The Centre for Internet and Society
https://cis-india.org
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Locating Internets: Histories of the Internet(s) in India — Research Training and Curriculum Workshop: Call for Participation
https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop
<b>Deadline for submission: 26th July 2011-06-08;
When: 19th - 22nd August, 2011;
Where: Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) University, Ahmedabad;
Organised by: Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore and CEPT University, Ahmedabad.
Please Note: Travel support is only available for domestic travel within India.</b>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is an innovative, multi-disciplinary, workshop that engages with some of the most crucial debates around Internet and Society within academic scholarship, discourse and practice in India. It explores Where, When, How and What has changed with the emergence of Internet and Digital Technologies in the country. The Internet is not a singular monolithic entity but is articulated in various forms – sometimes materially, through accessing the web; at others, through our experiences; and yet others through imaginations of policy and law. Internets have become a part of our everyday practice, from museums and archives, to school and university programmes, living rooms and public spaces, relationships and our bodily lived realities. It becomes necessary to reconfigure our existing concepts, frameworks and ideas to make sense of the rapidly digitising world around us. The Internet is no longer contained in niche disciplines or specialised everyday practices. LOCATING INTERNETS invites scholars, teachers, researchers, advanced research students and educationalists from any discipline to learn and discuss how to ask new questions and design innovative curricula in their discipline by introducing concepts and ideas from path-breaking research in India.</p>
<p>Comprised of training, public lectures, open discussion spaces, and hands-on curriculum building exercises, this workshop will introduce the participants to contemporary debates, help them articulate concerns and problems from their own research and practice, and build knowledge clusters to develop innovative and open curricula which can be implemented in interdisciplinary undergraduate spaces in the country. It showcases the research outputs produced by the Centre for Internet and Society’s Researchers @ Work Programme, and brings together nine researchers to talk about alternative histories, processes, and bodies of the Internets, and how they can be integrated into mainstream pedagogic practices and teaching environments.</p>
<h3>Knowledge Clusters for the Workshop</h3>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is designed innovatively to accommodate for various intellectual and practice based needs of the participants. While the aim is to introduce the participants to a wide interdisciplinary range of scholarship, we also hope to address particular disciplinary and scholarly concerns of the participants. The workshop is further divided into three knowledge clusters which help the participants to focus their energies and ideas in the course of the four days.</p>
<ul><li><strong>Bridging the Gap</strong>: This workshop seeks to break away from the utopian public discourse of the Internets as a-historical and completely dis-attached from existing technology ecologies in the country. This knowledge cluster intends to produce frameworks that help us contextualize the contemporary internet policy, discourse and practice within larger geo-political and socio-historical flows and continuities in Modern India. The first cluster chartsdifferent pre-histories of the Internets, mapping the continuities and ruptures through philosophy of techno-science, archiving practices, and electronifcation of governments,to develop new technology-society perspectives.</li><li><strong>Paradigms of Practice</strong>:One of the biggest concerns about Internet studies in India and other similar developed contexts is the object oriented approach that looks largely at specific usages, access, infrastructure, etc. However, it is necessary to understand that the Internet is not merely a tool or a gadget. The growth of Internets produces systemic changes at the level of process and thought. The technologies often get appropriated for governance both by the state and the civil society, producing new processes and dissonances which need to be charted. The second cluster looks at certain contemporary processes that the digital and Internet technologies change drastically in order to recalibrate the relationship between the state, the market and the citizen.</li><li><strong>Feet on the Ground</strong>: The third cluster looks at contemporary practices of the Internet to understand the recent histories of movements, activism and cultural practices online. It offers an innovative way of understanding the physical objects and bodies that undergo dramatic transitions as digital technologies become pervasive, persuasive and ubiquitous. It draws upon historical discourse, everyday practices and cultural performances to form new ways of formulating and articulating the shapes and forms of social and cultural structures.</li></ul>
<h3>Workshop Outcomes</h3>
<p>The participants are expected to engage with issue of Internet and it various systemic processes through their own disciplinary interests. Apart from lectures and orientation sessions, the participants will actively work on their own project ideas during the period in groups and will be guided by experts. The final outcome of the workshops would be curriculum for undergraduate and graduate teaching space of various disciplines in the country.</p>
<h3>Participation Guidelines</h3>
<p>LOCATING INTERNETS is now accepting submissions from interested participants in the following format:</p>
<ol><li>Name:</li><li>Institutional affiliation and title:</li><li>Address:</li><li>Email address:</li><li>Phone number:</li><li>A brief resume of work experience (max. 350 words)</li><li>Statement of interest (max. 350 words)</li><li>Key concerns you want to address in the Internet and Society field (max. 350 words)</li><li>Identification with one Knowledge-cluster of the workshop and a proposal for integrating it in your research/teaching practice (max. 500 words)</li><li>Current interface with technologies in your pedagogic practices (max. 350 words)</li><li>Additional information or relevant hyperlinks you might want to add (Max. 10 lines)<br /></li></ol>
<pre>Notes:</pre>
<ul><li>Submissions will be accepted only from participants in India, as attachments in .doc, .docx or .odt formats at <a class="external-link" href="mailto:locatinginternets@cis-india.org">locatingInternets@cis-india.org</a></li><li>Submissions made beyond 26th July 2011 may not be considered for participation. <br /></li><li>Submissions will be scrutinized by the organisers and selected participants will be informed by the 30th July 2011, about their participation.</li><li>Selected participants will be required to make their own travel arrangements to the workshop. A 2nd A.C. train return fare will be reimbursed to the participants. Shared accommodation and selected meals will be provided at the workshop.</li><li>A limited number of air-fare reimbursements will be available to participants in extraordinary circumstances. All travel support is only available for domestic travel in the country.<br /></li></ul>
<p><strong>Chairs</strong>: Nishant Shah, Director-Research, Centre for Internet and Society Bangalore;</p>
<p>Pratyush Shankar, Associate Professor & Head of Undergraduate Program, Faculty of Architecture, CEPT University</p>
<p><strong>Supported by</strong>: Kusuma Foundation, Hyderabad</p>
<p><strong>Experts</strong>:Anja Kovacs, Arun Menon, Asha Achuthan, Ashish Rajadhykasha, Aparna Balachandran, Namita Malhotra, Nithin Manayath, Nithya Vasudevan, Pratyush Shankar, Rochelle Pinto and Zainab Bawa</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop'>https://cis-india.org/research/conferences/conference-blogs/workshop</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnaDevelopmentGamingDigital ActivismDigital GovernanceResearchCISRAWFeaturedCyberculturesarchivesNew PedagogiesWorkshopIT Cities2011-07-21T06:00:39ZBlog EntryTransforming urbanscapes: ATM in cities
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/transforming-urbanscapes-atm-in-cities
<b>This is the first in series of posts where I will try and articulate the transformation in the urban landscape that one can attribute either directly or in-directly to information and communication technologies. I am keen in discussing changes that are more fundamental in terms of architectural typology and spatial constructs and all this while looking for things that are specific to an Indian city. And that is where the story becomes rather interesting; Indian cities are unique and so when a shift occurs in its material constructs it must be analyzed with reference to its peculiar context.</b>
<p>Automated Teller Machines (ATM) are an accepted part of the city landscape. They are omnipresent and expected to be near you anytime anywhere. Not surprising the other common interpretation of the acronym ATM has popularly been “Any Time Money”! The functioning of ATM is absolutely dependent on the connection of these machines with the mother server of the bank. Without the networked connection through internet, the ATMs machines are dead and practically cannot do anything. ATMs are dependent on internet and the very presence of thousands of ATM spaces in our cities is perhaps the most reoccurring reminder of the spatial alteration of the urban landscape. This phenomenon needs to be dissected further and I will try and answer the following questions in the process.</p>
<p>What is the nature of the ATM spatial typology and how does it fit with the physical context?<br />What are the meaning that are attached to the ATM space and what do they now signify?</p>
<h3>Occurrence, Repetition and Assurance</h3>
<p>ATM’s like the hoardings of a recent advertisement campaign repeats
itself at most part of the city. The same banner, color, bright light
and the bored security guard at the gate. Absolutely predictable,
repetitive and thoroughly efficient. They are suppose to do a simple
function of vending currency note at most times. But they are now an
important element in the city that repeats and can be easily identified.
They are not only doing the function of vending money but also serve as
an important advertisement of the bank and announce its presence in the
city. ATM’s multiple occurrence in a city surely reinforces the idea
of the aspirational middle class of Indian cities.</p>
<p>ATM’s dots the urban landscape while glowing in the night when every other shop and establishments are asleep. A 24 hour petrol pump, the all night coffee shop and of course the railway station tea shop that open all night are the other such night owls that reassure us that the city is not dead and everything will start again tomorrow.</p>
<p><em>These all night establishment have an important urban function; that of sheltering the lost souls in the night and keeping alive the idea of a city on the move. </em></p>
<h3>The Private in Public: Banking in the City Spaces</h3>
<p>The ATMs are extensions of the banks that reach out in the city. They
are the point of receiving money (our money) from the bank. Banking has
extended to public place and this is a very important phenomenon.
Historically of course, informal banking has been taking place in street
corners and small shacks in most old areas, but again only in certain
parts of the city that are associated with such activities.</p>
<p>The ATM’s extend banking in public domain, but through a rather scared and conditioned spaces of the room where the solitary ATM machines lie. The ATM machines occur everywhere signifying that a lifestyle in a consumer society. But ATMs as extension of banking space, are creating a rather interesting contradiction. Banks were never public places really and privacy was always a very important component of banking. Traditionally customers never did transactions in full public view. Money was collected, counted and snugly inserted in wallet or a non-noticeable bag in the comfort of the high counter and inside a fairly semi-public space of the bank. The space of the bank became the place of transaction in extremely limited public view. Moreover the view was not really of strangers but of fellow customers as worried about privacy as the “viewed” subject themselves.</p>
<p>The ATM’s present a new problem; as at one level it creates a space in many parts of the city where a customer can carry out transaction (mostly withdrawals of currency notes) but in full public view of the market place. <strong>This is rather interesting and the situation demands a public display of ones rather private (not necessarily secretive) exercise of doing financial transactions.</strong> Not surprising there is always a swiftness of action when people withdraw money from an ATM!</p>
<p><em>“Why can’t they have more ATM machines in the city? Multinational banks but pathetic service, I tell you. And what the hell is that guy doing. He has already withdrawn twice. Is he talking to the machine”…. An impatient customer in the ATM queue.</em></p>
<p>It is not surprising that waiting outside an ATM machine is not as comfortable as lets say waiting for our turn to buy vegetables or a boarding pass before a flight. ATM’s spatial typology are still reflective of this fundamental contradiction. It is not clear whether the ATM can be as public as a grain shop or as private as a public toilet! At one level the ATM’s have to be very accessible and visible, making it easier for people to use but at the same time they have to be guarded, controlled and monitored.</p>
<p>That is why perhaps there are two distinct parts of the ATM space; The facade which is formed by the back lit name of the bank written in a particular manner and the window from which one can view the ATM machine lying inside. This together becomes like a two dimensional graphics (visual brand) that announces the presence of the ATM. The second is essentially the conditioned room that keeps the machines, which tries and give some sense of the privacy to the customer and perhaps facilitate the security of the machine. Not to forget the security guard, who sits and practically does nothing!</p>
<p>See below the exploded view of the essential ATM typology</p>
<p><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/1.jpg/image_preview" alt="Maplitho" class="image-inline image-inline" title="Maplitho" /></p>
<p><strong>I wish if someone can tell me if a bored security guard always found along with an ATM is essentially an Indian phenomenon?</strong></p>
<p>It is not surprising that the ATM on the wall on public street has practically failed to inspire any confidence and are rather rare to find these days. I do not think it is only the concern of security of the ATM machine. I guess the machines are more secured as embedded objects in a wall rather than being stand alone in a room. It seems it is has to do with discomfort associated with doing financial transaction in full public view and that is why the closed room.</p>
<p>The ATM in its present form has not really integrated with the other elements of the city as it essentially sits in the building typology that is meant for small shops. It does not exist in any particular combination of other shops. One of the reason for vitality in Indian city is the nature of combination of various agglomerated shopping and commerce.</p>
<p><em>For example Tea shop on street-balloon vendor - Chat wala - Cold drink and Ice-cream shop - Pan Shop<em></em> - Florists - Newspaper Vendor - Archies Card Gallery - Stationary shop and so on!</em></p>
<p>ATM machine is surely the black sheep unless of course it can be viewed and designed as a utility urban furniture like a bus stand, parking meter, letter box, public toilets or a telephone booth.</p>
<em></em>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/transforming-urbanscapes-atm-in-cities'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/transforming-urbanscapes-atm-in-cities</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and societyIT Cities2012-03-13T10:43:51ZBlog EntryFrom the Stock Market to Neighbourhood Mohalla
https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla
<b>The stock markets have been the symbol of trade and commerce of the city and the region. In this post I will analyze the stock market; an important commercial institution and try and articulate its changing architectural configuration and its impact on neighborhoods and other public domain of the city. The change in information technology has had a profound effect on the business methodologies of the stock brokers and traders in the last few years with possibilities for buying and selling during the market hours from any internet enabled device. The pundits have announced that the “market is in your pocket or at the comfort of your home”. Is it really so or is the change more subtle? Moreover how will our cities and their public place transform from such shift?</b>
<p>The market refers to a system, institution or arrangement by which certain transactions are executed. The stock market space (building or group of buildings) is usually unique to a larger space (city, region or country) and indicative of the economic interest of corporates, organizations, government and individual investors. The stock market space itself, is one that has traditionally been highly networked node, collapsing together communications with other global markets, financial institutions, agents, investors and government bodies. Communication technology in the form of telecommunication, fax and telegram have been the lifeline to support transactions in the stock market space.</p>
<p>The floor of the stock market is the physical manifestation (both of symbolic and utilitarian value) of the institution of stock trade. It has been the place where the agents using information, negotiate and transact on shares for their respective clients. The space of the floor with information being displayed on the sides has been the image that is used in many movies to symbolize trade and commerce. The floor is projected and perceived as the center sanctum of the stock trading activity at large.</p>
<p>Trading of stocks of all possible kind is possible from a computer connected to internet using real time information of the market. Stock market building space as well as the floor do continue function as central places of trade but immense volume of trade is being done through internet enabled devices across the country. Moreover the program and structure of stock brokers office has radically changed in the last few years. The stock broking office has now become the mini floor of the trade where decisions are taken about buying and selling. The stock broking offices are now the decentralized units that are everywhere, like the ATM machines in the city. They are the neighbourhood investing space.</p>
<h3>Story: Where to Kanti bhai?</h3>
<p>Kanti bhai was worried that morning. He was running late and was driving swiftly to beat the railway crossing. His old bajaj was holding well competing with the jazzy Japanese collaboration bikes as he raced towards the crossing. He could never understand why youngster spend that kind of money on bikes when it cannot even hold the vegetable pack or for that matter even their wife in the pillion seat that well. He was rather proud of his bajaj chetak 2-stroke smoke spewing machine and it had served him well for the last 17 years. As he wriggled past the traffic coming from the right side (well he was on the wrong lane) and swiftly crossed before the crossing gates closed, he slowed down on the turning and signaled with a shake of his head to the kid on the street. To a stranger the nod of the head was perhaps just an empty gesture but Raju the kid was the code breaker! He knew Kantibhai wanted the masala tea real quick delivered on the first floor office of Om Shanti Stock Brokers. Raju also understood that Kantibhai was going for a big kill; bottom fishing since the market fell real hard yesterday. Raju was barely eight when he came from Dungarpur (Rajasthan) to help his uncle at the road side tea shop at Maninagar. Now the road side stall, the commercial complex in front and the shop shack besides the temple were his foster home. The masala tea that his uncle made was the fuel of most office goers in the area and it was a local institution that not only provided tea but also information on real estate, family problems of residents and mobile number of the bootlegger.</p>
<p>Raju with all the tea cups in his hands moved swiftly from the tailor shop below the stair to the picture framer besides it to the Raymond shop in the semi basement to the lady selling the toys on the pavement. He resembled a bee moving from one flower to another in a garden and he quickly climbed the awkward spiral stair to the first floor stock broking office. This was always the place he enjoyed most and it was always teeming with boisterous characters that were perpetually excited; laughing aloud, shouting to be heard, making fun of the other and generally having a good times. These were the stock traders whose baithak (regular sit-out) was the Om Shanti broking office. The office itself was nothing but a room, with a swanky air conditioner and four terminals (simple computers that are connected to BSE) where people took turns to sit and execute their order. But the space of the office spread way beyond this room. They sat in the corridor in front, at the travel agent shop besides, below the hoarding for a commanding view of the traffic snarls in front. The place oozed with people like Kanti bhai’s, and resonated with animated interaction about the stock market, discussions about son’s marriage or rising price of petrol.</p>
<p>The place has in the recent years, come to be associated with share trade and had given rise to a whole eco-sytem that supported it; The stock broking office -Pan Shop- Tea Stall-Bhajia Center- ATM- Photo copiers- Stationary Shop and the Newspaper stall. Raju the tea boy knew much about “circuits” and “stop loss” these days as much he understood the right ingredients of the tea</p>
<p>All of a sudden in the last few years since terminals (internet accessible computers used for transactions) have become common, trade can practically occur anywhere in the city. This phenomenon has also led to creation of the decentralized stock brokers/ investors community as they do not need to be at the main stock exchange building anymore. Due to presence of small and medium sized stock broking firms in the city, the stock market space is now a decentralized neighborhood units.</p>
<p>These are not only spaces for carrying out transaction but have become “places” for trader community to meet and connect. The place itself is small and allows the local neighborhood stock traders or investors to meet. This decentralized community public place characteristics of the space is an interesting development which have been made possible due to the internet based on-line trading activities in market places. Moreover this new program of online stock broking has integrated well with the various processes of the Indian bazaar like informal food, roadside vendors, service sector and active retail. This is also the sign of the strength and vitality of our contemporary markets that have evolved over the years and are the mainstay of the Indian retail.</p>
<p>The association of Information Technology with the Malls and the super blocks of the Call center is only one side of the story. The malls and IT complexes by turning inwards and showing off only a pretty facade have failed to offer anything to the city and do not seem to hold any promise of “public” good to its citizens or user. I will hopefully write more about this in my next posts.</p>
<p>It is actually these little markets where person like Kanti bhai’s rush every morning and the little Raju’s run around serving cutting chai, that small stock broking office, ATM’s and Travel agents (all program that use IT for work) are slowly transforming and complimenting the very nature of the public places in India.</p>
<p>Read the original <a class="external-link" href="http://www.pratyushshankar.net/blog/internet/">here</a></p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla'>https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/internet-society-and-space-in-indian-cities/stock-market-neighbourhood-mohalla</a>
</p>
No publisherpraskrishnainternet and societyIT Cities2011-08-02T06:05:59ZBlog EntryIT and the cITy
https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity
<b>Nishant Shah tells ten stories of relationship between Internet Technologies and the City, drawing from his experiences of seven months in Shanghai. In this introduction to the city, he charts out first experiences of the physical spaces of Shanghai and how they reflect the IT ambitions and imaginations of the city. He takes us through the dizzying spaces of Shanghai to see how the architecture and the buildings of the city do not only house the ICT infrastructure but also embody it in their unfolding. In drawing the seductive nature of embodied technology in the physical experience of Shanghai, he also points out why certain questions about the rise of internet technologies and the reconfiguration of the Shanghai-Pudong area have never been asked. In this first post, he explains his methdologies that inform the framework which will produce the ten stories of technology and Shanghai, and how this new IT City, delivers its promise of invisibility.</b>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">Shanghai. City of bits, bytes and
Baozi. China’s home-grown success story that eclipses the colonial legends of
HongKong. The city that was, until the Bejing Olympics, the showcase city which
is now working hard at recovering some of its stolen glory as it prepares for
the World Trade Expo in 2010. A city that is constantly at war with itself,
trying to museumise its past, eradicate pockets of history and times, and
running to escape its present and live in a futuristic tomorrow. A city that
broke the distinctions of the public and the private, by privatising all that
was public, and by encouraging the private to be constructed for a public
spectacle. There are many stories of Shanghai to be told, but the one that
needs to be told now, is about the space of the city and how, in its attempt to
become an IT city, it has become a city of surfaces, all reminding you, in an
overwhelming hypervisual way that is the predominant aesthetic of cyberspaces,
that it is the city that not only houses technology but also embodies it,
becoming, possibly, the only city in Asia that brings the IT back into the
City.</p>
<img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/shanghai/image_preview" alt="Aerial view" class="image-left" title="Aerial view" />
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"> </p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">A cursory glance around you,
perhaps travelling in the uber efficient metro system that feeds into the
mobile metaphor of accelerated speed and space that Shanghai has become, or
just walking down the more touristy XinTianDi where the rich and the famous of
Shanghai’s society hang out, or walking down the HuaiHai Road where
sky-scrapers fortress the sky and shopping malls greet you with neon-lit spaces
of consumption, you are overwhelmed at the significant and ubiquitous presence
of internet technologies. The buildings are designed to be interfaces, rather
than walls, covered constantly with the graffiti of digital advertisements,
live weather and stock updates, displaying the latest block-buster movie, or
just presenting a kaleidoscopic array of lights spiralling in a dizzying,
schizophrenic style on the surfaces of the buildings. As you walk through the
sci-fi inspired urban landscape, you try and suppress the feeling of being
inside a giant-size arcade game, waiting for a gobbling monster to come and
devour you, and continue browsing at the city that never remains the same –
either the surfaces mutate so that not even signboards or billboards remain the
same, or the very buildings disappear into rubble under the shadows of gigantic
cranes, as a concentrated demand for real estate necessitates a constant
recycling of limited space (The estimate says that 60 per cent of Shanghai gets
rebuilt every ten years), or high speed transport dissolves the city into a
blur so that only the biggest and the brightest buildings stay as north-stars
to the fluid geography of the city.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">If you happen to stand on the
magnificent Bund in PuXi (The older Shanghai), you keep on looking down at the
ground beneath your feet, making sure that it is still there, because the
slightly lurid but dazzling sky-line that faces you, with huge LCD screens
mounted on buildings, lights flirting with low lying clouds on the top of
gigantic buildings, and a constant buzz of electricity breaking the waves in
the Huangpu river, you know that you are in a city that gives IT its address.
No other city in Asia – not even the almost-not-Asia spaces of Tokyo or
Singapore – gives you the assurance of being completely and totally immersed in
the glory of Internet technologies. Shanghai stands, networked, connected,
mobile, accelerated, and in a time-less vacuum that hoovers the future into the
present, as a city that technology studies will have to reckon with in a
paradigm of its own.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;"><img src="https://cis-india.org/home-images/Bund/image_preview" alt="Shanghai Bund" class="image-right" title="Shanghai Bund" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">And so strong is this seduction
of technology that conversations about technology and its place in Shanghai,
always revolves around the surface – about the building of the surface, about
the dissolution of depth (temporal or spatial),
and about imagining the city only in terms of light, connectivity, and
speed. So that the historicity in PuXi
becomes a flat display of the Chinese Way (Zhongguo Fangshi) and the
work-in-progress present in PuDong remains a quest for the future. In this split discourse, the questions and concerns - about governance, about citizenship, about regulation, about cultural production and political negotiation - become invisible. Like the buildings, which get guised in digital cloaks, the questions that pressingly need to be asked but are always postponed, also get cloaked in the rhetoric of development propelled by ICTs and globalisation. In a city that was constructed to eternally deflect attention, ownership or voices, how does one begin to scratch at the surfaces (Literally and figuratively) to search for something more than narratives of consumption, solipsist self-gratification, and self-congratulatory development?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">It is with this agenda, in this city, torn and
marked and seamlessly stitched by technology, that I start to unravel my
questions about Internet and Society in China, trying to look at relationships
between technologies, city spaces and identities, drawing from seven months spent
at the Centre for Contemporary Studies at the Shanghai University. These stories, written with retrospective memory and embellished by the privilege of
hindsight, posit a set of questions about Internet technologies, construction
of city spaces, and manifestation of identities in China, but especially in
Shanghai, to locate potentials of social transformation, political
participation, engagement and discourse, which has not been transplanted on
technology studies in China. In the process it also lays down a framework to
understand how, in an oppressive or authoritarian regime, the cultural becomes
the grounds upon which foundations of new political intervention and social
change can be built.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify;">This blog, in its ten different
entries, relies on academic and popular discourse, semi-structured interviews,
participant observation, field work, conversations, and personal experiences that
I collected in my stay there, trying to deal with the double translations of
culture and language. Whenever I have been unsure – and those moments have been
many – I have tried to discuss and debate ideas with colleagues, friends, peers
and participants, to ensure that the observations or arguments are qualified by
more than just a neo-colonial meaning making sensibilities. Despite that rigour, if faults remain, they
are all mine, and hopefully will serve as points of entry into a fruitful
discourse.</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity'>https://cis-india.org/research/grants/the-promise-of-invisibility-technology-and-the-city/itcity</a>
</p>
No publishernishantCyberspaceinternet and societyShanghaiICT4DDigital NativesCyberculturesDigital subjectivitiesIT Cities2009-09-18T10:45:27ZBlog EntryOf my struggle with a Broadband Connection
https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/of-my-struggle-with-a-broadband-connection
<b>This is a reflection on my experiences with installing a broadband Internet connection at home.
The closing post of an interview is delayed since Jamie and Peter are traveling.
</b>
<p align="left">While you read this article, it is
likely that I am sitting at my home/workspace, relishing a Kirostami
film, cooking, cleaning, reading, or maybe out in the market. All but
surfing the cloud. Until last year, Weather and Broadband Internet
were the two best things about living in Bangalore. Especially the
later. A stable fast always on Internet connection is what many of my
friends in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai wish for on Christmas. When I
first applied for a 384 Kbps Connection with Airtel in my Aga
Abdullah Street house in Richmond Town, Airtel became my Santa and
obliged. The engineers came the same day and changed my life. The
world of Cinema came begging to my feet with Bit Torrent technology.
Streaming became an everyday affair on Internet that was the best I
had ever had. In my bliss of downloading bytes upon bytes, I forgot
the lesson that experienced souls like Lord Krishna in Gita and
Gautam Buddha tell: Nothing in the world is Permanent.</p>
<p>
It was at the end of March that I
called up Airtel and requested for my connection to be transferred to
8<sup>th</sup> Main Road on Vasant Nagar. Assured with a time frame
of 10 days, I waited patiently. After two weeks of waiting, I was
inclined to call and see when I would get my internet bliss back. The
process was delayed and at the end of the week, I was informed that
due to a fault in their line, they could not provide me with a new
connection. Furious, I called up TATA and asked their people to fit
their 512 Kbps Wimax technology in my house. The installation charges
were to be waived off if I payed for 4 months in advance. I agreed
and the Internet was back. It did not take me long to realize that
the new TATA Wimax connection was anywhere close to my old Airtel
Broadband. Every couple of hours I would be disconnected from the
network when I would have to call the customer care and reset my
account. Alas, I had paid for 4 months in advance and this would have
to be a long wait. Soon enough, I found myself proficient enough to
log into the Tata Indicom server and solve the problem myself. In the
meanwhile, an engineer from Airtel called me to check if I still
needed to old connection and I asked him to wait for a couple of
months. To cut down my ordeal, I decided to upgrade my connection for
a Night booster plan, which would mean a full 1 Mbps speed at night.
A little too much to expect as things barely boosted on any of the
nights that followed. At the end of the third month, I requested them
to disconnect the connection, and pledged never to go back to them
again.</p>
<p align="left">As I once more, cheerfully walked
inside the Airtel office at Cunningham Road, my dream Internet
connection flashed in front of my eyes. I played out the procedure of
the next couple of hours in front of my eyes, expecting the engineers
to be home, creating a mess while drilling wires. And when it is all
done, I would go back and spend the night catching up with all the
episodes of my favorite shows that I had missed over the past 3
months. The executive informed me that this would take a little
longer than expected, 3 days on the max! I looked up for more
patience within myself and went back home. The paper work was
completed the next day and the payment of Rs. 2000 was made. A week
later, I was still waiting for the engineers to come. Expectantly, I
would call the local executive who would promise to be at my service
in a couple of hours and not turn up. The game went for a couple of
days before he finally turned up. In the next 20 minutes of him
jumping on the terrace, exploring the outside of the house, he came
to break the news to me. “Sorry Sir, we cannot put a connection
here. There is a fault in the line coming this side and it will take
at least a month to fix it.” I was almost in tears. His words broke
my heart and all he could do to console me was promise a refund in 3
days. The cheque came a couple of weeks later. And I still call him
to check every three days, if the fault has been repaired and I can
get my dream Internet back!</p>
<p>
For more details visit <a href='https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/of-my-struggle-with-a-broadband-connection'>https://cis-india.org/a2k/blogs/of-my-struggle-with-a-broadband-connection</a>
</p>
No publishersiddharthConsumer RightsIT Citiesinternet and society2011-08-04T04:44:37ZBlog Entry