

# Blog Entries

MHRD IPR Chair Series: Information Received from IIT Roorkee (Karan Tripathi and Nehaa Chaudhari; November 17, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs, analysed, reviewed and edited this blog post.
A Study of J. Sai Deepak's Comments on Competition Law in India (Aarushi Bansal; November 19, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari gave inputs and edited the blog entry.
The Procedure of CCI in cases of Anti-Competitive Agreements and Abuse of Dominant Position: A Flow-Chart (Sarthak Sood; November 24, 2015).

►Copyright and Patent

# Blog Entries

Ministry Clearances for the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest 2015 (Swaraj Barooah; November 18, 2015).
National IPR Policy: Mapping the Stakeholders' Response (Akshath Mithal; November 24, 2015). Nehaa Chaudhari provided inputs and feedback and also edited this post.

# Participation in Events

Second Meeting of the Expert Committee on WIPO (Organized by Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, Govt. of India; New Delhi; November 2, 2015).
International Conference on Evolving Regime in Intellectual Property Protection (Organized by Jawaharlal Nehru University; New Delhi; November 2 - 4, 2015).
India - Europe Conference on Building a Sustainable IPR - ICT Ecosystem for Promoting Innovation (Organized by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing; Bangalore; November 20, 2015). Rohini Lakshané attended this event.

►Wikipedia

# Blog Entries

Konkani-language books from Konkani-language culture center Mannd Sobhaann to enrich Konkani Wikipedia (Rahmanuddin Shaik and Tanveer Hasan; November 1, 2015).
Guerrilla GLAMː An alternate way of doing GLAM in indie-way (Subhashish Panigrahi; Wikimedia Blog; November 25, 2015). This was published in the GLAM-wiki newsletter for November.

# Participation in Events

Making Tulu Wikipedia 'Live' (Organized by Tulu Sahitya Akademy; Mangalore; October 28 - 29 and November 5 - 6, 2015). Rahmanuddin interacted with Tulu Wikipedians. Rahmanuddin was also invited to be a part of the World Konkani Literature festival where he spoke briefly about Konkani Wikipedia to the gathering.
Open Source India 2015 (by EFY Group; NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore; November 19 - 20, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi attended the event.
Tulu Wikipedia Tutorial (Organized by Wikipedia community; Mangalore; November 2015). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja trained the people involved in the creation of the Tutorial video.
FUEL GILT Conference 2015 (Organized by Mozilla Corporation, Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC), Pune and Red Hat; Tamil Virtual Academy, Anna University Campus, Gandhi Mandapam Road, Kottur, Chennai; November 20 - 22, 2015). Subhashish Panigrahi spoke at the event.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following:

शंभर वर्षांपूर्वीच्या पुस्तकांचे होणार डिजिटायझेशन (Lokmat; November 11, 2015).
Dr. Pavanaja featured in Kannada Daily (Vijayavani; November 16, 2015).
तेसर फ्यूल कॉन्फरेंस आओर मोज़िला हैकाथन संपन्न (esamaad; November 19, 2015).
ଅନ୍‌ଲାଇନରେ ପଢ଼ିହେବ ଜଗନ୍ନାଥ ପ୍ରସାଦ ଦାସଙ୍କ ୩୦ଟି ବହି (Sambad; November 19, 2015).
तीसरा फ्यूल कॉन्फ्रेंस और मोज़िला हैकाथन संपन्न (Surkhiyan; November 23, 2015).
तीसरा फ्यूल जिल्ट कॉन्फ्रेंस और मोज़िला हैकाथन चेन्नई में संपन्न (Aaj Tak; November 24, 2015).
भाषाई कंप्यूटिंग के मानक बनाने के लिए चेन्नई में हुआ तीसरा फ्यूल जिल्‍ट (Outlook; November 26, 2015).

The following were published in October but mirrored on the CIS website recently:

मराठी पुस्तके 'विकिस्रोत' ला, सकाळ (Sakaal; October 28, 2015).
'महाराष्ट्र ग्रंथोत्तेजक' होणार लोकाभिमुख, महाराष्ट्र टाईम्स (Maharashtra Times; October 28, 2015).
महाराष्ट्र ग्रंथोत्तेजक संस्थेमधील एक हजार ग्रंथ ऑनलाईन (Saamna; October 30, 2015).

►Openness

Design Public Conclave, 6th Edition (Organized by by Civic Labs, an initiative of the Center for Knowledge Studies, and part of the Vihara Innovation Network, in partnership with Social Innovation Exchange, Okapi, Business World, Business World for Smart Cities, and the Delhi Jal Board; New Delhi; November 3, 2015). Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Amber Sinha participated in the event.

-----------------------------------------------
Internet Governance
-----------------------------------------------
As part of its research on privacy and free speech, CIS is engaged with two different projects. The first one (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) is on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). The second one (under a grant from MacArthur Foundation) is on studying the restrictions placed on freedom of expression online by the Indian government.

►Internet Governance Forum

IGF 2015 was held at Jao Pessoa in Brazil from November 10 to 13, 2015. The theme for IGF 2015 was Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development. Sunil Abraham, Pranesh Prakash and Jyoti Panday participated. Overall CIS spoke in 10 panels.

The Social Role of the Communications and the Strengthening of the Freedom of Expression Panel - "Cultural Diversity and Freedom of Expression" (Organized by Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Communications of Brazil; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 9, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Thirty-three participants took part in this pre-event.
Open Forum - DINL, Digital Infrastructure Association (Organized by Digital Infrastructure Netherlands Foundation; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 10, 2015). Jyoti Panday was a speaker at this workshop. CIS participated in the open forum to discuss the increase in government engagement with "the internet" to protect their citizens against crime and abuse and to protect economic interests and critical infrastructures. Thirteen participants attended the open forum.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Internet Economy (Organized by Multistakeholder Advisory Group; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 11, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Fifty five delegates attended the event. CIS participated in the discussions focusing on internet economy and internet role in sustainable development goals.
Cases on the right to be forgotten, what have we learned? (Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 11, 2015). Jyoti Panday attended the event. CIS took part in the event to understand arguments, scope, discussions and current situation of the Right to be Forgotten outside the EU and around the world in rulings and legislations. Fifty four participants attended the event.
The Benefits and Challenges of the "Free Flow" of Data (Organized by Public Knowledge; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 12, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Twenty-four delegates attended the event. CIS was part of the panel which discusssed the many benefits and challenges of the free flow of data. The workshop fostered a discussion of the ways in which stakeholders could address the underlying reasons for data flow restrictions.
Encryption and Anonymity: Rights and Risks (Organized by ARTICLE 19 and Privacy International; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 12, 2015). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker. CIS participated in the roundtable that discussed recommendations and the latest challenges to the protection of anonymity and encryption. Sixty three delegates attended.
A Dialogue on "Zero Rating" and Network Neutrality (Organized by Chalmers & Associates; Jao Pessoa; Brazil; November 12, 2015). Pranesh Prakash was a speaker. CIS took part in the discussion to promote access to expert insight and multi-stakeholder community discussion. Eighty five delegates attended the session.
Empowering the next billion by improving accessibility (Organized by Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability and Global Initiative for Inclusive ICTs; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. Pranesh Prakash participated in the discussions. CIS took part in the discussions that examined the technological and programmatic solutions available today for an effective removal of such barriers, potentially bringing a considerable number of new users to the Internet.
FOSS & a Free, Open Internet: Synergies for Development (Organized by Civil Society; Jao Pessoa, Brazil; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash spoke at the event. CIS took part in the discussions that explored links between the Free and Open nature of the Internet and the Free and Open Source Software through a series of experience sharing among the speakers as well as audiences.
Transnational Due Process: A Case Study in MS Cooperation (Organized by Internet & Jurisdiction Project; Jao Pessoa; November 13, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist. The tension between the cross-border nature of the Internet and diverse national jurisdictions is a prime concern. The round-table described the method employed to develop this framework, challenges encountered and solutions found as well as the potential distribution of roles among the respective stakeholders in the operation of the diverse framework components. Twelve delegates attended this workshop.

►Big Data

# Article

Connected Trouble (Sunil Abraham; November 1, 2015).

# Blog Entry

Predictive Policing: What is it, How it works, and its Legal Implications (Rohan George; November 24, 2015).

# Event Organized

Big Data in the Global South International Workshop (Organized by Institute for Technology and Society of Rio de Janeiro; Hotel Windsor Florida, Rua Ferreira Viana, Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; November 16 - 17, 2015). Sunil Abraham and Vipul Kharbanda were speakers at this event.

# Participation in Event

Leveraging Mobile Network Big Data for Development Policy: Opportunities & Challenges (Organized by LIRNEasia; IDRC, New Delhi; November 27, 2015).

►Privacy

# Blog Entries

Policy Brief: Oversight Mechanisms for Surveillance (Elonnai Hickok; November 24, 2015).
The Short-lived Adventure of India's Encryption Policy (Bhairav Acharya; November 27, 2015). This was originally written for the Berkeley Information Privacy Law Association.

# Participation in Event

ISO/IEC/ JTC 1/SC 27 Working Groups Meeting (Organized by Bureau of Indian Standards and Data Security Council of India; Jaipur; October 26 – 30, 2015). Vanya Rakesh attended the meeting.

►Free Speech, Expression and Censorship

# Submission

Comments on the Draft Outcome Document of the UN General Assembly's Overall Review of the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes (WSIS+10) (Geetha Hariharan; November 18, 2015).

# Article

The Humpty-Dumpty Censorship of Television in India (Bhairav Acharya; The Wire; September 23, 2015). The article was mirrored on CIS website recently.

# Blog Entries

Breaking Down ICANN Accountability: What It Is and What the Internet Community Wants (Ramya Chandrasekhar; November 5, 2015).
Summary Report Internet Governance Forum 2015 (Jyoti Panday; November 23, 2015).
The Case of Whatsapp Group Admins (Japreet Grewal; November 26, 2015).

►Cyber Security

# Participation in Events

Technology, Innovation and Societal Change (Organized by Indian Institute of Management; Bangalore; November 4, 2015). Vanya Rakesh attended the event.
Ground Zero Summit (Organized by Infosec Consortium; November 5 - 8, 2015; New Delhi). Amber Sinha attended the event.
Cyber Security Summit 2015 (Organized by Government of Karnataka in association with Biz Wingz Production House; JW Marriot, Bangalore; November 27, 2015). Sunil Abraham was a panelist.

►Miscellaneous

# Article

WhatsApps with fireworks, apps with diyas: Why Diwali needs to go beyond digital (Nishant Shah; Indian Express; November 23, 2015).

--------------------------------
Telecom
--------------------------------
CIS is involved in promoting access and accessibility to telecommunications services and resources and has provided inputs to ongoing policy discussions and consultation papers published by TRAI. It has prepared reports on unlicensed spectrum and accessibility of mobile phones for persons with disabilities and also works with the USOF to include funding projects for persons with disabilities in its mandate:

# Op-ed

The Buzz Around TV White Space (Shyam Ponappa; Business Standard; November 4, 2015 and Organizing India Blogspot; November 5, 2015).

# Blog Entry

Gauging Users' Reactions Towards Zero Rating (Aadya Misra; November 25, 2015). The author likes to thank Amba Kak, on whose research the survey was conducted.

--------------------------------
Researchers at Work
--------------------------------
The Researchers at Work (RAW) programme is an interdisciplinary research initiative driven by contemporary concerns to understand the reconfigurations of social practices and structures through the Internet and digital media technologies, and vice versa. It is interested in producing local and contextual accounts of interactions, negotiations, and resolutions between the Internet, and socio-material and geo-political processes:

# Book

Silicon Plateau Vol-1 (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 28, 2015).

# Blog Entries

Digital Humanities in India? (P.P. Sneha; November 12, 2015).
A Question of Digital Humanities (P.P. Sneha; November 16, 2015).
CSCS Digital Innovation Fund (CDIF) (Sumandro Chattapadhyay; November 16, 2015).

# Event Organized

Launch of Silicon Plateau Vol-1 (Organized by Or-bits.com and CIS; T.A.J. Residency, Wheeler Road Extension, Cooke Town, Bangalore; November 27, 2015).

# Upcoming Event

First Edition of Internet Researchers' Conference (IRC) 2016 - Studying Internet in India: Call for Sessions (Organized by CIS; New Delhi; February 25 - 27, 2016).

---------------------------------
News & Media Coverage
---------------------------------

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Come, be my guest (Hindu; November 14, 2015)
Shopping on apps raise privacy and security concerns (Vivek Ananth; Softcopy, an IIJNM Web Publication; November 23, 2015).

---------------------------------
About CIS
---------------------------------

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) is a non-profit organisation that undertakes interdisciplinary research on internet and digital technologies from policy and academic perspectives. The areas of focus include digital accessibility for persons with diverse abilities, access to knowledge, intellectual property rights, openness (including open data, free and open source software, open standards, open access, open educational resources, and open video), internet governance, telecommunication reform, digital privacy, and cyber-security. The academic research at CIS seeks to understand the reconfigurations of
social and cultural processes and structures as mediated through the internet and digital media technologies.

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2015-bulletin

November 2014 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-12-15T13:27:04Z

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) welcome you to the eleventh issue of the newsletter (November 2014).

Highlights

On 13 November, 2014, the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion had released a Call for Suggestions for India's proposed National IPR Policy. CIS sent its comments.
As part of the Pervasive Technologies we published four methodology documents: Rohini Lakshané wrote on Patent Landscaping for the Indian Mobile Device market ; Anubha Sinha wrote on Intellectual Property in Mobile Application Development in India ; Maggie Huang wrote on Access to Music through the Mobile; and Nehaa Chaudhari wrote on Sub Hundred Dollar Mobile Devices and Competition Law .
Odisha's most circulated newspaper Sambad has collaborated with CIS-A2K to relicense 19 books published by its sister concern "Ama Odisha".
Vipul Kharbanda in a blog entry examines the relationship between privacy and transparency in the context of the right to information in India .
Geetha Hariharan in a blog entry explores what India's ITU proposal means for Internet Governance.
Pranesh Prakash wrote an article in the Economic Times exploring net neutrality.
In her final blog post on the mapping exercise undertaken by CIS-RAW, P.P.Sneha summarises some of the key concepts and terms that emerged as significant in the discourse around Digital Humanities in India.

►Job

Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge - Institutional Partnerships): CIS is seeking applications for the post of Programme Officer for its Access to Knowledge (A2K) Programme. The position will be based in its Bangalore office. Programme Officer will collaboratively work with the A2K Team and would report to the Programme Director, Access to Knowledge at CIS.

Accessibility and Inclusion

Under a grant from the Hans Foundation we are doing two projects. The first project is on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. CIS in partnership with CLPR (Centre for Law and Policy Research) compiled the National Compendium of Policies, Programmes and Schemes for Persons with Disabilities (29 states and 6 union territories). The publication has been finalised and is currently in the process of being printed. The draft chapters and the quarterly reports can be accessed on the project page. The second project is on developing text-to-speech software for 15 Indian languages. The progress made so far in the project can be accessed here.

►NVDA and eSpeak

Monthly Update

November 2014 Report (Suman Dogra; November 30, 2014).

Upcoming Event

Training in Use of eSpeak with Malayalam (co-organized by CIS, DAISY Forum of India and Chakshumathi Assistive Technology Centre; Trivandrum; January 24 - 25, 2015, Trivandrum).

►Other

Blog Entry

Central Guidelines and Schemes (Anandhi Viswanathan; November 6, 2014).

Access to Knowledge

As part of the Access to Knowledge programme we are doing two projects. The first one (Pervasive Technologies) under a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is for research on the complex interplay between pervasive technologies and intellectual property to support intellectual property norms that encourage the proliferation and development of such technologies as a social good. The second one (Wikipedia) under a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation is for the growth of Indic language communities and projects by designing community collaborations and partnerships that recruit and cultivate new editors and explore innovative approaches to building projects.

Submission

Comments on the Proposed Intellectual Property Rights Policy to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (Pranesh Prakash, Nehaa Chaudhari, Anubha Sinha and Amulya P.; November 30, 2014).

Blog Entries

MHRD IPR Chairs - Underutilization of Funds and Lack of Information Regarding Expenditures (Amulya Purushothama, November 19, 2014).

Participation in Events

Ubiquity, Mobility, Globality: Charting Directions in Mobile Phone Studies (Organized by Center for Global Communication Studies at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; November 6 - 7, 2014). Nehaa Chaudhari made a presentation on Pervasive Technologies: Access to Knowledge in the Marketplace.
Countering US pressures on India's IP regime (Organized by Lawyer's Collective; November 16, 2014). Anubha Sinha attended the event.
Technology and Gender Based Violence (Organized by the Bachchao Project; November 24, 2014). Rohini Lakshané was a speaker at the event. She spoke about various strategies that women use to respond to online harassment, such as reporting the abuser, and enlisting support from online followers, or friends or family in order to deal with the abuser.

►Pervasive Technology

Blog Entries

Methodology: Patent Landscaping (Rohini Lakshané; November 10, 2014).
Methodology: Intellectual Property in Mobile Application Development in India (Anubha Sinha; November 17, 2014).
Methodology: Access to Music through the Mobile (Maggie Huang; November 18, 2014).
Methodology: Sub Hundred Dollar Mobile Devices and Competition Law (Nehaa Chaudhari; November 25, 2014).

►Wikipedia

Op-Ed

Odia Wikisource, its Potential (Subhashish Panigrahi, The Samaja, November 17, 2014).

Blog Entries

55 Works of Iconic Indian writer released under Free Licence to benefit Wikisource (T. Vishnu Vardhan, November 13, 2014).
Odia author Nirmala Kumari Mohapatra's 21 books relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 (Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2014).
Nineteen Books Published by Ama Odisha Relicensed under CC-by-SA 4.0 (Subhashish Panigrahi, November 25, 2014).

News and Media Coverage

CIS-A2K team gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

ಭಾಷಣದಿಂದ ಭಾಷೆ ಉಳಿಯಲ್ಲ, ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲೇ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ಸಿಗುವುದು ಅಗತ್ಯ: ಪವನಜ (Just Kannada; November 23, 2014).
Kannada Wikipedia Presentation in Mysuru (Prajavani; November 24, 2014).
Now, Tulu set to be promoted through Wikipedia articles (Hindu; November 24, 2014).
'Tulu Wikipedia' in incubation stage, 600 articles uploaded, says U.B. Pavanaja (Ravi Prasad Kamila; Hindu; November 26, 2014).
Odia Wikisource launched in Odisha capital (Odisha Sun Times; November 28, 2014).
Odia Wikisource aims to bring valuable and rare books on the Internet (Odisha Diary; November 28, 2014).

Event Co-organized

Odia Wikisource Sabha 2014 (Co-organized by CIS-A2K and Odia Wikimedia Community; November 28, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.

Participation in Event

A Seminar on E-publishing of Odia Books (Organized by Molybtech Technology Solutions; November 30, 2014). Subhashish Panigrahi was a speaker.

►Openness

Blog Entry

Privacy vs. Transparency: An Attempt at Resolving the Dichotomy (Sunil Abraham with feedback and inputs from Sumandro Chattapadhyay, Elonnai Hickok, Bhairav Acharya and Geetha Hariharan; November 14, 2014).

News and Media Coverage

Getting Strategic about Openness and Privacy (Tim Davies; Open Data Research Lead at Web Foundation; November 3, 2014).

Participation in Event

Content co-ordination for the Panel Discussion on Crypto-Currencies (organized by the Law and Technology Society; November 15, 2014). Sharath Chandra Ram was a panelist and made a presentation Scalability and Security Issues in Distributed Trust based Cryto-Currency Systems like BITCOIN

Internet Governance

►Privacy

As part of our Surveillance and Freedom: Global Understandings and Rights Development (SAFEGUARD) project with Privacy International we are engaged in enhancing respect for the right to privacy in developing countries. During the month we published the following blog entries:

Blog Entries

White Paper on RTI and Privacy V1.2 (Vipul Kharbanda; November 9, 2014).
Introduction: About the Privacy and Surveillance Roundtables (Manoj Kurbet; November 27, 2014).

Event Organized

IOCOSE's talk at CIS (CIS, Bangalore; November 27, 2014). There was a presentation of the work of the artists group IOCOSE, current artists in residence at T.A.J./SKE Residency.

Upcoming Event

CPDP 2015 : The eighth international conference on computers, privacy and data protection will be held in Brussels from January 21 to 23, 2015. CIS is a moral supporter of CPDP.

Participation in Events

E-Consultation on Cyber Security, Justice, and Governance Begins! (Organized by the Hague Institute for Global Justice; November 4, 2014). Sunil Abraham facilitated the e-consultation on "Internet access, the freedom of expression online, and development in the Global South".
Learning Forum: Transparency and Human Rights in the Digital Age (Organized by Global Network Initiative; November 6, 2014). Pranesh Prakash gave a talk on transparency reports and their use and abuse in India; the Intermediary Liability Rules in India (and its non-provision of any transparency mechanism); and the need for transparency in private speech regulation, not just governmental speech regulation.
Fourth Discussion Meeting of the Expert Committee to Discuss the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill (Organized by the Department of Biotechnology; New Delhi; November 10, 2014). Sunil Abraham was unable to participate because of technical problems.
Ground Zero Summit 2014 (Organized by India Infosec Consortium; November 13-14, 2014). Geetha Hariharan participated in this event.
Privacy, security and surveillance: tackling international dilemmas and dangers in the digital realm (Organized by Wilton Park; November 17-19, 2014). Pranesh Prakash was a panelist in the session "Beyond the familiar: how do other countries deal with security and surveillance oversight?"

►Free Speech

Blog Entries

Good Intentions, Recalcitrant Text - II: What India's ITU Proposal May Mean for Internet Governance (Geetha Hariharan; November 1, 2014).
India's Statement at ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, 2014 (Geetha Hariharan; November 4, 2014).

Newspaper Article

The Socratic debate: Whose internet is it anyway? (Pranesh Prakash; Economic Times; November 18, 2014).

News & Media Coverage
CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

Twitter users find several accounts suspended for unknown reasons (Vasudha Venugopal; Economic Times; November 2, 2014).
Several Indian Twitter users' accounts suspended due to tech glitch (Silky Malhotra; digit; November 3, 2014).
Game release cancelled over gay character (Jaison Lewis; Mumbai Mirror; November 19, 2014).
Leave the Net Alone (Businessworld; November 25, 2014).

Digital Humanities

CIS is building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. The Digital will be used as a way of unpacking the debates in humanities and social sciences and look at the new frameworks, concepts and ideas that emerge in our engagement with the digital. The clusters aim to produce and document new conversations and debates that shape the contours of Digital Humanities in Asia:

Blog Entry

Mapping Digital Humanities in India - Concluding Thoughts (P.P.Sneha; November 30, 2014).

About CIS

The Centre for Internet and Society is a non-profit research organization that works on policy issues relating to freedom of expression, privacy, accessibility for persons with disabilities, access to knowledge and IPR reform, and openness (including open government, FOSS, open standards, etc.), and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities.

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, atsunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director - Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language Wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2014-bulletin

November 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-01-04T04:38:08Z

Our newsletter for the month of November 2013 can be accessed below.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) welcomes you to the eleventh issue of its newsletter (November) for the year 2013:

Highlights

CIS is pleased to announce the second "Institute on Internet and Society" to be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014. Any members from the civil society (students, research scholars, academicians, scientists, legal professionals, etc.) who engage in issues concerning Internet and Society are encouraged to apply.
The National Resource Kit team is pleased to bring you its research for the states of Tripura, Nagaland and Chattisgarh.
CIS-A2K team signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Christ University in Bangalore to introduce Wikipedia in classrooms.
The Access to Knowledge narrative report capturing the work done by CIS-A2K team in the first ten months of the grant along with its strategy for the next 1 year is published.
Last month we organised the Seventh Privacy Round-table in collaboration with FICCI, DSCI, and Privacy International in Delhi. The developments are captured in a report by Elonnai Hickok.
Along with Wikimedia India and Acharya Narendra Dev College, we organised the Relaunch of Creative Commons in India. Dr. Shashi Tharoor was the chief guest.

Accessibility and Inclusion

As part of our project (under a grant from the Hans Foundation) on creating a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India, we bring you draft chapters for the states of Madhya Pradesh and Arunachal Pradesh, and the union territory of Daman and Diu. With this we have completed compilation of draft chapters for 27 states and 5 union territories. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the following chapters:

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Tripura Chapter (by CLPR, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bCFPwq.
The Nagaland Chapter (by CLPR, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cmKzq0.
The Chattisgarh Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cSczSt.

Note: All of these are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

► Other Accessibility Update

# Events Participated In

E-Accessibility Workshop 2013 (organised by Directorate of Information Technology, Government of Maharashtra, Mahaonline Limited and National Internet Exchange of India, November 19-20, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cQ0wd8. CIS was one of the trainer organisations for the event.
National Conference on Harnessing Technology for the Empowerment for Persons with Visual Impairments (organized by NAB Centre for Blind Women & Disability Studies, Indian Islamic Cultural Centre, New Delhi, November 19, 2013). Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan participated as a speaker: http://bit.ly/IzLOty.

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers and human rights, and critically examines Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, and Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 8 workshops, signed a MoU with Christ University for teaching Wikipedia to students, published a detailed narrative report of activities done during the initial period of the Wikimedia grant.

►Wikipedia

# Articles

ಅಂತರ್ಜಾಲದಲ್ಲಿ ನೆಟ್ಟ ಸಸಿಗೆ ಈಗ ಹತ್ತು ವರ್ಷ (by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Kannada Prabha, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LOw4O. The article highlights 10 years of Kannada Wikipedia, the current status of the Kannada Wikipedia vis-a-vis number of articles, number of editors, active editors, and page views per month.
Train The Trainer Programme for Wikipedians (by Subhashish Panigrahi, DNA, November 14, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshane of DNA.

# Announcement

CIS Signs MoU with Christ University, Bangalore (November 20, 2013): The Access to Knowledge team signed a MoU as part of which CIS-A2K and Christ University will impart Wikipedia education in Indian classrooms: http://bit.ly/1ehr8kz.

# Report

CIS-A2K Narrative Report (September 2012 – June 2013) (by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi, November 29, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dFyjpO. The report throws some light on the CIS-A2K program strategy in the next one year.

# Blog Entries

Note: A couple of the below blog entries were carried in the Access to Knowledge newsletter last month.

Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project (by Nitika Tandon, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dodyuK.
Konkani Vishwakosh Under CC-BY-SA (by Nitika Tandon, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cm9wBH.
Train the Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18hjw0n.

# Event Co-organised

The Relaunch of Creative Commons India (co-organised by Wikimedia India, Acharya Narendra Dev College and CIS, India Islamic Cultural Centre, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/HPxrAO. Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Minister of State for Human Resource Development was the chief guest at the event.

# Events Organised

Wikipedia Orientation Programme for MA Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/ItxAtu. Syed Muzammiluddin was the trainer. Twenty students participated.
Wikipedia Orientation Programme for the Second Language Students (Christ University, Bangalore, November 12, 13, 16 and 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxsOYF. T. Vishnu Vardhan, Syed Muzammiluddin and Dr. U.B.Pavanaja were the trainers. About 1200 second language students participated in the programme.
Documentation and Wikipedia Contribution — A One Day Workshop (Kalinga Institute of Social Studies, Bhubaneswar, November 14, 2013). The workshop was conducted by Subhashish Panigrahi: http://bit.ly/1fSvl1v.
Documentation and Wikipedia Workshop (Kalinga School of Management, Bhubaneswar, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/Imf0DV. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konknni Wikipedia Workshop (organised by Dalgado Konknni Akademi and CIS-A2K, Goa Central State Library, November 16 and 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSwiH5.
Tenth Anniversary of Wikipedia (H N Multimedia Hall, National College, Basavanagudi, Bangalore, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1eJ6da9. Dr. U R Ananthamurthy, Prof. G. Venkatasubbiah and Ravi Hegde were the guests of honour. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop.
First Phase of Odia Wikipedia Workshop (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Bhubaneswar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/18doDer. Subhashish Panigrahi conducted the workshop.
Konkani Wikipedia Workshop (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT. Nitika Tandon conducted the event.

# Event Participated In

Wikimedia Diversity Conference (organized by German Wikipedia Community, GLS Campus, Berlin): http://bit.ly/Ixr9W8.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

Kannada Wikipedia and its Tenth Anniversary (RadioCity, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dHEwBI.
10th anniversary of Kannada wikipedia (The Times of India, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/IxqDr7.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Udayavani, November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aFwqF1.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ಈಗ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ. ಅದರ ಪ್ರಯುಕ್ತ ಒಂದು ಆಚರಣೆ (Avadhi Website, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/ImiBSy.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಗೆ 10, ಬೆಳವಣಿಗೆ ಸಾಲದು : ಪ್ರೊ .ಜಿವಿ (OneindiaKannada, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fSAUwT.
Tenth Anniversary of Kannada Wikipedia (Vijayavani, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7exSa.
ಕನ್ನಡ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯಕ್ಕೆ ದಶಮಾನೋತ್ಸವ ಸಂಭ್ರಮ (Prajavani, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtt9v.
ಕನ್ನಡದ ಆನ್‌ಲೈನ್ ವಿಶ್ವಕೋಶ ದುರ್ಬಲ (Vijaya Karnataka, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hWtsCy.
Panaji: DKA organizes two day Konkani Wikipedia workshop (Daijiworld, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1inoi03.

Note: The following are not a part of the Wikimedia Grant:

► Other

# Blog Entries

History of Creative Commons in India (by Priyank Dwivedi, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/17txcH7.
How Can We Make Open Education Truly Open? (by Dr. Nishant Shah, DML Central, November 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ezsAyj.

# Events Participated In

Conference on e-Governance for India: Opportunities, Challenges and Policy Alternatives (organised by OECD Korea Policy Centre in partnership with the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad, November 6-7, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cGP13c. Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on OECD Principles on eGovernment and their applicability to the developing world and India.
Indo-European Conference on the Role of the Patent System in Fostering Innovation and Technology Transfer (organized by European Patent Office, FICCI and European Business & Technology Centre, November 29, 2013, New Delhi). Nehaa Chaudhari participated in this conference.

Internet Governance

CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you a report from the seventh privacy round-table held in Delhi, and an analysis on why Facebook is more dangerous than government spying. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia we did an interview with Namita A Malhotra, a researcher and lawyer from Alternative Law Forum. With this we have completed a total of 12 video interviews:

►Privacy

# Event Report

Seventh Privacy Round-table (organised by FICCI, DSCI, Privacy International and CIS, October 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/187pFOO. The report was published in the month of November.

# Newspaper Columns

Open Secrets (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, October 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b5uvK0.
I Just Pinged to Say Hello (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, November 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/183H34t.

# Blog Entries

An Interview with Caspar Bowden (by Maria Xynou, November 6, 2013): http://bit.ly/17LQqFX.
India's Response to WGEC Questionnaire (by Snehashish Ghosh, November 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/HX0r96.
Why 'Facebook' is More Dangerous than the Government Spying on You (by Maria Xynou, November 19, 2013): http://bit.ly/HWLFzi.
CIS Supports the UN Resolution on “The Right to Privacy in the Digital age” (by Elonnai Hickok, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1c2A89q.

# Events Organised

IDEX Impact Assessment Workshop (organised by IDEX, CIS, Bangalore, November 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1bxRfFm.
The Evolving Cyber Threat and How to Address It (CIS, Bangalore, November 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEkUZY.
Panel on Privacy, Surveillance & the UID in the post-Snowden era (Institution of Agricultural Technologists, Bangalore, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ctSHW3.

# Events Participated In

Chances and Risks of Social Participation (organised by Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society and Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Berlin, November 22, 2013). Dr. Nishant Shah gave the keynote: http://bit.ly/18PcMXN.
Expert Committee Meeting on Human DNA Profiling Bill (organised by the Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, New Delhi). Sunil Abraham participated in the meeting: http://bit.ly/19CpDbD.

# Upcoming Event

Big Democracy: Big Surveillance - A Talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1j4mzgu.

► Cyber Security

Laird Brown, a strategic planner and writer with core competencies on brand analysis, public relations and resource management and Purba Sarkar who in the past worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail are working in this project:

# Video Interview

Part 12: An Interview with Namita A. Malhotra (November 15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1j8MCjN.

# Documentary Film

First Look: Cyber Security Film (by Purba Sarkar, November 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1alHhVu. The trailer was presented by Laird Brown recently at the IGF.

# Upcoming Event

DesiSec: Episode 1 - Film Release and Screening (December 11, 2013): Screening of the first documentary film on cyber security in India.

News & Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs to the following media coverage:

EC guidelines on social media: Welcome move, but not enough (by Shruti Dhapola, FirstPost, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1c3fNkt.
NSA leaks helping India become 'Big Brother' state? (British Broadcasting Corporation, November 1, 2013): http://bit.ly/1b7ftDG.
Spy agencies, IB and RAW, put spanner in proposed privacy law (by Nagender Sharma and Aloke Tikku, Hindustan Times, November 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1aox4HP.
India must support UN's e-snooping move: Human rights activists (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, November 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/18LrI5s.
Social media promotions can backfire, too (by Ratna Bhushan and Varuni Khosla, The Times of India, November 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gMj7rg.
YouTube is the answer to what has changed in India (by Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, November 20, 2013): http://bit.ly/1fg214A.
When the virtual world wakes up the real one (by Malini Nair, November 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hovyd3.

Digital Natives

CIS is doing a research project titled “Making Change”. The project will explore new ways of defining, locating, and understanding change in network societies. Having the thought piece 'Whose Change is it Anyway' as an entry point for discussion and reflection, the project will feature profiles, interviews and responses of change-makers to questions around current mechanisms and practices of change in South Asia and South East Asia.:

► Making Change

# Blog Entries

Methods to Conceive and Condense Social Change (by Denisse Albornoz, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/1ezrBhw.
Blank Noise and the Active Citizen Dissonance (by Denisse Albornoz, November 30, 2013): http://bit.ly/IwOHu9.

► Other

# Blog Entry

Digitally Enhanced Civil Resistance (by Denisse Albornoz, November 20, 2013): http://bit.ly/18ndc7p.

Telecom

Shyam Ponappa, a Distinguished Fellow at CIS is a regular columnist with the Business Standard. The articles published on his blog Organizing India Blogspot is mirrored on our website:

► Newspaper Column

Predictability in Infrastructure (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, November 6, 2013 and Observer India Blogspot, November 10, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dLZ0Fp.

Knowledge Repository on Internet Access

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation is executing a project to create a knowledge repository on Internet and society. This repository will comprise content targeted primarily at civil society with a view to enabling their informed participation in the Indian Internet and ICT policy space. The repository is available at the Internet Institute website: http://bit.ly/1iQT2UB.

►Upcoming Event

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/180mQi9. The application form is available at http://internet-institute.in/form. Registrations close on December 15, 2013.

► Modules

Internet Engineering Task Force (by Anirudh Sridhar, November 30, 2013). The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is an open standards body with no requirements for membership and does not have a formal membership process either: http://bit.ly/1c4aOQr.
World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) (by Anirudh Sridhar, November 30, 2013). The World Summit on Information Society was first proposed by the International Telecommunication Union in 1998. The main focus of the WSIS was to address issues related to the global digital divide. However, the scope of the WSIS was broadened later to include internet related public policy issues: http://bit.ly/186dbnV.

Digital Humanities

► Event Participated In

From Seemingly Transparent to Definitely Opaque (organised by University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, November 4-7, 2013): http://bit.ly/19b6IW1. Nishant Shah taught this course and also presented on a panel on 'Secrets of Digital Culture'.

About CIS

► Follow us elsewhere

Twitter: https://twitter.com/CISA2K
Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/cisa2k
Visit us at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/India_Access_To_Knowledge
E-mail: a2k@cis-india.org

► Support Us

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

► Request for Collaboration:

We invite researchers, practitioners, and theoreticians, both organisationally and as individuals, to collaboratively engage with Internet and society and improve our understanding of this new field. To discuss the research collaborations, write to Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, at sunil@cis-india.org or Nishant Shah, Director – Research, at nishant@cis-india.org. To discuss collaborations on Indic language wikipedia, write to T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, A2K, at vishnu@cis-india.org.

CIS is grateful to its donors, Wikimedia Foundation, Ford Foundation, Privacy International, UK, Hans Foundation and the Kusuma Trust which was founded by Anurag Dikshit and Soma Pujari, philanthropists of Indian origin, for its core funding and support for most of its projects.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/november-2013-bulletin

Nothing unique about this identity

praskrishna — 2011-08-09T09:12:55Z

Relying on the government to protect your privacy is like asking peeping tom to install your window blinds, opined, not long ago, the American poet and novelist John Perry Barlow once. The statement attains significance in the context of Unique Identification (UID) project which is being touted as a milepost in inclusive politics. Liberalisation evangelists see UID project as the most virtuous thing that can ever happen to the Indian people who find themselves excluded from the system.

So, their ingenious solution is a 12-digit Aadhaar number — a super identity — to help the common man in opening a bank account or ordering a cylinder refill. This is, besides, the existing identities like ration card, the driving license, PAN card and passport to mention a few.

Prima facie, it may all appear euphemistic initiative; for some even very bright and attractive. For, its proclaimed purpose supposedly is to deepen the democratic process.

However, when one talks to civil rights activists who’ve gone hammer and tongs against the project, one will realise the truthfulness of Shakespeare’s observation that ‘a fair exterior may hide a corrupt mind!’

This becomes evident from the fact that the UID project has become the biggest industrial collector of personal information which should frighten up any person still in sensibilities.

The project has already proved disastrous since the unfolding events prove its advocates have not applied much thought to the dangers posed by centralised data collection considering India’s heterogenic population.

In fact, head of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) Nandan Nilekani had maintained UID enrolment was voluntary.

However, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy some two months back asserted his government would make UID mandatory unlike his predecessor V.S. Achuthanandan.

"Even in this basic thing, there’s so much confusion. But, the truth is that it’s voluntary. You can’t be coerced into it", confirms a prominent anti-UID campaigner Usha Ramanathan.

She alleged personal information passed onto UIDAI passes through various outsourcing layers compromising safety. It recently happened in Bangalore where a delivery boy demanded a customer’s fingerprint while delivering gas refill!

"Why should anyone give it to an unknown person? It shows the level to which your personal information could get disseminated", she says.

UID, in fact, is supposed to be foolproof. However, again in Bangalore, miscreants could easily fake an Aadhar number in the name of none other than Nandan Nilekani himself!

The fraud came to light when miscreants offered franchisee for UID enrolment for `2.5 lakh.

"Fake UIDs rackets confirm there’s no monitoring. So, how can UIDAI protect your information?" wonders Usha. Nandan Nilekani wants to enroll 60 per cent Indian population by 2014 into UID. However, it’s fast proving a chimerical target as the process involving agency-UIDAI-de-duplicating agency has started taking its toll.

"Initially, Aadhaar number was promised within a week. Now, it’s taking anywhere between three to six months", pointed out executive director, Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) Sunil Abraham.

The project faces problems on cash transfer whose aim is to dismantle public distribution shops (PDS) which once done would put the farmer and customer at the mercy of market for their selling/procurement needs.

For, the farmer won’t be assured of a minimum support price (MSP) while for the customer there is no guarantee that the price would hold good till such time his account gets credited. Further, experts warn the Aadhar number-linked cash transfer will compromise safety. “Cash transfer using bio-metric is not safe. If it were otherwise, ATMs would’ve gone for it. Why didn’t they do it?” asks Sunil Abraham.

Interestingly, a group of students recently did a research on the efficacy of PDS. The research covering nine States cautioned prime minister Manmohan Singh that PDS was better than cash, except in Bihar.

Professor Sridhar Krishnaswamy W.B. University of Jurisdical Sciences fears the Corproates could link one’s Aadhar number to bank account to judge his or her behavioural pattern.

"It’s not right. Instead of resorting to blanket surveillance, government should go in for targeted surveillance," Sunil said.

This article by T. S. Sreenivasa Raghavan was published in the Deccan Chronicle on August 5, 2011. The original can be read here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/nothing-unique-about-identity

Notes for India as the digital trade juggernaut rolls on

basu — 2022-02-09T15:04:36Z

Sitting out trade negotiations could result in the country losing out on opportunities to shape the rules.

The article by Arindrajit Basu was published in the Hindu on February 8, 2022

Despite the cancellation of the Twelfth Ministerial Conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) late last year (scheduled date, November 30, 2021-December 3, 2021) due to COVID-19, digital trade negotiations continue their ambitious march forward. On December 14, Australia, Japan, and Singapore, co-convenors of the plurilateral Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) on e-commerce, welcomed the ‘substantial progress’ made at the talks over the past three years and stated that they expected a convergence on more issues by the end of 2022.

Holding out

But therein lies the rub: even though JSI members account for over 90% of global trade, and the initiative welcomes newer entrants, over half of WTO members (largely from the developing world) continue to opt out of these negotiations. They fear being arm-twisted into accepting global rules that could etiolate domestic policymaking and economic growth. India and South Africa have led the resistance and been the JSI’s most vocal critics. India has thus far resisted pressures from the developed world to jump onto the JSI bandwagon, largely through coherent legal argumentation against the JSI and a long-term developmental vision. Yet, given the increasingly fragmented global trading landscape and the rising importance of the global digital economy, can India tailor its engagement with the WTO to better accommodate its economic and geopolitical interests?

Global rules on digital trade

The WTO emerged in a largely analogue world in 1994. It was only at the Second Ministerial Conference (1998) that members agreed on core rules for e-commerce regulation. A temporary moratorium was imposed on customs duties relating to the electronic transmission of goods and services. This moratorium has been renewed continuously, to consistent opposition from India and South Africa. They argue that the moratorium imposes significant costs on developing countries as they are unable to benefit from the revenue customs duties would bring.

The members also agreed to set up a work programme on e-commerce across four issue areas at the General Council: goods, services, intellectual property, and development. Frustrated by a lack of progress in the two decades that followed, 70 members brokered the JSI in December 2017 to initiate exploratory work on the trade-related aspects of e-commerce. Several countries, including developing countries, signed up in 2019 despite holding contrary views to most JSI members on key issues. Surprise entrants, China and Indonesia, argued that they sought to shape the rules from within the initiative rather than sitting on the sidelines.

India and South Africa have rightly pointed out that the JSI contravenes the WTO’s consensus-based framework, where every member has a voice and vote regardless of economic standing. Unlike the General Council Work Programme, which India and South Africa have attempted to revitalise in the past year, the JSI does not include all WTO members. For the process to be legally valid, the initiative must either build consensus or negotiate a plurilateral agreement outside the aegis of the WTO.

India and South Africa’s positioning strikes a chord at the heart of the global trading regime: how to balance the sovereign right of states to shape domestic policy with international obligations that would enable them to reap the benefits of a global trading system.

A contested regime

There are several issues upon which the developed and developing worlds disagree. One such issue concerns international rules relating to the free flow of data across borders. Several countries, both within and outside the JSI, have imposed data localisation mandates that compel corporations to store and process data within territorial borders. This is a key policy priority for India. Several payment card companies, including Mastercard and American Express, were prohibited from issuing new cards for failure to comply with a 2018 financial data localisation directive from the Reserve Bank of India. The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on data protection has recommended stringent localisation measures for sensitive personal data and critical personal data in India’s data protection legislation. However, for nations and industries in the developed world looking to access new digital markets, these restrictions impose unnecessary compliance costs, thus arguably hampering innovation and supposedly amounting to unfair protectionism.

There is a similar disagreement regarding domestic laws that mandate the disclosure of source codes. Developed countries believe that this hampers innovation, whereas developing countries believe it is essential for algorithmic transparency and fairness — which was another key recommendation of the JPC report in December 2021.

India’s choices

India’s global position is reinforced through narrative building by political and industrial leaders alike. Data sovereignty is championed as a means of resisting ‘data colonialism’, the exploitative economic practices and intensive lobbying of Silicon Valley companies. Policymaking for India’s digital economy is at a critical juncture. Surveillance reform, personal data protection, algorithmic governance, and non-personal data regulation must be galvanised through evidenced insights,and work for individuals, communities, and aspiring local businesses — not just established larger players.

Hastily signing trading obligations could reduce the space available to frame appropriate policy. But sitting out trade negotiations will mean that the digital trade juggernaut will continue unchecked, through mega-regional trading agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). India could risk becoming an unwitting standard-taker in an already fragmented trading regime and lose out on opportunities to shape these rules instead.

Alternatives exist; negotiations need not mean compromise. For example, exceptions to digital trade rules, such as ‘legitimate public policy objective’ or ‘essential security interests’, could be negotiated to preserve policymaking where needed while still acquiescing to the larger agreement. Further, any outcome need not be an all-or-nothing arrangement. Taking a cue from the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA) between Singapore, Chile, and New Zealand, India can push for a framework where countries can pick and choose modules with which they wish to comply. These combinations can be amassed incrementally as emerging economies such as India work through domestic regulations.

Despite its failings, the WTO plays a critical role in global governance and is vital to India’s strategic interests. Negotiating without surrendering domestic policy-making holds the key to India’s digital future.

Arindrajit Basu is Research Lead at the Centre for Internet and Society, India. The views expressed are personal. The author would like to thank The Clean Copy for edits on a draft of this article.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-hindu-arindrajit-basu-february-8-2022-notes-for-india-as-the-digital-trade-juggernaut-rolls-on

Normative Regulation of Cyber Space Report

pranav — 2018-07-31T23:42:42Z

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/files/normative-regulation-of-cyber-space-report