Centre for Internet and Society

The Embodiment of the Right to Privacy within Domestic Legislation

tanvi — 2014-09-08T02:37:39Z

The Right to Privacy is a pivotal construct, essential to the actualization of justice, fairness and equity within any democratic society. It is an instrument used to secure the boundaries of an individual’s personal space, in his interaction with not only the rest of society but also the State.

It is within this realm of the social transaction that there exists an unending conflict between the Right to Privacy of an individual and the overbearing hand of the State as a facilitator of public interest. This right thus acts as a safety valve providing individuals with a sacred space within which their interactions in their personal capacity have no bearing on their conduct in the public sphere. The preservation of this space is incredibly important in order to ensure a willingness of individuals to engage and cooperate with the State in its fulfillment of public welfare measures that would otherwise be deemed as intrusive. It is in this regard that the Right to Privacy, one of the last sustaining rights that an individual holds against a larger State interest, ought to be protected by the law.

There are numerous dimensions to the idea of the Right to Privacy. These include but are not limited to the privacy of person, privacy of communication, personal privacy, transactional privacy, privacy of information and the privacy of personal data.

The Supreme Court of India has come to the rescue of individuals, time and again by construing "Right to Privacy" as an extension of the Fundamental Right to “Protection of Life and Personal liberty” under Article 21 of the Constitution. This has been reflected in the adjudicatory jurisprudence of the Constitutional courts in the country. However, there exists no Constitutional remedy to redress the breach of privacy by a nongovernmental actor, except under tortuous liability. The power and authority of public and private institutions to use an individual’s personal data for larger interests of national security or effectuation of socio-economic policies is still under extensive scrutiny. It is in this regard that we have compiled a number of sectoral legislations, regulating domains ranging from Finance and Telecom to Healthcare, Freedom of Expression, Consumer rights and Procedural codes. The highlighted provisions under each Act pertain to the mechanisms embodied within the legislation for the regulation of privacy within their respective sectors. Through this we aim to determine the threshold for permissible collection of confidential data and regulatory surveillance, provided a sufficient need for the same has been established. The determination of such a threshold is imperative to formulating a consistent and effective regime of privacy protection in India.

Click to download the below resources:

Legislations
Master Circulars
Finance and Privacy
Code of Civil Procedure and Code of Criminal Procedure
Freedom of Expression
Identity and Privacy
National Security and Privacy
Consumer Protection
Transparency and Privacy
Healthcare
Telecom

Case Laws
Code of Civil Procedure and Code of Criminal Procedure
Freedom of Expression
Identity and Privacy
National Security and Privacy
Consumer Protection
Transparency and Privacy
Healthcare
Telecom

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/the-embodiment-of-right-to-privacy-within-domestic-legislation

Enabling Elections

nirmita — 2014-05-10T00:12:00Z

For making the 2014 General Elections in India participatory and accessible for voters with disabilities the Centre for Law and Policy Research and the Centre for Internet and Society have come up with a report. The report addresses the barriers that people with disabilities face during elections and recommends solutions for the same.

Executive Summary

The report examines three main areas:

The barriers that people with disabilities face at the time of elections.
The legal framework around this issue.
The measures which need to be taken to eliminate the barriers in the pre-voting phase, during voting phase and also post-voting phase, so as to enhance the participation of voters with disabilities.

Access to the public sphere and full political participation is a matter of right for persons with disabilities and the state is constitutionally mandated to enforce this right. The rights of voters with disabilities are examined under the constitutional provisions, the Representation of People’s Act 1951, the relevant directions of the Supreme Court and the international conventions. This report also considers international best practices while making recommendations, to the extent that they are suitable and practical in the Indian context.

This report looks at Electoral Participation in two dimensions:

“Pre-electoral Participation” and
“Actual Electoral Participation”

The report then goes on to make recommendations for enhancing accessibility in both these categories.

On Pre-electoral Participation, the report inter alia recommends the following:

Opportunities for people with disabilities to participate in public consultations.
Immediate outreach programs for higher voter registrations.
Making election material and candidate guides available in different formats such as large print, Braille and audio formats upon request so that voters can have full knowledge of the candidate they want to vote for.
Providing information for voters about locations which have special access, wheelchair facilities, technological assistance for visually impaired, etc.

On Actual Electoral Participation, we inter alia recommend the following:

Accessible polling sites.
Training election staff to be sensitive to diverse needs of voters.
Enabling privacy and independent voting by persons with disabilities.
Arranging for mobile polling booths.
Making EVM’s compatible and accessible such as by providing for Braille, large print.
Tactile buttons, 'sip and puff' and audio devices.

The report also recommends the need to monitor participation of voters with disabilities in the forthcoming elections.There is a need to collect data, surveys and studies in the pre-election, election and post-election phases.

Click here to download and read the full report (PDF, 4.5 MB)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/enabling-elections

Institute for Internet & Society 2014, Pune

samantha — 2014-04-07T11:31:23Z

Last month, activists, journalists, researchers, and members of civil society came together at the 2014 Institute for Internet & Society in Pune, which was hosted by CIS and funded by the Ford Foundation. The Institute was a week long, in which participants heard from speakers from various backgrounds on issues arising out of the intersection of internet and society, such as intellectual property, freedom of expression, and accessibility, to name a few. Below is an official reporting summarizing sessions that took place.

Day One

February 11, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 9.40 a.m.	Introduction: Sunil Abraham, Executive Director Centre for Internet and Society
10.00 a.m. – 10.15 a.m.	Introduction of Participants
10.15 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.	Internet Governance and Privacy: Sunil Abraham
12.00 p.m. – 12.30 p.m.	Tea-break
12.30 p.m. – 1.00 p.m.	Keynote: Bishakha Datta, Filmmaker and Activist, and Board Member, Wikimedia Foundation
1.00 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, CIS

This year’s Internet Institute, hosted by the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS), kicked off in Pune to put a start to a week of learnings and discussions surrounding internet usage and its implications on individuals of society. Twenty two attendees from all over India attended this year, from backgrounds of activism, journalism, research and advocacy work.

Attendees were welcomed by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal, Program Officer for Media Rights & Access at the Ford Foundation, the event’s sponsor, who started off the day by introducing the Foundation’s initiatives in pursuit of bridging the digital divide by addressing issues of internet connectivity.

Internet Governance & Privacy, Sunil Abraham
The Institute’s first session was led by Sunil Abraham, Executive Director of CIS, and engaged with issues of internet governance and privacy with reference to four stories: 1) a dispute between tweeters from the US and those in South Africa over the use of hashtag #thingsdarkiesays, which is said not to be as racially derogatory as it is in the US; 2) Facebook’s contested policies on photos featuring users breastfeeding, 3) a lawsuit between Tata and Greenpeace over the organization’s use of Tata’s logo in a video game created for public criticism of their environmentally-degrading practices, and lastly, 4) the case of Savita Bhabhi, an Indian pornographic cartoon character which had been banned by India’s High Court and which had served as a landmark case in expanding the statutory laws for what is considered to be pornographic.

Each of these stories has one major thing in common: due to their nature of taking place over the internet, they are not confined to one geographic location and in turn, are addressed at the international level. The way by which an issue as such is to be addressed cuts across State policies and internet intermediary bodies to create quite a messy case in trying to determine who is at fault. Such complexity illustrates how challenging internet governance can be within today’s society that is no longer restricted to national or geographic boundaries.

Sunil also goes on in explaining the relationship between privacy, transparency, and power, summing it up in a simple formula; privacy protection should have a reverse relationship to power—the more the power, the less the privacy one should be entitled to. On the contrary, a direct correlation goes for power and transparency—the more the power, the more transparent a body should be. Instead of thinking about these concepts as a dichotomy, Sunil suggests to see them as absolute rights in themselves—instrumental in policies and necessary to address power imbalances.

The Web We Want, Bishakha Datta
The Institute’s kickoff was also joined by Indian filmmaker and activist, Bishakha Datta, who had delivered the keynote address. Bishakha bridged together notions of freedom of speech, surveillance, and accessibility, while introducing campaigns that work to create an open and universally accessible web, such as the Web We Want and Sexuality and Disability. Bishakha stresses how the internet as a space has altered how we experience societal constructs, which can be easily exhibited in how individuals experience Facebook in the occurrence of a death, for example. Bishakha initiated discussion among participants by posing questions such as, “what is our expectation of privacy in this brave new world?” and “what is the society we want?” to encompass the need to think of privacy in a new way with the coming of the endless possibilities the internet brings with it.

Histories, Bodies and Debates around the Internet, Nishant Shah
CIS Research Director, Nishant Shah, led a session examining internet as a technology more broadly, and our understandings of it in relation to the human body. Nishant proposes the idea that history is a form of technology, as well as time, itself, for which our understanding only comes into being with the aid of technologies of measurement. Although we are inclined to separate technology from the self, Nishant challenges this notion while suggesting that technology is very integral to being human, and defines a “cyborg” as someone who is very intimate with technology. In this way, we are all cyborgs. While making reference to several literary pieces, including Haraway’s Cyborg: Human, Animus, Technology; Kevin Warwick’s Living Cyborg; and Watt’s small world theory, Nishant challenges participants’ previous notions of how one is to understand technology in relation to oneself, as well as the networks we find ourselves implicated within.

Also brought forth by Nishant, was the fact that the internet as a technology has become integral to our identities, making us accessible (rather than us solely making the technology accessible) through online forms of documentation. This digital phenomenon in which we tend to document what we know and experience as a means of legitimizing it can be summed in the modern version of an old fable: “If a tree falls in a lonely forest, and nobody tweets it, has it fallen?”

Nishant refers to several case studies in which the use of online technologies has created a sense of an extension of the self and one’s personal space; which can then be subject to violation as one can be in the physical form, and to the same emotional and psychological effect—as illustrated within the 1993 occurrence referred to as “A Rape in Cyberspace.”

Attendee Participation
Participants remained engaged and enthusiastic for the duration of the day, bringing forth their personal expertise and experiences. Several participants presented their own research initiatives, which looked at issues women face as journalists and as portrayed by the media; amateur pornography without the consent of the woman; study findings on the understandings of symptoms of internet addiction; as well as studies looking at how students engage with college confession pages on Facebook.

Day Two

February 12, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wireless Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy, CEO and Co-founder at Teritree Technologies
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Wired Technology: Ravikiran Annaswamy
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Network, Threats and Securing Yourself: Kingsley John, Independent Consultant
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea Break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Practical Lab: Kingsley John
4.45 p.m. – 5.00 p.m.	Wrap-up: Sunil Abraham

Day Two of the Institute entailed a more technical orientation to “internet & society” across sessions. Participants listened to speakers introduce concepts related to wired and wireless internet connectivity devices and their networks, along with the network of internet users and how one may secure him or herself while “online.”

Wireless & Wired Technology, Ravikiran Annaswamy
Senior industry practitioner, Ravikiran Annaswamy had aimed to enable the Institute’s participants to “understand the depth and omnipresent of telecom networks” that we find ourselves implicated within. Ravikiran went through the basics of these networks—including fixed line-, mobile-, IP-, and Next Generation IP-networks—as well as the technical structuring of wired and wireless broadband. Many participants found this session to be particularly enriching as their projects aimed to provide increased access to internet connectivity to marginalized areas in India, and had been without the know-how to go about it.

Network, Threats and Securing Yourself, Kinglsey John
An instructional session on how to protect oneself was given by Kingsley John, beginning with a lesson on IP Addresses—what they are and the different generations of such, and how IP addresses fit into a broader internet network. Following, Kingsley demonstrated and explained email encryption through the use of software, Kleopatra, and how it may be used to generate keys to encrypt emails through Thunderbird mail client.

Evening Discussion

A handful of participants voluntarily partook in an evening discussion, looking at the role of big players in the global internet network, such as Google and Facebook, how they collect and utilize users’ data, and what sorts of measures can be taken to minimize the collecting of such. Due to the widely varying backgrounds of interest among participants, those coming from this technical orientation towards the internet were able to inform their peers on relevant information and types of software that may be found useful related to minimizing one’s online presence.

Day Three

February 13, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Free Software: Prof. G. Nagarjuna, Chairperson, Free Software Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Data: Nisha Thompson, Independent Consultant
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Freedom of Expression: Bhairav Acharya, Advocate and Adviser, Centre for Internet and Society
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Copyright: Nehaa Chaudhari, Program Officer, Centre for Internet and Society

The third day of the Internet Institute incorporated themes presented by speakers ranging from free software, to freedom of expression, to copyright.

Free Software, Prof. G. Nagarjuna
Chairman on the Board of Directors for the Free Software Foundation of India, Professor G. Nagarjuna shared with the Institute’s participants his personal expertise on software freedom. Nagarjuna mapped for us the network of concepts related to software freedom, beginning with the origins of the copyleft movement, and also touching upon the art of hacking, the open source movement, and what role software freedom plays in an interconnected world.

Nagarjuna looks at the free software movement as a political movement in the digital space highlighting the user’s freedoms associated to the use, distribution, and modification of software for the greater good for all. This is said to distinguish this movement from that of Open Source—a technical and more practical development-oriented movement. The free software movement is not set out to compromise the fundamental issues for the sake of being practical and in that sense, ubiquitous. Instead, its objective is “not to make everybody use the software, but to have them understand why they are using the software,” so that they may become “authentic citizens that can also resonate why they’re doing what they’re doing. We want them to understand the ethical and political aspects of doing so,” Nagarjuna says.

Open Data, Nisha Thompson
Participants learned from Nisha Thompson on Open Data; what it is, its benefits, and how it is involved in central government initiatives and policy, as well as civil society groups—generally for uses such as serving as evidence for decision making and accountability. Nisha explored challenges concerning the use of open data, such as those pertaining to privacy, legitimacy, copyright, and interoperability. The group looked at the India Water Portal as a case study, which makes accessible more than 300 water-related datasets already available in the public space for use from anything from sanitation and agriculture to climate change.

Freedom of Expression, Bhairav Acharya
Bhairav Acharya, a constitutional lawyer, traced the development of the freedom of speech and expression in India. Beginning with a conceptual understanding of censorship and the practice of censorship by the state, society, and the individual herself, Bhairav examines the limits traditionally placed by a nation-state on the right to free speech.

In India, modern free speech and censorship law was first formulated by the colonial British government, which broadly imported the common law to India. However, the colonial state also yielded to the religious and communitarian sensitivities of its subjects, resulting in a continuing close link between communalism and free speech in India today. After Independence, the post-colonial Indian state carried forward Raj censorship, but tweaked it to serve to a nation-building and developmental agenda. Nation-building and nationalism are centrifugal forces that attempt to construct a homogenous 'mainstream'; voices from the margins of this mainstream (the geographical, ethnic, and religious peripheries) and of the marginalised within the mainstream (the poor and disadvantaged), are censored.

Within this narrative, Bhairav located and explained the evolution of the law relating to press censorship, defamation, obscenity, and contempt of court. Free speech law applies equally online. Broadly, censorship on the internet must survive the same constitutional scrutiny that is applied to offline censorship; but, as technology develops, the law must innovate.

Copyright, Nehaa Chaudhari
CIS Programme Officer, Nehaa Chaudhari examined the concept of Copyright as an intellectual property right in discussing its fundamentals, purpose and origins, and Copyright’s intersection with the internet. Nehaa also explained the different exceptions to Copyright, along with its alternatives, such as opposing intellectual property protection regimes, including the Creative Commons and Copyleft. Within this session, Nehaa also introduced several cases in which Copyright came into play with the use of the internet, including Hunter Moore’s “Is Anyone Up?” website, which had showcased pornographic pictures obtained by submission bringing rise to the phenomenon of “revenge porn.” Instances as such blur the lines of what is commonly referred to as intellectual property, and what specific requirements enables one to own the rights to such.

Day Four

February 14, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Accessibility and Inclusion: Prashant Naik, Union Bank
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Patents: Nehaa Chaudhari
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 2.00 p.m.	Fieldwork Assignment

Day Four of the Internet Institute introduced concepts of eAccessibilty and Inclusion on the internet for persons with disabilities, along with patents as an intellectual property right. Participants were also assigned a fieldwork exercise as a hands-on activity in which they were to employ what they’ve learned to initiate conversation with individuals in public spaces and collect primary data while doing so.

eAccessibility and Inclusion, Prashant Naik

Prashant Naik started off the day with his session on E-Accessibility and Inclusion. Prashant illustrated the importance of accessibility and what is meant by the term. Participants learned of assistive technologies for different disability types and how to create more accessible word and PDF documents, as well as web pages for users. Prashant demonstrated to participants what it is like to use a computer as a visually impaired individual, which provided for an enriching experience.

Patents, Nehaa Chaudhari
Nehaa Chaudhari led a second session at the Internet Institute on intellectual property rights—this one looking at patents particularly and their role within statutory law. Nehaa traced the historical origins of patents before examining the fundamentals of them, and addresses the questions, “Why have patents? And is the present system working for everyone?” Nehaa also introduced notions of the Commons along with the Anticommons, and perspectives within the debate around software patents, as well as different means by which the law can address the exploitation of patents or “patent thickets”—such as through patent pools or compulsory licensing.

Fieldwork Assignment, Groupwork
Participants were split into groups and required to carry out a mini fieldwork assignment in approaching individuals in varying public spaces in Pune in attempts to collect primary data. Questions asked to individuals were to be devised by the group, so long as they pertained to themes examined within the Internet Institute. Areas visited by groups included the Pune Central Mall, MG Road, and FC Road.

Day Five

February 15, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	E-Governance: Manu Srivastav, Vice President, eGovernments Foundation
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Market Concerns: Payal Malik, Economic Adviser, Competition Commission of India
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Digital Natives: Nishant Shah
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Fieldwork Presentations

Day Five of the Internet Institute brought with it sessions related to themes of e-governance, market concerns of telecommunications, and so called “Digital Natives.”

eGovernance, Manu Srivastava
Vice President of the eGovernments Foundation, Manu Srivastava led a session on eGovernance—the utilization of the internet as a means of delivering government services communicating with citizens, businesses, and members of government. Manu examined the complexities of the eGovernance and barriers to implementation of eGovernance initiatives. Within discussion, participants examined the nuanced relationship between the government and citizens with the incorporation of other governing bodies in an eGovernance system, as well as new spaces for corruption to take place.

Market Concerns, Payal Malik
Payal Malik, Advisor of the Economics Division of the Competition Commission of India shared her knowledge on market concerns of the telecommunications industry, and exclaimed the importance of competition issues in such an industry as a tool to create greater good for a greater number of people. She demonstrated this importance by stating that affordability as a product of increased access can only be possible once there is enough investment, which generally only happens in a competitive market. In this way, we must set the conditions to make competition possible, as a tool to achieve certain objectives. Payal also demonstrated the economic benefits of telecommunications by stating that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, increase in GDP of 1.3%. She also examined the broadband ecosystem in India and touched upon future possibilities of increased broadband penetration, such as for formers and the education sector.

Digital Natives, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah shed some light on one of the areas that the Centre for Internet & Society looks at within their research scope, this being the “Digital Native.” As referred to by Nishant, the Digital Native is not to categorize a specific type of internet user, but can be said for simply any person who is performing a digital action, while doing away with this false dichotomy of age, location, and geography.

Nishant examines varying case studies in which “the digital is empowering natives to not merely be benefactors of change, but agents of change,” from the Blank Noise Project’s “I NEVER Ask for it…” campaign in efforts to rethink sexual violence, to Matt Harding’s foolish dancing with groups of individuals from all over the world.

As occurrences in the digital realm, however, these often political expressions may be rewritten by the network when picked up as a growing phenomenon, in order to make it accessible to online consumers by the masses. In doing so, the expression is removed from its political context and is presented in the form of nothing more than a fad. For this reason, Nishant stresses the need to become aware of the potential of the internet in becoming an “echo-chamber”—in which forms of expression are amplified and mimicked, resulting in a restructuring of the dynamics surrounding the subject—whether it be videos of boys lipsyncing to Backstreet Boys in their dorm room going viral, or a strong and malicious movement to punish the Chinese girl who had taken a video of her heinously and wickedly killing a kitten after locating her using the Human Flesh Search Engine.

Fieldwork Presentations, Groupwork

To end off the day, participant groups presented findings collated from the prior evening’s fieldwork exercise, in which they were to ask strangers in various public places of Pune questions pertaining to themes looked at from within this year’s Institute. Participants were divided into four groups and visited Pune’s FC Road, Mahatma Gandhi Road, and Central Mall.

Groups found that the majority of those interviews primarily accessed the phone via the mobile. There was also a common weariness of using the internet and concern for one’s privacy while doing so, especially with uploading photos to Facebook and online financial transactions. People were also generally concerned about using cyber cafes for fear of one’s accounts being hacked. Generally people suspected that so long as conversations are “private” (i.e. in one’s Facebook inbox), so too are they secure. Just as well, those interviewed shared a sense of security with the use of a password.

Day Six

February 16, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Wikipedia: Dr. Abhijeet Safai
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Open Access: Muthu Madhan (TBC)
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Case Studies Groupwork
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Case Studies Presentations

As the Institute came closer to its end, participants got the opportunity to hear from speakers on topics pertaining the Wikipedia editing in addition to Open Access to scholarly literature. Participants also worked together in groups to examine specific case studies referenced in previous sessions, and then presented their conclusions.

Wikipedia, Dr. Abhijeet Safai
The Institute was joined by Medical Officer of Clinical Research at Pune’s Symbiosis Centre of Health Care, Dr. Abhijeet Safai, who led a session on Wikipedia. Having edited over 3700 Wikipedia articles, Dr. Abhijeet was able to bring forth his expertise and familiarity in editing Wikipedia to participants so that they would be able to do the same. Introduced within this session were Wikipedia’s different fundamental pillars and codes of conducts to be complied with by all contributors, along with different features and components of Wikipedia articles that one should be aware of when contributing, such as how to cite sources and discuss the contents of an article with other contributors.

Open Access, Muthu Madhan
Muthu Madhan joined the Internet Institute while speaking on Open Access (OA) to scholarly literature. Within his session, Muthu examined the historical context within which the scholarly journal had arisen and how the idea of Open Access began within this space. The presence of Open Access in India and other developing nations was also examined in this session, and the concept of Open Data, introduced.

Case Studies, Groupworks

Participants were split up into groups and assigned particular case studies looked at briefly in previous sessions. Case studies included #thingsdarkiessay, a once trending Twitter hashtag in South Africa which had offended many Americans for its use of “darkie” as a derogatory term; the literary novel, The Hindus, which offers an alternative narrative of Hindu history had been banned in India for obscenity; a case in which several users’ avatars had been controlled by another in a virtual community and forced to perform sexual acts, referred to as A Rape Happened in Cyber Space; and lastly, a pornographic submission website, Is Anyone Up?, for which content was largely derived from “revenge porn.” Each group then presented on the various perspectives surrounding the issue at hand.

The Cyborg, Nishant Shah
Nishant Shah led an off-agenda session in the evening looking more closely at the notion of the human cyborg. Nishant deconstructs humanity’s relationship to technology, in suggesting that we “think of the human as produced with the technologies… not who produces technology.” Nishant explores the Digital Native as an attained identity for those who, because of technology, restructure and reinvent his or her environment—offline as well as online. Among other ideas shared, Nishant refers to works by Haraway on the human cyborg in illustrating our dependency on technology and our need to care for these technologies we depend on.

Day Seven

February 17, 2014

Time	Detail
9.30 a.m. – 11.00 a.m.	Internet Activism: Laura Stein, Associate Professor, University of Texas and Fulbright Fellow
11.00 a.m. – 11.15 a.m.	Tea-break
11.15 a.m. – 12.45 p.m.	Domestic and International Bodies: Chinmayi Arun, Research Director
12.45 p.m. – 1.30 p.m.	Lunch
1.30 p.m. – 3.00 p.m.	Participant Presentations
3.00 p.m. – 3.15 p.m.	Tea-break
3.15 p.m. – 4.45 p.m.	Hot Question Challenge

The last day of the week-long Internet Institute examined concepts of Internet Activism and Domestic and International Bodies. Some participants led presentations on topics of personal familiarity, before a final wrap-up exercise, calling upon individuals to share any new formulations resulting from the Institute.

Internet Activism, Laura Stein

Associate Professor from the University of Texas, Laura Stein, spoke on activism on the internet. Laura examined some grassroots organizations and movements taking place on the online and the benefits that the internet brings in facilitating their impact, such as its associated low costs, accessibility and possibility for anonymity. Despite the positive effects catalyzed by the internet, Laura stresses that the “laying field is still unequal, and movements are not simply transformed by technology.” Some of the websites exemplifying online activism that were examined within this session includes the It Gets Better Project, which aims to give hope to LGBT youth facing harassment, and the national election watch by the Association for Democratic Reforms. Additionally, Laura spoke on public communication policy, comparing that of the US and India, and how this area of policy may influence media content and practice.

Domestic and International Bodies, Chinmayi Arun
As the Internet Institute’s final speaker, Research Director for Communication Governance at National Law University , Chinmayi Arun, explores the network of factors that affect one’s behavior on the internet—these including: social norms, the law, the markets, and architecture. In referring to Lawrence Lessig’s pathetic dot theory, Chinmayi illustrates how individual’s—the pathetic dots in question—are functions of the interactions of these factors, and in this sense, regulated, and stresses the essential need to understand the system, in order to effectively change the dynamics within it. It is worth noting that not all pathetic dots are equal, and Google’s dot, for example, will be drastically bigger than a single user’s, having more leveraging power within the network of internet bodies. Also demonstrated, is the fact that we must acknowledge the need for regulation by the law to some extent, otherwise, the internet would be a black box where anything goes, putting one’s security at risk of violation.

Hot Question Challenge
The very last exercise of the Institute entailed participants asking each other questions on demand, relating back to different themes looked at within the last week. Participants had the chance, here, to bridge together concepts across sessions, as well as formulate their own opinions, while posing questions to others that they, themselves, were still curious about.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/blog/institute-for-internet-society-2014-pune

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 3)

ananth — 2014-02-14T05:13:36Z

In a three-part study, Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block dozens, if not hundreds, of websites. In this, the third and concluding part, he looks at the Indian law in the Copyright Act and the Information Technology Act, and concludes that both those laws restrain courts and private companies from ordering an ISP to block a website for copyright infringement.

In the third part of his study, Ananth Padmanabhan looks into the fair use provisions recently introduced in respect of mere conduit intermediaries by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, and concludes that there is no scope for any general, or specific, access blocking orders at the behest of the plaintiff in a civil suit, in India. He also argues that the Information Technology Act, 2000 read with the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011 do not in any manner permit the Government to override the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended) while facilitating the denial of access to websites on grounds of copyright infringement, because the Copyright Act, 1957, is a complete code by itself.

Fair Use Provisions Introduced by the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012

In 2010, the controversial Copyright (Amendment) Bill came up for deliberation before the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development headed by Mr. Oscar Fernandes. While a major part of the discussion on this amendment revolved around the altered royalty structure and rights allocation between music composers and lyricists on the one hand and film producers on the other, it can be safely stated that this is the most significant amendment to the Copyright Act, 1957 for more than this one reason. The amendment seeks to reform the Copyright Board, bring in a scheme of statutory licenses, expand the scope of performers’ rights and introduce anti-circumvention measures to check copyright piracy. As part of its ambitious objective, the amendment also attempts a new fair use model to protect intermediaries and file-sharing websites.

The Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, which gives expression to this fair use model through Sections 52(1)(b) and (c), reads thus:

52. Certain acts not to be infringement of copyright. - (1) The following acts shall not constitute an infringement of copyright, namely:

(a) to (ad) - *****

(b) the transient or incidental storage of a work or performance purely in the technical process of electronic transmission or communication to the public;

(c) transient or incidental storage of a work or performance for the purpose of providing electronic links, access or integration, where such links, access or integration has not been expressly prohibited by the right holder, unless the person responsible is aware or has reasonable grounds for believing that such storage is of an infringing copy:

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

From a plain reading, it is clear that two important exceptions are carved out: one, in respect of the technical process of electronic transmission and the other, in respect of providing electronic links, access or integration. The material distinction between these exceptions is the presence of a take-down proviso in respect of the latter kind of activity, ie. when providing electronic links, access or integration. This window of opportunity is not provided to the copyright owner when the third party is an ISP involved in the pure technical process of electronic transmission of data.

In R.K. Productions, the court was not informed of the introduction of these provisions vide the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012, despite the hearing happening on a date subsequent to the amendment coming into force. This probably influenced the outcome as well, since the court held that ISPs were liable to block access to infringing content, once the specific webpage was brought to the notice of the concerned ISP. Newly introduced Section 52(1)(b) however makes it abundantly clear that ISPs cannot, in any manner, be held liable when they are acting as mere conduit pipes for the transmission of information. This legal position is also materially different from jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom where, the ISPs though not liable for copyright infringement, are statutorily mandated to lend all possible assistance such as take-down or blocking of access upon notice of infringement being furnished to them. This dichotomy between liability for infringement on the one hand and a general duty to assist in the prevention of infringement on the other is explained clearly by the Chancery Division in Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation v. British Telecommunications Plc.[1]

In Newzbin2, the Chancery Division took note of the safe harbour provisions created by the E-Commerce Directive,[2] particularly Articles 12 to 14 that dealt with acting as a “mere conduit”, caching and hosting respectively. The interesting feature with the “mere conduit” exception, which in all other respects is akin to the exception contained in Section 52(1)(b) of the Copyright Act, 1957, is the additional presence of Article 12(3). This provision clarifies that the “mere conduit” exception shall not stand in the way of a court or administrative authority requiring the service provider to terminate or prevent an infringement. Article 18 of this Directive also casts an obligation upon Member States to ensure that court actions available under national law permit the rapid adoption of measures, including interim measures, designed to terminate any alleged infringement and to prevent any further impairment of the interests involved. Similarly, the court looked into the Information Society Directive,[3]

Article 8(3) of which provides that “Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right.” This Directive was transposed into the domestic law in UK by the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, SI 2003/2498, resulting in the insertion of Section 97A in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This provision empowers the court to grant an injunction against a service provider who has actual knowledge of another person using their service to infringe copyright, such as where the service provider is given sufficient notice of the infringement. Finally, the Chancery Division also took note of the Enforcement Directive,[4]

Article 11 of which provided that Member States shall ensure that copyright owners are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe an intellectual property right. This entire legislative scheme compelled the court in Newzbin2 to conclude that an order of injunction could be granted against ISPs who are “mere conduits”, restraining them from providing access to websites that indulged in mass copyright infringement. The court reasoned that the language used in Section 97A did not require knowledge of any particular infringement but only a more general kind of knowledge about certain persons using the ISPs’ services to infringe copyright. Thus, it is seen that in the United Kingdom, though a “mere conduit” activity is not infringement at all, the concerned ISP can be directed by the court to block access to a website that hosts infringing content on the basis of the above legislative scheme. The enquiry should therefore be directed towards whether India has a similar scheme for copyright enforcement.

The Information Technology Act – An Inapplicable Scheme for Website Blocking

The Information Technology Act, 2000[5]read with certain recently framed guidelines provides for a duty that could be thrust upon even “mere conduit” ISPs to disable access to copyrighted works. This is due to the presence of Section 79(2)(c) of this Act, which makes it clear that an intermediary shall be exempt from liability only where the intermediary observes due diligence as well as complies with the other guidelines framed by the Central Government in this behalf. Moreover, Section 79(3) provides that the intermediary shall not be entitled to the benefit of the exemption in Section 79(1) in a situation where the intermediary, upon receiving actual knowledge that any information, data, or communication link residing in or connected to a computer resource controlled by the intermediary is being used to commit an unlawful act, fails to expeditiously remove or disable access to that material on that resource without vitiating the evidence in any manner. In pursuance of Section 79(2)(c), the Central Government has also framed the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, which came into effect on 11.04.2011. Rule 4 of these Rules, when read along with Rule 2(d), casts obligation on an intermediary on whose computer system, copyright infringing content has been stored, hosted or published, to disable such information within thirty six hours from when it is brought to actual knowledge of the existence of such content by any affected person.

One way of understanding and interpreting in harmonious fashion, the provisions of the IT Act and the Rules therein and the recent amendments to the Copyright Act, is to contend that the issue of infringement of copyright by “mere conduit” ISPs is governed by Section 52(1)(b), which completely absolves them of any liability, while that of enforcement of copyright through the medium of such ISPs is governed by the IT Act. This bifurcation suffers from the difficulty that Section 79 of the IT Act is not an enforcement provision. It is a provision meant to exempt intermediaries from certain kinds of liability, in the same way as Section 52 of the Copyright Act. This provision, read with Section 81, makes it clear that the IT Act does not speak to liability for copyright infringement. From this, it has to necessarily follow that all issues pertaining to liability for such infringement have to be decided by the provisions of the Copyright Act. Therefore, the scheme in the IT Act read with the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules cannot confer additional liability for copyright infringement on ISPs where the Copyright Act exempts them from liability. More to the point, the intermediary cannot be liable for copyright infringement in the event of non-compliance with Section 79(3) or Rule 4 of the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules read with Section 79(1)(c) of the IT Act. Rule 4 of the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules, 2011, to the extent that it renders intermediaries outside the protective ambit of Section 79(1) upon failure to disable access to copyrighted content, is of no relevance as “mere conduits” have already been exempted from liability under Section 52(1)(b). Moreover, since these provisions in the IT Act do not deal with enforcement measures such as injunction orders from the court to disable access to infringing content in particular or infringing websites in general, it would be wrong to contend that the scheme in India is similar to the one in the United Kingdom where the issue of infringement has been divorced from that of enforcement.

To conclude, Section 52(1)(b) is a blanket “mere conduit” exemption from liability for copyright infringement that stands uninfluenced by the presence of Section 79 of the IT Act or the Intermediaries Guidelines Rules. In the absence of a legislative scheme for enforcement in India akin to Section 97A of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Indian Courts cannot grant an injunction directing such “mere conduit” ISPs to block access to websites in general or infringing content in particular and any such action is not even maintainable in law post the insertion of Section 52(1)(b). The decision to the contrary in the R.K.Productions case is incorrect.

[1]. [2011] EWHC 1981 (Ch.). Hereinafter referred to as Newzbin2.

[2]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/31/EC on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (8 June 2000). This Directive was transposed into the domestic law in UK by the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, SI 2002/2013.

[3]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (22 May 2001).

[4]. European Parliament and Council Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (29 April 2004). This Directive was transposed into the UK domestic law primarily by the Intellectual Property (Enforcement, etc.) Regulations 2006, SI 2006/1028.

[5]. Hereinafter referred to as the IT Act.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-3

Can Judges Order ISPs to Block Websites for Copyright Infringement? (Part 2)

ananth — 2014-03-06T16:48:18Z

In a three-part study, Ananth Padmanabhan examines the "John Doe" orders that courts have passed against ISPs, which entertainment companies have used to block dozens, if not hundreds, of websites. In this, the second part, he looks at the law laid down by the U.S. Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court on secondary and contributory copyright infringement, and finds that those wouldn't allow Indian courts to grant "John Doe" orders against ISPs.

In the second part of his study, Ananth Padmanabhan proceeds to examine applying a general theory of secondary or contributory copyright infringement against ISPs. He traces the basis for holding a third party liable as a contributory by closely examining the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in Sony Corp. v Universal City Studios[1] and MGM Studios, Inc. v Grokster, Ltd.[2] and concludes that this basis does not hold good in the case of a mere conduit intermediary such as an ISP.

[1]. 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Hereinafter referred to as Betamax.

[2]. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Hereinafter referred to as Grokster.

Primary and Secondary Infringement

Liability for copyright infringement can either be primary or secondary in character. In the case of ISPs, liability as primary infringers does not arise at all, and it is in their capacity as conduit pipes facilitating the transmission of information that they could be held secondarily liable. Even in such cases, the contention of copyright owners is that once the ISP is notified of infringing content, it has the primary responsibility of preventing access to such content. This contention is essentially rooted in a theory of secondary infringement based on knowledge and awareness, and the means to prevent further infringement.

The controversy around a suitable model of secondary infringement is reflected in two judicial pronouncements – separated by a gap of more than two decades – delivered by the U.S. Supreme Court. In Sony Corp. v Universal City Studios,[3] the US Supreme Court held that the manufacturers of home video recording devices known in the market as Betamax would not be liable to copyright owners for secondary infringement since the technology was capable of substantially non-infringing and legitimate purposes. The U.S. Supreme Court even observed that these time-shifting devices would actually enhance television viewership and hence find favour with majority of the copyright holders too. The majority did concede that in an appropriate situation, liability for secondary infringement of copyright could well arise. In the words of the Court, “vicarious liability is imposed in virtually all areas of the law, and the concept of contributory infringement is merely a species of the broader problem of identifying the circumstances in which it is just to hold one individual accountable for the actions of another”. However, if vicarious liability had to be imposed on the manufactures of the time-shifting devices, it had to rest on the fact that they sold equipment with constructive knowledge of the fact that their customers may use that equipment to make unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. In the view of the Court, there was no precedent in the law of copyright for the imposition of vicarious liability merely on the showing of such fact.

Notes of dissent were struck by Justice Blackmun, who wrote an opinion on behalf of himself and three other judges. The learned Judge noted that there was no private use exemption in favour of making of copies of a copyrighted work and hence, unauthorised time-shifting would amount to copyright infringement. He also concluded that there was no fair use in such activity that would exempt it from the purview of infringement. The dissent held the manufacturer liable as a contributory infringer and reasoned that the test for contributory infringement would only be whether the contributory infringer had reason to know or believe that infringement would take place and not whether he actually knew of the same. Off-the-air recording was not only a foreseeable use for the Betamax, but also its intended use, for which Sony would be liable for copyright infringement.

This dissent has considerably influenced the seemingly contrarian position taken by the majority in the subsequent decision, MGM Studios, Inc. v Grokster, Ltd.[4] This case called into question the liability of websites that facilitated peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing. Re-formulating the test for copyright infringement, the US Supreme Court held that ‘one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties’. In re-drawing the boundaries of contributory infringement, the Court observed that contributory infringement is committed by any person who intentionally induces or encourages direct infringement, and vicarious infringement is committed by those who profit from direct infringement while declining to exercise their right to limit or stop it. When an article of commerce was good for nothing else but infringement, there was no legitimate public interest in its unlicensed availability and there would be no injustice in presuming or imputing intent to infringe in such cases. This doctrine would at the same time absolve the equivocal conduct of selling an item with substantial lawful as well as unlawful uses and would limit the liability to instances of more acute fault than the mere understanding that some of the products shall be misused, thus ensuring that innovation and commerce are not unreasonably hindered.

The Court distinguished the case at hand from Betamax, and noted that there was evidence here of active steps taken by the respondents to encourage direct copyright infringement, such as advertising an infringing use or instructing how to engage in an infringing use. This evidence revealed an affirmative intent that the product be used to infringe, and an active encouragement of infringement. Without reversing the decision in Betamax, but holding that it was misinterpreted by the lower court, the Court observed that Betamax was not an authority for the proposition that whenever a product was capable of substantial lawful use, the producer could never be held liable as a contributory for the use of such product for infringing activity by third parties. In the view of the Court, Betamax did not displace other theories of secondary liability. This other theory of secondary liability applicable to the case at hand was held to be the inducement rule, as per which any person who distributed a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as evidenced by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, would be liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties. However, the Court clarified that mere knowledge of infringing potential or of actual infringing uses would not be enough under this rule to subject a distributor to liability. Similarly, ordinary acts incident to product distribution, such as offering customers technical support or product updates, support liability etc. would not by themselves attract the operation of this rule. The inducement rule, instead, premised liability on purposeful, culpable expression and conduct, and thus did nothing to compromise legitimate commerce or discourage innovation having a lawful promise.

These seemingly divergent views on secondary infringement expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court are of significant relevance for India, due to the peculiar language used in the Indian Copyright Act, 1957.[4]

Section 51 of the Act, which defines infringement, bifurcates the two types of infringement – ie. primary and secondary infringement – without indicating so in as many words. While Section 51(a)(i) speaks to primary infringers, 51(a)(ii) and 51(b) renders certain conduct to be secondary infringement. Even here, there is an important distinction between 51(a)(ii) and 51(b). The former exempts the alleged infringer from liability if he could establish that he was not aware and had no reasonable ground for believing that the communication to the public, facilitated through the use of his “place”, would amount to copyright infringement. The latter on the other hand permits no such exception. Thus, any person, who makes for sale or hire, or by way of trade displays or offers for sale or hire, or distributes for the purpose of trade, or publicly exhibits by way of trade, or imports into India, any infringing copies of a work, shall be liable for infringement, without any specific mens rea required to attract such liability. It is in the context of the former provision, ie. 51(a)(ii) that the liability of certain file-sharing websites for copyright infringement has arisen.[5]

Mere Conduit ISPs – Secondary Infringement Absent

In MySpace, the Delhi High Court examined the liability for secondary infringement on the part of a website that provides a platform for file-sharing. While holding the website liable, the Single Judge considered material certain facts such as the revenue model of the defendant, which depended largely on advertisements displayed on the webpages, and automatically generated advertisements that would come up for a few seconds before the infringing video clips started playing. Shockingly, the Court even considered relevant the fact that the defendant did provide for safeguards such as hash block filters, take down stay down functionality, and rights management tools operational through fingerprinting technology, to prevent or curb infringing activities being carried on in their website. This, in the view of the Court, made it evident that the defendant had a reasonable apprehension or belief that the acts which were being carried on in the website could infringe someone else’s copyright including that of the plaintiff. The logic employed by the Court to attribute liability for secondary infringement on file-sharing websites is befuddling and reveals complete disregard for the degree of regulatory authority available on the internet even where the space, i.e., the website, is supposedly “under the control” of a person. However, a critical examination of this decision is not relevant in understanding the liability of mere conduit ISPs. This is for the reason that none of the factual considerations relied on by the Single Judge to justify imposition of liability on a file-sharing website under Section 51(a)(ii) arise when the defendant is an ISP that only provides the path for content-neutral transmission of data.

This was completely ignored by the Madras High Court in R.K.Productions v. B.S.N.L.,[6] where the producers of the Tamil film “3”, which enjoyed considerable pre-release buzz due to its song “Kolaveri Di”, sought an omnibus order of injunction against all websites that host torrents or links facilitating access to, or download of, this film. Though this was worded as a John Doe plaint by branding the infringers as unknown administrators of different torrent sites and so on, the real idea was to look to the resources and wherewithal of the known defendants, ie. the ISPs, to block access to the content hosted by the unknown defendants.

This prompted the ISPs to file applications under Or. VII, Rule 11 of the Civil Procedure Code, seeking rejection of the plaint on the ground that the suit against them was barred by law. The Single Judge of the Madras High Court dismissed these applications for rejection of the plaint, after accepting the contention that the ISPs are necessary parties to the suit as the act of piracy occurs through the channel or network provided by them. The High Court heavily, and incorrectly, relied on MySpace without appreciating the distinction between a mere conduit ISP and a file-sharing website such as MySpace or YouTube, as regards their respective roles and responsibilities, the differing degrees of regulatory control over content enjoyed by them, and most importantly, the recognition and formalisation of these distinctions in the Copyright Act, 1957, vide the Copyright (Amendment) Act, 2012.

[3]. 464 U.S. 417 (1984). Hereinafter referred to as Betamax.

[4]. 545 U.S. 913 (2005). Hereinafter referred to as Grokster.

[5]. Hereinafter the Act.

[6]. Super Cassette Industries Ltd. v MySpace Inc., MIPR 2011 (2) 303 (hereinafter referred to as MySpace). This decision of the Delhi High Court has been rightly criticised. See http://cis-india.org/a2k/blog/super-cassettes-v-my-space (last accessed on 24.03.2013).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/john-doe-orders-isp-blocking-websites-copyright-2

CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia

nitika — 2013-12-31T11:48:02Z

The Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K team) is pleased to share with you the key accomplishments about the work it accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013 in this report. In accordance with the Centre for Internet and Society’s Access to Knowledge Program’s (CIS-A2K) Konkani Work Plan 2013-14 the program has invested time and effort to build Konkani Wikimedia community and projects.

Highlights

Increased editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia

CIS-A2K has been organising different programs and workshops. The idea is to bring in as many volunteers as possible who can contribute to Konkani Wikipedia for years to come. We have organised these outreach sessions mainly in Devanagari, Romi and Kannada scripts. As a result of these programs we have been able to significantly increase no. of editors, consistently have minimum of 5-6 active editors per month and build a community of volunteers. You can also view level of editing activity on Konkani Wikipedia for the past few months in the chart below:


Above: Edits Per Month on Konkani Wikipedia (Mar-13 to Dec-13) (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Increased number of articles on Konkani Wikipedia

Total number of articles increased from 150 in Sep 2013 to 315 in Nov 2013. The number of articles have doubled over a period of 3 months. We should keep in mind that out of those who edited in Devanagari; 95% of them were completely new to the input method and had to spend considerable time learning and practicing it.


Above: No. of articles on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Translated Media Wiki messages

CIS-A2K organised translation sprint to help translate Media Wiki interface messages. We achieved translating 79% of these messages in Konkani Devanagari while all 100% messages have already been translated in Romi script

Re-release of Konkani Vishwaksh under Creative Commons License

Upon CIS-A2K‘s explicit request, Goa University has approved the re-release of Vishwakosh under Creative Commons License (CC-BY-SA 3.0) to make it freely available to public, giving them the right to share, use and even build upon the work that has already been done. This is a huge step to help preserve Konkani language and culture in the digital era. Konkani Vishwakosh is a four-volume hard copy encyclopedia (3632 pages) published by Goa University; a work that took over 14 years to develop. It encompasses the world’s information in a nutshell with special emphasis and detailed information on Goa, Konkani, Goan culture, folklore, history, geography etc. To know more about click here and here

Initiated & Completed 30% of Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Project

Goa University in collaboration with the CIS-A2K is digitizing Konkani Vishwakosh. 37 participants are enrolled in this project who are working to digitize the encyclopedia in a time bound manner. All 3632 pages of Konkani Vishwakosh will be digitized. The program started on 19th October and in just about 2 months 30% of the encyclopedia had already been digitized. You can monitor the progress of this project on Wikisource. Here are the links for Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3 and Volume 4. Please note that some of the participants firstly digitize the encylopedia either in their Sandbox or offline and then move it to Wikisource. To know more about the project click here.

Signed an MoU with Goa University

Goa University entered into a three year MoU with CIS for building Konkani Wikipedia. As part of this partnership, Goa University and CIS-A2K will work together to help build Konkani Wikipedia and community.

White paper by a Linguist

Fr. Pratap Naik, S.J. B.Sc., B.Ed. M.A. (Linguistics), M.Phil. (Linguistics), Ph.D. (Linguistics) has written a white paper discussing issues faced by Konkani language and his views on how it should be dealt on Wikimedia projects. We'll soon upload the white paper on Wikimedia Commons and make the link available.

14 Outreach session, over 450 participants, in 3 months

CIS-A2K organised about 14 outreach sessions and reached out to over 450 people to create awareness about Konkani Wikipedia and the community between Sep-Dec 2013. Details of these sessions can be found here.

Got consensus from field experts

Over the past few months CIS-A2K has spoken with Konkani Wikipedians (such as Frederick Noronha, Deepak D'Souza, Seby Fernandes) Konkani linguists (such as Fr. Pratap), professors from Konkani Department at Goa University (Dr. Madhavi Sardesai and Dr. Priyadarshini Tadkodkar), cultural experts (such as Prof. Alito Siqueira and Harriet Vidyasagar) and other experts to propose a solution for Konkani Wikipedia that faces a problem of usage of multiple scripts. To a great extent we have got consensus from different field experts that we should strive to create separate Wikis for each script, at least those which prove to be active.

Wikipedians Speak

One of the ongoing projects of CIS-A2K is 'Wikipedians Speak' which are small videos of Wikipedians that captures their expereinces, learnings and challenges. As a part of this project CIS-A2K published several videos of Konkani Wikipedians.

Link to the post published on Wikipedia

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/work-accomplished-konkani-wikipedia

CIS-A2K Narrative Report (September 2012 – June 2013)

Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi — 2013-11-30T11:18:56Z

This narrative report captures the work done by the Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in the first ten months of the grant. The report also throws some light on the CIS-A2K program strategy in the next one year.

This narrative report was originally published on the Wikipedia page. Access it here.

Background to the Access to Knowledge Programme

The Wikimedia Foundation approved a grant to support the growth of Indian language Wikimedia communities to the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) to expand their Access to Knowledge program (A2K) in India. The grant enabled CIS to work with the Wikimedia community of volunteers in India to expand upon Wikimedia’s Indic language free knowledge projects, including Wikipedia in Indic languages. Further, the grant aims to generate improvements in India-relevant free knowledge in Wikimedia’s English projects and wider distribution of Wikimedia’s free knowledge within India.

Section A: Introduction

Objective of the Narrative Report

This narrative report captures the work done by the A2K program during the period of September 2012 to June 2013. It examines projects and activities and its impact and outcomes over a period of the initial Ten months of the Grant. This report will also inform CIS-A2K program’s strategy for the next one year to achieve the goals set out by its donor, Wikimedia Foundation, and goals listed in our Work Plans (which were developed in consultation with the Wikimedia community in India). Importantly, this Narrative Report is critical for the Wikimedia community in India, Global Wikimedia community and the Wikimedia Foundation to get a comprehensive overview of A2K’s work and to critically assess the A2K program’s eligibility for further support.

Context

Though the mandate of the CIS-A2K program was clearly articulated before the commencement of the program, it should be noted, that the context in which the program had to undertake its work was very disturbed. Majority of the Wikimedia community in India saw CIS-A2K as an extension of the India Program as the entire team of the India Program moved into the CIS’s A2K program, except for the Director. Thus the CIS-A2K program inherited the not so conducive image of the India Program that was operational until August 2012. It should be noted that by August 2012, the Wikimedia community in India was extremely critical of the India Program’s work and achievement.[1]

Further, the community explicitly expressed lack of faith and Trust in the India Program’s method of work.[2] Thus, it is important to note that the CIS-A2K program did not start with a clean slate but had to first address multiple challenges, before it could take on active implementation of various programmatic activities. These challenges include:

building trust with the Wikimedia community in India;
building a collaborative relationship with Wikimedia India Chapter;
finding a new leadership to anchor the program that was left vacant in August 2012.

A2K Program Achievements (September 2012 to June 2013)

CIS Access to Knowledge (A2K) team started working on facilitating the improvement of Indian language Wikimedia projects with special focus on Indic Wikipedias in September 2012. Some key activities during the period of September 2012 to June 2013 are:

Number of newsletters published: 10
Number of events conducted: 49
Number of Wikipedia Education Programs conducted: 5
Number of people reached: about 1314
Number of women participants: approximately 406 (30.9%)
Number of community meet-ups & IRCs: 13
Number of sites across India where Wikimedia events were conducted: 18
Number of valid usernames: 582
Number of blogs posted: 58
Number of Print and Electronic Media mentions: 28
Number of Hackathons supported: 2
Number of community celebration events: 7
Number of Institutional partnerships: 13

CIS hired A2K Programme Director, T. Vishnu Vardhan, through an open and multi-stakeholder process of selection.[3] Representatives from Wikimedia India Chapter, Wikimedia community in India and Wikimedia Foundation were actively part of the selection process. This process was extremely critical and ensured participation of the Wikimedia community in India and the WMIN Chapter in deciding the leadership of the program.

Noted academician Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana was hired as Adviser to A2K.[4] This was done upon the request of the selection committee that was constituted for the selection of the program Director and in consultation with the WMF.

A2K proactively interacted with the WMIN Chapter Executive Committee and built collaborative working relationship.
Most of the A2K programs executed in collaboration with WMIN Chapter and community.
Began a new project on visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedias [5] [6] Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro are working on this. Two blog posts have been published so far. This was appreciated by the Wikimedia community in India and the WMF. Further, the WMF has expressed interest in extending these visualizations at a global level.
A2K has successfully reached out to the Wikipedians across Indian Language communities through conducting outreach programs, resolving technical bugs, supporting with required logistics, merchandise and media publicity, building public relations and communications.
Work-plans for the growth of Indic Wikipedias[7] were developed in a participatory manner with active collaboration from Wikimedia community in India and Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee.
Proactive open disclosure of A2K budget. and proposed revisions to the budget seeking feedback from the Wikimedia community in India towards building transparency.
CIS-A2K gave significant media visibility to Indian Language Wikipedias both in print and electronic media.

Section B: A2K Programme Impact

In discussing the A2K program’s impact we have presented below both the tangible and intangible aspects of our work.

Intangible Impact

The A2K team has left no stone unturned since the commencement of the program in September 2012 to work in a transparent manner. We have taken the following measures in being transparent:

Periodic publication of A2K work and outcomes through monthly newsletters.
Circulation of A2K monthly newsletters and notifications on various India related Wikimedia mailing lists.
Real-time listing and communication of activities on A2K Meta page.
Active documentation of all events and activities, which were published as blogs on CIS.
Prior announcements of all the events organized or supported by A2K.
Open and collaborative process of hiring Program Director.
Keeping the Wikimedia India Chapter EC in the loop on all programmatic developments since March 2013.
Proactive disclosure of A2K program budget and proposed revised budget to the Indian Wikimedia community.

In addition to this A2K has explored various possibilities of collaboration with the Indian Wikimedia community and Chapter alike. The biggest instance is the A2K Wok Planning exercise for 2013-14, where multiple stakeholders were consulted. These include

Some English-language Wikimedia community members from India;
Wikimedia India chapter Executive Committee;
Indian language Wikimedians and
A few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff.

Some of the collaborative and community building efforts of A2K were:

Support to community-led activities and facilitating community participation and ownership (e.g. Wiki Women’s Month).
Mobilization of the Indian Wikimedia community in organizing mega community events like Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam.
Engagement with WMI Chapter EC and built a collaborative relationship.
Wikipedia Education programs in 4 Indian languages done in collaboration with the local Wikimedia community.
Supporting Wikimedians in conducting outreach events.
Almost all the A2K events since February were done in collaboration with WMI Chapter and the Wikimedia community in India.
A2K team actively participated in various community meet-ups.
A2K has provided significant media visibility to Indian Language Wikipedias, especially in mainstream English press.

These transparency and collaboration efforts resulted in building trust among the Wikimedia India communities, where in they have begun to constructively engage with the A2K program’s work. This is a significant achievement since the closure of India program in August 2012. However, there are still some Wikimedians who prefer to ignore the A2K program, which indicates that the A2K program still needs to prove its worth. Thus it could be said that the A2K program has been partly successful in winning the faith of the Indian Wikimedia communities and still needs to put in more effort in this direction. The A2K team is committed to achieve this by demonstrating success through its work during the next phase of this program.

Tangible Impact

It is difficult for the CIS-A2K program to either take direct credit for the growth or direct blame for the lack of it in the Indian language Wikimedia projects. However, we believe that we have been one of the factors — and sometimes a key factor — in impacting the growth of the Wikimedia projects and communities in India since the commencement of the project.

Though the A2K program has done some amount of work with almost all Indian language Wikipedias, the A2K team has had relatively more involvement in 10 Indic languages - Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi and Telugu - during September 2012 to June 2013.

In addition to this based on the various outreach work done by A2K we have attempted to present an analysis of direct new Wikipedia users that have emerged in languages impacted by the A2K program, keeping in mind that community mobilization will always be an autonomous activity to some extent.


Graph 1: Growth of Articles in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

The growth momentum in Indian languages over the eight month period of September 2012 to June 2013 looks healthy.
Some language Wikipedias have been growing at a phenomenal rate than others in terms of percentage change since September 2012.
Punjabi, Assamese and Odia Wikipedias have a growth rate of 82%, 59%, and 37% respectively and are the top 3 Indian language Wikipedia projects during the ten month period.
In terms of absolute number of articles, Tamil, Malayalam, Punjabi and Hindi Wikipedias have grown by about 5,812; 5,008; 3050; and 2,734 articles respectively.
However, given the small size of the Wikipedia communities in Punjabi, Nepali, Kannada, Odia and Sanskrit the growth achieved by them is much commendable and all efforts have to be put to ensure that this momentum continues by strengthening these communities and also expanding them.


Graph 2: Active Editors in Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

There is a fluctuation in the number of active editors in all Indian language Wikipedias.
The active editors on Assamese, Marathi and Gujarati Wikipedias have been consistently coming down, which is a cause of concern.
It is important to note that Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Nepali Wikipedias where the number of Active Editors were declining earlier have shown a remarkable turnaround. The efforts of the A2K program, especially in Telugu and Kannada, over the last 4 months could have resulted in this positive change.
It seems the Wikipedia Education Program, Nepal has been instrumental in bringing significant number of new active editors on Nepali Wikipedia.
Overall the active editors on Malayalam Wikipedia have crossed the 100 mark numerous times, making it the first Indian language Wikipedia to reach this benchmark. However, in month of May and June 2013 this dropped to a 2 digit figure again.
Looking at the trends Tamil Wikipedia may soon reach the 100 active editor mark.
Even Bengali community could cross 100 active editors if concerted efforts are put in.
The Assamese Wikipedia, which received support from A2K program until January 2013, had a consistent active editor population which was around 20 people. However, once the support from the A2K dwindled since February a declining trend can be noticed. One could deduce that the A2K program has had critical relevance in the growth of Assamese Wikipedia. The decline over the last 5 months also alerts us to the possibility of building dependencies on the A2K program, which is a concern that we need to address going forward.


Graph 3: Monthly growth of New Editors on Indian Language Wikipedias from September 2012 to June 2013

On an average 94 new editors have joined Indian language Wikipedias every month.
Bengali, Malayalam and Tamil Wikipedias have consistently seen more than 10 new editors joining almost every month since Jan 2013.
Hindi, Marathi and Telugu have many new editors joining per month.
Total of 849 new people have become editors for Indian language Wikipedia since Sep 2012.
However, the conversion rate of new editors into active editors is still a challenge across all Indian language Wikipedias.


Graph 4: Snapshot of “Page Views” of Indian Language Wikipedias in September 2012 & June 2013

Overall the “Page View” trends of Indian Language Wikipedias until April 2013 look positive. but since the last two months the trend is in the decline. However, it should be noted that the month on month “Page View” trends keep fluctuating.
Bengali, Tamil, Malayalam and Punjabi Wikipedias have shown highest percentage growth in page views since September 2012.
In absolute numbers Bengali Wikipedia has seen a spectacular growth of 3,000,000 page-views, Tamil and Malayalam Wikipedias witnessed a growth of about 927,150 and 365,913 a page-views respectively.
Based on the the absolute numbers of “Page Views” for Indian Wikipedias it could be speculated that there is a significant increase in demand for knowledge and information in Indian languages on the internet.

In the below given Graph 5, we have also looked at the direct impact the A2K programme had in cultivating new editors on Indian language Wikipedias through various outreach programs that conducted during September 2012 to June 2013.


Graph 5: New Editors from CIS-A2K Outreach September 2012-June 2013

It should be noted that during the 10 month period CIS-A2K reached out to a total of 1,314 participants. This is approximate 130 people per month. However, the username data for more than 700 participants could not be ascertained, due to incorrect inefficient data collection and input. This includes participants giving wrong usernames, trouble with the handwriting of some of the participants, etc. We have already taken note of this issue and have put in measures to efficiently capture the new user data. Hence, we have only presented an analysis of 582 participants, whose usernames are valid.

The analysis of this data reveals that more than 120 users have done more than 5 edits, which is about 21 per cent of the participants with valid usernames. Further, 25 participants have done more than 100 edits on English and various Indian language Wikipedias, which constitutes 4 per cent of the total participants that the A2K programme has reached out to. Further 11 users have become very active editors on Indian language Wikipedias with more than 1000 edits to their credit.

Section C: Learning and Challenges

Outreach

One of the biggest constraints with the existing outreach efforts across India including that of CIS-A2K's is that they are all based on light-touch model. We have learned that a light touch outreach with no follow up, no hand-holding, no support system will not be able to yield desired results. We need to have a thoroughly thought out well-designed outreach programs where there should be continuous interaction with the participants for a minimum of 2-3 months. CIS-A2K approach to outreach should be different from usual Wikipedia editing training. Further, any outreach with an educational institution on the lines of a "Wikipedia Education Program" requires at least 3-4 months commitment from everyone concerned (i.e. student, institution, community and CISA2K).

This in no way means diminish the importance of the light-touch model of 1/2 or 1 day Wikipedia editing training workshops, as seldom you get institutions/groups who are willing to commit to a long-term engagement. Thus a mixed approach is more pragmatic, while more energies need to put in long-term engagements.
There is a strand of criticism about effectiveness of physical outreach in general. However physical outreach for Indian languages is extremely essential as this is the lead exercise by which language communities have strengthened themselves over the years, though this has been very slow. The need to involve human element, face-to-face interaction and two-way communication is an extremely important factor of for growth of Indian language communities.
The need for each language community is different with respect to outreach. There are some communities that are more comfortable with conducting physical outreach while other communities are more efficient with outreach on social networking sites. For instance the Odia Wikipedia community where the average age of the active members is less than 25 is more active on Social Media and extensively uses it to network among themselves and to also discuss about the Wikipedia, whereas the Telugu Wikipedia is more comfortable with physical meetings and primarily uses Village Pump for all community discussions.
Based on the interaction with most of the Indian language Wikimedia communities, CIS-A2K noticed that except for some communities like Malayalam, an institutional partnership is something that might not be easily taken up by community members. This is so because it requires high level of effort, time and strong network, amongst several other things. CIS-A2K has been focusing to address this need in general and in the five focus language areas in particular.

Work Plan Development and Community Communications

Even after sending multiple invitations, it took a lot of effort by CIS-A2K to encourage the larger community to engage and participate actively in the development of language focused work plan. CIS-A2K put its best efforts in inviting the community members through meta pages, village pumps, language and city-wide mailing lists, Indian mailing list, India English mailing list, meet-ups, IRCs, social-media channels to give their valuable suggestions and feedback. However, very few community members showed interest and helped in refining the plans. Better feedback could be gathered during physical and informal meetings with the community members.
Less than 10% active volunteers across all Indian language communities are active on Meta and even less on Indian mailing lists. During some informal conversations some community members expressed that it is too much of an additional burden to also visit Meta and engage. Taking into consideration that most of the language communities have less than 20 active volunteers, pragmatically speaking it is a huge ask to expect them to actively participate on Meta or mailing lists. Thus one cannot have a uniform standard and uniform mode of communication with different language communities. Thus CIS-A2K needs to explore various means of engaging with the Wikimedia community in India and should adopt a mixed channel approach of gauging community feedback. Though this is requires additional efforts on the team.
The mediums listed show a significant effort was made to solicit feedback and participation. It's okay and understandable that strategic planning is not for everyone, that volunteers economize their time devoted to the movement. So CIS-A2K does not necessarily see it as a failure that participation was low. What CIS-A2K aimed to do was to make sure participation was solicited, encouraged, and made possible. Of course ideally we would want higher participation, but CIS-A2K is careful not to confuse and turn higher participation in strategizing into a goal in itself.
In spite of this CIS-A2K took the risk and went ahead with a participatory and continuous mode of evaluation. We foresee a challenge in actively involving the community in quarterly evaluation cycles as this would require them also to introspect. In the five focus language communities such an introspection exercise was not done systematically before and a mandatory imposition may not be productive either for the Community or for CIS-A2K. The challenge would be that in the first 2 quarterly cycles CIS-A2K could miss meeting its own evaluation criteria. However, the opportunity here is to train the community to systematically introspect, which will go a long way in strengthening the Indian language Wikipedias and the associated communities.
Some programs, especially institutional partnerships, have a higher risk of failure than others. Though CIS-A2K committed to a very granular break-down of outcomes, it may require significant revisions. Hence it is extremely important for CIS-A2K to review and revise the plans and goals every 3-4 months.

Community Engagement/Development

Indian language communities are able to grow and cultivate new editors who come from similar background as their’s. For example, we find that the Telugu community comprises primarily in the age group of 30-50 years, while on the other hand, the Odia community consists of relatively younger editors between the age group of 20-30 years. Hence, it is essential that the community building programs take this aspect into consideration and work to diversify the community mix by engaging with people belonging to varied backgrounds.
Transparency and accountability are essential to build community trust. CIS-A2K has already taken various measures in this direction. However, there are occasions when more demands are placed on CIS-A2K, which consumes a lot of CIS-A2K's time and effort. The challenge is to struck a balance between the demands of transparency and accountability and the actual work they describe.
Meetups, one-on-one meetings/talk with community members are an essential ingredient to build long-term relationship. This is especially very important for nascent language communities with few editors. These kind of personal interactions help community members to know and connect with other Wikipedians. It also helps build trust and working relationship between community members and the A2K team.
CIS-A2K recognizes the potential role of Wikimedia India Chapter in growing the Wikimedia movement in India. Though CIS-A2K's work doesn't depend on the India Chapter, there is a huge potential for collaboration between the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS-A2K. CIS-A2K has put in its best efforts to build a cordial working relationship with the India Chapter. However, the extent of the collaboration would depend on the India Chapter's capacity and interest.

Section D: Progress Report

A detailed progress report of the A2K program activities has been presented on a monthly basis below. Most of the activities have been documented as blog posts or news-items on the CIS website. All of the A2K events, blog-posts and news-items can be seen here.

Outreach Sessions in September 2012

Note: Although most of these workshops were conducted prior to the grant period, the reports for all of these were written during September 2012:

The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012). A total of 25 participants came for this workshop. There were 15 new editors (of which 13 were female).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012). About 30 participants including students and teachers attended the workshop.
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 30, 2012). Nearly 50 participants including students and teachers from eight different schools apart from the students and teachers of Spring Dale School attended the workshop.
Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012). About 32 participants attended the session on Day 1 and 10 participants attended the session on Day 2.
Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University (Tumkur, Karnataka, September 15, 2012). About 30 participants including students and teachers participated in this workshop.
Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad! (By Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012). There was coverage in the Hindu on September 28, 2012. About 60 students participated in the event.

Outreach Sessions in October 2012

Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects! (October 7, 2012, Bangalore). Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Jessie Wild led the session. Seven Kannada wikipedians participated in the event.
Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012). The Access to Knowledge team was approached by Gaurav Prashar, Assistant Dean at Inmantec College, Ghaziabad to organize the workshop. Over 120 participants attended the workshop including MCA, BCA, BBA students and faculty members.
Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success! (organised by Wikipedia Club Pune at PAI International Learning Solutions, Azam Campus, Pune, October 28, 2012). Subhashish Panigrahi shares the experience in a blog post.
First Pune Odia Wikipedia Workshop Organized! (Co-organised by CIS and Pune Odia Wikipedia community, Pune, October 27, 2012). The Access to Knowledge team showed the participants the Chatasabha, a friendly desk on Odia Wikipedia and demonstrated how they can ask questions and see the answered questions. New wikipedians were connected to Facebook

Outreach Sessions in November 2012

Odia Wikipedia Workshop at AML (Academy of Media Learning, Bhubaneswar, November 10, 2012). Odia Wikipedians like Ansuman Giri, Manoranjan Behera and Diptiman Panigrahi participated in this event.
Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session (Bharati Vidyapeeth, Delhi, November 19, 2012). A Wikipedia introductory session was organised at Bharati Vidyapeeth Engineering College in Delhi early this year and a follow up session was organised by CIS on November 19, 2012. About 15 participants attended the follow up session.
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB (co-organized with CIS and with Odia Wikipedians, KMBB College, Bhubaneswar November 18, 2012). The agenda for the two-and-a-half hour session was to educate students about open source movement, journey of Wikipedia and how to contribute to Odia Wikipedia and how it would help them. Nine active Odia Wikipedians joined to support this event.

Outreach Sessions in December 2012

Marathi Wiki Workshop at TISS (co-organised with the Wikimedia India Chapter, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, December 8, 2012). There were about 25 participants (MA and PhD level) and 5 conductors - Yogesh, Nikita, Moksh, Kartik and Nitika.
Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT (NMAIT, Karkala Taluk, Karnataka December 21, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Subhashish Panigrahi led the session. About 170 engineering students took part in this event.
Wikipedia Workshop at SRM (SRM University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, December 17, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute). Noopur Raval participated in the event. About 40 students from different engineering colleges in Chennai participated in the workshop.

(Note: The following events were also conducted in December 2012. However, reports for these events were published later in January.)
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 15, 2013). The workshop was conducted on December 12 and 13, 2012 along with the Wikipedia community members for M.A. and Ph.D. students at the Goa University. Over 35 participants attended the two-day workshop.
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013). The workshop was conducted on December 14, 2012. Over 30 participants attended the session.
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team organised an introductory Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums (GLAM) session at Goa State Central Library on December 13, 2012. About 45 people from over 10 different GLAM institutes in Goa participated in the event.
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013). An introductory session on Konkani in Wikipedia was conducted at the Konkani Department in Goa University on December 12, 2012. About 30 participants took part in the event.

Outreach Session in January 2013

A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (RKGIT, Ghaziabad, January 17, 2013). Around 65 mechanical engineering students from second and third year participated in this workshop.

Outreach Session in February 2013

Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (University of Delhi, February 5, 2013). A digital literacy workshop was organised at the Department of Arts, Delhi University for students pursuing their masters in Modern Indian Languages and Literary Studies on February 5, 2013. About 30 students and 4 faculty members attended the workshop.

Outreach Sessions in March 2013

Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (organised by CIS, Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani, Goa, March 7, 2013). The Access to Knowledge team was invited by Nikhil Dixit, Public Relations Officer at the Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani – Goa (BITS Goa) to organise Wikipedia session on March 7, 2013. About 30 people participated in the event.
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop on Women's Day (organised by CIS, Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, March 8, 2013). Telugu Wikipedians Dr. Rajasekhar and Rahmanuddin alongwith T. Vishnu Vardhan led this event.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia India Chapter, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the event.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (organised by CIS, Institution of Engineers, JLB Road, Mysore, March 24, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led this workshop.
Wikipedia Indian Languages Workshop at IIT, Bombay (organised by CIS, IIT Mumbai, March 28, 2013). Noopur Raval led the event.

Outreach Sessions in April 2013

Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (April 9, 2013 at the Centre for Good Governance, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Arjunarao, Rahmanuddin and Pavithran along with T. Vishnu Vardhan led this half-day workshop. This was organized as a pre-event to Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Telugu Wikipedia Workshop (April 11, 2013 at the Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Radhkrishna and Rajachandra led this half-day workshop. This was organized as part of the Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Telugu Wikipedia Advance level Workshop (April 11, 2013 at the Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad). Telugu Wikipedians Arjunarao and Rahmanuddin led this demonstration. This was organized as part of the Telugu Wiki-Mahotsavam.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (April 29, 2013, Govinda Pai Research Centre, MGM College Udupi). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.

Outreach Sessions in May 2013

Wikipedia workshop (May 8, 2013, TISS, Mumbai). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop to the students of Post Graduate Diploma in Community Media. A total of 14 students and 1 teacher attended this multi-lingual Wikipedia training workshop.

Outreach Sessions in June 2013

Kannada Wikipedia Workshop (June 4, 2013, Ramakrishna Vidyalaya, Hassan). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja led the workshop and gave a talk on Kannada Wikipedia.
Wikipedia workshop (June 10, 2013, Internet Institute, Palm Grove, Bangalore). T. Vishnu Vardhan conducted the workshop. This orientation workshop on Wikipedia was attended by representatives from about 25 Civil Society organizations across India. This was followed up by a hands-on Wikipedia training workshop.
Kannada Wikipedia workshop for bloggers (June 24, 2013, Suchitra, Bangalore). Dr U.B. Pavanaja conducted the workshop and gave a presentation on Kannada Wikipedia.

Education Programme Updates

Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education program at Guwahati University (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012). The program was launched on October 14, 2012 with 15 post-graduate students (90 per cent of these are women students) under the guidance of Prof. Dulumoni Goswami, Head of the Department of Education, Guwahati University.
Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012). This program is the first of its kind in an Indic language, and Malayalam community is doing the program in collaboration with the IT@School, a project of the Department of General Education, # Government of Kerala, setup in 2001, to foster the IT education in schools. Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). This was a competition to raise Wikipedia awareness and help students discover the joy of writing articles in their native language and an attempt to connect producers having knowledge in Gujarati to a wide audience of more than 4,00,000 readers.
Gujarat Wikipedia Education program:Rajkot (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012). This report analyses a series of meetings and workshops held in Rajkot, a city in Gujarat, India during the month of October 2012 including students from the Galaxy Education System, Christ College students and members from the Wikipedia community.
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program to be Rolled Out (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012). Odia wikipedians launched this program at the Indian Institute of Mass Communications, Dhenkanal on November 8, 2012 to bring students to edit articles on Odia wikipedia through a series of assessments by professors.
Odia Education Program (Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal, Orissa, January 26, 2013). This is the first Odia Education Program which ran for three months and 16 students took active part in contributing on various articles on Odia Wikipedia.
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013). Sixteen student wikipedians signed up and took part in editing more than a dozen articles on Odia Wikipedia.

Hackathons

Wikipedia Hackathon at BITS Hyderabad (organized by CIS - A2K team and BITS-Pilani, Hyderabad, October 26 – 27, 2012).
A Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi (CIS, New Delhi, November 11, 2012)

Meetups

Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia! (Kolkata, November 3, 2012). The journeys of three Wikipedians — Jayanta Nath, Deepon Saha and Ashwin Baindur are examined. Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the meeting.
Wikivoyage, November 18, 2012: Ravikiran presented the Wikivoyage project and discussions on Wiki Project Karnataka. A total of 13 participants attended this meeting.
Wikidata, December 2, 2012: Lydia Pintscher presented the Wikidata project. The talk covered history of Wikidata project, state of the project and Wikidata India opportunities. About 13 people attended this event.
Wikimedia Meet-up, Hyderabad (7 Hyderabad based Wikimedians attended this meet-up. Abhijith Jayanthi - SIG Hyderabad, Rahimanuddin Shaik - SIG Telugu, Dr. Rajasekhar; Veera Venkata Chowdary, Tausif, Sai Anudeep, and Akhila Thumma came together for a discussion meeting with the CIS-A2K Program Director T. Vishnu Vardhan.
Kolkata Wiki Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Kolkata Wiki Community, March 14, 2013). Four Wikipedians from Kolkata, Wikimedia Foundation's mobile Developer Yuvaraj Pandian and OPW intern Sucheta Ghoshal joined T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi for this event.
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Cuttack, March 16, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Subhashish Panigrahi met Odia Wikipedians in Cuttack to discuss about the current state of Odia Wikipedia and understand the community building strategies.
Odia Wikipedia – Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (organised by CIS and Odia Wiki Community, Bhubaneswar, March 17, 2013).
First Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (co-organised by Telugu Wikipedia community and CIS-A2K on June 2, 2013). S.J. Veera conducted the meet-up.

Celebration and Events

Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (organized by the Odia Wiki Community with support from CIS and Academy for Media Learning, January 29, 2013, Bhubaneswar). The event attracted good coverage in the local media:

Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai (by Noopur Raval, Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Wadala, Mumbai, November 4, 2012).
Wiki Women's Day in Goa (organised by the Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Nirmala Institute of Education, Panaji, Goa, March 8, 2013). The workshop was organised on International Women's Day. Rohini Lakshane and Nitika Tandon led the workshop.
Telugu Wiki Mahotsavam 2013 (organised by Telugu Wikipedia Community and CIS, Hyderabad, April 9 – 11, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan was one of the trainers at the Wikipedia Academy at Centre for Good Governance on April 9, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan spoke about the Access to Knowledge work in one of the sessions of Wikimedia. Meeting with Media Heads on April 10, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan gave a talk on A2K’s plans for the growth of Telegu Wikipedia in 2013-14 at the Telegu Wikipedia general meeting on April 11, 2013. Vishnu Vardhan also gave a talk about Access to Knowledge in the digital era at the Wiki Chaitanya Vedika on April 11, 2013.

Events Participated In

Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (organized by Wikipedia Club, Pune, January 12 – 13, 2013).
GNUnify 2013 (organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research, Pune, February 15 – 17, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event.
Creative Commons comes to India (co-organized by Pune Linux/Unix User Group and Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies & Research in Pune, February 15, 2013, and CIS the Wikimedia India Chapter, Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore, February 25, 2013).The Access to Knowledge team participated in the CC meetings organized in Bangalore.
Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (organized by Radhakrishna Arvapally, SIG (Special Interest Group) Chair, Bangalore (a part of the Wikimedia India Chapter) with support from Solutions IQ, Wikimedia India Chapter and CIS, Indian Institute of Management, February 25, 2013). Sudhwana Jogalekar (President, Wikimedia India) spoke on Wikimedia Projects. T. Vishnu Vardhan (program Director, A2K, CIS) gave a talk on 'Accessibility to Knowledge'. Joe Justice (Founder WikiSpeed) and Vibhu Srinivasan gave a presentation of WikiSpeed Car project. Chief Guest K.S. Viswanath (Vice President, Industry Initiatives, NASSCOM) gave the welcome address. Noopur Raval participated in the event.
Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (organized by Wikimedia India and Creative Commons, Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Nitika Tandon and Subhashish Panigrahi participated in the event. CIS supported the event.
Wikipedia Workshop for Kannada Science Writers (organised by Wikimedia Chapter India, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath and CIS, Karnataka Rajya Vijnana Parishath Conference Hall, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore, March 17, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia Women's Workshop Bangalore 2013 (organised by Wikimedia India, Servelots Infotech, Jayanagar, Bangalore, March 8, 2013). The event was covered by Kannada Prabha on March 9, 2013. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja participated in the event.
Wikipedia at Avenir (organised by the Wikipedia community, Netaji Subhash Engineering College, Kolkata, West Bengal, March 11, 2013). CIS supported the event.
Wikipedia Community members helped the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications program (HEIRA) of CSCS Bangalore organizes a day-long workshop on ‘Digital Literacy’ at Ahmednagar College, Ahmednagar, Maharasthra on January 17, 2013. Tanveer Hasan of HEIRA shares with us the developments in this report. During this period, CIS established partnerships with the Goa University, Tata Institute of Social Science, Mumbai, Regional Research Centre, Udupi, etc.

Section E: Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project


Given above is a chart depicting the visualization of Indic Wikipedia project

CIS hired Sumandro Chattapadhyay and Sajjad Anwar to work on visualisation of the growth of Indic Wikipedia. Their project takes basic parameters, like page views, total articles and total editors, and compares them over time and across projects:

They have looked into the different aspects of the past and present activities of Indic Wikipedias, and divided the visualisation into three different focus areas:
1. Basic parameters
2. Geographic patterns of edits
3. Exploring topics that receive greatest number of edits. You can read more about Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters
They also worked on visualisation of the page views statistics and the project specific pages. The page views indicate the number of unique visits Wikipedia project concerned has received in one month. You can read more about Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages
Readership Dashboard: The Readership Dashboard combines a line graph showing the movement of page view for a project across the years and bar graphs showing a separate variable for the same project.
Motion Charts: The motion charts help compare Indic Wikipedia Projects across Languages on various parameters such as new editors, new articles, active editors, total editors etc.
Calendar Charts: The calendar charts limits each chart section to 12 months allowing the user to focus on more granular movements of the variable concerned, say the number of new editors per month or page views per month, etc.

Section F: The Access to Knowledge Work Plan (2013 – 2014)

The Access to Knowledge team assessed 12 of the active Indic-language communities based on the community dynamics, growth patterns in readership, and community and edit contribution for drafting this work plan. In putting together this work plan the Access to Knowledge team has extensively engaged with various stakeholders. These include: a) some Wikimedia community in India members across various Indian-language Wikimedia projects; b) some English-language Wikimedia community members from India; c) Wikimedia India chapter executive committee; d) some potential institutional partners; e) a few like-minded advocates of free knowledge; f) Access to Knowledge program Adviser Dr. Tejaswini Niranjana; and g) a few of the Wikimedia Foundation staff. Five languages were selected as core language areas. These include: Bengali, Kannada, Konkani, Odia and Telegu. Some key factors that determined the selection of languages areas included:

The Access to Knowledge team's existing ties with knowledge institutions, groups and individuals.
Willingness of language community to interact and engage with the Access to Knowledge team.
Considering Wikimedia India Chapter EC's suggestion that Access to Knowledge team should work on at least one incubation project.
Access to Knowledge team's familiarity with the languages.

However, choosing these five languages do not necessarily mean that the A2K program would not focus on the other languages rather there would be more programmatic support and organizational ties to be built.

Language Area Work Plans

The language area work plans are linked to the individual meta-pages:

The expected and dream targets for the languages are shown below:

Expected and dream targets for languages
Parameters	Telugu		Odia		Kannada		Bengali		Konkani
	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Expected target	Dream target	Target
No. of Editors	755	905	120	350	600	1000	930	1200	NA
No. of New editors	200	350	35	100	300	700	30	100	24
No. of Acitve editors	25	40	20	40	50	70	100	150	NA
No. of Aritcles	54000	55000	5000	6000	25000	30000	27000	28000	500
No. of Outreach Events	29	34	12	15	12	20	5	15	12

The detailed plan with projection of outcomes and expected impact of the A2K program activities could be accessed here.

Overall Community Support

Besides the specific programs mentioned under individual language area plans, A2K team will provide overall support to all Indian-language Wikipedia communities. This includes but is not limited to:
Creating awareness through online editing videos, editing guides and digital coverage all in local Indian languages.
Supporting outreach activities
Capacity building to multiply outreach efforts. This would include training sessions to improve presentation skills, audience engagement skills with mock presentations and video recording for feedback. The first Train-the-Trainer program is being planned in June.
Facilitate more qualitative interactions amongst community members with an aim to foster creation of new project ideas in the form of physical meet-ups, hangouts/Skype calls, and small/large scale conferences.
Organize language specific IRCs where community members from that specific language could discuss their plans, issues, concerns, and anything at all.
Encourage community members to share feedback, suggestions or details of any kind of support on A2K's Meta help page.
Supporting communities for bug reporting and following up for resolution. A detailed overall community support page can be found here.

Section G: Team Orientation and Development

Team’s Professional Development

A one-day orientation was organized in CIS where Wikimedia board members Bishakha Datta and Achal Prabhala helped the Access to Knowledge team members to develop an agenda for a period of 6-7 months. They helped team members to find overlaps, prioritise and recognize possibilities to make best use of available resources. The board members also shared learnings, principles and concepts from other movements that could be applied to the Access to Knowledge program.
A one-day orientation program was organized with Wikimedia India Chapter Executive Committee Members to find common minimum program on which both the Chapter and the Access to Knowledge team could work together to achieve common objectives. The orientation also helped define overlapping areas and how the two oragnisations will handle them.
A one-day orientation program was organised with Wikimedia community in India Members such as Tinu Cherian who gave a talk on how to leverage mainstream and social media; Gautam John who organized a workshop on organisational procedures for greater transparency and accountability, and Arun Ramarathnam who spoke about best practices for working with Wikipedia community. This orientation was organized as a part of training and skill development for the Access to Knowledge team members.
Since March 2013 CIS-A2K started having weekly Team Learning Sessions on every Wednesday. However, given the hectic schedules of the Team these could not be organized in a regular manner.

Exits and New Hires

CIS has an office in New Delhi with a five-member team for the Access to Knowledge program. The team is currently headed by T. Vishnu Vardhan, Program Director (Access to Knowledge). Other team members include Tejaswini Niranjana (Distinguished Fellow), Dr. U.B. Pavanaja (Program Officer, Indian Language Initiatives), Nitika Tandon (Program Manager) and Subhashish Panigrahi (Program Officer).

	T. Vishnu Vardhan: Vishnu Vardhan was hired as the new program Director-Access to Knowledge at CIS. Vishnu Vardhan has over the last 11 years worked in various capacities as researcher, grant manager, teacher, project consultant, information architect and translator. Vishnu Vardhan managed the Art, Crafts and Culture portfolio of Sir Ratan Tata Trust and also worked as Research Coordinator at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society in Bangalore.
	Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the team as program Officer, India Language Initiatives on March 4, 2013. Dr. Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He is one of the earliest editors of Kannada Wikipedia. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc.
	Tejaswini Niranjana is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore, and Visiting Professor at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai joined A2K as an Adviser. She guides the Access to Knowledge team in expanding the Indian language Wikipedias and helps in increasing the number of active editors through strategic partnerships with Higher Education institutions across India.

The following staff left the organisation:

Shiju Alex, Program Manager, Access to Knowledge left the organization on November 16, 2012.

Noopur Raval, Program Officer, Access to Knowledge left the organization on April 24, 2013.

Section H: Additional Links and Data

Blog Entries

Indic Language Wikipedias – Statistical Report: January – June 2012 (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012).
Kannada Wiki Workshop at Tumkur University (by Shiju Alex, September 25, 2012).
The First Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012).
Wikipedia Workshop in British Library, Chandigarh (by Subhashish Panigrahi, September 27, 2012).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Punjabi University, Patiala (by Shiju Alex and Subhashish Panigrahi, September 28, 2012).
Editor Growth & Contribution Program on Telugu Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, September 29, 2012).
Punjabi Wikipedia Workshop at Amritsar (by Shiju Alex, September 30, 2012).
Wikipedia comes to Hyderabad! (by Noopur Raval, September 30, 2012).
Bengaluru: A Hub for Kannada and Sanskrit Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 16, 2012).
Wikipedia workshop @ Inmantec College, Ghaziabad (by Nitika Tandon, October 19, 2012).
Launch of Assamese Wikipedia Education Program at Guwahati University (by Nitika Tandon, October 22, 2012).
Malayalam Wikipedia Education Program: August to October Updates (by Shiju Alex, October 29, 2012).
Bridging Gender Gap in Pune: WikiWomenDay 2012 Celebrated with Success! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 29, 2012).
Gujarat Wikipedia Education Program: Rajkot (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).
Gujarati Wikipedia Article Competition – 10 schools, 200 students, 20 articles on Gujarati Wikipedia (by Noopur Raval, October 31, 2012).
First Pune Odia Wikipedia Workshop Organized! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, October 31, 2012).
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at Academy of Media Learning (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 10, 2012).
A Wikipedia Mini-hackathon in Delhi (a guest blog post by Yuvraj Pandian, November 11, 2012).
Report on Wikipedia Hackathon held in Hyderabad (a guest blog post by Yuvi Panda, November 19, 2012).
An Odia Wikipedia Workshop at KMBB College, Bhubaneswar (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 19, 2012).
Follow up to Wikipedia Introductory Session at Bharati Vidyapeeth — More Interested and More Involved Participants (by Nitika Tandon, November 19, 2012).
Typing in Indic Languages from Mobiles made Easy! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 19, 2012).
Wikipedia Women's Workshop in Mumbai (by Noopur Raval, November 21, 2012).
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program to be Rolled Out (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012).
Kolkata: Tasting the Sweetness of Wikipedia! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 30, 2012).
Marathi Wiki Workshop at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 8, 2012).
Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 19, 2012).
A Wikipedia Workshop at SRM University, Chennai (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 27, 2012).
New Avenues: Media Wiki Groups (by Noopur Raval, December 27, 2012).
A Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 30, 2012).
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 30, 2012).
Two-day Wiki Workshop in Goa University: An Introduction (by Nitika Tandon, January 14, 2013).
Wikipedia in St. Xavier's College, Mapusa, Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 19, 2013).
Celebrating the success of Wikipedia in Wikipedia Summit Pune 2013 (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 21, 2013).
A Wiki Workshop at Raj Kumar Goel Institute of Technology, Ghaziabad (by Subhashish Panigrahi, January 22, 2013).
Bringing Konkani Encyclopedia in Public Domain (by Nitika Tandon, January 22, 2013).
Promoting GLAM in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, January 24, 2013).
Konkani in Wikipedia Incubator — Taking it to the Next Level (by Nitika Tandon, January 25, 2013).
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).
Celebrating Odia Wikipedia's Ninth Anniversary (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 19, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
Introductory Wikipedia session at BITS Goa (by Nitika Tandon, March 19, 2013).
Ahmednagar — Marathi Wikipedia Workshop (by Tanveer Hasan, March 18, 2013). This is a report contributed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society.
Wiki Women's Day in Goa (by Nitika Tandon, March 19, 2013).
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, March 26, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Cuttack Community Meetup (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 3, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia - Bhubaneswar Community Meetup (by Subhashish Panigrahi, April 4, 2013).
Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages (by Sajjad Anwar and Sumandro Chattapadhyay, April 22, 2013).
Indian WikiWomen celebrate Women’s History Month (by Netha Hussain, April 29, 2013). This is a guest blog post by Netha Hussain.
Odia Wikipedia: Needs Assessment (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 11, 2013).
Access to Knowledge Work Plan: Synopsis of Feedback by Wikipedians (by Nitika Tandon, May 20, 2013).
Wikipedia Introductory Session organized for Data and India portal consultants (by Subhashish Panigrahi, May 30, 2013).
CIS Signs MOU with TISS, Mumbai (May 31, 2013).
A Telugu Wiki Meetup @ CIS, Bangalore (April 2013 - June 2014) (a guest blog post by S J Veera, June 2, 2013).
Access To Knowledge Work Plan (April 2013 - June 2014) (by T Vishnu Vardhan, June 10, 2013).
My First Wikipedia Training Workshop – Theatre Outreach Unit, University of Hyderabad (by T Vishnu Vardhan, June 19, 2013).
Wikipedia Visual Editor (by Nitika Tandon, June 27, 2013).
A 'Kannada' Wikipedia Workshop for Bloggers (by U B Pavanaja, June 28, 2013).

Press Coverage

Odisha: Odia Wikipedia workshop organized in Pune to promote Odia language (OdishaDiary.com, October 31, 2012).
‘Some Indian laws could be challenging’ (by Kalyan Subramani, Bangalore Mirror, November 15, 2012).
A Report of the Odia Wikipedia Workshop held in KMBB College of Engineering, Bhubaneswar (Sambad, November 19, 2012).
OdishaDiary conferred prestigious Odisha Youth Inspiration Award 2012 to Odia Wikipedia team (by Pravuprasad Routray, Orissa Diary, November 23, 2012).
A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).
વિકિપીડિયા ગુજરાતી માં પણ છે (by Harsh Kothari, Cybersafar, November 28, 2012).A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).
First Odia Wikipedia Education Program concludes at IIMC, Dhenkanal (OdishaDiary Bureau, January 27, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia's 9th Anniversary and Workshop on Application of Odia in Media (Sambad, January 30, 2013).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା : ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Sambad, February 4, 2013).
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, March 2, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop, Mysore — Coverage in Prajavani (Prajavani, March 25, 2013).
CIS Celebrates 5 Years: A Report in Prajavani (Prajavani, May 24, 2013).
CIS Celebrates 5 Years: A Report in Udayavani (Prajavani, May 24, 2013).
A Feature on Wikipedia and Telugu Wikipedians on HMTV (Prajavani, May 30-31, 2013).
Wikipedia Live Phone-in Programme on HMTV (Prajavani, June 1, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Prajavani, June 5, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Samyukta Karnataka, June 5, 2013).
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Hasan (Vijaya Karnataka, June 5, 2013).
Wiki Rahasya: Panel Discussion on Suvarna News (Suvarna News 24x7, June 13, 2013).
Wiki donors (TimeOut Bengaluru, June 21, 2013).

Newsletters

The following newsletters have been published:

September 2012 Bulletin
October 2012 Bulletin
November 2012 Bulletin
December 2012 Bulletin
January 2013 Bulletin
February 2013 Bulletin
March 2013 Bulletin
April 2013 Bulletin
May 2013 Bulletin
June and July 2013 Bulletin (During this month the CIS-A2K Newsletter was redesigned based on feedback from the community and thus the June Newsletter was clubbed with July 2013).

Talk @ CIS

Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012). Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk on Wikipedia.

Section I: Budget Utilization

Currency in INR	2012-13 (Per month)	1st Year (10 months)	Budget Utilization (Sept. 2012 to June 2013)
People
Prg. Manager	1,17,000	1,170,000	1,170,000
Prg. Officer	58,800	5,88,000	580,000
Prg. Officer	1,44,000	14,40,000	1,008,000
Communications role	60,000	6,00,000	2,20,000
New Prg. Director	2,00,000	2,000,000	1,000,000
Consultant	34,500	3,45,000	2,76,000
Benefits – All	6,250	62,500	0
Staff costs	6,20,550	6,205,500	4,262,000
Rent	47,300	4,73,000	5,70,000
Janitorial	2,750	27,500	48,634
Utilities	7,500	75,000	61,836
Telephone	4,000	40,000	47,819
Office pantry	5,000	50,000	38,765
Office space	66,550	6,65,500	7,67,054
Travel
SF travel	77,726	7,77,257	1,81,887
Wikimania travel	0	0	0
Domestic travel	1,10,000	1,100,000	1,373,469
Travel	1,87,726	1,877,257	1,555,356
Printed materials	50,000	5,00,000	38,800
Design, Creative	55,000	5,50,000	1,25,400
Volunteer development	50,000	500,000	0
Postage & Mailing	2,500	25,000	5,800
Office supplies	7,500	75,000	50,192
General expenses	1,65,000	1,650,000	2,20,192
Total before fees	1,039,826	10,398,257	6,804,602
Admin fee	51,991	5,19,913	5,19,913
Program fee	51,991	5,19,913	5,19,913
Total	1,143,808	11,438,082	7,844,428

Notes:

The above table gives a picture of the A2K program budget utilization (un-audited) for the period Sept. 2012 to June 2013. Thus it is important that these figures be read as provisional figures, which could change post the statutory audit as per the Indian laws binding a Registered Society.
Approximately there is a 31% underspending of the Budget during the ten month period. This is mainly because of the transition of the program to CIS took sometime along with delays in the recruitment of the New Program Director. CIS-A2K has requested the WMF for a reallocation of the Budget since then.

Footnotes

[1]. Independent Report from Tory Read on India Education Program

[2]. Death and Post-mortem of Indian Education Program pilot. Wikimedia-India Mail archive

[3]. Most recent updates on the hiring of the Programme Director for the A2K programme. Wikimedia-India mail archive

[4]. The Access to Knowledge - Bulletin - January '13

[5]. Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #1: Visualising Basic Parameters

[6]. Indic Wikipedia Visualisation Project #2: Visualising Page Views and Project Pages

[7]. CIS-A2K Work Plan (Draft). Wikimedia-India mail archive

[8]. CIS-A2K Budget, Utilization Report and proposed revision. Wikimedia-India mail archive

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/cis-access-to-knowledge-narrative-report-september-2012-june-2013

Train the Trainer Program

subha — 2013-11-18T07:52:26Z

Wikipedians, about 20 of them, from 10 different cities, speaking 8 different languages, joined together for the first ever four days "Train the Trainer Program" organised by the Centre for Internet and Society's Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team in Bangalore from October 3 to 6, 2013.

Read the original published on the Wikipedia meta page

CIS-A2K organised the residency training program to build capacities amongst different language Wikimedia communities. A good diversity of Wikipedians from various language communities such as Bengali, Gujarati, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Odia, came over for the event.

CIS-A2K identified two prominent reasons for organizing the event: (1) Limitations of a virtual sphere, and (2) Limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities.

Limitations of a virtual sphere
Most open source communities face problem of a lack of time and space for sharing ideas in a non-virtual sphere. Similary Wikipedians, who are voluntary contributors and authors of the articles posted on Wikipedia merely get time and opportunity to meet fellow editors because of the limitations of a virtual platform on which Wikipedia is built. There are twelve active Indian language Wikimedia communities that are spread across the world and moving the bandwagon of collaborating with each other and carving their historic mark of compiling the world's largest encyclopaedia and its other sister projects. To keep this movement alive there is a need of cross-sharing ideas of working together for a common goal and strengthening the leaders of these communities.

Limited number of Wikipedians leading outreach activities
Only a handful of Wikipedians devote their time in leading outreach activities and bringing new blood to the community. Indian language Wikimedia communities are in need of empowering Wikipedians who would lead outreach sessions in order to expand their editor community and strengthen their language projects.

The inception of this program began with the discussion of organizing a training program for the Wikipedians who are willing to conduct more activities in their home cities. Finally on October 3, 2013, Bangalore heard the voices of prominent Wikipedians from Punjab, West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala. The Wikipedians delivered presentations on various topics such as — why Wikipedia is needed for the society, why Wikipedia in Indian languages, importance of starting new Wiki projects and so on.

Their presentation delivery skills were judged by Vishnu Vardhan and Nitika Tandon and all other community members present. They gave individual assessments and feedback for improvement towards the end of the day. Personal trainer Sachin Nagarajappa spent time with Wikipedians discussing mistakes that trainers do while conducting workshops and gradual improvement techniques for impactful outreach. Wikipedia is built on the concept of crowdsourcing and Malayalam Wikimedian Viswanathan Prabhakaran carried out a session about “Crowd Sourcing from the Future” explaining the various layers of crowdsourced projects.

The first day ended with a task where different language Wikipedians formed groups to prepare presentations for the following day.


Above: Wikipedians Satdeep Gill, Shyamal Lakshminarayan and Shubha during at the CIS-A2K Train-the-Trainer Program (by Subhashish Panigrahi, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Groups were given a challenge of imagining the audience as new wikipedians. Five groups presented on the second day. Sachin conducted an advanced presentation skill improvement workshop based on the inputs from the participants and the assessment of the group presentations. Veteran Wikipedian Hari Prasad Nadig shared learnings from Challenges & Opportunities in building an Indian Language Community online. Open source activist and CIS's Executive Director Sunil Abraham conducted two sessions — a spectrogram based activity to simplify the "Criticality of Neutral Point of View" and an interactive session called “Speed Geeking” on offline and online outreach followed by a one-on-one discussion on the presentation skill improvement.

Typing in Indian languages is not easy especially when it comes to multiple typing layout standards followed in the public and private sectors in India. Dr. U.B.Pavanaja conducted a session on Unicode standard for Indian languages and its usefulness with a brief context on the fonts and their different operating systems. Social media expert and Wikimedian Tinu Cherian shared the secrets of popularizing Indian language Wikipedias and bringing outstanding contributors to the limelight, how media played an important role in showcasing initiatives for free encyclopaedic content contribution in India and tips of social media. With fun activities Vishnu Vardhan shared case studies of making Wikipedia workshops interesting. Wikimedia Foundation board member and writer Achal Prabhala shared stories of documenting Oral traditions in Kerala and South Africa for Wikipedia referencing and how copyright laws evolved in the context of copyright issues that Wikipedia contributors face. Achal also threw light on content donation on WikiSource and other platforms that would be useful for people to consume for knowledge production on diverse platforms where Wikipedia could play a central role. Viswanathan and Subhashish Panigrahi demonstrated how to set up a handheld digital camera based prop to easily digitize books without using any scanner and then create electronic books.

The most vital part of Wikipedia articles is referencing. Wikimedian Shyamal Lakshminarayan demonstrated how finding sources of references and citing them for the facts on Wikipedia could be made easier through detailed research and by using several tools available. Wikimedia India's founding member and veteran Telugu Wikipedian Arjuna Rao Chavala gave a talk about the history and future plans of Wikimedia India. Wikipedians then went to M.G. Road boulevard to see the weaving work by Gandhians, Philately exhibition on Gandhi and spent some time with Namma Metro's staff to know about the metro operation. Dr. U.B. Pavanaja and Kannada Wikipedian Om Shivaprakash guided Wikipedians to the office of Deccan Herald Prajavani where they got to see the entire newspaper production and spent time with the technical staff to learn about the use of Kannada Unicode fonts for newspaper printing. Editors and staff at Prajavani got to know about the use of WikiCommons as a free image repository.

The four action filled days involved learning new concepts, training on presentation skills, collaborating to create outreach documents, sharing stories from different language communities, understanding new mediums of outreach, meeting Wikipedians from different cities and also having lots of fun. Wikipedians left Bangalore city with happy faces and we hope to cultivate new editors in their communities.

List of Participants

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/blog-old/train-the-trainer-program

Spy Files 3: WikiLeaks Sheds More Light On The Global Surveillance Industry

maria — 2013-11-14T16:21:00Z

In this article, Maria Xynou looks at WikiLeaks' latest Spy Files and examines the legality of India's surveillance technologies, as well as their potential connection with India's Central Monitoring System (CMS) and implications on human rights.

Last month, WikiLeaks released “Spy Files 3”, a mass exposure of the global surveillance trade and industry. WikiLeaks first released the Spy Files in December 2011, which entail brochures, presentations, marketing videos and technical specifications on the global trade of surveillance technologies. Spy Files 3 supplements this with 294 additional documents from 92 global intelligence contractors.

So what do the latest Spy Files reveal about India?

When we think about India, the first issues that probably come to mind are poverty and corruption, while surveillance appears to be a more “Western” and elitist issue. However, while many other developing countries are excluded from WikiLeaks’ list of surveillance technology companies, India is once again on the list with some of the most controversial spyware.

ISS World Surveillance Trade Shows

The latest Spy Files include a brochure of the ISS World 2013 -the so-called “wiretapper’s ball”- which is the world’s largest surveillance trade show. This years ’ ISS World Asia will take place in Malaysia during the first week of December and law enforcement agencies from around the world will have another opportunity to view and purchase the latest surveillance tech. The leaked ISS World 2013 brochure entails a list of last years’ global attendees. According to the brochure, 53% of the attendees included law enforcement agencies and individuals from the defense, public safety and interior security sectors, 41% of the attendees were ISS vendors and technology integrators, while only 6% of the attendees were telecom operators and from the private enterprise. The brochure boasts that 4,635 individuals from 110 countries attended the ISS World trade shows last year and that the percentage of attendance is increasing.

The following table lists the Indian attendees at last years ’ ISS World:

Law Enforcement, Defense and Interior Security Attendees	Telecom Operators and Private Enterprises Attendees	ISS Vendors and Technology Integrators Attendees
Andhra Pradesh India Police	BT	AGC Networks
CBI Academy	Cogence Investment Bank	Aqsacom India
Government of India, Telecom Department	India Reliance Communications	ClearTrail Technologies
India Cabinet Secretariat	Span Telecom Pvt. Ldt.	Foundation Technologies
India Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT)		Kommlabs
India Chandigarh Police		Paladion Networks
India Defence Agency		Polaris Wireless
India General Police		Polixel Security Systems
India Intelligence Department		Pyramid Cyber Security
India National Institute of Criminology		Schleicher Group
India office LOKAYUKTA NCT DELHI		Span Technologies
India Police Department, A.P.		TATA India
India Tamil Nadu Police Department		Tata Consultancy Services
Indian Police Service, Vigilance		Telecommunications India
Indian Telecommunications Authority		Vehere Interactive
NTRO India
SAIC Indian Tamil Nadu Police

17 4 15

According to the above table - which is based on data from the WikiLeaks ’ ISS World 2013 brochure- the majority of Indian attendees at last years’ ISS World were from the law enforcement, defense and interior security sectors. 15 Indian companies exhibited and sold their surveillance technologies to law enforcement agencies from around the world and it is notable that India’s popular ISP provider, Reliance Communications, attended the trade show too.

In addition to the ISS World 2013 brochure, the Spy Files 3 entail a detailed brochure of a major Indian surveillance technology company: ClearTrail Technologies.

ClearTrail Technologies

ClearTrail Technologies is an Indian company based in Indore. The document titled “Internet Monitoring Suite ” from ClearTrail Technologies boasts about the company’s mass monitoring, deep packet inspection, COMINT, SIGINT, tactical Internet monitoring, network recording and lawful interception technologies. ClearTrail’s Internet Monitoring Suite includes the following products:

1. ComTrail: Mass Monitoring of IP and Voice Networks

ComTrail is an integrated product suite for centralized interception and monitoring of voice and data networks. It is equipped with an advanced analysis engine for pro-active analysis of thousands of connections and is integrated with various tools, such as Link Analysis, Voice Recognition and Target Location.

ComTrail is deployed within a service provider network and its monitoring function correlates voice and data intercepts across diverse networks to provide a comprehensive intelligence picture. ComTrail supports the capture, record and replay of a variety of Voice and IP communications in pretty much any type of communication, including - but not limited to- Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, BlackBerry, ICQ and GSM voice calls.

Additionally, ComTrail intercepts data from any type of network -whether Wireless, packet data, Wire line or VoIP networks- and can decode hundreds of protocols and P2P applications, including HTTP, Instant Messengers, Web-mails, VoIP Calls and MMS.

In short, ComTrail’s key features include the following:

- Equipped to handle millions of communications per day intercepted over high speed STM & Ethernet Links

- Doubles up as Targeted Monitoring System

- On demand data retention, capacity exceeding several years

- Instant Analysis across thousands of Terabytes

- Correlates Identities across multiple networks

- Speaker Recognition and Target Location

2. xTrail: Targeted IP Monitoring

xTrail is a solution for interception, decoding and analysis of high speed data traffic over IP networks and independently monitors ISPs/GPRS and 3G networks. xTrail has been designed in such a way that it can be deployed within minutes and enables law enforcement agencies to intercept and monitor targeted communications without degrading the service quality of the IP network. This product is capable of intercepting all types of networks -including wireline, wireless, cable, VoIP and VSAT networks- and acts as a black box for “record and replay” targeted Internet communications.

Interestingly enough, xTrail can filter based on a “pure keyword”, a URL/Domain with a keyword, an IP address, a mobile number or even with just a user identity, such as an email ID, chat ID or VoIP ID. Furthermore, xTrail can be integrated with link analysis tools and can export data in a digital format which can allegedly be presented in court as evidence.

In short, xTrail’s key features include the following:

- Pure passive probe

- Designed for rapid field operations at ISP/GPRS/Wi-Max/VSAT Network Gateways

- Stand-alone solution for interception, decoding and analysis of multi Gigabit IP traffic

- Portable trolley based for simplified logistics, can easily be deployed and removed from any network location

- Huge data retention, rich analysis interface and tamper proof court evidence

- Easily integrates with any existing centralized monitoring system for extended coverage

3. QuickTrail: Tactical Wi-Fi Monitoring

Some of the biggest IP monitoring challenges that law enforcement agencies face include cases when targets operate from public Internet networks and/or use encryption.

QuickTrail is a device which is designed to gather intelligence from public Internet networks, when a target is operating from a cyber cafe, a hotel, a university campus or a free Wi-Fi zone. In particular, QuickTrail is equipped with multiple monitoring tools and techniques that can help intercept almost any wired, Wi-Fi or hybrid Internet network so that a target communication can be monitored. QuickTrail can be deployed within fractions of seconds to intercept, reconstruct, replay and analyze email, chat, VoIP and other Internet activities of a target. This device supports real time monitoring and wiretapping of Ethernet LANs.

According to ClearTrail’s brochure, QuickTrail is a “all-in-one” device which can intercept secured communications, know passwords with c-Jack attack, alert on activities of a target, support active and passive interception of Wi-Fi and wired LAN and capture, reconstruct and replay. It is noteworthy that QuickTrail can identify a target machine on the basis of an IP address, MAC ID, machine name, activity status and several other parameters. In addition, QuickTrail supports protocol decoding, including HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and HTTPS. This device also enables the remote and central management of field operations at geographically different locations.

In short, QuickTrail’s key features include the following:

- Conveniently housed in a laptop computer

- Intercepts Wi-Fi and wired LANs in five different ways

- Breaks WEP, WPA/WPA2 to rip-off secured Wi-Fi networks

- Deploys spyware into a target’s machine

- Monitor’s Gmail, Yahoo and all other HTTPS-based communications

- Reconstructs webmails, chats, VoIP calls, news groups and social networks

4. mTrail: Off-The-Air Interception

mTrail offers active and passive ‘off-the-air’ interception of GSM 900/1800/1900 Mhz phone calls and data to meet law enforcement surveillance and investigation requirements. The mTrail passive interception system works in the stealth mode so that there is no dependence on the network operator and so that the target is unaware of the interception of its communications.

The mTrail system has the capability to scale from interception of 2 channels (carrier frequencies) to 32 channels. mTrail can be deployed either in a mobile or fixed mode: in the mobile mode the system is able to fit into a briefcase, while in the fixed mode the system fits in a rack-mount industrial grade chassis.

Target location identification is supported by using signal strength, target numbers, such as IMSI, TIMSI, IMEI or MSI SDN, which makes it possible to listen to the conversation on so-called “lawfully intercepted” calls in near real-time, as well as to store all calls. Additionally, mTrail supports the interception of targeted calls from pre-defined suspect lists and the monitoring of SMS and protocol information.

In short, mTrail’s key features include the following:

- Designed for passive interception of GSM communications

- Intercepts Voice and SMS “off-the-air”

- Detects the location of the target

- Can be deployed as a fixed unit or mounted in a surveillance van

- No support required from GSM operator

5. Astra: Remote Monitoring and Infection framework

“Astra ” is a remote monitoring and infection framework which incorporates both conventional and proprietary infection methods to ensure bot delivery to the targeted devices. It also offers a varied choice in handling the behavior of bots and ensuring non-traceable payload delivery to the controller.

The conventional methods of infection include physical access to a targeted device by using exposed interfaces, such as a CD-ROM, DVD and USB ports, as well as the use of social media engineering techniques. However, Astra also supports bot deployment without requiring any physical access to the target device.

In particular, Astra can push bot to any targeted machine sharing the same LAN (wired, wi-fi or hybrid). The SEED is a generic bot which can identify a target’s location, log keystrokes, capture screen-shots, capture Mic, listen to Skype calls, capture webcams and search the target’s browsing history. Additionally, the SEED bot can also be remotely activated, deactivated or terminated, as and when required. Astra allegedly provides an un-traceable reporting mechanism that operates without using any proxies, which overrules the possibility of getting traced by the target.

Astra’s key features include the following:

- Proactive intelligence gathering

- End-to-end remote infection and monitoring framework

- Follow the target, beat encryption, listen to in-room conversations, capture keystrokes and screen shots

- Designed for centralized management of thousands of targets

- A wide range of deployment mechanisms to optimize success ration

- Non-traceable, non-detectable delivery mechanism

- Intrusive yet stealthy

- Easy interface for handling most complex tasks

- Successfully tested over the current top 10 anti-virus available in the market

- No third party dependencies

- Free from any back-door intervention

ClearTrail Technologies argue that they meet lawful interception regulatory requirements across the globe. In particular, they claim that their products are compliant with ETSI and CALEA regulations and that they are efficient to cater to region specific requirements as well.

The latest Spy Files also include data on foreign surveillance technology companies operating in India, such as Telesoft Technologies, AGT International and Verint Systems. In particular, Verint Systems has its headquarters in New York and offices all around the world, including Bangalore in India. Founded in 1994 and run by Dan Bodner, Verint Systems produces a wide range of surveillance technologies, including the following:

- Impact 360 Speech Analytics

- Impact 360 Text Analytics

- Nextiva Video Management Software (VMS)

- Nextiva Physical Security Information Management (PSIM)

- Nextiva Network Video Recorders (NVRs)

- Nextiva Video Business Intelligence (VBI)

- Nextiva Surveillance Analytics

- Nextiva IP cameras

- CYBERVISION Network Security

- ENGAGE suite

- FOCAL-INFO (FOCAL-COLLECT & FOCAL-ANALYTICS)

- RELIANT

- STAR-GATE

- VANTAGE

While Verint Systems claims to be in compliance with ETSI, CALEA and other worldwide lawful interception and standards and regulations, it remains unclear whether such products successfully help law enforcement agencies in tackling crime and terrorism, without violating individuals’ right to privacy and other human rights. After all, Verint Systems has participated in ISS World Trade shows which exhibit some of the most controversial spyware in the world, used to target individuals and for mass surveillance.

And what do the latest Spy Files mean for India?

Why is it even important to look at the latest Spy Files? Well, for starters, they reveal data about which Indian law enforcement agencies are interested in surveillance and which companies are interested in selling and/or buying the latest spy gear. And why is any of this important? I can think of three main reasons:

1. The Central Monitoring System (CMS)

2. Is any of this surveillance even legal in India?

3. Can such surveillance result in the violation of human rights?

Spy Files 3...and the Central Monitoring System (CMS)

Following the Mumbai 2008 terrorist attacks, the Telecom Enforcement, Resource and Monitoring (TREM) cells and the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) started preparing the Central Monitoring System (CMS ). As of April 2013, this project is being manned by the Intelligence Bureau, while agencies which are planned to have access to it include the Research & Analysis Wing (RAW) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). ISP and Telecom operators are required to install the gear which enables law enforcement agencies to carry out the Central Monitoring System under the Unified Access Services (UAS ) License Agreement.

The Central Monitoring System aims at centrally monitoring all telecommunications and Internet communications in India and its estimated cost is Rs . 4 billion. In addition to equipping government agencies with Direct Electronic Provisioning, filters and alerts on the target numbers, the CMS will also enable Call Data Records (CDR) analysis and data mining to identify personal information of the target numbers. The CMS supplements regional Internet Monitoring Systems , such as that of Assam, by providing a nationwide monitoring of telecommunications and Internet communications, supposedly to assist law enforcement agencies in tackling crime and terrorism.

However, data monitored and collected through the CMS will be stored in a centralised database, which could potentially increase the probability of centralized cyber attacks and thus increase, rather than reduce, threats to national security. Furthermore, some basic rules of statistics indicate that the bigger the amount of data , the bigger the probability of an error in matching profiles, which could potentially result in innocent people being charged with crimes they did not commit. And most importantly: the CMS currently lacks adequate legal oversight, which means that it remains unclear how monitored data will be used. The UAS License Agreement regarding the CMS mandates mass surveillance by requiring ISPs and Telecom operators to enable the monitoring and interception of communications. However, targeted and mass surveillance through the CMS not only raises serious questions around its legality, but also creates the potential for abuse of the right to privacy and other human rights.

Interestingly enough, Indian law enforcement agencies which attended last years ’ ISS World trade shows are linked to the Central Monitoring System. In particular, last years’ law enforcement, defense and interior security attendees include the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) and the Department of Telecommunications, both of which prepared the Central Monitoring System. The list of attendees also includes India’s Intelligence Bureau, which is manning the CMS, as well as the agencies which will have access to the CMS: the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) and various other state police departments and intelligence agencies.

Furthermore, Spy Files 3 entail a list of last years ’ ISS World security company attendees, which includes several Indian companies. Again, interestingly enough, many of these companies may potentially be aiding law enforcement with the technology to carry out the Central Monitoring System. ClearTrail Technologies, in particular, provides solutions for targeted and mass monitoring of IP and voice networks, as well as remote monitoring and infection frameworks - all of which would potentially be perfect to aid the Central Monitoring System.

In fact, ClearTrail states in its brochure that its ComTrail product is equipped to handle millions of communications per day, while its xTrail product can easily be integrated with any existing centralised monitoring system for extended coverage. And if that’s not enough, ClearTrail’s “Astra ” is designed for the centralized management of thousands of targets. While there may not be any concrete proof that ClearTrail is indeed aiding the Centralized Monitoring System, the facts speak for themselves: ClearTrail is an Indian company which sells target and mass monitoring products to law enforcement agencies. The Centralized Monitoring System is currently being implemented. What are the odds that ClearTrail is not equipping the CMS? And what are the odds that such technology is not being used for other mass electronic surveillance programmes, such as the Lawful Intercept and Monitoring (LIM)?

Spy Files 3...and the legality of India’s surveillance technologies

ClearTrail Technologies’ brochure -the only leaked document on Indian surveillance technology by the latest Spy Files- states that the company complies with ETSI and CALEA regulations. While it’s clear that the company complies with U.S. and European regulations on the interception of communications to attract more customers in the international market, such regulations don’t really apply within India, which is part of ClearTrail’s market. Notably enough, ClearTrail does not mention any compliance with Indian regulations in its brochure. So let’s have a look at them.

India has five laws which regulate surveillance:

1. The Indian Telegraph Act, 1885

2. The Indian Post Office Act, 1898

3. The Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act, 1933

4. The Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPc ), 1973: Section 91

5. The Information Technology (Amendment ) Act, 2008

The Indian Post Offices Act does not cover electronic communications and the Indian Wireless Telegraphy Act lacks procedures which would determine if surveillance should be targeted or not. Neither the Indian Telegraph Act nor the Information Technology (Amendment ) Act cover mass surveillance, but are both limited to targeted surveillance. Moreover, targeted interception in India according to these laws requires case-by-case authorization by either the home secretary or the secretary department of information technology. In other words, unauthorized, limitless, mass surveillance is not technically permitted by law in India.

The Indian Telegraph Act mandates that the interception of communications can only be carried out on account of a public emergency or for public safety. However, in 2008, the Information Technology Act copied most of the interception provisions of the Indian Telegraph Act, but removed the preconditions of public emergency or public safety, and instead expanded the power of the government to order interception for the “investigation of any offense”.

The interception of Internet communications is mainly covered by the 2009 Rules under the Information Technology Act 2008 and Sections 69 and 69 B are particularly noteworthy. According to these Sections, an Intelligence Bureau officer who leaked national secrets may be imprisoned for up to three years, while Section 69 not only allows for the interception of any information transmitted through a computer resource, but also requires that users disclose their encryption keys upon request or face a jail sentence of up to seven years.

While these laws allow for the interception of communications and can be viewed as widely controversial, they do not technically permit the mass surveillance of communications. In other words, ClearTrail’s products, such as ComTrail, which enable the mass interception of IP networks, lack legal backing. However, the Unified Access Services (UAS ) License Agreement regarding the Central Monitoring System mandates mass surveillance and requires ISP and Telecom operators to comply.

Through the licenses of the Department of Telecommunications, Internet service providers, cellular providers and telecoms are required to provide the Government of India direct access to all communications data and content even without a warrant, which is not permitted under the laws on interception. These licenses also require cellular providers to have ‘bulk encryption’ of less than 40 bits, which means that potentially any person can use off-the-air interception to monitor phone calls. However, such licenses do not regulate the capture of signal strength, target numbers like IMSI, TIMSI, IMEI or MSI SDN, which can be captured through ClearTrail’s mTrail product.

More importantly, following allegations that the National Technical Research Organization (NTRO) had been using off-the-air interception equipment to snoop on politicians in 2011, the Home Ministry issued a directive to ban the possession or use of all off-the-air phone interception gear. As a result, the Indian Government asked the Customs Department to provide an inventory of all all such equipment imported over a ten year period, and it was uncovered that as many as 73,000 pieces of equipment had been imported. Since, the Home Ministry has informed the heads of law enforcement agencies that there has been a compete ban on use of such equipment and that all those who possess such equipment and fail to inform the Government will face prosecution and imprisonment. In short, ClearTrail's product, mTrail, which undertakes off-the-air phone monitoring is illegal and Indian law enforcement agencies are prohibited from using it.

ClearTrail’s “Astra ” product is capable of remote infection and monitoring, which can push bot to any targeted machine sharing the same LAN. While India’s ISP and telecommunications licenses generally provide some regulations, they appear to be inadequate in regulating specific surveillance technologies which have the capability to target machines and remotely monitor them. Such licenses mandate mass surveillance, but legally, wireless communications are completely unregulated, which raises the question of whether the interception of public Internet networks is allowed. In other words, it is not clear if ClearTrail’s QuickTrail is technically legal or not. The UAS License agreement mandates mass surveillance, and while the law does not prohibit it, it does not mandate mass surveillance either. This remains a grey area.

The issue of data retention arises from ClearTrail ’s leaked brochure. In particular, ClearTrail states in its brochure that ComTrail - which undertakes mass monitoring of IP and Voice networks - retains data upon request, with a capacity that exceeds several years. xTrail - for targeted IP monitoring - has the ability to retain huge volumes of data which can potentially be used as proof in court. However, India currently lacks privacy legislation which would regulate data retention, which means that data collected by ClearTrail could potentially be stored indefinitely.

Section 7 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, deals with the retention of electronic records. However, this section does not state a particular data retention period, nor who will have authorized access to data during its retention, who can authorize such access, whether retained data can be shared with third parties and, if so, under what conditions. Section 7 of the Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, appears to be incredibly vague and to fail to regulate data retention adequately.

Data retention requirements for service providers are included in the ISP and UASL licenses and, while they clarify the type of data they retain, they do not specify adequate conditions for data retention. Due to the lack of data protection legislation in India, it remains unclear how long data collected by companies, such as ClearTrail, would be stored for, as well as who would have authorized access to such data during its retention period, whether such data would be shared with third parties and disclosed and if so, under what conditions.

India currently lacks specific regulations for the use of various types of technologies, which makes it unclear whether ClearTrail ’s spy products are technically legal or not. It is clear that ClearTrail’s mass interception products, such as ComTrail, are not legalized - since Indian laws allow for targeted interception- but they are mandated through the UAS License agreement regarding the Central Monitoring System.

In short, the legality of ClearTrail’s surveillance technologies remains ambiguous. While India’s ISP and telecom licenses and the UAS License Agreement mandate mass surveillance, the laws - particularly the 2009 Information Technology Rules- mandate targeted surveillance and remain silent on the issue of mass surveillance. Technically, this does not constitute mass surveillance legal or illegal, but rather a grey area. Furthermore, while India ’s Telegraph Act, Information Technology Act and 2009 Rules allow for the interception, monitoring and decryption of communications and surveillance in general, they do not explicitly regulate the various types of surveillance technologies, but rather attempt to “legalize” them through the blanket term of surveillance.

One thing is clear: India’s license agreements ensure that all ISPs and telecom operators are a part of the surveillance regime. The lack of regulations for India’s surveillance technologies appear to create a grey zone for the expansion of mass surveillance in the country. According to Saikat Datta, an investigative journalist, a senior privacy telecom official stated:

“Do you really think a private telecom company can stand up to the government or any intelligence agency and cite law if they want to tap someone’s phone?”

Spy Files 3...and human rights in India

The facts speak for themselves. The latest Spy Files confirm that the same agencies involved in the development of the Central Monitoring System (CMS) are also interested in the latest surveillance technology sold in the global market. Spy Files 3 also provide data on one of India’s largest surveillance technology companies, ClearTrail, which sells a wide range of surveillance technologies to law enforcement agencies around the world. And Spy Files 3 show us exactly what these technologies can do.

In particular, ClearTrail’s ComTrail provides mass monitoring of IP and voice networks, which means that law enforcement agencies using it are capable of intercepting millions of communications every day through Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail and others, of correlating our identities across networks and of targeting our location. xTrail enables law enforcement agencies to monitor us based on our “harmless” metadata, such as our IP address, our mobile number and our email ID. Think our data is secure when using the Internet through a cyber cafe? Well QuickTrail proves us wrong, as it’s able to assist law enforcement agencies in monitoring and intercepting our communications even when we are using public Internet networks.

And indeed, carrying a mobile phone is like carrying a GPS device, especially since mTrail provides law enforcement with off-the-air interception of mobile communications. Not only can mTrail target our location, listen to our calls and store our data, but it can also undertake passive off-the-air interception and monitor our voice, SMS and protocol information. Interestingly enough, mTrail also intercepts targeted calls from a predefined suspect list. The questions though which arise are: who is a suspect? How do we even know if we are suspects? In the age of the War on Terror, potentially anyone could be a suspect and thus potentially anyone’s mobile communications could be intercepted. After all, mass surveillance dictates that we are all suspicious until proven innocent .

And if anyone can potentially be a suspect, then potentially anyone can be remotely infected and monitored by Astra. Having physical access to a targeted device is a conventional surveillance mean of the past. Today, Astra can remotely push bot to our laptops and listen to our Skype calls, capture our Webcams, search our browsing history, identify our location and much more. And why is any of this concerning? Because contrary to mainstream belief, we should all have something to hide !

Privacy protects us from abuse from those in power and safeguards our individuality and autonomy as human beings. If we are opposed to the idea of the police searching our home without a search warrant, we should be opposed to the idea of our indiscriminate mass surveillance. After all, mass surveillance - especially the type undertaken by ClearTrail ’s products - can potentially result in the access, sharing, disclosure and retention of data much more valuable than that acquired by the police searching our home. Our credit card details, our photos, our acquaintances, our personal thoughts and opinions, and other sensitive personal information can usually be found in our laptops, which potentially can constitute much more incriminating information than that found in our homes.

And most importantly: even if we think that we have nothing to hide, it’s really not up to us to decide: it’s up to data analysts. While we may think that our data is “harmless”, a data analyst linking our data to various other people and search activities we have undertaken might indicate otherwise. Five years ago, a UK student studying Islamic terrorism for his Masters dissertation was detained for six days . The student may not have been a terrorist, but his data said this: “Young, male, Muslim... who is downloading Al-Qaeda’s training material” - and that was enough for him to get detained. Clearly, the data analysts mining his online activity did not care about the fact that the only reason why he was downloading Al-Qaeda material was for his Masters dissertation. The fact that he was a male Muslim downloading terrorist material was incriminating enough.

This incident reveals several concerning points: The first is that he was clearly already under surveillance, prior to downloading Al-Qaeda’s material. However, given that he did not have a criminal record and was “just a Masters student in the UK”, there does not appear to be any probable cause for his surveillance in the first place. Clearly he was on some suspect list on the premise that he is male and Muslim - which is a discriminative approach. The second point is that after this incident, it is likely that some male Muslims may be more cautious about their online activity - with the fear of being on some suspect list and eventually being prosecuted because their data shows that “they’re a terrorist”. Thus, mass surveillance today appears to also have implications on freedom of expression. The third point is that this incident reveals the extent of mass surveillance, since even a document downloaded by a Masters student is being monitored.

This case proves that innocent people can potentially be under surveillance and prosecuted, as a result of mass, indiscriminate surveillance. Anyone can potentially be a suspect today, and maybe for the wrong reasons. It does not matter if we think our data is “harmless”, but what matters is who is looking at our data, when and why. Every bit of data potentially hides several other bits of information which we are not aware of, but which will be revealed within a data analysis. We should always “have something to hide ”, as that is the only way to protect us from abuse by those in power.

In the contemporary surveillance state, we are all suspects and mass surveillance technologies, such as the ones sold by ClearTrail, can potentially pose major threats to our right to privacy, freedom of expression and other human rights. And probably the main reason for this is because surveillance technologies in India legally fall in a grey area. Thus, it is recommended that law enforcement agencies in India regulate the various types of surveillance technologies in compliance with the International Principles on Communications Surveillance and Human Rights.

Spy Files 3 show us why our human rights are at peril and why we should fight for our right to be free from suspicion.

This article was cross-posted in Medianama on 6th November 2013.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/spy-files-three

Banking and Accessibility in India: A Report by CIS

nirmita — 2013-08-13T04:00:19Z

The report gives an analysis of banking accessibility for persons with disabilities in India. Besides a detailed look at the legal provisions and guidelines on banking and technology, the report also provides a view on different disabilities in relation to banking and accessibility in India and contains case studies and guidelines from countries such as New Zealand, Australia, the United States of America, Canada and the Netherlands. The report sums up the analysis with suggestions and recommendations to improve banking accessibility for persons with disabilities in India.

Executive Summary

India is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and has an obligation to provide equal opportunities and facilities to everyone, irrespective of any disabilities they might suffer from. This is guaranteed in the right to equality and the right to life, which are enshrined in the fundamental rights in the Constitution of India. There are specific Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notifications that mandate banks to offer banking facilities in a non-discriminatory manner to all customers. Nevertheless, there are many problems faced by people with disabilities while accessing banking and financial services in India. For instance, many banks and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) are not physically accessible, staff has no training or expertise in dealing with customers who have special needs, and despite the existence of technology, and ATMs are not equipped to be used by people with disabilities.

There are several international guidelines which can be referred to while formulating policy on banking accessibility, such as guidelines on ATM construction and modification (USA) and guidelines on making websites accessible for people with disabilities (the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), as well as voluntary standards that have been taken up by banking associations in countries like Australia and New Zealand in order to make banking more accessible to people with disabilities and the elderly population.

The adoption of accessibility features and technologies in Indian banks today is very low, despite there being a legislative as well as executive push for the same. Banks which do not follow these guidelines are not meeting their legal requirements, and it is important for them to understand not just their obligations, but also the benefits that will accrue to them if they follow the suggested guidelines. To that end, this report looks at the current notifications and guidelines that govern this area, the problems faced by people with disabilities, and looks at guidelines from other countries to suggest solutions that can be incorporated by different banks in India.

Introduction

As per the 2001 Census, there are around 2.19 crore persons with disabilities in India. They constitute 2.13 per cent of the total population of the country.[1] This includes persons with visual, hearing, speech, locomotor and mental disabilities. Despite these numbers, there is a lack of understanding of their needs, and people with disabilities face a number of obstacles when it comes to living a normal life, and availing banking facilities is a big part of the problem. Consider the fact that only 50 out of the 1.04 lakh Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in India are accessible to people with disabilities.[2] There is a general lack of infrastructure and awareness in India that permits people with disabilities to use banking services. This translates to problems not just in accessing a physical bank and seeking help from a bank official, but also extends to accessing services such as ATM machines and online banking options. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that around 75 per cent of persons with disabilities live in rural areas, and only around 49 per cent of the disabled population is literate and only 34 per cent is employed.[3] Although one may find some rare cases of disabled-friendly banking options in the metros, in the rural areas, there are neither facilities nor is there any sensitisation towards meeting the needs of the disabled.

India is a signatory to both the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 2006[4] (hereinafter, “UNCRPD”) and Biwako Millennium Framework towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for PWDs in Asia and the Pacific, 2002[5] and thus has an international obligation to ensure equal access to all members of the population. This obligation extends to giving people with disabilities the right to conduct banking services. This has been recognised by several Reserve Bank of India (RBI) directives as well, although these guidelines have not been fully implemented so far.

Currently, it is very difficult for people with disabilities to use banking services in India. If a person who has a hearing disability walks into a branch for a home loan, the branch does not have a person who can understand or interpret sign language. More usually, the branch does not even have the resources or knowledge about whom to contact to facilitate the interaction by interpreting. These obstacles mean that a person with disability/ies always has to latch on to someone who is fully capable to help them. Without such help in the form of guarantors or co-borrowers who are fully capable, the chances of obtaining finance from the banks are low because bank's probably give a person with disability/ies a much lower credit rating based on their own internal criteria. These determinations automatically put the disabled at a disadvantage. A person with a learning disability, for example, dyslexia, will face severe difficulty filling out an application form (or any document for that matter) and banks are not disabled friendly in terms of the attitude of the staff towards such difficulties.

Making banking accessible for people with disabilities is both a best practice that should be followed, as well as a sound commercial decision. There are a large number of people in India with differing levels of disability, who would benefit from using banking services. Additionally, the number of people will only increase with time as India’s young population grows old, since incidence of disability increases with age.[6] The Internet, above all, is a tool for people with disabilities to bridge the differences between them and others, and all efforts must be made to ensure that they are not at a disadvantage when it comes to using services such as net banking. There is also the consideration that improving accessibility improves access for all users, and makes it possible for them to make use of more services. A lot of accessibility issues (such as the physical accessibility to branches and ATMs, signature mismatches due to hand tremors or strokes) are common to the disabled, the elderly and those with neurological conditions. Taken together, this constitutes a significant percentage of the customer base — so these issues should be addressed by banks for that reason alone.

This report will look at the legal imperatives that govern accessibility in banking services in India, and look at the various problems being faced by people with disabilities when trying to use banks. It will also look at sample guidelines from other countries and suggest best practices for banking institutions, as well as take a look at the various costs that could be incurred in trying to make their banks more accessible.

The scope of this report is restricted to covering only basic banking services in India, and other financial services, such as insurance and loans, have not been dealt with.

Legal Imperatives

The rights of persons with disabilities have been recognised under various legal instruments, and it has been established that they are to be given the same services and privileges as other members of society.

Constitutional Provisions

Part III of the Constitution of India, which deals with the fundamental rights of citizens, recognizes the principle of equality of all people. Article 14 states that the government must accord equal protection of the law to any person within the territory of India.[7] This recognition of the importance of non-discrimination means that the state must ensure that people with disabilities do not suffer disadvantages when it comes to accessing public services.

Article 15, which deals with prohibition of discrimination on various grounds states that no citizen is to be subject to any disability, liability or restriction with regard to access to shops, public restaurants, and other public places.[8]

It is evident that this important constitutional protection extends to people with disabilities, and it is their right to gain equal and accessible access to all manner of services, including banking.

Legislation dealing with Disability

There are several national laws that deal with the rights of people with disabilities, though not all of these laws have a direct bearing with banking.

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995 (“the PWD Act”) was enacted to give effect to the proclamation on the full participation and equality of people with disabilities on both central and state governments. The PWD Act has been enacted under Article 253 of the Constitution.[9] It has several provisions for people with disabilities, including education, employment, creation of barrier free environment, social security and similar overlooked areas. It provides for a three tier arrangement:

For evolution of policy for the benefit of persons with disabilities Implementation of the provisions of the Act and laws, policies, etc., and monitoring implementation and redressing grievances.

The implementation of the Act relies on collaboration between the appropriate governments, which includes various central ministries and departments, state and union territories, and local bodies.[10]

Chapter VIII of the Act deals with non-discrimination, and one of the measures it recommends is making buildings accessible by simple measures such as curb cuts and slopes in the pavements for wheelchair users.

There are several problems with the enactment.[11] The terms "accessibility" and "disability" are not clearly defined. They are also not provided as a matter of right but are based on the economic capacity of the service provider. It also fails to consider the access to services and information. However, public banks need to be conscious, since they will usually be considered to have sufficient economic capacity, and might be bound to deliver their services to people with disabilities. This has often become an issue in other jurisdictions as well. In 2009, the Royal Bank of Scotland, for example, was forced to pay extensive damages to a disabled student who was unable to access the bank due to a lack of wheelchair lifts.[12]

The National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999

The trust is intended to give complete care to people with mental retardation and cerebral palsy, and also manage the properties bequeathed to the trust. The trust supports programmes that promotes independence and address the concerns of these special persons, especially the ones who do not have family support. The trust is also empowered to receive grants, donations, benefactions, requests and transfers.[13]

The Mental Health Act, 1987

The Act consolidates and amends the law relating to the treatment and care of mentally ill persons, in order to make better provisions with respect to their property and affairs, and other incidental matters.[14]

The Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992

The Act was created to provide for the constitution of the Rehabilitation Council of India for regulating training of the rehabilitation professionals and maintaining of a central rehabilitation register. It also regulates the recognized rehabilitation qualifications, and prescribes minimum standards of education.[15]

RBI Notifications

The most important resource when it comes to banking guidelines is the RBI, which comes out with regular notifications. The RBI has been conferred wide powers under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (BRA),[16] under which it can supervise and control the various banking companies, and they are bound to follow its directions. Section 35A of the Act specifies that in public interest or in the interest of banking policy, the RBI can issue such directions as it deems fit, and the banking companies or the banking company, as the case may be, shall be bound to comply with such directions.[17]

RBI has released several notifications dealing with the rights of the disabled.

Circular on grant of banking facilities to the visually challenged

In its Circular DBOD. No. Leg BC. 91 /09.07.005/2007-08 dated June 4, 2008,[18] the RBI mandated that banking facilities (including cheque book facility, operation of ATM, locker, etc.) cannot be denied to the visually challenged as they are legally competent to contract.

In the notification, the RBI recalled the order of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, which had earlier been passed by the Indian Banks’ Association (“IBA”) to its member banks. The Order instructed that banks should offer all the banking facilities including cheque book facility, ATM facility and locker facility to the visually challenged and also assist them in withdrawal of cash. This order has reiterated that there can be no denial of services just because there is an apprehension of risk in operating or using the facility; it said that a similar security threat exists for all members of the population.

As per the RBI notification, the banks are therefore bound to:
Ensure that all the banking facilities such as cheque books are offered to the visually impaired without any discrimination. These facilities should include third party cheques, ATM, net banking, locker, retail loan and credit card facilities.

Advise their branches to render all possible assistance to the visually impaired for availing the various banking facilities.

Circular on making ATMs accessible

The RBI had been receiving several suggestions to make branches and ATMs easily accessible to people with disabilities by providing ramps so that wheel chair users can access them and the height of the machine is also appropriate for them. It had also been receiving suggestions for installing speaking software and key pads with letters in Braille to facilitate use by persons with visual impairment. After considering these suggestions, the RBI passed a notification, directing the banks to implement such measures.

As per its Circular DBOD. No. Leg BC. 91 /09.07.005/2007-08 dated June 4, 2008, RBI has directed all banks to provide:

Ramps to ATMs: Banks have to take necessary steps to provide all existing ATMs or future ATMs with ramps so that wheelchair users or persons with disabilities can easily access them and also make arrangements in such a way that the height of the ATM does not create an impediment in its use by a wheelchair user.
Ramps at bank entrances: Banks may also take appropriate steps including providing ramps at the entrance of the bank branches so that the persons with disabilities or wheelchair users can enter the bank branches and conduct business without much difficulty.
Accessible ATMs: Banks should make at least one third of new ATMs installed as talking ATMs with Braille keypads and place them strategically in consultation with other banks to ensure that at least one talking ATM with Braille keypad is generally available in each locality for catering to needs of visually impaired persons.
Information about the ATMs: Banks should also bring the locations of such talking ATMs to the notice of their disabled customers.

Circular on implementation of the guidelines

These guidelines were strongly reiterated as recently as September 5, 2012, where the RBI by its notification numbered DBOD.No. Leg.BC. 38/09.07.005/2012-13[20] highlighted the abovementioned circulars. It said that it had been brought to their notice by the Office of the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities that visually challenged persons are facing problems in availing banking facilities like internet banking.

Banks were advised under this notification to strictly adhere to instructions contained in the above circulars and extend all banking facilities to persons with blindness, low-vision and other disabilities.

Circular on guardianship certificates

The RBI, by its Master Circular DBOD.No.Leg.BC.9/ 09.07.006/ 2009-10[21]dated July 1, 2009 on Customer Service, directed banks to accept guardianship certificates issued by local level committees set up under the National Trust Act, enabling persons with disabilities like autism and cerebral palsy to open and operate accounts. Banks were advised to rely on the guardianship certificate issued either by the district court under the Mental Health Act or by the local level committees under the National Trust Act for the purposes of opening and operating bank accounts[22] by the legal guardians for people with disabilities that is covered under the Act. Banks were also advised to ensure that their branches give proper guidance so that the parents or relatives of the person with disability/ies do not face any difficulties in this regard. It has also directed that information about the opening of such bank accounts be displayed conspicuously, in both English as well as the regional language, in its circular RBI /2009-10/142.[23] This notification was in response to a Delhi High Court decision that directed banks to put up such information.

Banks are therefore directed to:

Accept guardianship certificates: Banks can accept certificates issued by local level committees set up under the National Trust Act or district court under the Mental Health Act, so that persons with disabilities like autism and cerebral palsy can open and operate accounts.
Provide assistance: Banks should ensure that their branches give proper guidance so that the parents or relatives of the person with disability/ies do not face any difficulties.
Display information: Banks should ensure that information about the opening of such bank accounts be displayed conspicuously, in both English as well as the regional language.

National Policy on Disability

The National Policy for Persons with Disabilities, which was published in 2006, recognizes the extent of problems faced by the disabled in India. The report also discusses the number of citizens who are affected by disability: “According to the Census 2001, there are 2.19 crore persons with disabilities in India who constitute 2.13 per cent of the total population. This includes persons with visual, hearing, speech, locomotor and mental disabilities. Seventy five per cent of persons with disabilities live in rural areas, 49 per cent of disabled population is literate and only 34 per cent are employed. The earlier emphasis on medical rehabilitation has now been replaced by an emphasis on social rehabilitation. There has been an increasing recognition of the abilities of persons with disabilities and emphasis on mainstreaming them in the society based on their capabilities.”[24] The policy endorses accessibility and says that a barrier-free environment enables people with disabilities to move about safely and freely, and use the facilities within the built environment. In the principle areas of intervention identified by the policy, it ensures that banking services are made barrier free and accessible.[25]

The National Policy is intended to inform the disability plan to be incorporated in the 11th Five Year plan,[26] which will have a timeline and funds for programmes which can be allotted through the Finance Commission.

Explaining Disabilities

There are many problems faced by people with disabilities when they consider banking and financial services. From the very beginning, banks are a complicated route to charter for people with disabilities. Banks often resort to complex schemes and pricing systems, which can be difficult to understand for people with cognitive disabilities.[27] Finding bank branches and ATMs in their neighbourhood which are disabled-friendly and can be accessible to them is another difficulty, especially in a place like India where finding information is often a problem. There might be problems with physical accessibility — lack of ramp which makes it impossible for a wheelchair-bound person to use a bank or uncomfortable height of an ATM which makes it unwieldy for a wheelchair-bound person to access it — which can extend to the virtual realm as well: if a bank’s website is not complying with the standards for web-accessibility (discussed below) and is difficult to use by people with disabilities, they will be unable to take recourse to internet banking, as well.

In many countries such as Australia[28] there is great reliance on phone banking, which can be especially helpful to blind customers, or on audio-based telephone devices, which can be used by deaf-blind or the deaf customers. However, neither technology is at present available in India; text-based alternatives or spoken prompts (TTY based telephone banking) are not used by any banks. It is therefore essential that if a customer is using the interactive voice response (“IVR”) system of a bank and speaking to a bank representative on the phone to get a transaction done that the communication be clear, precise and easy to follow — as anyone who has attempted phone banking in India would testify, that is certainly not the case.

Let us take a look at some specific disabilities and what banks can do to ensure accessibility to their customers:

Problems faced by the hearing impaired while banking

When a person who cannot hear goes to a bank, the first problem they face is the fact that unless they are proficient at lip reading, they will find it difficult to communicate with the bank officials or tellers even when undertaking simple tasks like withdrawing money or depositing cheques. An important point to remember is that most hearing impaired people are more familiar with sign language than with English, and so can get confused by the complicated language used by the banks in their brochures and information booklets. If a deaf customer is communicating with the bank official by writing out instructions, it could take a longer time than other customers and they might face problems with other customers.

Another problem that might occur is that error messages or other audio cues might not be picked up by customers who are using multimedia based banking services or ATM machines.[29] This problem is exacerbated when using customer care services for banks, which are usually available only on the phone. With a lack of technological options for the hearing impaired, they are unable to access the IVR systems, or interact with customer care executives, which make it difficult for them to avail of all banking service facilities.

What can banks do?

Training: Ensure that the bank staff is sensitised to the needs of the disabled and deaf customers, and know of a sign language translator who can be called if a customer requires it.
Ease of understanding: Make the instructions — both in the physical banks as well as in ATMs and websites — simple and precise, so they are easily understood. This will help all customers, not just those with disabilities.
Technical solutions: One solution available in some countries is using a phone-to-text machine or software that enables hearing impaired customers to use the phone banking and customer care services of a bank. For example, the Royal Bank of Scotland users can use a Typetalk or BT Textdirect service which will enable them to speak to an operator and so convey their messages.[30] If a bank feels that sufficient customers will benefit from such a technology, it should invest in it.
Sign language interpretation: A more low-tech solution is to offer interpretative services, where customers who need it can be assisted by someone who is proficient in sign language to help relay their point across to the bank.

Problems faced by the visually impaired while banking

Visually impaired customers can find it difficult to navigate and even reach their banks, if the path is not clear and if the building is not provided with enough ramps and clear entrances. Even understanding the terms and conditions of banks and their services are difficult to comprehend, because the language used to describe services and procedures is confusing and complicated. Often, a booklet with the terms and conditions is simply handed over with no concern for how the person is supposed to read them. Visually impaired people might also face problems in distinguishing details on cheques and other financial instruments which, unlike currency, do not have physically distinguishable marks on them.

Visually impaired customers often face a lot of problems while using ATMs, because the keys are not marked with recognisable lettering in Braille. Even when there is a token raised symbol on the middle key or Braille markings on the keypad for tactile recognition, there is still the problem that what is being displayed on the touchscreen, as well as the instructions on how to proceed with a transaction, are not capable of being communicated. Most ATMs in India are not equipped with an audio jack, and so can’t be used by blind customers who want to connect headphones and hear the display on the screen.

There is also the problem of signature mismatches, especially when it comes to opening accounts and signing cheques. Currently the bank’s solution is to not have the person with disability/ies sign the cheque, which is not a solution that works consistently, especially when a person with disabilities is running a company. There should be a separate process in place to facilitate issuance of cheques by the visually impaired.[31]

The first and most obvious problem with the visually impaired using net banking and other services on the internet is that they won’t be able to see the screen. Similarly, when they attempt to use the ATM machines, the screen cannot be read and the keyboard functions are often unclear. The problem is often accentuated for people with low vision, because the improper lighting, low contrast print and other glares make it difficult to make out what the screen says.[32] Some sites have a security requirement where users have to input CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) codes in order to validate their payment or to register for a particular service; using such security codes can be particularly problematic for blind customers.[33] Banks websites might have pop ups or automatic music playing, which makes it difficult for the visually impaired to use their screen readers. Another problem arises in the mobile applications (“apps”) that are used by various banks; the format is not supported by screen readers on smartphones, and so customers with disabilities can’t use the facility made available to others.

What can banks do?

Training: Sensitise the staff to the needs of blind customers, and ensure that there is a customer care executive who is present when a visually impaired customer needs assistance with a particular service.
Accessible formats: Printing out bank documents or statements in large size fonts, Braille or in audio script format if required is the first thing that banks can do to assist their visually impaired customers. Banks can also try to migrate towards accessible e-text or DAISY formats for their disabled customers.
Banking Guide: Coming out with a bank note guide to help identify the different bank notes and counterfeits, if any, is also important for visually impaired people who rely on their sense of touch. Similarly, an accessible format guide that takes you through the various steps that are involved in withdrawing cash or using an ATM would greatly assist blind customers who are using a new format or type of bank machine for the first time. At the same time, increasing the screen size and resolution of ATM screens would go a long way in improving access to the customers.
Templates: Banks can also be encouraged to come out with cheque book templates, so that blind users can familiarise themselves with using such bank documents and the process of writing cheques becomes easier for them.[34] Banks should also develop a better solution to the problem of visually impaired customer’s inability to sign cheques.
Open format statements: Banks should also ensure that when they provide customers with statements, they are made available in open formats, such as HTML or RTF, so that they can easily be read by screen readers.
Technical solutions: There are some alternatives to the CAPTCHA codes available, such as audio codes or maths questions. Some sites have the option of hearing the codes, instead of just seeing them. There are also human aided accessible CAPTCHA services (such as Solona), where the customer can send a screenshot of the screen to an aide. However, this has several security and privacy implications, and so is not an ideal solution. Multimedia on the websites of banks should be made optional, with a clear possibility of turning the music or animation off, so that users can use the screen reader without any problems.
Mobile apps: Banks should work with their technology partners to ensure that their mobile apps are accessible on all devices and can be used by customers using assistive technology.
Improved ATMs: Several banks around the world are switching to ATMs which give output in multiple formats, such as audio and large-font print,[35] making them more user friendly. There are several guidelines in effect in various jurisdictions which describe better design for ATMs, which takes into account the physical needs of disabled customers; newer ATMs which are set up should be asked to conform to such standards. While this is slowly starting to take place, more banks need to expand and improve their building structures keeping such guidelines and needs in mind. This has been discussed in the next section on ATM Guidelines.
Sensitisation: Special care should be taken to explain terms and conditions to visually impaired persons — there should be an effort to ensure that the person who is opening an account has understood the various terms and conditions and not just heard them.

Problems faced by those with physical disabilities while banking

In India, a major problem is the physical accessibility of banks, with hardly any buildings being equipped with ramps and elevators; even if the bank itself is made accessible via these architectural modifications, the area surrounding the bank, for example, the market place, might be difficult to reach for people in wheelchairs, ultimately making it very difficult for them to use banks.

People with physical disabilities might find controlling their limbs for prolonged periods to be a problem, and so would find it difficult to use not just the physical banking services, but also internet services which necessitate controlling a mouse for a long period of time.

What can banks do?

Build ramps: The most important step that needs to be taken by different banking institutions is ensuring that their ATMs and branches are accessible through a ramp, so that it is physically possible to reach from the road or other public area.
Elevators: Where possible, elevators should also be provided.
Special measures: Within the bank, there should be special provisions for people in wheelchairs or crutches, such as a designated queue and teller, so that they do not have to wait in queue for a long period of time.

Problems faced by those with cognitive disabilities while banking

People with cognitive disabilities might have lower attention spans and might have problems with understanding complicated bank procedures and requirements. If the steps involved in using an ATM or other physical transactions are not logical and simple, people with cognitive disabilities will be unable to handle them. As a lot of Indian banks are rather chaotic and the transactions lack a certain consistency, people with cognitive disabilities could face a lot of problems adjusting. People who have cognitive disabilities might also be relying on their guardians or parents to assist in operating their bank accounts, and legal and bureaucratic hurdles to doing so can be a big hassle.

The front staff at banks are often improperly trained and do not have a holistic understanding of how to deal with people with disabilities. It has also been observed that while banks can be helpful while opening accounts, they are not open-minded about granting loans to people with disabilities.[36]

Customers who are autistic have hand function issues which can cause their signatures not to match the ones on record, which again causes problems when it comes to opening accounts or signing cheques which ultimately bounce.

What can banks do?

Sensitisation: Sensitise the staff to the special needs of customers with cognitive disabilities.
Display of information: Information for guardians of such customers, on the requirements for opening bank accounts, should be prominently displayed in the branches of the bank (Refer to Section 4.3.4).
Uniformity in procedures: Banks should make uniform guidelines or procedures to be followed for each transaction, so that there is a certainty and regularity that eases the way for people with cognitive disabilities.
Clear language: Banks should also ensure that they use extremely simple and clear language in all their transactions as well as literature in order to mitigate confusion.[37]
Identity establishment: There need to be rules put in place to allow those who are unable to sign properly to establish identity in some other manner.

Guidelines on Banking Services and Technology

The previous section has looked at some of the problems being faced by people with disabilities when they access banking services in India. This section will look at some guidelines and best practices which are aimed at increasing the accessibility of services.

Mobile banking

There is the possibility of accessing a variety of financial services through mobile devices, which are termed as mobile banking or “m-banking”. This accessibility means that a lot of people with disabilities who live in rural areas, who have earlier not been able to access banks, can now do so using their mobile phones. Mobile banking also makes it much easier for customers with bank accounts to access their details and do transactions — for people with disabilities, this is a big step forward, as it means they do not have to endure the hassle and inconvenience of going to a bank, where they may not find the assistance that they need.

Currently, mobile banking is not that prevalent in India; less than one per cent of current bank customers are covered under the mobile banking services.[38]

However, the growth in mobile banking transactions has shown an increasing trend. For example, in the month of June 2012, 3.43 million transactions amounting to Rs. 3067.10 million were processed, as compared to 1.41 million transactions amounting to Rs. 984.66 million processed in June 2011 — an increase of about 143 per cent in volume and approximately 211 per cent in value terms.[39]

The Reserve Bank of India has passed some operating guidelines for mobile banking transactions.[40] These guidelines specify the technology and security standards, as well as the requirements for interoperability between operators, transaction limits and procedure for grievance redressal. They also tackle customer protection issues.

Banks should leverage the flexibility and utility of mobile banking in increasing access to their customers who have disabilities, as it would mean lesser expenses for both the banks as well as the customers.

Internet banking

Internet banking is increasingly popular with customers, due to its convenience and ease of use; it removes the necessity of physically going to a bank. Since physical banks are often difficult for people with disabilities to navigate, internet banking could provide the best solution (though there are several problems with this medium as well, as have been described in the previous chapter). However, banks can make their websites more accessible and follow the prescribed guidelines to ensure a better banking experience not just for their disabled customers, but for all customers.

The biggest obstacle that comes with developing net banking options which are accessible to all is the wide diversity in the people who are trying to access the banks’ websites, and it is here that universal design comes into play. “The goal of universal design is to have each web page accessible by all people, instead of providing separate web pages for people with disabilities. This requires, for example, for people who are blind, textual equivalents for all images, and reading order and structure compatible with screen reading; for people who are deaf, visual equivalents such as captions for all audio information; and for people with motor disabilities, means to navigate the page without fine motor control.”[41]

There are a set of standards in place for website accessibility. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (“WCAG”) 2.0 specify the manner in which the material on any website is to be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.[42] Under these four stated principles of web content accessibility, twelve guidelines have been given, which give the web content developers a framework and set of objectives to understand the needs of the disabled. There are also levels of conformance that are defined for each guideline, and a list of sufficient and advisory techniques has also been given.[43]

The WCAG 2.0 Guidelines includes some basic steps, such as including text alternatives for all non-text objects, including descriptors or captioning for images, audio and animated sequences, and following a style sheet wherever possible, in order to maintain a consistent design. The guidelines deal with visibility and display (using contrasting colours for background and text; using relative sizing so that the text can be increased to upto 200 per cent), functionality (providing skip links such as “Back to Top”; ensuring that animation can be paused or switched off; ensuring keyboard as well as mouse functionality), and formatting (ensuring the text is not justified; setting the language attribute of each page; providing clear navigation mechanisms; ensuring that all mark up is validated and coded correctly), amongst others.[44]

The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has developed some guidelines for government websites, which contain best practices for accessibility in website design; these guidelines were released in 2009, and are mandated for governmental websites. The guidelines are classified into three categories: mandatory, advisory and voluntary; a compliance matrix has been provided for various departments and organisations to assess their compliance with the guidelines.[45] It is crucial that banks comply with these guidelines to ensure that a certain basic minimum standard at web accessibility is met for the banking customers across all websites.

Another dimension which is unique to India is that of regional language; for banking customers who are not comfortable with English, it is recommended that bank websites be provided in major regional languages as well. The best way to display regional fonts is to use Unicode (UTF-8). Banks should ensure that Unicode is used to display the fonts, as otherwise the fonts can become garbled and a person using a screen reader will not be able to access the written material at all.

A critical guideline to be followed is that visual information should also be coupled with audio information, and that frequency and volume of the audible cues should be capable of being configured and controlled by the user.[46]

Automated Teller Machines (ATMs)

The number of ATMs and their penetration in India is very low: 63 ATMs and 497 points of sale per million population,[47] and a number of regulatory and commercial requirements have led to their relative low (though increasing) use in India. RBI has recently passed guidelines on operating White Label ATMs[48] which effectively open up most of the acquiring part of the process to non-bank independent players.[49] This should ensure that there is a greater increase in the number and penetration of ATMs in India, which will be beneficial for people with disabilities only if the ATM-makers ensure that minimum guidelines for the disabled are met with.

Currently there are no guidelines in India on how to construct ATMs in accordance with the needs of people with disabilities. However, banks can take guidelines from other jurisdictions as their guide and look at how other countries have handled the issue of making ATMs more accessible. It is hoped that this lacuna in the policy will be filled soon.

The American Department of Justice recently notified a final ruling on the standards of accessibility relating to ATMs under the Americans with Disability Act (“ADA”). Such standards range from requirements that signs be in Braille, a voice guidance system, and input controls for blind users.[50] These standards took effect in March 2011, and had a March 2012 compliance date. All ATM owners are to comply with these guidelines when constructing or altering ATMs.

Some salient features of these guidelines are:

Height and reach: It is mandated that the ATM’s reach should be between 15 and 48 inches. Further, the graphic area where the touch commands are input needs to be lowered to the desired height.
The input device should be tactile, and so the surface of the keys should be different from the base and this should be apparent by touch. The keypad should also be arranged in a standard 12-key ascending or descending layout, as seen in telephones or computers.
ATMs must be equipped with both voice guidance systems as well as Braille language signage. This would mean adding a headphone jack to the machine, so the audio is heard only by the user and thus ensuring his privacy.
The display in the ATM needs to be clear; from an observation point 40 inches above the floor in front of the machine, the letters should appear in a sans serif font, with a minimum height of 3/16 inches, in a colour contrasting to the background.
There is also a requirement of equal services, which means that all services offered at any location through a bank’s ATM must also be provided by an “accessible” ATM in the same location. For this purpose, each installation is to be considered as a separate location.

The Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) has issued a Standards document on Accessible ATMs for customers with disabilities, and has also released a work flow document to be followed by various banks. The IBA Standards documents states that:

“The fundamental principle of an Accessible ATM for development, testing and implementation purposes is to ensure a machine which enable the user to complete all transactions successfully with a blank screen simply through voice guidance for totally blind users, permit independent use through clear screen data for low vision / partially sighted users and effective physical access for wheel chair users.”

The document specifies different accessibility measures to be taken for each level of accessibility (for example: completely blind users and users with partial sight), with details about the size and measurement of various features that need to be incorporated. It also includes a workflow to be incorporated into the Speaking ATMs for the effective use by people with disabilities.

Currency

For currency to be most effective as a means of payment, all users should have barrier-free access. The ability to conduct financial transactions using bank notes is crucial to independent living.[52] Yet this can pose significant challenges for individuals who are blind or partially sighted.

Physical currency (both notes and coins) are confusing and often cannot be distinguished from each other by merely feeling them. There is a great similarity between the hundred, five hundred and thousand rupee notes, as well as in the coins which are now completely confusing. Notes should also be discernible to the colour blind, which in their current form is not always possible. Various representations have been made to the Government of India on this regard and the change required is only a small one, though no changes have so far been forthcoming.

India can learn from the example of other countries which have experimented in the past with introducing currency which is friendlier to people with disabilities. Whether it is the printing of differently coloured notes, or the development of “raised-texture tactile features,”[53] there are several alterations that can be made to the currency. In India, the bank notes come with raised texture shapes to help the visually impaired to identify the different notes, and also come in different colours, though further improvements can be made. This problem is exacerbated in the coins — earlier, there was a differentiation in shape between them, but the newly minted coins of denominations Rs. 1, Rs. 2 and Rs. 5 are all very similar, and differentiating between them is a big problem.

In countries such as Canada, development of bank notes is based on a “continuous process that relies on scientific and empirical research, together with direct feedback from bank note user groups and experts. The bank consults Canadians living with blindness and low vision, as well as their representative organizations and vision experts, to identify the needs of this community and to explore potential solutions.”[54] It is this sort of consultative process that needs to be incorporated in India as well.

Telephone Banking

Telephone banking is in its nascence in India and not all banks provide it. Furthermore, there are no guidelines in place to govern how telephone banking would take place. For people with disabilities, telephone banking could be very useful, if the proper tools are made available to them. Banks can look at the draft guidelines of other countries (refer to section 8 of the Report) which have provisions for phone banking to see what kind of procedure they should follow.

Converting to Accessibility in India

Making banking accessible is not just in the commercial interest of the bank but is also in line with its commitments under various legislation and international conventions. In India, this has even been acknowledged by the RBI, which has issued a notification[55] suggesting that at least one-third of the new ATMs of all banks must be accessible.[56] Dinesh Kaushal has studied[57] some examples, such as the Punjab National Bank, which has set up some talking ATMs in Jaipur, or the State Bank of India which in 2010 announced plans of installing 7000 talking ATMs, but there is no news on the status of this goal. Currently the bare minimum target set by RBI is also not being met.

Subsequent to the RBI notifications, some positive developments have started taking place. The Union Bank of India has indicated that it will deploy over 100 Voice Guided ATMs — which not only allows access to visually impaired people but also people with physical disabilities through ramps for wheel chair access.[58]

Half of these ATMs are to be put up in the banks, and the other half in passport offices. The ‘Talking ATM’ is designed as per Access for All (AFA) standards and comprise of accessible key pads, voice-guidance technology, Braille stickers and multi-lingual capability. When a visually challenged person attaches his headphone set to this ATM, he can hear the instruction which enables him to fill-in the required data using the numeric keypad. Apart from reading aloud screen messages, the machine provides complete orientation making it easy for the customer to use the machine. An important security feature of this ATM is that it provides the person an option to blank out the screen as a safety mechanism to avoid shoulder surfing by any bystander trying to access customer data during the transaction.[59] The bank recently completed setting up the 100th such ATM in the building of the National Association for the Blind.

The NCR Corporation India, which has a 47.5 per cent share in the country’s ATM business, has stated that it will install 50 ‘talking’ ATMs in various passport offices.[60] The company set up India’s first talking ATM in Ahmedabad for the visually impaired under the Union Bank of India initiative described above. Importantly, the managing director of the ATM company stated that while the hardware of the ATMs remains the same, the software customisations depend on the specific needs. Banks do not need to change their entire fleet of ATMs for installation of new solutions.[61]

One concern that arises when we consider questions of accessibility is: what would be the cost of altering the present technology and infrastructure? If the cost of making banking accessible is too prohibitive, it would not be in the interests of the banks to do so.

“A talking ATM is the regular ATM with an additional module that allows a blind person to get the information in audio format. A talking ATM could be configured so that when a user plugs in a headphone in the audio jack, the ATM would start talking to the person with audio messages…Installing talking ATM technology is not very expensive. It might range anywhere between Rs. 25,000 and Rs. 50,000.”[62]

There needs to be an evaluation of the present ATMs to see if merely upgrading the software would suffice in converting them to speaking ATMs — if this is the case, it can be done so with the help of the manufacturer at a low cost. The evaluation would also help the banks identify those machines which can be upgraded by the addition of some simple technology and hardware, while the others could be marked for eventual replacement. At the same time, the new machines that are set up by the banks should be audio-enabled; this should not be difficult as “all new ATM installations are audio enabled, as all major ATM manufacturers now produce talking ATMs including Triton, NCR, Wincor-Nixdorf, Diebold, and Fujitsu.”[63]

Under the Americans with Disability Act, the determination of when an undue burden is placed on an establishment which has to make its services accessible is to be determined on a case by case basis, and would be considered keeping in mind factors such as the nature and cost of the upgrades, the availability of alternatives and the resources present with the financial institution in question.[64] Such a system should be incorporated in India as well, where the ability of the bank is considered when seeing the efforts it needs to make when converting its services to make them more accessible.

Union Bank of India’s Accessible and Talking ATM has brought in many initiatives for the first time, like the use of bilingual Indian accent text-to-speech (TTS) voices in English and Hindi, accessible infrastructure for the physically disabled and complete voice guidance support for ATM operation.[65] These should set the benchmark for other banks who want to improve the accessibility of their services as per the guidelines set forth by RBI.

Case studies and Guidelines in Other Countries

Looking at the guidelines that are present in other countries can be helpful in determining how banks in India should go about improving their services. The following countries have specific provisions in place which regulate or instruct how banks should handle their disabled customers.

New Zealand

The New Zealand Banker’s Association published a set of Voluntary Guidelines to meet the needs of older and disabled customers, which aim to improve access to banking services for such customers.[66] The guidelines recognise the increasing importance of older and disabled customers to banks as well as the importance of meeting their needs and demands. The guidelines direct the member banks to give training to the staff in order to better help the disabled customers, as well as to have specific procedures in place in case financial irregularities or abuse occur in bank accounts of people with disabilities. There are directions on improving physical accessibility (such as providing for low tables, ramps in ATMs, queuing aisles wide enough for wheelchairs and so on), as well as giving specific customer care help to those who need it, such as consulting the needs of the disabled when developing new services, having a provision for a reduction in fee if some customers are unable to use certain features, and having a provision for personal banking in special cases at no additional cost.

There are also specific provisions in the Guidelines for things such as ATM construction. Section 5.9 of the Guidelines specifies the factors to be kept in mind while designing ATMs: large screens, audible output, tactile differentiation in the keys, easy prompts in clear language and so on.[67] Section 5.10 talks about improving the accessibility of online banking and how bank websites should be designed, and recommends the use of international W3C web accessibility best practice standard, the accessibility-related New Zealand e-government web standards.[68] Finally, the Guidelines also talk about basics, such as clear and large font prints in their literature, and providing information in several formats (including Braille, DVD, and audio) wherever possible, to facilitate bank use by people with disabilities.[69]

Australia

The Disability Discrimination Act, 1992 (“DDA”) makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person on the grounds of a disability.[70] The objects of the DDA include eliminating, as far as possible, discrimination against people with disabilities and promoting recognition and acceptance within the community that people with disabilities have the same fundamental rights as the rest of the community. The law is administered by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and sets out specific areas in which it is unlawful to discriminate. These areas include accommodation, employment, access to premises, and the provision of goods, services[71] and facilities. The HREOC administers the legislation, which includes complaints handling, public inquiries, policy development and education and training. The Commission has supported the development of several voluntary guidelines that determine accessibility in the sphere of banking.

The Australian Bankers’ Association (“ABA”) has worked with the community to produce voluntary Industry Standards in 2002 which aim to improve the accessibility of electronic banking. These standards cover a range of areas: ATMs, Electronic Funds Transfer at the Point of Sale, Automated Phone Banking and Internet banking.[72]

The voluntary standards for ATMs[73] cover a broad range of topics, including their access and location, their operation, the method of swiping and removing the cards, the display, the keypad, the output, security and privacy for the users, and finally, installation and operating instructions. There is a checklist provided with the recommended detailed standards for each of the above areas.

Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale[74] occurs when funds are directly transferred from a cardholder's bank account to the retailer, when the cardholder's magnetic stripe card is swiped in an EFTPOS terminal. Cardholder authentication occurs by signature or Personal Identification Number (PIN). These standards cover areas such as access and location of the EFTPOS terminals, process of swiping, inserting or removing the card, operating instructions, display, keypad and output options, amongst others. A helpful checklist has been provided for EFTPOS deployers to assess whether their machines are disabled-friendly.

The guidelines on phone banking[75]

deal with financial services which are available to the customer via the telephone, that can be used by the customer without having to converse with an employee of the financial institution. The guidelines look at certain design principles, best practices for input and navigation, output, documentation, the role of TTY Communications and Relay Operators, and dealing with timeouts and errors. Like with the other standards, a checklist with the best practices as per the guidelines has been provided.

The standards on internet banking[76]

looks at various aspects of financial transactions taking place on the internet, and prescribe guidelines for design and implementation (for example: compliance with the WCAG1.0 standards), feedback and testing of accessibility, compatibility, enhanced usability (in areas such as navigation, registration, login, information redundancy and so on), consistency and user support. A specification checklist is also provided, so that owners can comfortably see whether their site is compliant with the guidelines or not.

There is an action plan for the above four set of guidelines, to check their implementation and to identify problems and barriers that may arise in the future.[77] Though these guidelines are voluntary, it is worthwhile to consider the example of such a detailed action plan, as implementation of any sort of guidelines will only become more efficient if something like this is followed.

The Australian Banker’s Association has also come up with a set of Guiding Principles for Accessible Authentication, which recognizes that “accessibility issues need to be considered in the deployment of authentication technologies, to ensure that people with disabilities and older people are not disadvantaged… The purpose of the Guiding Principles is to provide a framework for financial institutions to help reach a workable balance between security requirements, commercial strategies and equitable access to banking products and services.”[78] The Principles aim to follow certain universal design principles, of equitable and flexible use, minimal effort, simple and intuitive design, amongst others. They are as follows:[79]

Accessibility of authentication technologies: Financial institutions should ensure that authentication technologies are accessible to all customers, or where this is not possible, a human-based alternative authentication system needs to provide equivalent amenity and convenience.
Customer convenience: All customers should be able to undertake their personal and business financial activities conveniently and safely.
Authentication planning: Financial institutions should consider the accessibility needs of customers with disabilities and older customers as part of authentication technology planning.
Authentication testing: Financial institutions should consult customers with disabilities and older customers as part of planning and testing accessibility of authentication technologies.
Registration, login and transaction procedures: Financial institutions should ensure that registration; login and transaction procedures are as accessible as possible to all customers.
Messages and error recovery: Financial institutions should ensure that online messages are unambiguous and written in “plain English” and that error recovery processes are efficient and accessible.
Staff and customer training: Financial institutions should provide relevant customer support staff with appropriate disability awareness training so they are aware of the needs of customers with disabilities and older customers. In addition, financial institutions should provide customers with information and training in the use of available authentication technologies.
Raising staff, business and customer awareness: Financial institutions should develop a strategy for enabling relevant management and staff awareness of these Guiding Principles. In addition, financial institutions should promote the availability of alternative accessible authentication technologies with their customers.
Confidentiality of customer information: Financial institutions must ensure the confidentiality of information of customers with disabilities and older customers.

United States of America

The 2010 Standards under the ADA have set out detailed requirements to make ATMs accessible, as was discussed in the previous section of the paper. These elements are considered by the Department of Justice to be Auxiliary Aids and Services (and not structural elements) and the safe harbour provision does not apply to them.[80]

Though American ATMs have been equipped with text to speech functions and have been subject to height and space requirements for many years, the new rules provide for additional security and instructional features for disabled customers.[81]

All the ATMs which come under the scope of the ruling will have to be speech enabled; further, there are specifications as to the height requirement (the machine should be between 15 and 48 inches in height). There is a requirement that the input area be not just touchscreen, and it should be tactilely discernible from the surrounding surface; the keypad should be arranged in a manner that is common and easy to remember. Instructions about the use of the ATMs should be given in Braille and equal services should be offered to all customers, irrespective of their disabilities.

Subsequent to the passing of the ruling, the American Bankers’ Association recommended that banks be aware of the legal requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act; ABA advocated that banks make a careful audit of their existing machines, and compare them to the standards to which they need to conform. In case the machines need to be upgraded, the machine manufacturers would have to be contacted in order to make alterations, if necessary.

Canada

Canada has issued standards for “self-service interactive devices”,[82] the umbrella term under which ATMs would fall, the purpose of which is to specify minimum accessibility and usability requirements for self-service interactive devices intended for public use. The standard specifies accessibility requirements for automated banking machines (ABMs) — both stand-alone and wall mounted — and ABM sites. There are specifications which give the various minimum dimensions that must be conformed to when constructing such self-service interactive devices. However, the standards do not look at the technological aspect, specifically excluding it from their purview and giving that responsibility to the relevant authority.[83] It is interesting to note that the steering committee that ultimately led to the adoption of the standards was pulled together by the Canadian Banker’s Association, and the committee included representatives from the major Canadian banks.[84] The committee recommended that there be a mandatory requirement for audible instructions and the provision for attaching headphones to an automated banking machine; it would be the duty of the financial institution to provide the headsets to the disabled customers, along with a list of machines where they could be used. The committee also looked into the issue of the cost of making the machines and other areas more accessible, and though they were waiting for more conclusive research, they were hesitant about the prohibitive cost of major redesigns.[85]

Netherlands

In 2007, the Dutch National Forum on the Payment System produced a document in English on "Guidelines for user-friendly payment terminals". These guidelines include advice on making payment terminals accessible and easy to use for people with disabilities and older people.[86] The guidelines describe certain standardised elements of the PIN payment procedure, the user interface and advocates practical values for the same.[87] The document then goes on to specify important design principles which must be kept in mind while considering the accessibility of payment gateways and banks; the guideline is designed in such a way that if the design principles are to be kept in mind, the subsequent ergonomic principles which have been described will be easy to meet.[88]

Suggestions and Recommendations

The report illustrates that though banks are mandated to ensure that there is accessibility in banking services in India, there is still a lot that needs to be done. There are several measures that can be taken up by banks, which will not be costly and which will be especially rewarding for customers with disabilities:

Compliance with RBI Guidelines: Banks should ensure a basic minimum compliance with the guidelines set forth by RBI for increasing access to banking services as described in Section 4.3 of the Report.
Compliance with International norms: Banks also need to ensure a basic minimum compliance with international norms, such as the WCAG 2.0 standards for websites, so that people with disabilities can access the bank websites with ease.
Physical Accessibility: Banks need to ensure that as far as possible, there is at least physical accessibility to their branches — which would include building ramps, having wider lifts, and so on. Branches should, even if they cannot be located on the ground floor, at least make reasonable accommodations for the disabled, such as having a person who can assist them up to the branch or come down to meet them. Branches should be organised in an easily navigable manner and there should always be a plan for assistance in place — interpreters, special staff to assist with filling out of forms, physical assistance, and easily available information in the form of maps, diagrams, bold text explanations, etc. Banks should also focus more on creating avenues for disabled customers to use their services. This would include building usable and user-friendly voice systems, which is currently needed.[89]
Technical Solutions: Today there are many technological solutions to overcome some of the barriers faced by the visually challenged in the area of banking. Finger print identification technology[90] can be effectively explored to allow the use of thumb impressions while operating bank accounts.[91] For example, the XRCVC is in the process of developing a 'thumb print recognition software named as "e-Signs" with the help of CMC Ltd. (a TATA Enterprise) which can be applied across the banking system in partnership with the RBI to process cheques.[92] Most manufacturers now have accessible ATM models and banks must ensure that new ATMs have these models installed, and that old ATMs are retrofitted to become accessible. Banks should also work with their technology departments to ensure that their mobile apps are accessible on screen reader and other assistive technology software.

Promote the growth of banking services for people with disabilities: State and national governments should encourage opening of bank accounts by the disabled so that any funds or scholarships can be directly transferred into their account as opposed to being given to organisations which may not transfer it to the beneficiaries — this would help curb malpractices. Information on how people with disabilities can open an account — whether joint or single — and the formalities they need to fulfil should be made easily and readily available. This will encourage more people to open accounts for/with the disabled.
Adopt accessible formats for disabled customers: Banks should publish instruction manuals for ATMs as well as banking procedures in accessible formats such as Braille and DAISY. The banks can then take help of various volunteer organisations in producing and distributing the books to the relevant segments of the population. Such materials should also be made available for download, free of cost, on the bank’s website.
Training and sensitisation: Banks should not simply train and sensitise their employees and increase awareness of the various kinds of disability and the services to be provided to the disabled, but actively solicit those with special needs and make it clear that they "understand their needs" and welcome their business. Banks need to consider whether it makes sense to have separate or specially prepared paperwork for the disabled to fill out if the regular forms are difficult to read or understand.
Preferential Treatment: The Ministry of Finance should push for preferential treatment of all persons with disabilities along the same lines as the special rates of interest provided to the elderly. Public sector banks like the State Bank of India have a massive network and such visible and actively advertised preferential treatment will spread awareness not only at the bank level but in society as well. This will really encourage family members of the disabled to help them set up bank accounts and will foster independence.
“Know Your Customer” (KYC) procedures undertaken by banks should be clarified and made simpler — a one-time verification should take place rather than repeated calls, visits, questions, clarifications and summons to the office or branch.
Bank managers and staff should be proactive and watchful enough to monitor and check for abuse of power by those who are 'assisting' or administering the property and money of the disabled, who are even more susceptible to fraud than the average account holder, and therefore should be provided with stronger anti-fraud/theft services, such as more frequent SMS or email alerts for transactions.

The most important aspect[93] that financial service providers need to understand is that accessibility— goes much beyond merely providing ramps and the financial service providers do not currently understand the variety of disabilities and the issues which are tied to each kind of disability. Consider ATMs — the way they are currently designed, the machines are too high for users who are in a wheelchair and the doors themselves are inaccessible to the orthopedically challenged; ATMs have neither voice support nor compatible software for the visually challenged. Thus, a basic and fundamental change in the way banks are catering to customers’ needs to take place.

Financial service providers should be more encouraging and should engage in outreach to make it easier and more attractive for those with less capability to open and operate accounts with their parents or guardians. Financial independence and control should be offered and facilitated to the maximum extent possible.

Accessibility should not be treated as a corporate social responsibility measure by the large banks and financial corporations, but as a responsibility to be fulfilled regardless of anything else. Further, public sector banks have the biggest responsibility to implement these measures — while they employ people with disabilities because they have a reservation [94] for them, their services are not accessible to their own employees! There needs to be an effort made to ensure that the internal banking software which is used is accessible for people with disabilities and can be accessed by them using the appropriate assistive technology like screen readers.

Financial service providers should tailor accessibility solutions to address each kind of disability and the range of problems faced by the persons affected by them; they should look at best practices from around the world and implement solutions on their own steam instead of minimum compliance with the government or RBI requirements. Ultimately, making financial services more accessible will only mean that their customer base will grow. Change needs to be top-down — rules and regulations first, then training, sensitisation, and then infrastructure. Schemes and offers should be put in place to attract the disabled as customers, assure them of good and competent service without discrimination, and incentives to invest or save (by offering special schemes such as those which currently exist for women and the elderly).

Building such systems would involve learning more about the customers and their particular situations and needs, and banks can take the help of various organisations that work with the disabled in order to get a better understanding of what they need to deliver. While there are some voluntary standards that can be used as a guide,[95] the most important aspect is to keep the basics in mind: simple and clear language, audible scripts, easy and non-confusing navigation and instructions and the ability to speak to someone in case of an error; these are all elements that will go a long way in ensuring that disabled customers are more equipped to use the financial services offered by a bank.

It would be helpful if there was a monitoring or evaluating mechanism to see how far banks are complying with the standards or guidelines that have been set forth before them. There needs to be a comparative study about how far, for example, the bank websites are compliant with the WCAG Guidelines on Web Accessibility or how easy it is for people with disabilities to access the bank counters and ATMs in different branches. Such a study would give good empirical evidence and serve as the starting point for improvement on the current scenario.[96]

In the light of the above, some specific suggestions/ recommendations are made to the Department of Banking Operations in order to make banking more inclusive for persons with disabilities and senior citizens as under:

The department may consider coming out with a policy/ Code requiring all banks to make their services accessible to persons with disabilities. The Policy/ Code may also identify good practices to be followed by banks with respect to areas such as websites, ATMs, mobile and phone banking services, website accessibility and customer care.
The Department may require RBI to stringently enforce its notification regarding accessibility of ATMs
The Department may ensure that accessibility be incorporated as a key strategy in all future policies and programmes planned by the Department and is also incorporated in any existing policy which is executed by the department.
The Department may involve persons with disabilities in executing its accessibility strategy and identify goals/ targets to be achieved over the next 5 years in terms of making banking services accessible in India.

Bibliography

“Barriers to Using Automatic Teller Machines”, Tim Noonan, available at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/inquiries/ecom/atmpaper.htm.
“Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work with Screen Readers”, Mary Theofranos and Janice Redish, available at http://redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html.
“The Banking Experience: How to Make Financial Services Accessible for Blind and Partially Sighted People”, RNIB’s Handbook of Good Practices and Standards, at http://www.rnib.org.uk/aboutus/Research/reports/2012/Banking_Experience_CP.pdf.
“Website Accessibility”, available at http://www.tiresias.org/research/guidelines/web.htm.
ABA Guiding Principles for Accessible Authentication, available at http://www.bankers.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/177/ABA-Guiding_Principles_for_Accessible_Authentication.doc.aspx
John Gill, “The Markets for the Adaptation of Self Service Terminals to be Accessible by People with Disabilities”, available at http://europa.eu/information_society/activities/einclusion/docs/worshop_atm/atm_markets_report.doc
Carolyn Samuel, “Making Bank Notes Accessible for Canadians Living with Blindness or Low Vision”, available at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/samuel.pdf.

Glossary of Terms

ABA - Australian Bankers’ Association
ABM - Automated Banking Machines
ADA - Americans with Disability Act
AFA - Access for All
BRA - Banking Regulation Act
BT - British Telecom
CAPTCHA - Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart
DDA - The Disability Discrimination Act (Australia)
EFTPOS - Electronic Funds Transfer at Point of Sale
HREOC - Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language
IBA - Indian Banks’ Association
IVR - Interactive Voice Response
NIC - National Informatics Centre
PIN - Personal Identification Number
PWD - People with Disabilities
PWDA - The People with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995
RBI - Reserve Bank of India
RTF - Rich Text Format
TTS - Text to Speech
UNCRPD - United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities
WCAG - Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
XRCVC - Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged

Annexure 1 – Disability and Accommodations

Disability	Branch Banking	Phone Banking	Internet Banking	Payment Terminals and Kiosks	Mobile Banking
Physical Disability	Bank branches are inaccessible to people using wheelchairs, as they are not provided with ramps, and often have steps at the entrance The queuing and counter system in place is not friendly for customers with disabilities; desks are not always at a height that can be accessed by someone in a wheelchair The staff is not sensitised to the needs of customers with physical disabilities Suggested Solution: Conduct sensitisation and training programmes for the staff train them about the needs of customers with disabilities Construct ramps and walkways so that buildings are accessible by wheelchairs Ensure that the bank layout is accessible and as uniform as possible, ensuring ease of access for customers with disabilities		Using websites which are not accessible could be a problem for a person who doesn’t have full use of their limbs Suggested Solution: Ensure websites are compatible with assistive technologies, such as alternate input devices. Standards such as the WCAG should be followed	ATM entrances are not accessible for people with wheelchairs as they are not provided with ramps ATMs are often too high, and cannot be accessed by someone who is sitting in a wheelchair Using keypads could be a problem for a person who doesn’t have full use of their limbs Suggested Solution: ATMs should be provided with ramps (with the appropriate slope) that can be accessed by customers in a wheelchair ATMs should be at the appropriate height and should be designed keeping in mind the needs of people in wheelchairs	Using phone apps could be a problem for a person who doesn’t have full use of their limbs Suggested Solution: Mobile apps should have a clean interface, which is not problematic to use and which can be controlled by voice commands
Visual Disability	Branches are not laid out in a uniform manner, and are difficult to navigate for someone who can’t see The signage is not done in raised texture maps, and so can’t be accessed by someone who can’t see Coinage in India is not disabled-friendly, with the coin sizes being very similar to each other and difficult to demarcate Bank literature is not available in large print or Braille formats and so can’t be read by people with low or no vision Suggested Solution: Conduct sensitisation and training programmes for the staff train them about the needs of customers with disabilities Textured maps and signage should be made readily available at branch locations The branch layout should be simplified so that someone with a visual disability is not at a disadvantage In case the customer desires, bank literature, statements and other documents should be made available in alternate formats (eg: large print, Braille, PDF)		Websites are often not accessible using assistive technologies like screen readers, and are not navigable using non-traditional input devices Suggested Solution: Websites need to be made accessible and should comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) which clearly specify how best to make the web interface usable for people with disabilities	There aren’t many speaking ATMs with audio jacks which can be used by people who can’t use the touchscreen The number pad display is not uniform amongst various banks, and so can be problematic for people relying on tactile memory Suggested Solution: Banks should introduce more speaking ATMs, which have an audio jack that can be plugged into a listening device, which helps a customer with visual disability use an ATM	Mobile banking apps are not accessible using phone screen reading software Suggested Solution: Phone apps need to be made accessible and should comply with the W3C Guidelines which specify how best to make the mobile interface usable for people with disabilities
Hearing Disability	Branch officials have not been sensitised to the requirements of someone who is hearing impaired, who might require them to write down their statements Sign language interpreters are not on call to help translate in case a person with disability needs them Alert and announcements in banks are usually based on sound notifications, and so can often be missed by customers with hearing disabilities Suggested Solution: Conduct sensitisation and training programmes for the staff train them about the needs of customers with disabilities Designated branches should have a sign language interpreter on call for assistance of customers with hearing disabilities Notifications and announcements, such as at a teller, should be accompanied by a visual alert as well (eg: a blinking light, or a number flashing on a screen)	There is great reliance on spoken directions and no option for a deaf customer to have a conversation about phone banking with their bank No provision for options such as text relay that can be used by deaf customers to do banking transactions The options on an automated VRS system at a bank’s call centre are often not clear and are incomprehensible Suggested Solution: Banks should attempt to introduce text relay services, which can be used by deaf customers to communicate with bank officials via the phone The VRS system should be in clear, understandable and audible tones for the ease of customers		Alerts and notifications in an ATM are usually in the form of a loud noise or a beep, which will be missed by a person with hearing disability Suggested Solution: ATMs should have a light which flashes in case of a notification, which will come to the attention of the user
Cognitive Disability	Bank literature and documents are complicated and the language is not easy to comprehend; this could be a problem for someone with a learning disability Banks have a bias against someone with a learning disability and despite rules against this, are reluctant to open account for customers with cognitive disabilities Suggested Solution: Conduct sensitisation and training programmes for the staff train them about the needs of customers with disabilities Bank documents, scheme information and so on should be in clear, easy to understand language	The options on an automated VRS system at a bank’s call centre are often not clear and are incomprehensible Suggested Solution: The VRS system should be in clear, understandable and audible tones for the ease of customers

Annexure 2 – Banking and Accessibility Guidelines

Area of Banking	Guidelines/Recommendations
Mobile banking	Web Accessibility Initiatives international guidelines on mobile accessibility: http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/
Internet banking	The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines lay down the principles for making websites more accessible for people with disabilities: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/ Australian Industry Standards for Electronic Banking: http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking- Royal National Institute for the Blind’s Good Practices and Standards for Electronic Banking: www.rnib.org.uk/aboutus/Research/reports/2012/Banking_Experience_CP.pdf
ATMs and payment kiosks	Americans with Disabilities Act ATM Standards, 2010: www.firstdata.com/downloads/thought-leadership/atm_ada_accessibility.pdf Australian Industry Standards for ATMs: www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/ATM-Standard Canadian Guidelines on Self Service Interactive Devices: A summary is available at “Standard B651.1-09”, sourced from http://hub.eaccessplus.eu/wiki/Canadian_standard_for_accessible_design_for_automated_banking_machines Dutch Guidelines on Payment Terminals: http://hub.eaccessplus.eu/uploads/a/a1/Dutch_Guidelines_on_payment_systems.pdf
Phone Banking	Australian Industry Standards for Automated Phone Banking: http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/Automated-Telephone-Banking-Standard
Branch Banking	New Zealand Banker’s Association Voluntary Guidelines on Meeting Needs of Older and Disabled Customers: http://www.nzba.org.nz/banking-standards/code-of-banking-practice/voluntary-guidelines-to-assist-banks-to-meet-the-needs-of-older-and-disabled-customers/

[1]. Data taken from http://www.disabilityindia.com/html/facts.html.

[2]. “NCR Corp to set up 50 Talking ATMs in Post Offices”, available at http://lflegal.com/2012/09/ncr-india/.

[3]. More data on disability can be seen at the World Bank Country Profile on Disability for India, available at http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DISABILITY/Resources/Regions/South%20Asia/JICA_India.pdf.

[4]. Full text available at http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=259.

[5]. Full text available at http://www8.cao.go.jp/shougai/english/biwako/contents.html.

[6]. See generally: “Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work with Screen Readers”, Mary Theofranos and Janice Redish, available at http://redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html, last viewed on July 26.

[7]. Article 14: Equality before law - The State shall not deny to any person equality before the law or the equal protection of the laws within the territory of India (Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth).

[8]. Article 15. Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth
(1) The State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them
(2) No citizen shall, on grounds only of religion, race, caste, sex, place of birth or any of them, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to
(a) access to shops, public restaurants, hotels and palaces of public entertainment; or
(b) the use of wells, tanks, bathing ghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public

[9]. Article 253: Legislation for giving effect to international agreements - Notwithstanding anything in the foregoing provisions of this Chapter, Parliament has power to make any law for the whole or any part of the territory of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country or countries or any decision made at any international conference, association or other body.

[10]. For more details on the legislation, along with the full text, refer to http://socialjustice.nic.in/policiesacts3.php.

[11]. See generally: www.accessability.co.in/access/files/Accessibility-in-India-Issues-Status-Way-Forward.pps.

[12]. “Bank loses accessibility case”, available at http://www.fm-world.co.uk/news/fm-industry-news/bank-loses-accessibility-case/.

[13]. Singh, A. & Nizamie, S.H. (2004) Disability: the concept and related Indian legislations. Mental Health Reviews, accessed from http://www.psyplexus.com/mhr/disability_india.html on September 11, 2012.

[14]. Id.

[15]. Id.

[16]. Full text of the legislation is available at The Banking Regulation Act, 1949, http://indiankanoon.org/doc/1129081/

[17]. Section 35A: Power of the Reserve Bank to give directions-
(1) Where the Reserve Bank is satisfied that-
(a) in the public interest; or
(aa)in the interest of banking policy; or
(b) to prevent the affairs of any banking company being conducted in a manner detrimental to the interests of the depositors or in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the banking company; or
(c) to secure the proper management of any banking company generally; it is necessary to issue directions to banking companies generally or to any banking company in particular, it may, from time to time, issue such directions as it deems fit, and the banking companies or the banking company, as the case may be, shall be bound to comply with such directions.
(2) The Reserve Bank may, on representation made to it or on its own motion, modify or cancel any direction issued under sub- section (1), and in so modifying or cancelling any direction may impose such conditions as it thinks fit, subject to which the modification or cancellation shall have effect.

[18]. Available at http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=4226&Mode=0

[19]. Available at http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=4923&Mode=0

[20]. Available at http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_CircularIndexDisplay.aspx?Id=7548

[21]. Available at http://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_CircularIndexDisplay.aspx?Id=5071.

[22]. “Banking Made Easier for People with Disabilities”, available at http://www.autism-india.org/india_legal.html.

[23]. Available at http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Mode=0&Id=5248.

[24]. National Policy for Persons with Disability, available at http://www.socialjustice.nic.in/nppde.php?format=print.

[25]. Principle Areas of Intervention VI (x): “Banking system will be encouraged to meet the needs to the persons with disabilities”, Id.

[26]. See generally: Discussion on disability in the Mid Term Appraisal of the Eleventh Five Year Plan, Page 185, available at http://planningcommission.nic.in/plans/mta/11th_mta/chapterwise/Comp_mta11th.pdf.

[27]. Tim Noonan, “Acceptable E-commerce in Australia: A Discussion Paper about the Effects of Electronic Commerce Developments on People With Disabilities”, available at http://www.timnoonan.com.au/ecrep10.htm

[28]. Id.

[29]. “Barriers to Using Automatic Teller Machines”, Tim Noonan, available at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/inquiries/ecom/atmpaper.htm, last viewed on July 26, 2012.

[30]. See generally: Accessibility at the RBS, available at http://www.bankofscotland.co.uk/accessibility/hearing-impaired/, last viewed on July 20.

[31]. In conversation with Mr. George Abraham, CEO, SCORE Foundation. Ms. Radhika Alkazi, Managing Trustee of Aarth-Aastha also pointed out that in many instances, banks often ask persons with disabilities to bring someone else to sign for them (or operate the account on their behalf) even when the person is fully capable of signing and operating the account themselves. There is no fixed basis for the procedure, which varies from bank to bank.

[32]. “Barriers to Using Automatic Teller Machines”, Tim Noonan, available at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/inquiries/ecom/atmpaper.htm, last viewed on July 26, 2012.

[33]. “The Challenges of Blind Internet Users”, available at http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/challenges-of-blind-internet-users, last viewed on July 15.

[34]. See generally: Accessibility at the RBS, available at http://www.bankofscotland.co.uk/accessibility/visually-impaired/, last viewed on July 20.

[35]. Consider the development of such ATMs by Wells Fargo bank in the USA; more details are available at https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/diversity/accessibility/.

[36]. In conversation with Mr. Anil Joshi, the Programme Director of Human Ability and Accessibility at IBM, who works with parents of children with Down’s Syndrome and other mental disabilities. He also pointed out that given that only a miniscule portion of people with disabilities are able to understand banking concepts, the few who do so invariably use banking facilities with the help of their parents or guardians.

[37]. “Barriers to Using Automatic Teller Machines”, Tim Noonan, available at http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/inquiries/ecom/atmpaper.htm, last viewed on July 26, 2012.

[38]. “Customising mobile banking in India: issues and challenges”, Address delivered by Shri Harun R. Khan, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India, at the FICCI-IBA (FIBAC) 2012 Conference on-“Sustainable excellence through customer engagement, employee engagement and right use of technology” on September 5, 2012 at Mumbai, available at http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_SpeechesView.aspx?id=726.

[39]. Id.

[40]. Available at http://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/bs_viewcontent.aspx?Id=1660.

[41]. Leonard R. Kasday, "A Tool to Evaluate Universal Web Accessibility" Posters, Proceedings of the 2000 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces 2000, pp. 161-162.

[42]. See generally: “WCAG 2 at a Glance”, available at http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/glance/

[43]. See generally: “Website Accessibility”, available at http://www.tiresias.org/research/guidelines/web.htm

[44]. For more details, see generally: “Website Accessibility”, available at http://www.tiresias.org/research/guidelines/web.htm

[45]. The Compliance Matrix can be accessed at http://web.guidelines.gov.in/compliance.php.

[46]. “Deaf and Hearing Impaired”, Woei-Jyh Lee, Handbook of Universal Usability in Practice, available at http://otal.umd.edu/UUPractice/hearing/, last viewed on 23 July, 2012.

[47]. “ATM Usage very low in India, says RBI”, available at http://www.firstpost.com/economy/atm-usage-very-low-in-india-says-rbi-404198.html.

[48]. Available at http://rbi.org.in/scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=7286&Mode=0.

[49]. Harsh Vardhan, “White Label ATMs”, available at http://ajayshahblog.blogspot.in/2012/08/white-label-atms.html.

[50]. “Department of Justice finalises New ATM Accessibility Standards”, available at http://www.diebold.com/solutions/atms/opteva/html/Diebold_AccessibilityStandards.pdf, last viewed on July 12.

[51]. “Department of Justice Finalises New ATM Accessibility Standards”, available at http://www.diebold.com/solutions/atms/opteva/html/Diebold_AccessibilityStandards.pdf, last viewed on July 12.

[52]. “Making Bank Notes Accessible for Canadians Living with Blindness or Low Vision”, Carolyn Samuel, available at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/samuel.pdf.

[53]. Id.

[54]. Carolyn Samuel, “Making Bank Notes Accessible for Canadians Living With Blindness or Low Vision”, available at http://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/samuel.pdf.

[55]. (DBOD.No.Leg.BC.123 /09.07.005/2008-09).

[56]. Refer to Section 4.3 of the Report.

[57]. Dinesh Kaushal, “The Case for Accessible Banking”, available at http://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessible-banking.

[58]. NR Indran, “UBI to deploy Mumbai’s first Talking ATM for the visually challenged”, available at http://apnnews.com/2012/07/09/ubi-to-deploy-mumbai%E2%80%99s-first%E2%80%98talking-atm%E2%80%99-for-the-visually-challenged-powered-by-ncr/

[59]. Id.

[60]. “NCR Corp to set up 50 Talking ATMs in passport offices”, available at http://lflegal.com/2012/09/ncr-india/.

[61]. “NCR Corp to set up 50 Talking ATMs in passport offices”, available at http://lflegal.com/2012/09/ncr-india/.

[62]. Dinesh Kaushal, “The Case for Accessible Banking”, available at http://cis-india.org/accessibility/accessible-banking.

[63]. Id.

[64]. “Department of Justice Finalises New ATM Accessibility Standards”, available at http://www.diebold.com/solutions/atms/opteva/html/Diebold_AccessibilityStandards.pdf, last viewed on July 12.

[65]. See more details at http://www.unionbankofindia.co.in/personal_TalkingATMs.aspx

[66]. These guidelines are available at http://www.nzba.org.nz/banking-standards/code-of-banking-practice/voluntary-guidelines-to-assist-banks-to-meet-the-needs-of-older-and-disabled-customers/

[67]. Id.

[68]. Id.

[69]. Id.

[70]. Section 4 of the DDA defines disability in relation to a person as:
a. total or partial loss of the person's bodily or mental functions; or
b. total or partial loss of a part of the body; or
c. the presence in the body of organisms causing disease or illness; or
d. the presence in the body of organisms capable of causing disease or illness; or
e. the malfunction, malformation or disfigurement of a part of the person's body; or
f. a disorder or malfunction that results in the person learning differently from a person without the disorder or malfunction; or
g. a disorder, illness or disease that affects a person's thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in disturbed behaviour; and includes a disability that:
a. presently exists; or
b. previously existed but no longer exists; or
c. may exist in the future; or is imputed to a person.

[71]. Section 4 of the DDA defines a service as relating to, amongst other things, banking, insurance, superannuation and the provision of grants, loans, credit or finance, and including financial and information services provided, for example, through websites, telephones, ATMs and EFTPOS.

[72]. For a full list, please refer to: http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/Industry-Standards---Accessibility, last accessed on 12^th August, 2012.

[73]. Refer to http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/ATM-Standard

[74]. Refer to http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/EFTPOS-Standard

[75]. Refer to http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/Automated-Telephone-Banking-Standard

[76]. ABA Industry Standard on Electronic Banking, available at http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/Internet-Banking-Standard

[77]. Refer to http://www.bankers.asn.au/Industry-Standards/ABAs-Accessibility-of-Electronic-Banking-/Australian-Banking-Industry-E-Commerce-Industry-Action-Plan

[78]. “Background to the Guiding Principles”, Section 1.1 of the ABA Guiding Principles for Accessible Authentication, available at http://www.bankers.asn.au/ArticleDocuments/177/ABA-Guiding_Principles_for_Accessible_Authentication.doc.aspx

[79]. Id.

[80]. “Department of Justice Finalises New ATM Accessibility Standards”, available at http://www.diebold.com/solutions/atms/opteva/html/Diebold_AccessibilityStandards.pdf, last viewed on July 12

[81]. See generally: “Department of Justice finalizes new ATM accessibility standards”, available at www.diebold.com/solutions/atms/opteva/html/Diebold_AccessibilityStandards.pdf

[82]. A summary is available at “Standard B651.1-09”, sourced from http://hub.eaccessplus.eu/wiki/Canadian_standard_for_accessible_design_for_automated_banking_machines, and a full text can be purchased from the Canadian Standards Association website.

[83]. “The extent to which technical requirements are applied is the responsibility of others, such as the authority having jurisdiction.”

[84]. “Barrier Free Banking”, available at http://www.abilities.ca/agc/article/article.php?pid=&cid=&subid=&aid=429

[85]. Id.

[86]. “Dutch Guidelines for User Friendly payment terminals”, available at http://hub.eaccessplus.eu/wiki/Dutch_Guidelines_for_user-friendly_payment_terminals

[87]. “Dutch Guidelines for Payment Systems”, available at http://hub.eaccessplus.eu/uploads/a/a1/Dutch_Guidelines_on_payment_systems.pdf

[88]. Id.

[89]. Building User Friendly Voice Systems, Tim Noonan, available at http://www.timnoonan.com.au/ivrpap98.htm

[90]. See generally, “What are the possibilities”, the webpage for the Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged, available at http://www.xrcvc.org/fs_alternatives.php

[91]. In countries like Japan, even sighted people use what are known as signature stamps, Hanko and Inkan, instead of actual signatures, for signing of official documents. This is a practice that can also be incorporated by banks.

[92]. See generally, “What are the possibilities”, the webpage for the Xavier’s Resource Centre for the Visually Challenged, available at http://www.xrcvc.org/fs_alternatives.php.

[93]. In conversation with Ms. Anubhuti Mittal, who works for HR Solutions for the Differently Abled, and runs a consultancy which works with people with disabilities, providing recruitment services to the disabled, doing access audits, job mapping, sensitization and training of employees at organisations.

[94]. Pursuant to Section 33 of the PWD Act, which states: Every appropriate government shall appoint in every establishment such percentage of vacancies not less than three per cent for persons or class of persons with disability of which one per cent? each shall be reserved for persons suffering from:

Blindness or low vision;
Bearing impairment;
Loco motor disability or cerebral palsy, in the posts identified for each disability:

Provided that the appropriate Government may, having regard to the type of work carried on in any department or establishment, by notification subject to such conditions, if any, as may be specified in such notification, exempt any establishment from the provisions of this section.

[95]. For example, the Australian and New Zealand Standards (AS/NZS 4263).

[96]. A good reference point would be “A Look at Internet Banking Accessibility in Australia”, Sofia Celic, Steven Faulkner, and Andrew Arch, available at http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw04/papers/refereed/celic/paper.html, where the authors have studied the websites of different Australian banks to see how far they are complying with the WCAG1.0 guidelines and have rated them on different criteria. Unfortunately, the team found that “the overall status of the accessibility of Australian banking web sites, using the accessibility of their home pages as an indicator, is less than desirable. None of the banks assessed has met the ABA recommended timetable of addressing all applicable WCAG 1.0 Priority 1 and Priority 2 checkpoints within 18 months of the Standard being released (April 2002).”

Contributors:

Nirmita Narasimhan, Policy Director
Vrinda Maheshwari, Consultant

Click to download the entire report (PDF) 802 Kb

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/banking-and-accessibility-in-india-report

Institute on Internet & Society: Event Report

srividya — 2013-10-15T06:48:00Z

The Institute on Internet and Society organized by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) with grant supported by the Ford Foundation took place from June 8 to 14, 2013 at the Golden Palms Resort in Bangalore.

A total of 20 participants spent the seven days in a residential institute, learning about the fundamental technologies of the Internet and topics on which CIS has expertise on such as Accessibility, Openness, Privacy, Digital Natives and Internet Governance.

The participants belonged to various stakeholder groups and it provided a common forum (first of its kind in India) to discuss and share ideas. Twenty-four expert speakers from various domains came to share their knowledge and speak about their work, so as to encourage activity in the field and supply resources from which participants could learn to increase their accessibility, range and funding possibilities, as well as network with the speakers and amongst themselves.

The Institute has triggered a number of follow-up events — those that the participants organized themselves with the help of CIS staff, including Crypto Parties in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, that taught netizens to keep their online communication private. In addition to that, the CIS Access2Knowledge (A2K) team could rope in eight new Wikipedians who will contribute to Wikipedia in Indic languages.

The day wise talks and activities that took place are listed below:

Day 1: June 8, 2013

The seven day residential Institute began on Saturday, the 8th of June with a warm welcome by Dr. Ravina Aggarwal and Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan. They outlined the purpose of the residential institute and briefly went over the topics which would get covered over the week long duration. This was followed by each of the participants introducing themselves briefly and also stating their expectations from the Institute, why they were attending the same and what they hope to get at the end.

Session 1: History of the Internet

(by Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle)

Above is a picture of Pranesh Prakash speaking about the History of the Internet during the first session on Day 1.	The Institute proceedings kicked off with the first session, History of the Internet by Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle. Participants learned where the Internet originally came from and how it is organized, as well as different technologies surrounding the Internet. Pranesh Prakash and Bernadette Längle set the start point of the Internet in the late 50's when the Russians send the first satellite in space (Sputnik) and the US founded the DARPA(Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), a research agency that was tasked with creating new technologies for military use. DARPA is credited with development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking, as well as NLS, which was both the first hypertext system, and an important precursor to the contemporary ubiquitous graphical user interface (GUI). A few years later the first four computers were connected to a network.

After the Network Control Protocol (NCP, later replaced by the TCP/IP) was invented in 1970, the first applications were made: email (connecting people), telnet (connecting computers) and the file transport protocol (FTP) (connecting information) — all of these are still in use today. Participants were surprised to learn that the Web, most commonly used today, known to be invented by one single person in the 90's, actually existed for a long time prior to the '90s.

VIDEO

Session 2: Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms

(by Pranesh Prakash)
After lunch, Pranesh Prakash led the second session about Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms and he started with some of the problems associated with the Domestic Regulatory Bodies:

Lack of coherence and consistency in Internet related policies
Rather than co-operating, the different agencies compete with each other.
Communication with the public is of different degrees and openness of different agencies varies.

Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DEITY), is one of the most important public agencies & the CERT-in focuses on issues like malware and content regulation. There is also the STQC (Standard Setting and Quality Setting Body).
The work of these organizations is to govern the Internet, bring about better privacy policies and ensure freedom of speech.
Other governing bodies include DOT (Department of Telecommunications) which governs the telecom and internet policies of India. In India, certain content regulation takes place under a notification as part of the IT Act, 2003.
TRAI (Telecom Regulatory Authority of India) also looks into the tariff, interconnections and quality of telecom sector, spectrum regulation and so on.
The USOF (Universal Service Obligation Fund) seeks to provide funds for setting up telecom services in rural areas.
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has been extending copyright restrictions to online publications.

VIDEO

Session 3: Emerging trends in Internet usage in India

(by Nandini C and Vir Kamal Chopra)
Emerging Trends in Internet Usage with specific focus on BSNL offerings (by Vir Kamal Chopra)
Some of the salient points discussed were:

In 1995, the VSNL provided internet in 4 metros of India, by 1998 DOT had provided internet in 42 cities.
Some of the facilities internet provides include Tele-education, Tele-medicine, mobile banking, payment of bills via mobile internet, etc.
BSNL has got maximum broadband market share in India.
Present Scenario, there are 900 million mobiles in India, 430 million wireless connections with capability to access data.
The total broadband connections are 15 million in country, 10 million provided by BSNL.
Total internet users are 120 million with a growth rate of 30%.
Public access is not only about network intermediaries but about info-mediaries who understand internet.
BSNL lost Rs 18,000 crores from 3G license.
2G to 3G shifting is not seamless and leads to lot of packet loss, and 3G coverage is not as extensive as 2G. Thus 3G is not efficient however; the government has made a lot of money from selling 3G licenses.
Future trends include technology trends for internet access, optical fiber technologies, fiber to the curb, fibre to the home, metro Ethernet, etc.
Internet has created an online Public sphere.
In 2000 Parliament passed the Information Technology Act 2000 and the dot.com boom is seen.

Making internet access meaningful in the Indian Context (by Nandini.C)
(Click to see the presentation slides)
Some of the salient points discussed were:

Status of internet access today sees low level of overall penetration of internet, high rate of household mobile penetration and huge rural-urban divide in internet access.
Relationship b/w women and internet in India
8.4% of women in India have access to internet in India and 43% of women using internet in India perceived it as being an important part of their life.
Some area of concerns include ensuring adequate access of internet for the women, entrenched patriarchies, contextual relevance, the imaginary of ‘public access’.
The importance of an existing strong social support network, ITC itself cannot open up economic/social empowerment opportunities for women
ICT-enabled micro-enterprises may also force the burden of double work on women, who undertake both productive activities for the micro-enterprise and re/productive activities for the household.
The Internet today has created an online public sphere.
Countering the threat of online violence.
Censorship and content regulation.
Women’s rights and the spaces of internet governance.
Arbitrary censorship and self-regulation by the corporate and slide towards an illusory freedom; state is used as a bogeyman by corporate to create an online culture that is suitable to the corporate values.

VIDEO

Activity
Day 1 featured an interesting activity called the Creative Handshake. The goal of the game was to teach the participants the concept of "Handshake" in Internet terms and why it is important to make sure that integrity of data transferred is maintained.

Day 2: June 9, 2013

The focus of the second day was more on the nuts and bolts behind the working of the Internet by Dr. Nadeem Akhtar, Wireless Technologies and a case-study in Air Jaldi by Michael Ginguld, Collaborative Knowledge base building by Vishnu Vardhan and Affordable Devices on the Internet by Ravikiran Annaswamy.

The salient points of each of the talks are listed below.

Session 1: How Internet Works

(by Nadeem Akhtar)
Click to read the presentation slides

Internet structure and hierarchy:
1. Data Networks comprise of set of nodes, connected by transmission links, for exchange of data between nodes.
2. Some of the key principles which underpin data networks include digital transmission, multiplexing and data forwarding/routing.
Data networks through ownership include public and private networks.
Data networks through coverage include local area networks (small area), metro area networks (may comprise of a city) and wide area networks (wide geographic area across cities).
Protocols include:
1. Open systems interconnection (OSI) model divides a communication system into smaller parts. Each part is referred to as a layer. Similar communication functions are grouped into logical layers.
2. OSI model defines the different stages that data must go through to travel from one device to another over a network & this enables a modular approach towards developing complex system functionality i.e. functionality at layer X does not depend on how layer Y is implemented.
Above is a picture of Dr. Nadeem Akhtar speaking on the working of the internet on Day 2
Internet networks or connections.
Internet backbone refers to the principal data routes between large, strategically interconnected networks and core routers on the internet and these data routes are hosted by commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity network centers, the internet exchange points and network access points. The internet back bone is decentralized.
Transit Service - Passing information from small ISP to large ISP.
Peering Service - The passing of information between two similar ISP’s os similar size to let network traffic pass.
Three levels of network Tier1, Tier2 and Tier 3. TATA Company is the only Tier 1 Indian Company.
Backhaul- Transport Links which connects access edge networks with the ‘core’ network. The transmitters have to be mounted on a high level.


Above is a picture of Dr. Nadeem Akhtar speaking on the working of the internet on Day 2

VIDEO

Session 2: Wireless Technologies

(by Michael Ginguld)
Click to read the presentation slides

We are surrounded by electromagnetic radiation
All about transmission waves and there are both advantages and disadvantages of the same:
1. Pros: higher reach for lower price, overcomes topographic challenges, lower maintenance, less to damage/lose
2. Cons: limited resources, maintenance (energy), physical limitations to transfer rates.
Satellite/VSAT is a very small aperture tech: a small satellite dish that connects to a geo-static satellite.
Strength: globally usable, can connect from anywhere.
Weakness: signal problems, relatively high installation charge, upstream connection is lower than the downstream, transmitter on satellite is extremely expensive, hence limitation on transmission capacity of the satellite.
VSATs are not scalable. It is a dead-end tech for usages where data transmission volume is expected to grow.
2G Technology for mobile connection.
Limitation in transfer of data, due to technology and encryption limitations but great availability and reasonable price.
3G Technology has a problem in India; low uptake, leading to low investment, leading to low speed, leading to low uptake. The technology allows for high-speed data transfer but the market condition in India still does not make adequate infrastructural support feasible.
4G license auction.
A company bought the country-wide 4G license in the auction. Mukesh Ambani bought the company after some days.
The present legislation does not allow for VoIP-based Telco operation but that is expected to change soon.
Wifi technology is wireless technology. It is low cost wireless transfer of data. The Public dissemination of the ranges in which data transfer using the WiFi protocol can take place. It was made public in India in January 2005.
1. Limitations: needs line of sight, limit to data transfer.
2. Strength: cheap, de-licensed spectrum usage, easily deployable.
2G spectrum, 3G spectrum and now 4G spectrum all are part of the wireless technology.
Air Jaldi started in Dharamshala; building wifi connection spanning campuses.
Three types of consumer categories: (1) no coverage, (2) under-served, and (3) ‘deserving clients’. #2 is the most common group. #3 are people who should be served but cannot pay fully for the service, hence are cross-subsidised by group #2.
Deployed and managed by local staff, trained by AirJaldi.
Customer premise equipment: Rs. 3-4k.
User charges: Rs 975 per month for 512 kbps, Rs 1500 per month for 1 mbps.
Content: by and large, AirJaldi brings infrastructure on which content can ride on, teams with various content providers (like e-learning, rural BPOs, local e-banking etc) for the content side. The biggest drivers are local BPO, banking and retail. The next big driver coming up is entertainment.
WiMax includes 4g spectrum.

VIDEO

Session 3: Building Knowledge Bases and Platform via Mass Collaboration on the Internet

Click to read the presentation slides

The session started off with some physical activity in the form of "Kasa Kasa Warte, Chan Chan Warte" to break off the lunch induced sleep and a mental activity where the participants were divided into two groups and both the groups were asked to collect information on "Water". One group was left to itself while the other had some expert inputs from Vishnu Vardhan on how to collaborate and organize the data. After the activity, both teams presented the information that they had collected on "Water". The benefits of collaborative authoring such as "everyone's voice is heard", "various inputs leading to a multi-dimensional thinking" etc were evident as against a single dimensional thought process that was seen from the group that was un-assisted.	Given above is a picture of the participants involved in a group activity

Salient points discussed during the presentation:

The Concept of Knowledge today is not something of modern phenomena, but it is something which has been existent since print culture was developed. Print technology shapes what we consider as knowledge, and hence as knowledge platform
Techno-sociality of knowledge production
The Concept of Knowledge today is not something of modern phenomena, but it is something which has been existent since print culture was developed. Print technology shapes what we consider as knowledge, and hence as knowledge platform
Techno-sociality of knowledge production
Examples of knowledge platforms:
1. Baidu baike
2. English wikipedia
3. Hudong
4. Catawiki
5. Wikieducator
6. Open street map
7. Pad.ma
8. Sahapedia
9. Internet archive
10. Jstor
11. Dsal
12. Dli
In 1994 Cunningham developed the ‘Wiki Wiki Web’ also known as the ‘Ward Wiki’. Basically it is a knowledge platform.
Internet since then has been used for dissemination of information especially in the education sector. Digital Archived have developed over the years which provide information across various platforms like Wikipedia.
The spread of the internet has made possible the building of knowledge bases by seamless and mass collaboration.

Generic challenges for Wikipedia

Quality, relevance, consistency of knowledge
Suitable motivation of the contributors
Another issue is the scalability

Some of the problems faced by Indian Wikipedian pages:

Technical infrastructure for Indian languages
Typing in the regional language
OCR: complexity of Indian language scripts
Various other technical troubles like browser compatibility, font display, etc., which deter new users
Dearth of quality content available in digital format
Different standards/formats/generations (gov.in/DLI)
Relative lack of research/academic standards, which is transferred on to Indic wikipedias.
Lack of knowledge sharing culture.
Building a mass knowledge platform is the need of the hour.
The platform should be user friendly, easily available and adoptable; offline outreach is key to effective use of online platforms.
The programme should have feedback loop key, behavior statistics data, reinvent and replicate the programme, multi-channel awareness, ‘user connect’ programmes.
The people should communicate knowledge sharing objectives, make knowledge sharing fun, appoint ambassadors; virtual volunteer community building looks simple but its complex and leads to failure.

VIDEO

Session: 4 Affordable Devices to access the Internet

(by Ravikiran Annaswamy)
Click to read the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of the speaker Ravikiran Annaswamy giving a demo of the low cost Akash tablet.

Overview of Affordable Mobile Phones such as Lava Iris, Karbonn A1, Nokia Asha, etc.
Overview of Affordable Tablets such as Aakash, Ubislate, Karbonn Smart A34, etc.
The number of Internet users in India is expected to nearly triple from 125 million in 2011 to 330 million by 2016, says a report by Boston Consulting Group.
How Internet Penetration impacts society.
Demo of the devices.
Need for Mobile Internet
Sugata Mitra & Arvind Eye Care examples.

VIDEO

Day 3: June 10, 2013

The third day of the Institute focussed on Wired means of accessing the Internet, the technology involved followed by an assignment time where the participants were introduced to 2 topics and asked to work on an assignment. This was followed by a site visit in the afternoon to MapUnity. MapUnity develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges. Their GIS, MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government departments and civil society organisations and in the R&D initiatives of commercial ventures.

Session 1: Wired Access Technology

(by Dr. Nadeem Akhtar)
Click to read the presentation slides

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Wired and Wireless

Wired:

Separate communication channel for each users
Low signal attenuation
No interference
Fixed point-of-attachment

Wireless:

Shared medium of communication
Signal is attenuated by a number of factors
Interference between adjacent channels
Points-of-attachment can be changed on-the-fly

Ethernet:

A family of computer networking technologies for LANs which was Invented in 1973 and commercially introduced in 1980. The systems communicating over ethernet divide a stream o data into individual packets called frames. Each frame contains source and destination addresses and error-checking data so that damaged data can be detected and re-transmitted.
Ethernet, by definition, is a broadcast protocol
Any signal can be received by all hosts
Switching enables individual hosts to communicate

Digital subscriber line (DSL):

DSL uses existing telephone lines to transport data to internet subscribers and the term xDSL is used to refer to a number of similar yet competing forms of DSL technologies which includes ADSL, SDSL, HDSL, HDSL-2, G.SHDL, IDSL, and VDSL. DSL service is delivered simultaneously with wired telephone service on the same telephone line and this is possible because DSL uses higher frequency bands for data.

Asymmetric DSL (ADSL):

ADSL is the most commonly installed technology and an ADSL tech can provide maximum downstream speeds of up to 8 mbps.

Modem and router:

Modem is specific to a technology
Modem is de/modulator, it takes bits coming from one protocol/technology, demodulates it (converts it into original data), and re-modulated the original data to another protocol/technology.
Router allows creation of a local area network, allowing multiple devices to connect to the network and access internet together through the router. It has very high bitrate DSL (VDSL) and goes up to 52 mbps downstream and 16 mbps upstream. The length of the physical connection is limited to 300 meters and the second generation VDSL (CDSL2) provides data rates up to 100 mbps simultaneously in both direction, but maximum available bit rate is still achieved about 300 meters.

Cable:

Cable broadband uses existing CATV infrastructure to provide high-access internet access; uses channels specifically reserved for data transfer
Support simultaneous access to broadband and TV programs
Cable access tech is built for one-way transmission; hence some congestion takes place for bi-way data transfer, leading to much lower upstream connection relative to downstream connection for data.

Fiber:

It is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber; fiber to the neighborhood; fiber to the curb; the street cabinet is much closer to the user’s premises, typically within 300m, thus allowing ethernet or radio-based connection to the final users; fiber to the basement; fiber to the home (BSNL already providing); fiber to the desktop
Passive optical networks (PON)

Advantages of fiber:

Immunity to electromagnetic interference.
Provides very high data rates at long distances.
When network links run over several 1000s of meters (e.g., metro area networks), fiber significantly outperforms copper.
Replacing at least part of these links with fiber shortens the remaining copper segments and allows them to run much faster.
The data rate of a fiber link is typically limited by the terminal equipment rather than the fiber itself.

Assignment
Participants were given two options for an assignment to work on in the coming days and they could choose either one.

Assignment A
The Universal Service Obligation Fund of India has put out a Call for Proposals under two schemes:

Mobile Connectivity and ICT related livelihood skills for womens’ SHGs (http://www.usof.gov.in/usof-cms/pdf21may/Concept_Paper.pdf), and

Access to ICTs and ICT enabled services for persons with disabilities in rural India. (http://www.usof.gov.in/usof-cms/usofsub/Concept%20paper_USOF%20Scheme_PwDs_A.G.Gulati.pdf)

Your NGO is committed to the task of facilitating access to the Internet for women/ persons with disabilities in rural parts of Kerala and wishes to submit a proposal/ project idea in partnership with a service provider to the USOF.

Assignment B
You are a member of the ancient tribe of Meithis residing in Manipur. Over the years, there is a strong feeling in your community that although the Government has rolled out projects to connect the rural areas throughout India, these have not been successful for your tribe and there is still even a lack of basic fixed telephony, let alone mobile and broadband services. You have hence come to the conclusion that there is a need for focused efforts to target such communities as yours and have decided to submit a concept note to the USOF requesting that ‘ethnic and rural tribal communities’ be specifically included within the mandate of the USOF’s activities by defining them as an ‘underserved community’.


Given above is a picture of the participants engaged in a discussion.

Field Trip - Destination: MapUnity.
MapUnity develops technology to tackle social problems and development challenges. Their GIS, MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government departments and civil society organisations, and in the R&D initiatives of commercial ventures. MapUnity presented their product offerings to the participants.

VIDEO

Day 4: June 11, 2013

Session 1: Universal Access

(by Archana Gulati)
Click to read the presentation slides

Given above is a picture of Archana Gulati speaking on Universal Access.	Tuesday revolved around questions of access and openness. The day kicked off with Archana Gulati, a policy expert in access to ICTs for people with disabilities talking on Universal Access. Ms. Gulati stressed the importance of ICTs for social development. ICTs are a necessary aid in development structures including education, health and increased citizen participation in national affairs & they provide crucial knowledge inputs into productive activities. However, even with the Telecom boom, there still exists an access gap in India, which cannot be covered by commercially viable systems.

This 'actual access gap' exists because of geographic (scattered population, low income, low perceived utility of service, lack of commercial/industrial customers, lack of roads, power, difficult terrain, insurgency), economic (urban poor) and social inequality (gender, disabilities) differences. To achieve Universal Access or Universal Service, additional efforts must be made, so as to include these groups. However, Universal Access and Universal Service, while they may imply the same thing, are very different approaches to deal with the problematic access gap.

Universal service, a term coined by Theodore Vail, president of AT&T in 1906, argued that the government should enforce the usage of only one network. This approach suggests a monopolization of the market and goes against the liberal market principle.

Universal access on the other hand suggests cross-subsidizing the low and no profit service areas by high profit service areas. However, this results in the urban population to get over-charged while the rich rural areas benefit from rural subsidizing.

So how do we enable a fair and inexpensive network to be able to create access for a large number of people equally?
Ms. Archana Gulati went on to introduce the Sanchar Shakti scheme as a contribution to national access in India. It was initiated with the objective of improving rural SHG access skills, knowledge, financial services and markets through mobile connections and involved several stakeholders like NABARD, handset/modem manufacturers, DoT USOF, Mobile VAS Providers, Lead NGOs, Mobile Service Providers.

This scheme shows how important is, for the commercial, private and public sector to work together on obtaining accessibility to ITCs.

Session 2: Free and Open Internet

(by Pranesh Prakash)
The following session by Pranesh Prakash on Free and Open Internet showed how the internet can still be a restrictive place which does not allow for internet equality. His talk focussed on the concepts of free and open Internet. Prakash started by stating the Freedom of Speech and Expression Article of the Indian Constitution and in an interactive round it was discussed, how these articles are fundamental for securing other basic human rights. This was demonstrated by an example in which the distribution of food did not proceed equally, as misinformation and restrictions led to an inappropriate hoarding of goods. Therefore, it is important for everyone to have that right. In fact, the Indian constitution formulates Article 19 in a positive way, implying not only everyone should have that right, but that the government must promote the upholding of these rights.

However, in the case of Article 66a, the law actually caused a problem with freedom of speech in itself, as it penalizes sending false and offensive messages through communication services. This is a massive impediment on free speech, as outsiders decide upon what is offensive and what is false.

The other side of freedom of speech and expression is censorship. Online, the removal of websites and editing of content often happens quietly and obscures the fact that someone or something is being censored. Unlike book burnings in the past, which were always made a big political spectacle, often websites are simply removed without a trace, or one is faced with a 404 error, when trying to access it. Because of the offensive content law, journals and magazines are quick to remove supposedly offensive content, as it seems more difficult to engage in argument with the people claiming offense. The CIS proposed a counter-law to secure for this to happen less, as freedom of speech includes the freedom to receive that speech.

VIDEO

Session 3: Openness

(by Sunil Abraham)

Next to ensuring freedom of speech and access, the third session of the day focussed on Openness in terms of Open Source software. Sunil Abraham, CIS executive director, stated the importance of free software and open access of data, as they ensure what he called the four freedoms of internet usage, namely the freedom to use for any purpose, the freedom to study, to modify and to share (freely or for a fee). Proprietary software imposes on these freedoms, as it only has restrictive use and a strong copyright. However, there are alternatives that have moderate copyrights, or so-called copy centred perspectives, or even copyleft, including the above mentioned rights into the terms of the software usage.	Above is a picture of Sunil Abraham speaking on Openness

In alignment with Sunil Abraham’s talk Pranesh Prakash criticized copyright law cutting into accessibility rights, as copyright infringements include translation into other languages, audio versions and also integral parts of education. The key is not to have a "one size fits all" copyright solution, as it is impossible to treat twitter content the same as a blockbuster movie. However, the government of India is doing exactly that and needs to interlink questions of access with copyright law.

VIDEO

Session 4: Open Content

(by Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam)
Prof. Subbiah Arunachalam, who led the next session, discussed Open Content. He had seen during the course of his experience India's poor performance in Science & Technology and outlined the reasons for the same. The lack of access to information essential in scientific research and knowledge production, he said, was the major limiting cause.

VIDEO

Session 5: Quick Talk on Copyright Law and Access

This short session dealt with implications of copyright law on internet access.

Activity

The participants were divided into two groups, and they were asked build as huge a network as possible with their personal belongings and present their creations. The participants had good ideas. One group placed their mobiles and laptops into the network to have them as nodes. The other group implemented the re-routing around censorship.

VIDEO


Given above is a picture of the participants in an activity making the longest network possible with their personal belongings.

Day 5: (June 12, 2013)

Session 1: Privacy on the Internet in India

(by Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickok)

Click to view the presentation slides

Given above is a picture of Elonnai Hickock speaking about privacy	The following day, June 12th started off with “Privacy” as the theme. The session Privacy on the Internet in India was led by CIS privacy experts Sunil Abraham and Elonnai Hickock. In an exchange of anecdotes, it was made clear how there needs to be a certain degree of state surveillance to secure the citizens safety. This can happen through off air interception and active or passive cell phone towers that can track mobile devices. However, encryption is an important tool to secure one’s own privacy against cyber espionage.

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Off-the Air Interception
Possible to set up active or passive cell phone tower.
The signal strength will be strong and everyone looks for it.
Capacity to identify itself as a service provider.
Interception can begin with encryption Technology today used by security agencies.
NTRO- national technical Research Org and Outlook

VIDEO

Session 2: E-Accessibility

(by Nirmita Narasimhan)
Click to view the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan speaking on e-accessibility

The second session was on “E-Accessibility” led by Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan. Some of the salient points discussed were:

Problems arising out of disability
Accessibility-Infrastructure and ICT
Assistive technologies for PWD’s.
Reasonable accommodation (not available or cannot be and requires extra effort and putting up an accessible copy up) and universal Design (for both for PWD’s and non-PWD’s).
Web Content Accessibility is operable and easily understandable.
Accessibility standards include; Daisy (6 types of books including audio and text books) is all about marking up the documents. Really a good way to read but is expensive and time consuming, also need Daisy tools and player to make it work.
In 1808 the first typewriter was developed to help the blind.
Considerations involved in Web Accessibility
Overlap b/w mobile accessibility and web accessibility.
Example- Raku Raku phone captured 60% of market share in Japan. It has many assistive features.
Relay Services has a middle man who passes on the message b/w different PWD’s in many countries, but it is not yet available in India.
PWD’s communicating with customer care – the issues involved.
Accessibility Policy- very few people are adopting accessible technologies. There is a need to have a strong policy. U.K. and U.S. already have strong policies related to accessible and assistive technology for PWD’s.

Video

Session 3: International Bodies and Mechanisms

(by Tulika Pandey and Gaurab Raj Upadhyay)
Activity
Gaurab incorporated an Activity into his talk to enable the students to have a clearer understanding of International Bodies and Mechanisms.


Given above is a picture of the speaker Gaurab Raj Upadhaya explaining the International Bodies and Mechanisms

Some of the salient points discussed during his talk were:

Definition: “Internet Governance is the development and application by Govt., the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles, of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes which shape the evolution and use of internet.”
It should be multilateral, transparent and democratic
Enhanced cooperation means to enable govt…

Technical issues to keep in mind while talking about internet:

Critical internet resources
Root server locations
Open Standards (CIS leads the initiative)
Interoperability
Search Engines
Internationalized Domain names (in own script & language)
Content

Virtual yet real space and most important question to be understood is that whether, the governance of internet is possible?
Public Policy- to monitor cross-border data flow, Openness vs Privacy
India’s Outlook in internet policies-Pillars of Internet which is not fully addressed by the Indian government today.
Established an Inter- Ministerial Group by including various government departments into the arena.
Layer 0-7 Names and Numbers
Layer 8 and above
Applications and Usage
Legal business, policy, etc.

Session-4: E-Governance

(by Tulika Pandey and Sunil Abraham)


Given above is a picture of the speaker Tulika Pandey speaking about e-Governance

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Making policies in India is difficult because the population is huge and implementation at rural level is difficult.
Bombarded by Techno utopians- who believe in technology’s ability to change lives.
Techno determinants- Corruption solved through technology through open government data. More technology is better, the most sophisticated ones are the best are gross misconceptions.
Bhoomi project tried to deal with corruption at village level. Important policy change made all paper work illegal and digitized the land records etc. every action and request will be logged. But this led to creation of new corruption. Bribes were taken even before data was logged!
UID Project (Cobra Post Scam) around 20 public sector and 30 private banks were involved in money laundering scams.
People who design the systems in Delhi prepare sub-contracts.

VIDEO

Day 6: (June 13, 2013)

Session 1: Critical Perspectives of the Internet

(by Dr. Nishant Shah)
Click to view the presentation slides

The sixth day of the Institute kicked off with Nishant Shah, director of research at CIS, looking into Critical Perspectives of the Internet. Nishant made a very important distinction between the internet as infrastructure and as social network constructing alternative universes. Nonetheless it was important to stress that technology should not be alienated in the process of this separation but seen as an integral part of it, as the digital is as much part of reality as any other technology and has become essential as a technology of change that it brings about not only in scientific but also in social development. Quoting Michel Foucault, Shah argued that technology becomes influential when it changes life, labour and language, which is why research in the field should involve critical ways of thinking about body, space and community.	Above is a picture of Dr. Nishant Shah speaking on Critical Perspectives of the Internet.

The body perception can be perceived through the way bodily agencies change through technology. Technology does not necessarily taint or corrupt the body, but can also be a way to escape its confines. To put it to a point, we are all born into technology and cannot free ourselves from them, as for example pregnancy already starts with nutritional supplements, regulatory diets and exercise and essentially ends with birth technologies that do not necessarily involve only the digital - we must remember, speech is one of the oldest technologies available today.

VIDEO

Session 2: Strategies for Policy Intervention

(by Chakshu Roy)
The second session on “Strategies for Policy Intervention” was led by Chakshu Roy. This session dealt with various ways in which policy intervention can be made and the various factors necessary to successfully engage in policy forums.

VIDEO

Session 3: Profile of Internet Service Providers

(by Satyen Gupta)
Click to view the presentation slides


Given above is a picture of Satyen Gupta speaking about Internet Service Providers

Satyen Gupta during his talk on “Profile of Internet Service Providers” discussed the nature, offerings and profile of various ISPs in India, their market share and dynamics.

The salient points discussed were:

National Broadband Plans
Spectrum Issues “Management”
Reality check of Indian ISPs
Broadband Definition & Penetration
Roadblocks for Broadband in India, Governments Role, Regulation
Institutional Framework for the Indian Telecom
Broadband Access in India- Technology-Neutrality
Satellite based DTH Services offer alternate for the Broadband via Receive Only Internet Service (ROIS)
Broadband using DTH for Receive-only Internet
VSAT has the potential for significant impact on Broadband Penetration in Remote Areas
Fixed Wireless Access- an important access technology
Facilitating Radio Spectrum for Broadband Access
Fiscal measures to reduce the cost of access devices, infrastructure and broadband service
Reduction in the cost of connectivity
National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) -National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has been set up on recommendation of TRAI by DIT, Government of India to ensure that Internet traffic, originating and destined for India, should be routed within India.
Emerging Broadband Services
Broadband Commission for Digital Development (BCDD)-UN Targets for Universal Broadband,2015
NOFN India-Existing Fiber Infrastructure and Coverage by Various Service Providers
National Telecom Policy (NTP) 2012- Salient Features
State of Internet Services and ISPs in India:
1. India’s Ranking on Key Broadband Indicators
2. Regulator’s Report – Growth of Internet in India
3. Internet Subscribers Base & Market share of top 10 ISPs
4. Technology trends for Internet/Broadband Access
5. Internet/broadband Subscribers for top 10 states
6. Tariff Plans for USO funded Broadband
7. Contribution of Telcos in Development of Internet Services
8. Incumbent’s Role in Growth of Broadband
9. Plugging rural missing link- BBNL
Internet Subscribers Base & Market share of top 10 ISPs

VIDEO

Session 4: Competition in the Market by Helani Galpaya

Helani Galpaya during her talk on “Competition in the Market” discussed about what competition meant, Herfindahl–Hirschman Index to measure how competitive a market is, what are the dangers of monopoly markets and the landscape of the Telecom market in India.


Above is a picture of Helani Galpaya speaking about Competition in the Market

Day 7: (June 14, 2013)

The final day of the Institute focussed on how the Internet can be used to effect change on society – Activism was the theme.

Session 1: Leveraging Internet for activism

(by Ananth Guruswamy)
Click to read the presentation slides


Above is a picture of Ananth Guruswamy speaking during the session on leveraging internet for activism

Some of the salient points discussed were:

Digital Activism
Target Omar Abdullah. It is about an act called Administrative detention Act. One can be detained without act i.e. The Preventive Detention Act. He directly responded to the threat.
Twitter seems to be a place where the political leaders are actually accessible. This kind of access was not possible in day to day life earlier if one was a common man. This phenomenon is developing. Even in Corporate setup writing a mail directly to the CEO seems possible.
Strengths: Wide reach, Freedom of speech, Data collection is made easy, Issues can be tackled swiftly, Global communities, singular identities have lot of power. Eg: 190 Million people stood up against Poverty; this kind of mobilization impossible without internet.
Besides local issues even Global issues are addressed an collection of funds becomes easy. Onion.com once a struggling publication in U.S., but now with a global audience it is thriving and it has a healthy reader base today.
The Earth Hour helps people connect across space and time.
Weakness: More popularity, more attention; Traditional/Real Protest has become rare and a threat; There is no real action beyond internet, threat of movement is low, there is no real commitment involved in digital activism and just one click is enough to make one ‘feel good’.
Opportunities: Recruitment of protestors for real protests. Diff. b/w real and virtual blurred; anything that affects the mind space is real. The intersection is interesting.
Threats: Total removal of privacy, Government intervention in private issues and there could be misinterpretation of people’s thoughts by certain people.
Traditional vs Digital activism: Traditional fails to provide results whereas clicking a button is as easy as wearing a badge.
Facebook activism: ‘Like Buttons’, People moving away from reading emails, a shift towards use of facebook; creates a sense of belongingness which the traditional activism failed to achieve.
India against Corruption: used mobile phone effectively.
Social Media has changed the way protests happen globally and in India, one example is Twitter. Change.org is a website which gives freedom to anybody to start a petition without any external source; Awaaz.org another such petition website.
Green Peace launched a Green peace X which was a runaway success. YouTube is another platform for the masses. People today are more interested in watching rather than reading.
Pakistan in 2007: “Flash protests”; Free Fraizan Movement on Twitter.
Something to keep in mind regarding while launching a campaign online is to think who the audience is and what we want them to do and how will the campaign help our objectives?
How to measure success of a social media campaign?
Reach
Engagement- likes, tweets, comments, etc.
Influence
Attrition Score

VIDEO

Session 2: Internet Access Activism

(by Parminder Jeet Singh)
The next session on “INTERNET ACCESS” ACTIVISM by Parminder Jeet Singh dealt with how people can contribute to initiatives for improving internet access amongst masses.

VIDEO

Session 3: Ensuring Access to the Internet

(by A.K. Bhargava)
Click to view the presentation
The last session on “Ensuring Access to the Internet” by A.K. Bhargava discussed strategies to enhance access to the Internet in India with special focus on National Optical Fibre Network.

The salient points discussed were:

-    Role of Broadband in Nation Building
-    Policy Aspiration of Broadband - How do we meet aspiration?
-    Telecom Network Layers‐Gaps in OFC Reach
-    BBNL Interconnection
-    NOFN - Bridging The Gap
-    Digital Knowledge Centres (DKCs)
-    Architecture of BBNL
-    NOFN Impact

Societal
- Bridging the digital divide
Business
- Job creation, indigenous industry growth
Sectoral
- Improved connectivity, data growth
Technological
- Differentiators
VIDEO

Speaker Presentation Slides
All the presentation aids/slide shows barring a few have been uploaded to the website at http://internet-institute.in/repository

Presentation of Assignments
The participants presented their assignments which were given to them to work on the 3rd day. The participants were presented with Wikipedia T-Shirts as a token of appreciation.


Given above is a picture of the participants presenting their assignments

Participant Feedback
All participants were asked to fill a "Session Feedback Form" for each of the sessions and also an "Overall Feedback Form". They were also constantly encouraged to come up with suggestions and inputs on how to make the Institute more interesting.

The key findings from the Quantitative Feedback provided are:
(The figures below are averaged scores (out of 5) provided by participants in the Overall Feedback Forms)

S.No.	Parameter	Score (Out of 5)
1	Relevance of Content	3.6
2	Comprehensiveness of Content	3.44
3	Easy to Understand	3.55
4	Well Paced	3.33
5	Sufficient Breaks	3
6	Duration of Talks	3.2
7	Mix between Learning & Activities	3

The key findings from the Qualitative Feedback provided are:

S.No.	Points observed
1	Presentations – Participants felt sessions with accompanying slides/aids were most helpful. Some felt that accompanying notes could also be useful for future reference.
2	Use of Examples/Case Studies – Participants felt concepts can be better assimilated if case-studies/examples are used. Some also felt that for the technological advancements discussed, it would have been better had the social/economic impact of the same was discussed too.
3	Implementation Gaps– One participant, who is working at the field level in Kolkata had a specific thing to say about the talk about BSNL and its offerings– Although BSNL has so many options available on paper to connect to the Internet, common service centres in West Bengal are mostly run on Tata Indicom’s network even though the board outside says “BSNL” etc. She felt that the reality is far different from what exists on paper.
4	Interactive sessions were most appreciated than speaker led sessions.
5	There were many responses to the question “How will you apply this new information in the future” and it is very encouraging. People have given thought to contributing to Wikipedia in their mother tongue, take the knowledge to the field work that they are associated with, continue with their research, change their Internet connections, to help file RTIs, to adopt more open source software, sharing with students, advocacy efforts, etc
6	The responses to the question “What did you learn from the session/workshop that was new?” elicited more responses for the following sessions Domestic Bodies and Mechanisms Case-studies such as Air Jaldi Low cost devices in India USOF Free & Open Internet Copyright laws Privacy Accessibility Digital Natives ISPs
7	Field Trip – One participant said “One or two of the persons from MapUnity could have made the presentation at the institute venue itself. A visit to an underserved or un-served community with interactions with the people there could also have given a good understanding of on-ground challenges and needs.”
8	Follow-up Session –One participant had ideas about having a follow-up session “A follow-up call [webinar?] after 6 months to see if any of these concepts were useful would be an interesting exercise to take up”
9	Assignment – Participants felt that the assignments were good but they needed more time to work on the same.

Other Feedback:

The food and the facilities were enjoyed and appreciated by all.
The remote location of the Golden Palms Resort was a concern for most of the participants.

Participation Certificates
Participation Certificates (template shown below) have been mailed to all the participants in the third week of July 2013.


Given above is the certificate declaring the successful completion of the event

Institute Expenses

A total of Rs. 19, 91,889 (Rupees nineteen lakhs ninety one thousand eight hundred and eighty nine only) was spent towards organizing and conducting the Internet Institute. A breakup of the Institute Expenditures is given below:

S.No.	Type of Expense	Description	Total
1	Venue – Golden Palms Resort	Accommodation for participants, speakers and food	12,91,176
2	Travel	Cost of Air tickets	2,94,515
3	Local Travel	Airport Pickup/Drop, Local City Travel	1,41,001
4	Gifts & Printing	Gifts for speakers and ad hoc document printing charges	24,000
5	Infrastructure	Telephony, Audio, Video, Stage	1,05,000
6	Participant Bags		10,650
7	Reimbursements	Reimbursements to participants and speakers	1,25,547
Total Expenses			19,91,889

What the participants had to say

Sangh Priya Rahul – “One of my organisation's work is more or less related to empowerment of rural areas so knowledge about USOF will be useful there.” (On USOF)

Rashmi. M – “Makes me more sensitized towards the disabled people.” (On e-Accessibility)

Preethi Ayyaluswamy – “Would help me in strategically planning for an online campaign” (On digital activism).

Conclusion

The Institute was highly engaging and enabled the participants to explore the various facets of Internet & Society. As was evident from the feedback forms, participants had given thought to contributing to Wikipedia in their mother tongue, take the knowledge to the field work that they are associated with, continue with their research, change their Internet connections, help file RTIs, adopt more open source software, sharing with students, advocacy efforts etc. There was a very high level of expertise amongst speakers at the Institute which was apparent from the participatory discussions and a lot of insightful perspectives were brought forth. There was a common consensus amongst all participants that inclusive growth across all dimensions would take efforts from all stakeholders.

We hope to learn from the findings of this Institute and work towards a better second Institute.


Above is a group picture of all the participants and the organizers

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/telecom/knowledge-repository-on-internet-access/institute-on-internet-and-society-event-report

Whose Change is it Anyway?

nishant — 2015-04-17T10:56:47Z

This thought piece is an attempt to reflect critically on existing practices of “making change” and its implications for the future of citizen action in information and network societies. It observes that change is constantly and explicitly invoked at different stages in research, practice, and policy in relation to digital technologies, citizen action, and network societies.

The White Paper by Nishant Shah was published by Hivos recently.

However, we do not have adequate frameworks to address the idea of change. What constitutes change? What are the intentions that make change possible? Who are the actors involved? Whose change is it, anyway?

Drawing on the Hivos Knowledge Programme and on knowledge frameworks around youth, technology, and change from the last four years, this thought piece introduces new ways of defining, locating, and figuring change. In the process, it also helps understand the role that digital technologies play in shaping and amplifying our processes and practices of change, and to understand actors of change who are not necessarily confined to the category of “citizen”, which seems to be understood as the de facto agent of change in contemporary social upheavals, political uprisings, and cultural innovations.

Methodologically, this thought piece attempts to make three discursive interventions: It locates digital activism in historical trajectories, positing that digital activism has deep ties to traditional activism, when it comes to the core political cause. Simultaneously, it recognises that new modes of political engagement are demanding and producing novel practices and introducing new actors and stakeholders. It looks at contemporary digital and network theories, but also draws on older philosophical lineages to discuss the crises that we seek to address. It tries to interject these abstractions and theoretical frameworks back into the field by producing two case studies that show how engagement with these questions might help us reflect critically on our past practices and knowledge as well as on visions for and speculations about the future, and how these shape contemporary network societies. It builds a theoretical framework based on knowledge gleaned from conversations, interviews, and on-the-ground action with different groups and communities in emerging information societies, and integrates with new critical theory to build an interdisciplinary and accessible framework that seeks to inform research, development-based interventions, and policy structures at the intersection of digital technologies, citizen action, and change by introducing questions around change into existing discourse.

Click to download the full White Paper here (PDF, 321 Kb)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/blog/hivos-knowledge-programme-june-14-2013-nishant-shah-whose-change-is-it-anyway

CIS Welcomes Standing Committee Report on IT Rules

pranesh — 2013-04-03T10:54:52Z

The Centre for Internet and Society welcomes the report by the Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation, in which it has lambasted the government and has recommended that the government amend the Rules it passed in April 2011 under section 79 of the Information Technology Act.

Click to read the Parliamentary Standing Committee Report on the IT Rules. A modified version was published in CiOL on March 27, 2013.

These rules have been noted by many, including CIS, Software Freedom Law Centre, and Society for Knowledge Commons, and many eminent lawyers, as being unconstitutional. The Standing Committee, noting this, has asked the government to make changes to the Rules to ensure that the fundamental rights to freedom of speech and privacy are safeguarded, and that the principles of natural justice are respected when a person’s freedom of speech or privacy are curtailed.

Ambiguous and Over-reaching Language

The Standing Committee has noted the inherent ambiguity of words like "blasphemy", "disparaging", etc., which are used in the Intermediary Guidelines Rules, and has pointed out that unclear language can lead to harassment of people as has happened with Section 66A of the IT Act, and can lead to legitimate speech being removed. Importantly, the Standing Committee recognizes that many categories of speech prohibited by the Intermediary Guidelines Rules are not prohibited by any statute, and hence cannot be prohibited by the government through these Rules. Accordingly, the Standing Committee has asked the government to ensure "no new category of crimes or offences is created" by these Rules.

Government Confused Whether Rules Are Mandatory or Advisory

The Standing Committee further notes that there is a discrepancy in the government’s stand that the Intermediary Guidelines Rules are not mandatory, and are only "of advisory nature and self-regulation", and that "it is not mandatory for the Intermediary to disable the information, the rule does not lead to any kind of censorship". The Standing Committee points out the flaw in this, and notes that the language used in the rules is mandatory language (“shall act” within 36 hours). Thus, it rightly notes that there is a "need for clarity on the aforesaid contradiction". Further, it also notes that there is "there should be safeguards to protect against any abuse", since this is a form of private censorship by intermediaries."

Evidence Needed Against Foreign Websites

The government has told the Standing Committee that "foreign websites repeatedly refused to honour our laws", however, it has not provided any proof for this assertion. The government should make public all evidence that foreign web services are refusing to honour Indian laws, and should encourage a public debate on how we should tackle this problem in light of the global nature of the Internet.

Cyber Cafes Rules Violate Citizens’ Privacy

The Standing Committee also pointed out that the Cyber Cafe Rules violated citizens’ right to privacy in requiring that "screens of the computers installed other than in partitions and cubicles should face open space of the cyber café". Unfortunately, the Standing Committee did not consider the privacy argument against retention of extensive and intrusive logs. Under the Cyber Cafe Rules, cyber cafes are required to retain (for a minimum of one year) extensive logs, including that of "history of websites accessed using computer resource at cyber café" in such a manner that each website accessed can be linked to a person. The Committee only considered the argument that this would impose financial burdens on small cybercafes, and rejected that argument. CIS wishes the Committee had examined the provision on log maintenance on grounds of privacy as well."

Government’s Half-Truths

In one response, the government notes that "rules under Section 79 in particular have undergone scrutiny by High Courts in the country. Based on the Rules, the courts have given reliefs to a number of individuals and organizations in the country. No provision of the Rules notified under Sections 43A and 79 of the IT Act, 2000 have been held ultra vires."

What the government says is a half-truth. So far, courts have not struck down any of the IT Rules. But that is because none of the High Court cases in which the vires of the Rules have been challenged has concluded. So it is disingenuous of the government to claim that the Rule have "undergone scrutiny by High Courts". And in those cases where relief has been granted under the Intermediary Guidelines, the cases have been ex-parte or have been cases where the vires of the Rules have not been challenged. The government, if it wants to defend the Rules, should point out to any case in which the vires of the Rules have been upheld. Not a single court till date has declared the Rules to be constitutional when that question was before it.

Lack of Representation of Stakeholders in Policy Formulation

Lastly, the Standing Committee noted that it is not clear whether the Cyber Regulatory Advisory Committee (CRAC), which is responsible for policy guidance on the IT Act, has "members representing the interests of principally affected or having special knowledge of the subject matter as expressly stipulated in Section 88(2) of the IT Act". This is a problem that we at CIS also noted in November 2012, when the CRAC was reconstituted after having been defunct for more than a decade.

CIS hopes that the government finally takes note of the view of legal experts, the Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, the Parliamentary motion against the Rules, and numerous articles and editorials in the press, and withdraws the Intermediary Guidelines Rules and the Cyber Cafe Rules, and instead replaces them with rules that do not infringe our constitutional rights.

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, and engages in academic research on digital natives and digital humanities. It was among the organizations that submitted evidence to the Standing Committee on Subordinate Legislation on the IT Rules.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cis-welcomes-standing-committee-report-on-it-rules

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition)

snehashish — 2013-02-17T07:35:25Z

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in its order dated February 14, 2013 has issued directions to the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block seventy eight URLs. The block order has been issued as a result of a court order. Snehashish Ghosh does a preliminary analysis of the list of websites blocked as per the DoT order.

Medianama has published the DoT order, dated February 14, 2013, on its website.

What has been blocked?

The block order contains seventy eight URLs. Seventy three URLs are related to the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM). The other five URLs contain the term “highcourt”. The order also contains links from reputed news websites and news blogs including The Indian Express, Firstpost, Outlook, Times of India, Economic Times, Kafila and Caravan Magazine, and satire news websites Faking News and Unreal Times. The order also directs blocking of a public notice issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC).

The block order does not contain links to any social media website. However, some content related to IIPM has been removed but it finds no mention in the block order. Pursuant to which order or direction such content has been removed remains unclear. For example, Google has removed search results for the terms <Fake IIPM> pursuant to Court orders and it carries the following notice:

"In response to a legal request submitted to Google, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read more about the request at ChillingEffects.org."

Are there any mistakes in the order?

The direction issued by the DoT is once again inaccurate and mired with errors. In effect, the DoT has blocked sixty one unique URLs and the block order contains numerous repetitions. By its order the DoT has directed the ISPs to block an entire blog [http://iipmexposed.blogspot.in] along with URLs to various posts in the same blog.

Reasons for Blocking Websites

According to news reports, the main reason for blocking of websites by the DoT is a Court order issued by a Court in Gwalior. The reason for issuing such a block order might have been a court proceeding with respect to defamation and removal of defamatory content thereof. However, the reasons for blocking of domain names containing the term ‘high court’, which is not at all related to the IIPM Court case is unclear. The DoT by its order has also blocked a link in the website of a internet domain registrar which carried advertisement for the domain name [www.highcourt.com].

Are the blocks legitimate?

The block order may have been issued by the DoT under Rule 10 of the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information by Public) Rules, 2009.

The Court order seems to be an interim injunction in a defamation suit. Generally, Courts exercise utmost caution while granting interim injunction in defamation cases. According to the Bonnard Rule (Bonnard v. Perryman, [1891] 2 Ch 269) in a defamation case, “interim injunction should not be awarded unless a defence of justification by the defendant was certain to fail at trial level.” Moreover, in the case of Woodward and Frasier, Lord Denning noted “that it would be unjust to fetter the freedom of expression, when actually a full trial had not taken place, and that if during trial it is proved that the defendant had defamed the plaintiff, then should they be liable to pay the damages.” The Delhi High Court in Tata Sons Ltd. v. Green Peace International followed the Bonnard Rule and the Lord Denning’s judgements and ruled against the award of interim injunction for removal of defamatory content and stated:

“The Court notes that the rule in Bonnard is as applicable in regulating grant of injunctions in claims against defamation, as it was when the judgment was rendered more than a century ago. This is because the Courts, the world over, have set a great value to free speech and its salutary catalyzing effect on public debate and discussion on issues that concern people at large. The issue, which the defendant’s game seeks to address, is also one of public concern. The Court cannot also sit in value judgment over the medium (of expression) chosen by the defendant since in a democracy, speech can include forms such as caricature, lampoon, mime parody and other manifestations of wit.”

Therefore, it appears that the Court order has moved away from the settled principles of law while awarding an interim injunction for blocking of content related to IIPM. It is also interesting to note that in Green Peace International, the Court also answered the question as to whether there should be different standard for posting or publication of defamatory content on the internet. It was observed by the Court that publication is a comprehensive term, ‘embracing all forms and medium – including the Internet’.

Blocking a Public Notice issued by a Statutory Body of Government of India

The block order mentions a URL which contains a public notice issued by University Grants Commission (UGC) related to the derecognition of IIPM as a University. The blocking of a public notice issued by the statutory body of the Government of India is unprecedented. A public notice issued by a statutory body is a function of the State. It can only be blocked or removed by a writ order issued by the High Court or the Supreme Court and only if it offends the Constitution. However, so far, ISPs such as BSNL have not enforced the blocking of this URL.

Implementation of the order by the ISPs

As pointed out in my previous blog post on blocking of websites, the ISPs have again failed to notify their consumers the reasons for the blocking of the URLs. This lack of transparency in the implementation of the block order has a chilling effect on freedom of speech.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/analyzing-latest-list-of-blocked-urls-by-dot

Five Frequently Asked Questions about the Amended ITRs

chinmayi — 2013-01-30T05:36:26Z

This piece discusses the five major questions that have been the subject of debate after the World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012 (WCIT). The politics surrounding the WCIT are not discussed here but it must be kept in mind that they have played a significant role in the outcome of the conference and in some of the debates about it.

Each question is discussed with reference to the text of the treaty, to the minutes of the plenary sessions (which are available via the ITU website), a little international law and a few references to other people’s comments on the treaty.

1. Do the ITRs apply to content on the internet?

Article 1.1 (a) has been amended to add the sentence “These Regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. Although some discussions about the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) and content have ignored this altogether, others seem concerned about its interpretation.

The ITU Secretary General has issued a statement in which he has clarified that “The new ITR treaty does NOT cover content issues and explicitly states in the first article that content-related issues are not covered by the treaty”.

Commentators like Chuan-Zheng Lee however, continue to view the treaty with suspicion, on the basis that it is necessary to examine content in order to tell whether it is spam (Lee and Chaparro differ on this question). However, others like Eric Pfanner have pointed to this paragraph in their skepticism about the US refusal to sign.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

The Chairman proposed the addition to Article 1.1(a) at the tenth plenary session. He did this to address concerns that the ITRs text could be interpreted to apply to content on the Internet. The original formulation that he proposed was ‘These regulations do not address and cannot be interpreted as addressing content’. This text was suggested in the middle of an extended discussion on Article 5A.

Many countries were skeptical of this insertion. Sudan argued that content could not be avoided in telecommunication networks “because it will always be in transit.” The United Arab Emirates seemed concerned about international interference in states’ existing regulation of content, and said “maybe we could actually say this in the minutes of the meeting that this regulation should not be interpreted as on alteration to Member States content regulation”.

Concerns about what the term ‘content’ means and whether it would apply broadly were raised by more than one country, including Saudi Arabia. For instance, it was argued that the text proposed by the Chairman might interfere with parts of the treaty that require operators to send tariff information correspondence. More than one country that felt that the insertion of this text would impact several parts of the treaty, and that it would be difficult to determine what amounted to dealing with content. The primary issue appeared to be that the term ‘content’ was not defined, and it therefore remained unclear what was being excluded. In response to these concerns, the Chairman withdrew his proposal for the amendment excluding content.

However, several states then spoke up in favour of the Chairman’s proposal, suggesting that the proposed amendment to Article 1.1 influenced their acceptance of Article 5A (on security and robustness of networks – discussed in detail below). Brazil suggested that an answer to the definitional concerns may be found in the work by Study Group 17, which had a definition available.

Following this, the next day, at the twelfth plenary, the Chairman brought back the Article 1.1 amendment excluding content. He stated explicitly that this amendment might be the way to get Articles 5A and 5B approved. The text he read out was insertion of the words “to the exclusion of their content”, after ‘’services’ at the end of 1.1A. Interestingly however, the term ‘content’ was never defined.

At the next plenary session, Iran raised the objection that this phrase was overbroad, and proposed the following formulation instead: “These Regulations do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. This formulation found its way into the amended ITRs as the treaty stands today.

2. Does Article 5A on network security legitimize surveillance of Internet content?

Article 5A deals with ‘security and robustness of networks’ and requires member states to “individually and collectively endeavour to ensure the security and robustness of international telecommunication networks...”. This may have given rise to concerns about interpretations that may extend the security of networks to malware or viruses, and therefore to content on the Internet. However, Article 5A has to be read with Article 1.1(a), and therefore must be interpreted such that it does not ‘address the content-related aspects of telecommunications’.

Some commentators continue to see Article 5A as problematic. Avri Doria has argued that the use of the word ‘security’ in addition to ‘robustness’ of telecommunication infrastructure suggests that it means Internet security. However Emma Llansó of the Centre for Democracy and Technology has noted that the language used in this paragraph is “ far too vague to be interpreted as a requirement or even a recommendation that countries surveil users on their networks in order to maintain security”. Llansó has suggested that civil society advocates make it clear to countries which attempt to use this article to justify surveillance, that it does not lend itself to such practices.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Article 5A was one of the most controversial parts of the ITRs and was the subject of much debate.

On December 11^th, in the Chairman’s draft that was being discussed, Article 5A was titled ‘security of networks’, and required members to endeavour to ensure the “security and robustness of international telecommunication networks”. The Chairman announced that this was the language that came out of Committee 5’s deliberations, and that ‘robustness’ was inserted at the suggestion of CEPT.

Several countries like Poland, Australia, Germany and the United States of America were keen on explicitly stating that Article 5A was confined to the physical or technical infrastructure, and either wanted a clarification that to this effect or use of the term ‘robustness’ instead of security. Many other countries, such as Russia and China, were strongly opposed to this suggestion and insisted that the term security must remain in the document (India was one of the countries that preferred to have the document use the term ‘security’).

It was in the course of this disagreement, during the tenth plenary session, that the Chairman suggested his global solution for Article 1.1 – a clarification that this would not apply to content. This solution was contested by several countries, withdrawn and then reinstated (in the eleventh plenary) after many countries explained that their assent to Article 5A was dependant on the existence of the Article 1 clarification about content (see above for details).

There was also some debate about whether Article 5A should use the term ‘robustness’ or the term ‘security’ (eg. The United States clarified that its preference was for the use of ‘resilience and robustness’ rather than security). The Secretary General referred to this disagreement, and said that he was therefore using both terms in the draft. The title of Article 5A was changed, in the eleventh plenary, to use both terms, instead of only referring to security.

3. Does Article 5B apply to spam content on the Internet?

The text of the amended treaty talks of ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ and does not use the term ‘spam’[Article 5B says that ‘Members should endeavour to take necessary measures to prevent the propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic communications and minimize its impact on international telecommunication services’].If this phrase is read in isolation, it may certainly be interpreted as being applicable to spam. Commentators like Avri Doria have pointed to sources like Resolution 130 of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (Guadalajara, 2010) to demonstrate that ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ ordinarily means spam. However, others like Enrique A. Chaparro argue that it cannot possibly extend to content on the Internet given the language used in Article 1.1(a). Chapparo has explained, that given the exclusion of content, Article 5B it authorizes anti-spam mechanisms that do not work on content.

Article 5B, which discusses ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’, must be read with Article 1, which is the section on purpose and scope of the ITRS. Article 1.1 (a) specifies that the ITRs “do not address the content-related aspects of telecommunications”. Therefore it may be argued that ‘unsolicited bulk electronic communications’ cannot be read as being applicable to content on the Internet.

However, many continue to be concerned about Article 5B’s applicability to spam on the Internet. Although some of them that their fear is that some states may interpret Article 5B as applying to content, despite the contents of Article 1.1(a), many have failed to engage with the issue in the context of Article 1.1(a).

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Article 5B is inextricably linked with the amendment to Article 1.1. Mexico asked specifically about what the proposed amendment to Article 1.1 would mean for Article 5B: “I’m referring to the item which we’ll deal with later, namely unsolicited bulk electronic communications. Could that be referred to as content, perhaps?”. The Chairman responded saying, “This is exactly will solve the second Article 5B, that we are not dealing with content here. We are dealing with measures to prevent propagation of unsolicited bulk electronic messages”.

The amendment to Article 1.1 was withdrawn soon after it was introduced. Before it was reintroduced, Sweden said (at the eleventh plenary) that it could not see how Article 5B could apply without looking into the content of messages. The United States agreed with this and went on state that the issue of spam was being addressed at the WTSA level, as well as by other organisations. It argued that the spam issue was better addressed at the technical level than by introducing it in treaty text.

The amendment excluding content was reintroduced during the twelfth plenary. The Chairman explicitly stated that it might be the way to get Articles 5A and 5B approved.

The word ‘spam’ was dropped from the ITRs in the eight plenary, and “unsolicited bulk electronic communications” was used instead. However, in the eleventh plenary, as they listed their reasons for not signing the newly-amended ITRs, Canada and the United States of America referred to ‘spam’ which suggests that they may have viewed the change as purely semantic.

4. Does the resolution on Internet Governance indicate that the ITU plans to take over the Internet?

Much controversy has arisen over the plenary resolution ‘to foster an enabling environment for the greater growth of the Internet’. This controversy has arisen partly thanks to the manner in which it was decided to include the resolution, and partly over the text of the resolution. The discussion here focuses on the text of the resolution and then describes the proceedings that have been (correctly) criticized.

The history of this resolution, as Wolfgang Kleinwächter has explained, is that it was part of a compromise to appease the countries which were taking positions on the ITU’s role in Internet governance, that were similar to the controversial Russian proposal. The controversial suggestions about Internet governance were excluded from the actual treaty and included instead in a non-binding resolution.

The text of the resolution instructs the Secretary General to “to continue to take the necessary steps for ITU to play an active and constructive role in the development of broadband and the multi-stakeholder model of the Internet as expressed in § 35 of the Tunis Agenda”. This paragraph is particularly controversial since of paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda says “Policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States. They have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public policy issues.” Kleinwächter has pointed out that this selection leaves out later additions that have taken place with progression towards a multi-stakeholder model.

The resolution also resolves to invite member states to “to elaborate on their respective positions on international Internet-related technical, development and public-policy issues within the mandate of ITU at various ITU forums including, inter alia, the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum, the Broadband Commission for Digital Development and ITU study groups”.

A little after its introduction, people began expressing concerns such as the Secretary General may treat the resolution as binding, While the language may raise cause for concern, it is important to note that resolutions of this nature are not binding and countries are free to opt out of them. Opinions vary about the intentions that have driven the inclusion of this resolution, and what it may mean for the future. However commentators like Milton Mueller have scoffed at these concerns, pointing out that the resolution is harmless and may have been a clever political maneuver to resolve the basic conflict haunting the WCIT, and that mere discussion of the Internet in the ITU harms no one.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

Egypt and Bulgaria suggested that the resolution refer to paragraph 55 of the Tunis agenda instead of paragraph 35, by inserted the following text “”Recognizing that the existing arrangements for Internet Governance have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations and with innovation and value creation at the edges.” The US was also quite insistent on this language (although it did also argue that this was the wrong forum to discuss these issues).

The Chairman was willing to include paragraph 55 in addition to paragraph 35 but Saudi Arabia objected to this inclusion. Finland suggested that the resolution should be removed since it was not supported by all the countries present and was therefore against the spirit of consensus. The Secretary General defended the resolution, suggesting both that it was harmless and that since it was a key component of the compromise, eliminating it would threaten the compromise. South Africa and Nigeria supported this stand.

It was during this debate that the procedural controversy arose. Late into the night, the Chairman said there was a long list of countries that wished to speak and said “I just wanted to have the feel of the room on who will accept the draft resolution”. He proceeded to have countries indicate whether they would accept the draft resolution or not, and then announced that the majority of the countries in the room were in favour of retaining the resolution. The resolution was then retained. Upon Spain’s raising the question, the Chairman clarified that this was not a vote. The next day, other countries raised the same question and the Chairman, while agreeing that the resolution was adopted on the basis of the ‘taking of temperature’ insisted that it was not a vote so much as an effort to see what majority of the countries wanted.

5. Does the human rights language used in the preamble, especially the part about states’ access to the Internet, threaten the Internet in any way?

The preamble says “Member States affirm their commitment to implement these Regulations in a manner that respects and upholds their human rights obligations”, and “These Regulations recognize the right of access of Member States to international telecommunication services”. The text of the preamble can be used as an interpretation aid since it is recognized as providing context to, and detailing the object and purpose of, a treaty. However if the meaning resulting from this appears to be ambiguous, obscure, absurd or unreasonable, then supplementary means such as the preparatory work for the treaty and the circumstances for its conclusion may also be taken into account.

Therefore anyone who is concerned about the impact of the text inserted in the preamble must (a) identify text within the main treaty that could be interpreted in an undesirable manner using the text in the preamble; and (b) consider preparatory work for the treaty and see whether it supports this worrying interpretation. For example, if there were concerns about countries choosing to interpret the term ‘human rights’ as subordinating political rights to economic rights, it would be important to take note of the Secretary General’s emphasis on the UDHR being applicable to all member states.

Initially, only the first insertion about ‘human rights obligations’ was part of the draft treaty. The second insertion, recognizing states’ rights followed after the discussion about human rights language. Some states argued that it was inconsistent to place human rights obligations on states towards their citizens, but to leave out their cross-border obligations. It was immediately after this text was voted into the draft, that the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries refused to sign the ITRs. This particular insertion is phrased as a right of states rather than that of individuals or citizens, which does not align with the language of international human rights. While it may not be strictly accurate to say that human rights have traditionally been individual centric (since collective rights are also recognized in certain contexts), it is certainly very unusual to treat the rights of states or governments as human rights.

Some highlights from the plenary session discussions

The United States of America and the Netherlands wanted to include language to state explicitly that states’ international human rights obligations are not altered in anyway. This was to clarify that the inclusion of human rights language was not setting the ITU up as a forum in which human rights obligations are debated. Malaysia objected to the use of human rights language in the preamble right at the outset, on the grounds that the ITRs are the wrong place for this, and that the right place is the ITU Constitution. It even pointed to the fact that jurisprudence is ever-evolving, to suggest that the meaning of human rights obligations might change over time. These were the two major perspectives offered towards the beginning of the discussion.

The Chairman underlined the fact that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is already applicable to all UN countries. He argued that reflection of these principles in the ITRs would help build universal public faith in the conference.

The first traces of the states’ access rights can be seen in Cuba’s intervention at the ninth plenary – Cuba argued that limiting states’ access to public information networks amounted to infringement of human rights. At the fourteenth plenary, Nigeria proposed on behalf of the African group that the following text be added to the preamble “And recognize the right of access of all Member States to international telecommunication networks and services." Countries like China which had been ambivalent about the human rights language in the preamble, were happy with this move away from an individual-centric understanding of human rights, to one that sees states as representative of people.

The United States was express in its dissent, and said “human rights obligations go to the individual”. Sweden was also not happy with the proposal and argued that it moved away from well-established human rights language that affirmed existing commitments to drafting new human rights language.

It was an amended version of the African group proposal that finally found its way into the preamble. It was supported by many countries such as China, Nigeria and Sudan, who took the position that group rights are included within human rights, and that governments represent their citizens and therefore have rights on their behalf. This position was strenuously disputed by states like the USA, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Canada.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/five-faqs-on-amended-itrs