Centre for Internet and Society

Rethinking the Internet: The Way Forward

praskrishna — 2013-03-13T04:53:21Z

Telecom Italia and Financial Times are organizing this event at Telecom Italia Future Centre in Italy on March 21 and 22, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is participating in this event.

Overview

The advent of smartphones and other mobile devices, and the resulting explosive growth in internet usage have transformed the way that societies communicate. The internet is a major driver for global economies as it continues to create new forms of interaction, and offers unprecedented business opportunities and profitable collaborations. The evolution of the internet is however also contributing to changing social perceptions of privacy and copyright, and concerns are developing about the security of countries and organisations, and the liabilities of internet intermediaries.

Another crucial issue is internet governance. Some doubts have been cast on the effectiveness of the present decision-making model in setting the basis for an investment-conducive and future-proof framework, and in balancing the interests of all the players involved in the market scenario.

Rethinking the Internet: The Way Forward, organised by the Financial Times and Telecom Italia, will contribute to this debate by featuring interactive CEO-level workshops that explore the impact of the internet on business models, the role of public and private collaborations in enabling innovation, the key policy, governance and security considerations that need to be addressed, and future implications of the internet evolution for all players in the global communications industry.

Agenda Day One: Thursday, March 22, 2013

10:30- 11:05	Registration and networking
11:05- 11:15	Chair's opening remarks
11:15- 11:30	Welcome address by Telecom Italia
11:30- 01:30	Introduction to Rethinking the Internet How will the internet continue to evolve and what implications does this have for future business models? Who will be the key industry players in the next 10 years and which collaborations, investments and infrastructure developments will yield sustainable growth? How sustainable is the internet as a business model? Will excessive policy-making and regulatory controls curb innovation? Where is the industry heading now?
01:30- 02:30	Lunch
02:30 - 04:30	A New Internet Governance What are the latest developments in internet governance policy-making? What changes can be expected in the near future? How can policy groups and organisations work together to create a balanced and fair internet governance model? What are the limitations of the current recommendations and what improvements need to be made? What are the implications for privacy, online anonymity and data protection?
04:30- 05:00	Refreshments
05:00 - 07:00	Internet Security What new threats and challenges are being created by the internet evolution and how are governments legislating for this? As cybersecurity continues to become a threat, can policies keep up with industry innovations and technological advances? How can a truly global internet be monitored and managed by international jurisdictions with different national priorities? What role do non-governmental entities have to play in policing the internet and making it more secure?
07:00 - 07:10	Chair's concluding remarks
07:10	Drinks reception, followed by Dinner

Agenda Day Two: Friday, March 23, 2013

08:30- 08:50	Arrival and networking
08:50- 09:00	Chair's opening remarks
09:00- 11:00	Internet Privacy and Copyrights Co-operation between policy-makers and industry players is critical in encouraging an open communications ecosystem. What pitfalls need to be avoided to ensure that all stakeholder interests are taken into account, including those of the customer? What safeguards need to be put into place to ensure that sensitive data is protected? How is copyright protected in the new digital age? Can the rights of content creators be protected whilst embracing an open internet? Does net neutrality necessarily equal internet freedom? And how is the right government intervention – internet freedom balance maintained?
11:00- 11:30	Refreshments
11:30- 01:30	Internet after OTT Why are commercial agreements among telco and other communication providers so critical to the provision of internet-enabled products and services? What collaborations are necessary to ensure that internet development and investment contribute to economic growth and market competition? And what role does policy have to play in supporting these commercial initiatives?
01:30- 02:30	Lunch
02:30- 04:00	Overview of Key Themes raised during the Two Day Meeting
04:00	Conclusion

Currently confirmed to participate now include:

Alessandro Acquisti, Associate Professor of Information Technology and Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University

Jan Philipp Albrecht MdEP / MEP, Member, European Parliament

Virgilio Augusto Fernandes Almeida, Secretary for Information Technology Policies, Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI-SEPIN), Brazil

Suleyman Anil, Head, Cyber Defence Section, Emerging Security Challenges Division, NATO

Johannes M Bauer, Professor, Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media and Director of Special Programs, Quello Center for Telecommunication Management & Law, Michigan State University

Franco Bernabè, Chairman and CEO of Telecom Italia

Anne Bouverot, Director General & Member of the Board, GSMA

Peter Bradwell, Campaigner, Open Rights Group

Angelo Maria Cardani, Chairman, AGCOM

James W. Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President-External and Legislative Affairs, AT&T Services, Inc

Giuseppe Corasaniti, General Prosecutor, Italian Supreme Court

Juan Carlos De Martin, Faculty co-director, nexa center for internet & society, Politecnico di Torino and Faculty Fellow, berkman center for internet & society, Harvard University

Adrian Farrel, Routing Area Director, IETF, Juniper Networks and Old Dog Consulting

William W Fisher, Wilmer Hale Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Faculty Director, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University

Luigi Gambardella, Chairman Executive Board, ETNO

Hartmut Richard Glaser, Executive Secretary/CGI.br, Brazilian Internet Steering Committee

David A. Gross, Former U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy and Partner, Wiley Rein LLP

Ian Hargreaves, Professor of Digital Economy, Cardiff University

James Harkin, Author and Director, Flockwatching

Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, CEO, Etisalat Group

Dr Robert E Kahn, TCP/IP co-creator and Chairman, CEO and President, Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)

Loz (Laurence) Kaye, Leader, Pirate Party UK

Thomas M. Lenard, President and Senior Fellow, Technology Policy Institute

Gerd Leonhard, Futurist, Author and CEO, The Futures Agency

Jonathan Liebenau, Reader in Technology Management, Department of Management, London School of Economics

Robert Levine, Journalist and Author of Free Ride

Patrice Lyons, Corporate Counsel, Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)

Joe McNamee, Executive Director, European Digital Rights

Milton L Mueller, Professor, School of Information Studies, Syracuse University

Eli Noam, Director, Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, Professor of Finance and Economics and Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Business Responsibility, Columbia University Business School

Sam Paltridge, Directorate of Science Technology and Industry, OECD

Prof. Francesco Pizzetti, Chairman, Privacy Authority

Pranesh Prakash, Policy Director, Centre for Internet and Society

Philip R. Reitinger, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer, Sony Corporation

Dr Georg Serentschy, CEO Telecommunications, RTR-GmbH (Austrian Regulatory Authority for Broadcasting and Telecommunications)

Michael Skapinker, Assistant Editor and Columnist, Financial Times

Christopher Soghoian, Principal Technologist and Senior Policy Analyst, American Civil Liberties Union

Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré, Secretary General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU)

Nico van Eijk, Professor of Media and Telecommunications Law and Director of the Institute for Information Law, University of Amsterdam

Ben Verwaayen, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent

Philip L. Verveer, Ambassador, U.S. Coordinator, International Communications and Information Policy, US Department of State

Richard Waters, West Coast Editor, Financial Times

Christopher S Yoo, John H. Chestnut Professor of Law, Communication, and Computer & Information Science, Founding Director, Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition, University of Pennsylvania Law School

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rethinking-the-internet

Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill (April 2012): High Level Concerns

elonnai — 2013-07-12T15:36:59Z

In 2007 the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill was piloted by the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, with the objective of regulating the use of DNA for forensic and other purposes. In February 2012 another draft of the Bill was leaked. The February 2012 Bill was drafted by the Department of Biotechnology. Another working draft of the Bill was created in April 2012. The most recent version of the Bill seeks to create DNA databases at the state, regional, and national level.

This research was undertaken as part of the 'SAFEGUARDS' project that CIS is undertaking with Privacy International and IDRC.

Each database will contain profiles of victims, offenders, suspects, missing persons and volunteers for the purpose of establishing identity in criminal and civil proceedings. The Bill also establishes a process for certifying DNA laboratories, and creating a DNA board for overseeing the carrying out of the Act. Though it is important to carefully regulate the use of DNA for criminal purposes, and such a law is needed in India, the present working draft of the Bill is lacking important safeguards and contains overreaching provisions, which could lead to violation of individual rights. The text of the 2012 draft is still being discussed and has not been finalized. Below are high level concerns that CIS has with the April 2012 draft Human DNA Profiling Bill.

Broad offences and instances of when DNA can be collected

The schedule of the Bill lists applicable instances for human DNA profiling and addition to the DNA database. Under this list, the Bill lays out nine Acts, for example the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Civil Rights Act, and states that offences under these Acts are applicable instances of human DNA profiling. This allows the scope of the database to be expansive, as any individual who has committed an offence found under any of these Acts to be placed on the DNA database, and might include offences for which DNA evidence is not useful.

In the schedule under section C Civil disputes and other civil matters the Bill lists a number of civil disputes and civil matters for which DNA can be taken and entered onto the database. For example:

(v) Issues relating to immigration or emigration
(vi) Issues relating to establishment of individual identity
(vii) Any other civil matter as may be specified by the regulations of the Board

In these instances no crime has been committed and there is no justification for taking the DNA of the individual without their consent. In cases of civil disputes

Recommendation: Offences for which DNA can be collected must be criminal and must be specified individually by the Bill. When DNA is used in civil cases, the consent of the individual must be taken. In civil cases a DNA profile should not be stored on the database. DNA profiling and storage on a database should not be allowed in instances like v, vi, vii listed above.

Inadequate level of authorization for sharing of information

The Bill allows for the DNA Data Bank Manager to determine when it is appropriate to communicate whether the DNA profile received is already contained in the Data Bank, and any other information contained in the Data Bank in relation to the DNA profile received.

Section 35 (1): “…shall communicate, for the purposes of the investigation or prosecution in a criminal offence, the following information to a court, tribunal, law enforcement agency, or DNA laboratory in India which the DNA Data Bank Manager considers is concerned with it, appropriate, namely (a) as to whether the DNA profile received is already contained in the Data Bank; and (b) any information, other than the DNA profile received, is contained in the Data Bank in relation to the DNA profile received.”

Recommendation: The Data Bank Manager should not be given the power to determine appropriate instances for the communication of information. Law enforcement agencies, DNA laboratories, etc. should be required to gain prior authorization, from the DNA Board, before requesting the disclosure of information from the DNA Data Bank Manager. Upon receiving proof of authorization, the DNA databank can share the requested information.

Inaccurate understanding of infallibility of DNA

The preamble to the Bill inaccurately states:

The Dexoxyribose Nucleic Acid (DNA) analysis of body substances is a powerful technology that makes it possible to determine whether the source of origin of one body substance is identical to that of another, and further to establish the biological relationship, if any between two individuals, living or dead without any doubt.

Recommendation: The Bill should recognize that DNA evidence is not infallible. For example, false matches can occur based on the type of profiling system used, and that error can take place in the chain of custody of the DNA sample.

The “definition” of DNA profiling is too loose in the Bill. Any technology used to create DNA profiles is subject to error. The estimate of this error should be experimentally obtained, rather than being a theoretical projection.

Inadequate access controls

The Bill only restricts access to information on the DNA database that relates to a victim or to a person who has been excluded as a suspect in relevant investigations.

Section 43: Access to the information in the National DNA Data Bank shall be restricted in the manner as may be prescribed if the information relates to a DNA profile derived from a) a victim of an offence which forms or formed the object of the relevant investigation, or b) a person who has been excluded as a suspect in the relevant investigation.

Recommendation: Though it is important that access is restricted in these instances, access should also be restricted for: volunteers, missing persons, and victims. Broad access to every index in the database should not be permitted when a DNA sample for a crime is being searched for a match. Ideally, a crime scene index will be created, and samples will only be compared to that specific crime scene. The access procedure should be transparent with regular information published in an annual report, minutes of oversight meetings taken, etc.

Lack of standards and process for collection of DNA samples

In three places the Bill mentions that a procedure for the collection of DNA profiles will be established, yet no process is enumerated in the actual text of the Bill.

Section 12 (w) “The Board will have the power to… specify by regulation, the list of applicable instances of human DNA profiling and the sources and manner of collection of samples in addition to the lists contained in the Schedule.

Section 66(d) “The Central Government will have the power to make Rules pertaining to… The list of applicable instances of human DNA profiling and the sources and manner of collection of samples in addition to the lists contained in the Schedule under clause (w) of section 12.
Schedule: In the title “List of applicable instances of Human DNA Profiling and Sources and Manner of Collection of Samples for DNA Profiling”. But the schedule does not detail the manner of collection of samples for DNA profiling.

Recommendation: According to the Criminal Procedure Code, section 53 and 54, DNA samples can only be collected by certified medical professionals. This must be reflected by the Bill. The Bill should also state that the collection of DNA must take place in a secure location and in a secure manner. When DNA is collected, consent must be taken, unless the individual is convicted of a crime for which DNA evidence is directly relevant or the court has ordered the collection. When DNA is collected, personal identification information should not be sent with samples to laboratories, and all transfers of data (from police station to lab) must be secure. Upon collection, information regarding the collection of information and potential use and misuse of DNA information must be provided to the individual.

Inadequate appeal process

The provisions in the Bill allow aggrieved individuals to bring complaints to the DNA Board. If the complaint is not addressed, the individual can take the complaint to the court. Though grievances can be taken to the Board and the court, it is not clear if the individual has the right to appeal the collection, analysis, sharing, and use of his/her DNA. The text of section 58 implies that the Board and the Central government will have the power to take action based on complaints. This power was not listed above in the sections where the powers of the board and the central government are defined, thus it is unclear what actions the Board or the Central Government would be able to take on complaint.

Section 58: No court shall take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act or any rules or regulations made thereunder save on a complaint made by the Central Government or its officer or Board or its officer or any other person authorized by them: Provided that nothing contained in this sub-section shall prevent an aggrieved person from approaching a court, if upon his application to the Central Government or the Board, no action is taken by them within a period of three months from the date of receipt of the application.

Recommendation: Individuals should be allowed to appeal a decision to collect DNA or share a DNA profile, and take any grievance directly to the court. If the Board or the Central Government will have a role in hearing complaints, etc. These must be enumerated in the provisions of the Act.

Inclusion of population testing

Though the main focus of the Bill is for the use of DNA in criminal and civil cases, the provisions of the Bill also allow for population testing and research to be done on collected samples.

Section 4: The Board shall consist of the following Members appointed from amongst persons of ability, integrity, and standing who have knowledge or experience in DNA profiling including.. (m) A population geneticist to be nominated by the President, Indian National Science Academy, Den Delhi-Member.

Section 40: Information relating to DNA profiles, DNA samples and records relating thereto shall be made available in the following instances, namely, (e) for creation and maintenance of a population statistics database that is to be used, as prescribed, or the purposes of identification research, protocol development or quality control provide that it does not contain any personally identifiable information and does not violate ethical norms.

Recommendation: Delete these provisions. If DNA testing is going to done for population analysis purposes, regulations for this must be provided for in a separate legislation, stored in separate database, informed consent taken from each participant, and an ethics board must be established. It is not sufficient or ethical to conduct population testing only on DNA samples from victims, offenders, suspects, and volunteers.

Provisions delegated to regulation that need to be incorporated into text of Bill

The Bill empowers the board to formulate regulations for, and the Central Government to make Rules to, a number of provisions that should be within the text of the Bill itself. By leaving these provisions to Regulations and Rules, the Bill is a skeleton which when enacted will only allow for DNA Labs to be certified and DNA databases to be established. Aspects that need to be included as provisions include:

Section 12: The Board shall exercise and discharge the following functions for the purposes of this Act namely

Section 12(j) – authorizing procedures for communication of DNA profile for civil proceedings and for crime investigation by law enforcement and other agencies.
Section 12(p) – making specific recommendations to (ii) ensure the accuracy, security, and confidentiality of DNA information, (iii) ensure the timely removal and destruction of obsolete, expunged or inaccurate DNA information (iv) take any other necessary steps required to be taken to protect privacy.
Section 12(w) – Specifying, by regulation, the list of applicable instances of human DNA profiling and the sources a manner of collection of samples in addition to the lists contained in the Schedule.
Section 12(u) – establishing procedure for cooperation in criminal investigation between various investigation agencies within the country and with international agencies.
Section 12(x) – Enumerating the guidelines for storage of biological substances and their destruction.

Section 65(1) The Central Government may, by notification, make rules for carrying out the purposes of this Act

Section 65 (c) – The officials who are authorized to receive the communication pertaining to information as to whether a person’s DNA profile is contained in the offenders’ index under sub-section (2) of section 35
Section 65 (d) – The manner in which the DNA profile of a person from the offenders’ index shall be expunged under sub-section (2) of section 37
Section 65 (e) – The manner in which the DNA profile of a person from the offender’s index shall be expunged under sub-section (3) of section 37
Section 65 (h) – The manner in which access to the information in the DNA data Bank shall be restricted under section 43
Section 65 (zg) – Authorization of other persons, if any, for collection of non-intimate forensic procedures under Part II of the Schedule.

Broad Language that needs to be specified or deleted

There are a number of places in the Bill which use broad and vague language. This is problematic as it expands the potential scope of the Bill. Instances where broad language is used includes:

Preamble: There is, thus, need to regulate the use of human DNA Profiles through an Act passed by the Parliament only for Lawful purposes of establishing identity in a criminal or civil proceeding and for other specified purposes.

Section 12: The Board may make regulations for (j) authorizing procedures for communications of DNA profile for civil proceedings and for crime investigation by law enforcement and other agencies.
Section 12: The Board may make regulations for (y) undertaking any other activity which in the opinion of the Board advances the purposes of this Act.
Section 12: The Board may make regulations for (z) performing such other functions as may be assigned to it by the Central Government from time to time.
Section 32: The indices maintained under sub-section (4) shall include information of data based on DNA analysis prepared by a DNA laboratory duly approved by the Board under section 15 of the Act and of records relating thereto, in accordance with the standards as may be specified by the regulations made by the Board.
Section 35 (1) On receipt of a DNA profile for entry in the DNA Data Bank, the DNA Data Bank Manager shall cause it to be compared with the DNA profiles in the DNA Data Bank and shall communication, for purposes of the investigation or prosecution in a criminal offence, the following information…(a) as to whether the DNA profile received is already contained in the Data Bank and (b) any information other than the DNA profile received, is contained in the Data Bank in relation to the DNA profile received. (2) The information as to whether a person’s DNA profile is contained in the offenders’ index may be communicated to an official who is authorized to receive the same as prescribed.
Section 39: All DNA profiles and DNA samples and records thereof shall be used solely for the purpose of facilitating identification of the perpetrator of a specified offence under Part I of the Schedule. Provided that such profiles or samples may be used to identify victims of accidents or disasters or missing persons or for purposes related to civil disputes and other civil matters listed in Part 1 of the Schedule for other purposes as may be specified by the regulations made by the board.
Section 40: Information relating to DNA profiles, DNA samples and records relating thereto shall be made available in the following instances, namely (g) for any other purposes, as may be prescribed.
Schedule, C Civil disputes and other civil matters vii) any other civil matter as may be specified y the regulations made by the Board.

Recommendation: All broad and vague language should be deleted and replaced with specific language.

Jurisdiction

Section 1(2) It extends to the whole of India.

Section 2(f) “Crime scene index” means an index of DNA profiles derived from forensic material found (i) at any place (whether within or outside of India) where a specified offence was, or is reasonably suspected of having been, committed.

The validity of DNA profiles found outside of India is unclear as the Act only extends to the whole of India.

Inconsistent provisions

The Bill contains provisions that are inconsistent including:

Preamble … from collection to reporting and also to establish a National DNA Data Bank and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
Section 32 (1) The Central Government shall, by notification establish a National DNA Data Bank and as many Regional DNA Data Banks there under for every State or a group of States, as necessary. (2) Every State Government may, by notification establish a State DNA Data Bank which shall share the information with the National DNA Data Bank. The National DNA Data Bank shall receive DNA data from State DNA Data Banks…

Recommendation: The introduction to the Bill states that only a National DNA Data Bank will be established, yet in the provisions of the Bill it states that Regional and State level DNA databanks will also be established. It should be clarified in the introduction to the Bill that state level, regional level, and a national level DNA database will be created.

Inadequate qualifications of DNA Data Bank Manager

Section 33: “The DNA Data Bank Manager shall be a person not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India or equivalent and he shall report to the Member –Secretary of the Board. The DNA Data Bank Manager shall be a scientist with understanding of computer applications and statistics.”

Recommendation: This is not sufficient qualifications. The DNA Data Bank Manager needs to have experience and expertise handling, working with, and managing DNA for forensic purposes.

Lack of restrictions on labs seeking certification

According to section 16(2), before withdrawing approval granted to a DNA laboratory...the Board will give time to the laboratory...for taking necessary steps to comply with such directions...and conditions.”
Recommendation: This section should specify that during the time period of gaining certification, the DNA laboratory is not allowed to process DNA.

Incomplete terms for use of DNA in courts

Section 45 of the Bill allows any individual undergoing a sentence of imprisonment or under sentence of death to apply to the court which convicted him for an order for DNA testing. The Bill lists seven conditions that must be met for this DNA evidence to be accepted and used in court.
Recommendation: This section speaks only to the use of DNA in courts upon request by a convicted individual. This section should lay down standards for all instances of use of DNA in courts. Included in this, the provision should clarify that when DNA is used, corroborating evidence will be required in courts, and if confirmatory samples will be taken from defendants. Individuals should also have the right to have a second sample taken and re-analyzed as a check, and individuals must have a right to obtain re-analysis of crime scene forensic evidence in the event of appeal.

Inadequate privacy protections

Besides section 38 which requires that all DNA profiles, samples, and records are kept confidential, the Bill leaves all other privacy protections to be recommended by the DNA profiling Board.

Section 12(o) The Board shall exercise and discharge the following functions…“Making recommendation for provision of privacy protection laws, regulations and practices relating to access to, or use of, store DNA samples or DNA analyses with a view to ensure that such protections are sufficient.”

Recommendation: Basic privacy protections such as access, use, and storage of DNA samples should be written into the provisions of the Bill and not left as recommendations for the Board to make.

Missing Provisions

Notification to the individual: There are no provisions that ensure that notification is given to an individual if his/her information is legally accessed or shared. Notification to the individual would be appropriate in section 36, which allows for the sharing of DNA profiles with foreign states, and section 35, which allows for the sharing of information with a court, tribunal, law enforcement agency, or DNA laboratory. As part of the notification, an individual should be given the right to appeal the decision.
Consent: There are no provisions which speak to consent being taken from individuals whose DNA is collected. Consent must be taken from volunteers, missing persons (or their families), victims, and suspects. DNA can be taken compulsorily from offenders after they have been convicted. If an individual refuses to provide a DNA sample, a judge can override the decisions and order that a DNA sample be taken. In all cases that DNA is collected without consent, it must be clear that DNA evidence is directly relevant to the case.
Right to request deletion of DNA profile from database: There are no provisions which give volunteers (children volunteers when they become adults), victims, and missing persons the right to request that their profile be deleted from the DNA database. This could be provided in section 37 which speaks to the expunction of records of acquitted convicts.
Right of individuals to bring a private cause of action: There are no provisions which give the individual the right to bring a privacy cause of action for the unlawful storage of private information in the national, regional, or state DNA database. This is an important check against the unlawful collection, analysis, and storage of private genetic information on the database.
Right to review one's personal data: There are no provisions that allow an individual to review his/her information contained on the state, regional, or national database. This is an important check against the unlawful collection, analysis, and storage of private genetic information on the database.
Independence of DNA laboratories and DNA banks from the police: There are no provisions which ensure that DNA laboratories and DNA data banks remain independent from the police. This is an important check in ensuring against the tampering of DNA evidence.
Established profiling standard: The Bill does not mandate the use of one single profiling standard. This is important in order to minimize false matches occurring by chance and to ensure consistency across DNA testing and profiling.
Destruction of DNA samples: There are no provisions mandating that original samples of DNA be deleted. DNA samples should be destroyed once the DNA profiles needed for identification purposes have been obtained from them – allowing for sufficient time for quality assurance (six months). Furthermore, only a barcode and no identifying details should be sent to labs with samples for analysis.

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

An Introduction to Bitfilm & Bitcoin in Bangalore, India

benson — 2013-03-12T05:58:24Z

An event at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) was organized on January 23, 2013. The all star team at CIS was awesome at organizing this event for Bitcoin. Live streaming, mainstream newspaper coverage and Twitter based Q&A made this the first Bitcoin event in India that leveraged these mediums of information transfer.

See the blog post published in Benson's Blog

Aaron Koenig gave a talk on the creation and use of Bitcoin, and on a payment system designed for the voting process of the Bitfilm Festival for Digital Film. Since the year 2000, the Bitfilm Festival has been showcasing films that use digital technology in a creative and innovative way. It takes place on the Internet. However, physical screenings of the films will be held in Bangalore and in Hamburg. Each of the 59 nominated digital animations has its own Bitcoin account, and users worldwide may vote by donating Bitcoins to the films they like anonymously and without any transfer costs. The donated money will be divided among the most popular films (the films with the most votes/Bitcoins).

A strong knowledgeable speaker, Aaron brought forward his tremendous knowledge of Bitcoin, Art & Economics.

The Twitter based Q&A can be viewed on the Twitter ID's of

@pranesh_prakash

@cis_india

@bensonsamuel

The Newspaper Articles where Bitfilm & Bitcoin made their news in India were

Deccan Herald - http://bit.ly/U74YsS

The Hindu - http://goo.gl/YJYni

The Bangalore Mirror - http://bit.ly/XfDRbZ

Bitcoin Resources In India

Local Exchange - LocalBitcoins.com

India Fourms - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=89.0

http://bit.ly/ZDm4jW

Blogs - bensonsamuel.com

Unocoin.com

Services - indiabitcoin.com - Official Partners of Bitpay USA in India

Meetup Group - http://www.meetup.com/Bitcoin-Bangalore-Meetup-Group/

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/bensonsamuel-an-introduction-to-bitfilm-and-bitcoin-in-bangalore

Freedom Song: Film Screening and Discussion

praskrishna — 2013-03-15T06:51:39Z

Freedom Song, a documentary film produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust and directed by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Subi Chaturvedi will be screened at the IIHS Bangalore City Campus on March 21, 2013, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., followed by discussions. Paranjoy will be present for the screening and will answer questions from the participants.

Discussions and arguments on freedom of expression and what should or should not be censored are as old as civilization itself, across the world and in India. In recent years, these debates have acquired new dimensions with the growth of the mass media -- especially the internet. Maintenance of public order, national security, religious tolerance, blasphemy, libel, defamation, invasion of privacy, artistic licence, pornography, obscenity, copyright and other intellectual property rights have all become issues linked to freedom of expression, often under highly contentious and controversial circumstances. Whereas Article 19(1)(a) of the Constitution of India guarantees freedom of expression as a fundamental right of all citizens, Article 19(2) imposes "reasonable restrictions" on the exercise of such freedom. There is no consensus on what constitutes "reasonable" restrictions and/or who or which body should determine what is or should be "reasonable" restrictions on freedom of expression.

The 52-minute-long documentary film entitled Freedom Song produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust and directed by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Subi Chaturvedi seeks to examine issues relating to freedom of expression in a contemporary Indian context. The film raises a number of questions. Has Indian society as a whole become more or less tolerant to dissent even as sections of the population have apparently become increasingly vociferous in protesting against what is considered offensive? Are vocal minorities drowning out the voices of passive majorities in issues pertaining to artistic freedom and independence of expression? Where does one draw a dividing line between an individual's right to offend and her or his obligations towards maintenance of social harmony?

The film includes examples of alleged violations and transgressions of the fundamental right to free expression in contemporary India. Such examples include incidents and episodes relating to why Salman Rushdie’s video conference at the Jaipur Literary Festival had to be called off, the banning of books by Taslima Nasreen by the West Bengal government, controversial paintings by the late Maqbool Fida Hussain, the chopping of the hand of professor of Malayalam T.J. Joseph in Ernakulam, Kerala, the arrest of professor Ambikesh Mohapatra in Kolkata for circulating an e-mail lampooning West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the controversy surrounding a cartoon first published in 1949 which depicts India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and the architect of the country’s Constitution B.R. Ambedkar.

These examples are juxtaposed with the views of a cross-section of Indians from different walks of life: lawyers, creative artistes, journalists, politicians, social activists and ordinary individuals.

Film duration: 52 minutes
Year of production: 2012

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta

Paranjoy Guha Thakurta is an independent journalist and an educator. His work experience, spanning more than 35 years, cuts across different media: print, radio, television and documentary cinema. He is a writer, speaker, anchor, interviewer, teacher and commentator in three languages: English, Bengali and Hindi. His main areas of interest are the working of the political economy and the media in India and the world, on which he has authored/co-authored books and directed/produced documentary films. He lectures on these subjects to general audiences and also trains aspiring – and working -- media professionals. He participates frequently in and organizes seminars/conferences, is a regular contributor to newspapers, magazines and websites and is featured on television channels and radio programmes as an anchor as well as an analyst and commentator.

Born on October 5, 1955 and educated at St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi (1972-75) and at the Delhi School of Economics (1975-77) in the same university from where he obtained his Master’s degree in economics, he started his career as a journalist in June 1977 and has been employed with various media organizations including companies bringing out publications such as Business India, BusinessWorld, The Telegraph, India Today and The Pioneer. He worked with Television Eighteen (now Network 18) for almost six years between 1995 and 2001 when he anchored a daily discussion programme called “India Talks” on the CNBC-India television channel -- nearly 1,400 half-hour episodes were broadcast. From March 2007, he has been anchoring two one-hour-long weekly programmes for Lok Sabha Television (the channel owned and operated by the lower house of the Parliament of India) – a panel discussion called “Talktime” (earlier “Headstart”) and an interview called “1-on-One”. He has anchored programmes for other television channels.

He is (or has been) a visiting faculty member at over a dozen reputed educational institutions including the Indian Institutes of Management at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jamia Hamdard University (both in Delhi), the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, the Film & Television Institute of India, Pune, the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie and the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. In September 2010, he became a visiting professor in the Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi, teaching M.Phil students.

He served as a member of the Press Council of India nominated by the University Grants Commission between January 2008 and January 2011. In April 2010, as a member of a two-member sub-committee of the Council, he co-authored a 36,000-word report entitled “Paid News: How Corruption in the Indian Media Undermines Democracy”.

He is a media trainer and a consultant/adviser on India’s political economy. He was the founder director of the School of Convergence (SoC). He has been a consultant at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, making presentations and writing papers on Indian politics. He has been associated with a number of projects of the United Nations Development Programme and the International Labour Organization (ILO). He moderated two panel discussions at the International Labour Conference at Geneva, Switzerland, in June 2009 and at the ILO’s Asia Pactific Regional Meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in December 2011. He is currently president of the Foundation for Media Professionals, an independent, not-for-profit organization. He has advised various organizations, including corporate bodies (Indian, foreign and multinational), government agencies (including India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting) and civil society organizations.

He is a director/producer of documentary films. One entitled “Idiot Box or Window of Hope” which examines the impact of television on Indian society – was produced by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT) in 2003 and was broadcast on Doordarshan. In 2006-07, he produced and directed a five-part documentary series in partnership with the PSBT entitled: “Hot As Hell: A Profile of Dhanbad”, different versions of which have been broadcast on various television channels including Doordarshan and NDTV 24x7. In 2007, he directed a documentary film “Grabbing Eyeballs: What’s Unethical About Television News in India” for PSBT that was followed up by another entitled “Advertorial: Selling News or Products?” in 2009. In 2010, he produced and directed a three-part documentary film series entitled “Blood & Iron: A Story of the Convergence of Crime, Business and Politics in Southern India” on the political, economic and ecological consequences of iron ore mining in Bellary (Karnataka) and Ananthapur (Andhra Pradesh). The film has been translated into six Indian languages and broadcast on different television channels. In 2011, he produced and directed a documentary film entitled: “The Great Indian Telecom Robbery”. (He was one of the first journalists to write about the telecommunications spectrum scandal in November 2007 and was one of the petitioners in public-interest litigation petitions on the subject in the Supreme Court of India.) In 2012, he co-directed a film entitled “Freedom Song” that examines freedom of expression in a contemporary Indian context. He has produced/directed a number of other documentary films.

He has co-authored a book with Shankar Raghuraman entitled: “A Time of Coalitions: Divided We Stand”, published by Sage Publications India in March 2004. The book was able to anticipate the outcome of the 14th general elections in India, the results for which came out in May that year. A substantially revised, updated and enlarged version of the book titled “Divided We Stand: India in a Time of Coalitions” was published in December 2007. He has written “Media Ethics: Truth, Fairness and Objectivity, Making and Breaking News” published by Oxford University Press India in March 2009 – the second enlarged edition of the book was published in December 2011. He has contributed articles and chapters to books (including “Realizing Brand India” edited by Sharif D. Rangnekar [Rupa, 2005] and “India: The Political Economy of Reforms” edited by Bibek Debroy & Rahul Mukherji [Bookwell, 2004]).

He is currently engaged in authoring/co-authoring other books and producing/directing documentary films. He has travelled widely in India and across the world. He is a partner of Media Network of India, a firm engaged in designing and creation of content for all media, contract publishing, media training, establishment of radio stations and business development.

Contact details: Paranjoy Guha Thakurta
Work: E-1, Nizamuddin West, 2^nd Floor, New Delhi – 110 013, India
Phone: (+91) (011) 4182-7691; Mobile: (+91) 98101-70435
Home: K-33, South City – I, Gurgaon (Haryana) – 122001, India;
E-mail: paranjoy@gmail.com or paranjoy@hotmail.com

For details on the venue: +91-80-67606666

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/freedom-song-film-screening-and-discussion

Social media undermining journalistic credibility?

praskrishna — 2013-03-06T04:41:15Z

The line separating journalists and bloggers is being increasingly blurred due to the growth of social media, said Nelson Moses, who was a panelist at a discussion on the credibility of social media as a journalistic tool.

The article was published in the New Indian Express on March 4, 2013. Snehashish Ghosh was a panelist.

The talk titled, “Is social media credible?” comprising a panel of professionals from various media houses from across India, was held as a part of the alumni reunion at the Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM) recently.

The panel included Snehashish Ghosh, a policy associate at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, Nelson Moses, who has had stints with numerous media houses and now works at Yahoo, Subhash Rai, web editor of the Economic and Political Weekly, and Tresa Morera, the deputy editor of the global online desk at Reuters, Bangalore.

The discussion, moderated by Professor Mark Austin of IIJNM, revolved around the crucial issues surrounding the Indian media industry and the use of social media.

Talking points included the role social media like Twitter and Facebook played in populist movements across the Middle East, such as the Arab Spring and also the exodus of people of Manipuri and Assamese descent from Bangalore last year, due to a series of phone messages which purportedly threatened them with violence.Other issues covered in the discussion were whether bloggers could be cited as credible sources of information and also if their roles in shaping public perception was influencing how media houses and journalists function.

During the course of the discussion, which centered around the drawbacks of a digitally interlinked media landscape, Subhash Rai, said that though it was clearly the work of “right-wing fundamental elements” which led to the circulation of provocative messages against people from the north eastern part of the country, the incident also pointed to the failure of neoliberalism in the Indian context.

“Journalists are one of the beneficiaries of neoliberalism,” said Shubash Rai, while arguing that often, urban concerns take precedence over more

pressing issues occurring outside the big cities, leading to these issues either not being reported or not given the same importance. “For example, nobody is reporting the agrarian crisis,” he said.

Tresa Morera, an IIJNM alumna, said that she believed that “transparency” in the Indian media, and a series of “checks and balances” within media organizations could help in better reporting by the media.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/new-indian-express-march-4-2013-social-media-undermining-journalistic-credibility

Chidambaram to Talk Budget on Google+ Hangout

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T04:14:29Z

Indian politicians are slowly warming up to social media.

This article by Dhanya Ann Thoppil was published in the Wall Street Journal on March 4, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

In a first for a cabinet minister, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tonight is hosting a Google+ Hangout, a Web video chat, to answer citizens’ questions on the budget he presented last week.

At 8 p.m. on Monday India time, Mr. Chidambaram will be joined by a group of experts to discuss the state of India’s economy, which looks set to grow at its weakest pace in a decade this financial year.

On the panel are also Amit Singhal, senior vice president at Google Inc., Anand Mahindra, chairman and managing director of Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., Jahangir Aziz, chief economist for India at J.P. Morgan and Manish Chokhani, chief executive officer at Axis capital.

The online chat, which the Ministry of Finance in a statement described as “a powerful communication platform,” is an attempt to engage India’s tech-savvy, middle-class youth in the political process.

“It is an attempt by the government to reach out to gen-next,” ahead of the general elections scheduled in 2014, said S. Chandrasekharan, the director of South Asia Analysis Group, a Delhi-based think tank.

Improving opportunities for the country’s younger generations was a major focus of Mr. Chidambaram’s budget speech to lawmakers Thursday. “My budget has before it one overarching goal: to create opportunities for our youth to acquire education and skills that will get them decent jobs or self-employment,” he said, adding, “Their concern are my concerns, too.”

But Mr. Chidambaram won’t be interacting with citizens directly. He will answer questions submitted by citizens in advance through video uploads on this YouTube channel or on this Google + page. The session will be streamed live on both websites.

Social media is only beginning to emerge as a tool Indian politicians use to reach out to the country’s citizens.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, often criticized for not being accessible to the media, set up a Twitter profile about a year ago. But the account is managed by his office staff, not by Mr. Singh himself, and it’s mostly used to share links to pictures or speeches of the Prime Minister.

Narendra Modi, chief minister of the state of Gujarat and possible prime ministerial candidate for the opposition Bhartiya Janata Party, has embraced digital media more than other politicians. In August he hosted a Google + Hangout session to answer questions from citizens and in December had a holographic image of himself projected live at rallies in four different locations to communicate with his supporters during his election campaign.

The government last year also came up with a series of guidelines for its various arms on the effective use of social media to reach out to people and to ensure public participation in policy framing.

Still, the government often views social media with suspicion, and has taken steps to regulate user-generated content on websites more tightly.

There are 14 million broadband connections in India, meaning that only a small portion of the country’s 1.2 billion population has reliable Internet access, says Sunil Abraham, executive director at the Bangalore-based Centre for Internet and Society.

“So, unlike in the U.S., where you can fault the government for not being online, in India you can’t really fault the government,” says Mr. Abraham.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/wsj-march-4-2013-dhanya-ann-thoppil-chidambaram-to-talk-budget-on-google-hangout

UID has no legal sanctity, says lawyer-activist

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T06:08:32Z

‘Iris scanning adopted for the UID project is flawed as the iris keeps changing’

This article was published in the Hindu on March 3, 2013. CIS organized a workshop at the event.

Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) and the UID project have no legal sanctity, said independent law researcher and human rights activist Usha Ramanathan on Saturday.

Speaking at a workshop on the UID, the National Population Register and Governance, organised by the Centre for Internet and Society, Ms. Ramanathan said the UIDAI has “no clear legal status.” “The fact that there are no limits placed on its functioning is deeply worrying,” she remarked.

Ms. Ramanathan pointed out that an agency, which was created by a mere executive order in 2009, now “owns” the data obtained from Indian citizens. Although the UIDAI has said enrolment is not mandatory, a host of providers of essential services – from ration shops to LPG distributors and now even railway tickets – require Aadhaar authentication.

The idea of using biometric validation of identities was adopted despite there “being no evidence of its viability anywhere in the world,” Ms. Ramanathan said. In fact, several reports have established the failure of biometrics as a means of validating identities, she claimed. The iris scanning, which has been adopted for the UID project is flawed because the iris does change over time, she said.

Anant Maringati, a geographer from Hyderabad, said the “positive” potential of the project have been usurped by entities such as microfinance institutions, which sue them to track those who have defaulted on loans.

‘An agency, which was created by a mere executive order in 2009, now owns the data obtained from Indian citizens’

‘Although the UIDAI has said enrolment is not mandatory, providers of essential services seek Aadhaar authentication’

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-march-3-2013-uid-has-no-legal-sanctity

People should resist enforcement of UID scheme, say experts

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T06:45:23Z

Internationally recognized expert on law and poverty Dr. Usha Ramanathan Saturday urged citizens of the country to question the enforcement of the UID scheme that has no legitimacy.

This was published in newzfirst on March 3, 2013. CIS organized a workshop at the event.

Addressing the gathering of people from various sections of the society at a workshop- The Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance - organized by the ‘Centre for Internet and Society’ and the ‘Say No to UID Campaign’ Ramanathan said that the enforcement of UID scheme is unconstitutional and a mere a experiment on the population.

The scheme is full of ambiguity, confusions and suspicions; while UIDAI says it as voluntary, other government agencies and enterprises have made them mandatory. Neither the government nor the UIDAI officials have the satisfactory answers for the concerns of citizens, she said.

Saying that the ‘Data’ is one of the important properties today, she elaborated that how the individual’s privacy and confidential data was breached after sharing with many companies and agencies, despite the assurances from the authorities.

Emphasizing the resistance against enforcement of UID scheme, another speaker Col. Mathew Thomas of Citizen Action Forum Bangalore, said “If we don’t resist this scheme now, we are putting pushing poor people of the country into more vulnerable situation. We need to fight it by protests and legal means.”

The workshop also discussed the National Population register (NPR), its impact on citizenship and the governance, and how they are linked with national security.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/newzfirst-march-3-2013-people-should-resist-enforcement-of-uid-scheme-say-experts

Foreign Funding of NGOs

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T23:52:31Z

Should FDI in India’s thinktank sector worry us? It is a debate long overdue.

This article by Prashant Reddy was published in the March issue of Open Magazine.

In 1976, at the height of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, India’s Parliament enacted a piece of legislation called the Foreign Regulation Contribution Act. It prohibited political parties and ‘organisations of a political nature’, civil servants and judges, as also correspondents, columnists and editors/owners of registered newspapers and news broadcasting organisations— and even cartoonists—from receiving foreign contributions.

The very fact that the Act makes a specific reference to cartoonists should be hint enough of the establishment’s paranoia vis-à-vis the ‘invisible hand’ of foreign powers back then. During a Rajya Sabha debate on the proposed bill on 9 March 1976, the term ‘CIA’ (Central Intelligence Agency) was mentioned at least 30 times by different legislators, while ‘Lockheed Martin’ (a military aerospace corporation) came up at least six times in the context of alleged instances of Americans pumping dollars into governments worldwide to buy influence during the Cold War.

The sentiment of the times was captured by the following statement made during that debate by Khurshid Alam Khan, father of India’s present Minister for External Affairs: “The CIA’s doings all over the world have very clearly indicated as to what could be done by foreign money and foreign interference.”

In 2010, a different parliament, with opposition members who had not been imprisoned like those in 1976, unanimously voted to update the law by passing the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). In fact, the Parliamentary Standing Committee that examined the bill was headed by the BJP’s Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, and it had no major objections.

This time round, there was no talk of the CIA or Lockheed Martin. Instead, concern was focused on the increasingly influential role of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) as institutions of civil society in India. The term ‘NGO’ found at least 40 mentions during the Rajya Sabha debate on the 2010 bill. The main concern of the Upper House appeared to be a lack of transparency among NGOs receiving foreign contributions. Hence the calls to strengthen the monitoring regime, although several MPs expressed worry that the new law would give the Centre too much discretionary power to crack down on dissenting NGOs.

Worries about the 2010 Act’s overreach were validated last year when the Government used it to clamp down on NGOs involved in anti-corruption and anti-nuclear protests. As part of that exercise, at least four NGOs were booked under the FCRA for allegedly diverting foreign funds to aid the organisation of protests against the Koodankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu. Their bank accounts were frozen. The protests, however, did not end.

Perhaps the most ironic use of the FCRA was when the Ministry of Home Affairs reportedly held back potential funding from the US-based Ford Foundation for the Mumbai-based Institute for Policy Research Studies (IPRS), a thinktank that runs Parliamentary Research Service (PRS).

Incubated at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), a Delhi-based thinktank, PRS was spun off and institutionalised as IPRS in 2010 as a Section 25 non-profit company with a registered office in Mumbai. The main aim of PRS was to provide non-partisan legislative research services to parliamentarians, most of whom are starved of resources to conduct independent research required to hold the Executive accountable in Parliament. The service’s popularity among MPs was obvious from the fact that several of them reportedly made individual representations to the Home Ministry against blocking foreign funds for its parent institute.

The tragedy of why Parliament does not have a public-funded service like PRS is a debate for another day, but choking the IPRS of foreign funds raises a question of hypocrisy since the Central Government routinely collaborates with a wide range of civil society thinktanks that receive funds from the West.

Let’s start with the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER). According to its filings with the MHA, accessible on the FCRA website (http://mha.nic.in/fcra.htm), ICRIER has received over Rs 11.5 crore in foreign donations from a range of international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Sasakawa Peace Foundation between 2007 and 2012. This council, currently headed by Dr Isher Judge Ahluwalia, wife of Planning Commission Vice-chairperson Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, appears to have a cosy relationship with the present establishment. When the Government was in a fix over the contentious General Anti- Avoidance Rules (GAAR) of taxation, for example, it delegated the task of ironing out its problems to a four-member committee headed by Dr Parthasarathi Shome, a well-known economic policy expert at ICRIER. There are several other projects on which the Council’s faculty collaborates closely with the Government of India.

That thinktanks are well networked goes without saying. In fact, ICRIER and PRS were involved in quite a controversy during last year’s Parliament vote on Foreign Direct Investment in India’s multi-brand retail sector. As reported by India Today, (‘Foreign Direct Instruction for our MPs?’ 6 December 2012), IPRS had organised a ‘close-door’ meeting at Delhi’s Constitution Club the day before the vote, where MPs were briefed on the benefits of FDI by Professor Arpita Mukherjee of ICRIER. Some MPs had publicly labelled this a ‘lobbying’ effort.

Another example of close collaboration between the Centre and a thinktank that gets significant foreign funding is the one between the Government and the CPR, headed by Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta. Between 2007 and 2012, according to its filings with the MHA, this thinktank received foreign funds of over Rs 40.8 crore from a range of donors such as the Ford Foundation, Google Foundation, International Development Research Centre, Economic and Social Research Council, Hewlett Foundation and IKEA Social Initiative.

Environmental policy is another area in which foreign-funded thinktanks have a significant impact. The Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), headed by Sunita Narain with a governing board that has Ela Bhatt, BG Verghese, Dr MS Swaminathan and Dr NC Saxena among others, has received over Rs 67.7 crore in foreign funds between 2006 and 2012. The CSE’s main donors, according to FCRA records, include the Denmark- based Dan Church Aid, Germany-based Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, Heinrich Boll Foundation and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Other donors include the Commission of European Communities and Government of India.

Going by the media coverage that CSE receives, it is safe to say that this thinktank has a profound influence on India’s environmental policy. An indication of its ties with the Government is the fact that the two had their own ‘side-event’ at the recently concluded Doha talks on climate change.

The other green thinktank with generous foreign contributions that works closely with the Government is The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Consider this: the International Bioenergy Summit of 2012 held in New Delhi was organised by TERI and sponsored by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT). According to its FCRA filings, TERI, with a staff of over 900, has received about Rs 155.9 crore between 2006 and 2012 from a vast variety of donors.

In the field of health policy, one of the most influential thinktanks is the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI). Since it was founded in 2006, it has received a total of Rs 219 crore in funds, its biggest foreign donor being the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and biggest Indian donor being the Government of India. Other foreign donors, according to FCRA filings, include the National Institutes of Health (of the US government), Welcome Trust, International Development Research Centre and MacArthur Foundation.

A public-private initiative, the PHFI is expected to shape India’s approach to public health policy over the next decade. An example of its influence on India’s health policy is the fact that its secretariat has been thanked and praised in a report of the High Level Expert Group constituted by the Planning Commission to frame a new policy on ‘universal health coverage’ for all Indians.

On matters of internet policy, the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), a Bangalore-based thinktank focused on internet governance and intellectual property issues, has been a member of some key government committees, like the one under Justice AP Shah to study privacy laws in India. The CIS also receives foreign funding. According to its website, it has received over Rs 8.3 crore in funds, a significant portion of it from foreign donors like the UK-based Kusuma Trust, which was founded by Anurag Dikshit, an Indian businessman who made a fortune selling his stake in a popular online gambling website. He eventually donated most of his wealth to the Kusuma Trust, which funds various charities across the world.

In the human rights space, there is the famous Lawyers Collective, which, apart from its human rights advocacy, also provides legal aid to members of disadvantaged communities. Although this collective does not appear to work all that closely with the Government, it is interesting to note that it was founded by Indira Jaising, who is currently one of the Centre’s Additional Solicitor Generals. Since 2006, according to its FCRA filings, the organisation has received around Rs 21.8 crore in foreign funds from the Ford, Levi Strauss and Open Society foundations and from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, among others.

Another thinktank that deserves a mention is the Centre for Civil Society (CCS), which was founded by Dr Parth J Shah and has a ‘Board of Scholars’ with Isher Judge Ahluwalia, Jagdish Bhagwati, Lord Meghnad Desai and Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar, among others, as members. While it is not clear from its website whether it works closely with the Government, it was ranked 51st in a recent global survey of thinktanks by University of Pennsylvania. According to a CCS press release, these rankings were ‘based on not just our research and analysis, but also on our engagement with policy makers and ability to influence policy decisions’. The CCS’s rank was quite a surprise, given its modest resources. According to its FCRA filings, between 2006 and 2011, it received about Rs 6.2 crore from foreign donors such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, John Templeton Foundation and International Policy Network. As per its audited accounts, available on its website, donations from Indian donors were equally modest.

The above examples demonstrate the influence of foreign funded thinktanks on almost every major aspect of Indian policy today, be it economic or environmental, related to public health or internet governance.

Is this good or bad for India as a country? Given that most sectors of the economy are now open to foreign investment, does it make sense to regulate and restrict foreign funds for such thinktanks under laws like the FCRA?

The answer depends on what Indian society expects of them. Do we expect them to be completely independent of donors in their views? Would an organisation like the CSE still get foreign funds from European donors if it were to readily welcome genetically modified (GM) food in India? In such circumstances, how independent should we expect these thinktanks to be in the arena of policy?

Absolute objectivity—or at a least public perception of it—is an absolute myth. No matter who funds a thinktank, be it foreigners or Indians, it is impossible to be seen as such. The more pressing issue is of transparency. Are Indian policymakers aware of the details of foreign funds received by these thinktanks?

Take, for example, a recent Parliamentary Standing Committee report that expressed serious reservations about GM food. The Committee repeatedly quotes with approval the deposition of Dr Vandana Shiva against GM food. A little-known fact about Dr Shiva is that her organisation, Navdanya, according to its FCRA filings, has received a total of Rs 16.7 crore between 2006 and 2012 in foreign donations from mainly European organisations (some of which also contribute to the CSE) like Bread for the World, Diakonie Emergency Aid, Hivos Foundation, Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst EV, RSF Innovations in Social Finance, and even from the European Union itself.

Would a Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by an MP of the CPM, a party that is always suspicious of the ‘foreign hand’, show the same deference to Dr Shiva’s views if its members knew of Navdanya’s European donors, several of which are also Christian churches?

In an op-ed article in The Indian Express (‘Do not disagree’, 29 February 2012), Dr Pratap Bhanu Mehta while criticising the FCRA, states, ‘Of course, NGOs should be transparent and accountable in terms of their sources of funding.’ Yet, the CPR, of which Dr Mehta is president, only discloses the names of its donors in its annual report, and that too without revealing the amounts received from each. Similarly, Navdanya offers no information on either of its websites, Indian and Italian (navdanyainternational.it), on any of its funding. Other thinktanks like the PHFI and CIS offer a more detailed breakup of their different sources of funding, while some like the CSE and CCS provide only a roll of donor names and a figure of cumulative funding with no breakup of individual contributions. So, while these thinktanks are forced to disclose their foreign funding sources to the MHA under the FCRA, why do they not volunteer exhaustive information on their own websites?

An amusing facet of this is that the Central Government and Corporate India are more transparent (even if forced to be) than these civil society institutions, thanks to the Right to Information Act, 2005, and the extensive disclosure requirements under the Companies Act, 1956. Of companies in particular, information is accessible over the internet on the MCA21 website of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. This contrast is amusing because some of these thinktanks never tire of demanding transparency of the State and corporate sector.

For several thinktanks, it is often hard to figure out something as basic as the nature of the legal entity through which they conduct their activities. Are they societies, associations or trusts? More pertinently, why is the Government not pushing for a stricter transparency regime? A major stumbling block may be the fact that these thinktanks are set up under state laws and it is difficult for the Central Government to coordinate a nationwide transparency regime. However, given that most are beneficiaries of income tax exemptions, it may be possible for the Centre to use the Income Tax Act to demand comprehensive disclosures. Since they enjoy tax benefits, they might also qualify as ‘public authorities’ under the Right To Information Act, 2005.

Another reason that disclosure of funding is important is to inform the analysis of people who usually see NGOs as selfless entities dedicated to nothing but a higher cause. While this may be true of some NGOs, many leaders of these set-ups have personal stakes in ensuring certain outcomes. After all, future donor grants often depend on sustaining one’s influence in the policy space. Many of the institutions described in this article have been regular recipients of funds from the same sources year after year.

Another question is the volume of funds coming in and where it will leave India’s public institutions that were originally meant to aid policymaking with unbiased intellectual inputs. How are cash-strapped Indian universities to compete with these well-funded thinktanks?

Government-run institutions of higher learning are supposed to have an inbuilt guarantee of academic independence, but would their scholarly voices be drowned out by those backed by bigger resources?

Also, given the frequency with which a few foreign funders appear on donor lists, is it time to worry about their influence on Indian policies? After all, generous funding lets the faculty of these thinktanks jetset around the world to attend conferences, organise seminars in India and network with officials at a level that most public universities cannot afford. How does this impact our civil society discourse? Should Parliament limit the amount that a single foreign entity can donate, or are we better off sticking to a regulatory regime that only insists on a set of disclosure norms?

On a concluding note, let us not forget that a large part of the credit for the RTI Act of 2005—the country’s most empowering piece of legislation since the Constitution of 1950—goes to the advocacy efforts of the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS), a farmers group in Rajasthan that does not accept institutional funding from either India or overseas. Bank interest on its corpus and donations by individuals are the MKSS’s only sources of funding. Together, the two gave it Rs 30 lakh for the financial year 2010-11, details of which are available on its website.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/openmagazine-article-business-prashant-reddy-march-2-2013-foreign-funding-of-ngos

Iceland’s proposed porn ban ‘like repression in Iran, N. Korea’ – activists

praskrishna — 2013-03-21T03:56:30Z

A group of 40 human rights activists from around the world fear that Iceland could become “a role model for Internet censorship” if it introduces Internet filters blocking online content deemed pornographic.

This blog post was published in RT on March 1, 2013. Sunil Abraham is quoted.

“The act of censoring pornography in Iceland differs in no way from repression of speech in Iran, China or North Korea,” human rights advocates wrote in an open letter to Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson.

Activists from nearly 20 countries, including the UK, America, Austria and Finland, said that Iceland’s moral reasons for the push to censor Internet pornography is “justifying rather than condemning the actions of totalitarian regimes.”

Critics – including Jillian C. York, Director for International Freedom of Expression, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Sunil Abraham, Executive Director for India’s Internet and Society Center, and Ot van Daalen, head of the Dutch Bits of Freedom Center – have described the controversial measure as “an affront to basic principles of the society.”

They also argued that those advocating the Web porn ban have offered “no definition, no evidence, and suggested no technology.”

The authors of the letter warned that the prohibition of pornographic content could create demand for an underground porn industry, unregulated and most certainly affiliated with other illegal activities, “as we have seen in the case of drugs or alcohol prohibition. Hiding the problem is not a solution and may in fact make things worse.”

The solution, according to the activists, could be better sex education at home and schools: “Sex education that deals not only with conception, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases, but also relationships, communication and respect.”

Iceland, known for its feminist policies, could become the first Western country to censor online pornography, despite concerns over who will be given the authority to choose what is banned.

“It is tempting to regard filtering the Internet as a quick and easy way to restrict unwanted speech, opinions, or media, which the government regards as harmful for either them or the people,” the letter said. “The right to see the world as it is, is critical to the very tenets and functions of a democracy and must be protected at all costs.”

The activists claimed that it is technically impossible to censor the Internet without monitoring all telecommunications with automated machines: “This level of government surveillance directly conflicts with the idea of a free society.”

Iceland is not the only European country that has tried to implement such a ban. In December, the UK proposed blocking access to all pornographic websites, but UK ministers rejected the idea over a lack of public support.

According to supporters of the Icelandic ban, pornography has unquestionably damaging effects on both children and women.

"We have to be able to discuss a ban on violent pornography, which we all agree has a very harmful effects on young people and can have a clear link to incidences of violent crime," Interior Minister Jonasson, the author of the proposed ban, was quoted as saying.

While Iceland has already passed a law banning the distribution and printing of pornography, the proposed ban would eventually restrict access to pornographic websites in the country, and make it impossible to use Icelandic credit cards on X-rated sites.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/rt-march-1-2013-icelands-proposed-porn-ban

Don’t SLAPP free speech

sunil — 2013-02-28T11:22:09Z

IIPM is proving adept at the tactical use of lawsuits to stifle criticism, despite safeguards. THE DEPARTMENT of Telecommunications, on 14 February, issued orders to block certain web pages critical of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM).

Sunil Abraham's column with inputs from Snehashish Ghosh was published in Tehelka on February 3, 2013 (Issue 9 Volume 10)

Despite our best efforts, we have not managed to get a copy of the court order. Meanwhile, there has been a lot of speculation among Internet policy experts on Twitter. What is the title of the case? Which judge issued the order? Who is the affected party? Why have mainstream media houses like Outlook not been served notice by the court? Is the infamous Section 66A of the IT Act to be blamed? That is highly unlikely. News reports suggest that a lower court in Gwalior has issued an ad interim injunction in a defamation suit. Most experts agree that this is a SLAPP (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) suit, where a company uses the cost of mounting a legal defence to silence critics.

Bullies with deep pockets use the law in very creative ways, such as forum shopping, forum shifting and the use of proxies. Forum shopping can be best understood through the example of mining giant Fomento suing Goan blogger Sebastian Rodrigues for $1 billion at the Kolkata High Court, even though Goa would have been a more logical location. Though IIPM lost an earlier case against Careers360 before the Uttaranchal High Court, the offending URLs from that case are included in the latest block order, exemplifying successful forum shifting. The doctrine of ‘res subjudice’ does not permit courts to proceed in a matter which is “directly and substantially” similar to a previous suit between the same parties. Proxies are usually employed to circumvent this procedural doctrine.

Article 19(2) of our Constitution empowers the State to create laws that place eight types (depending on how you count) of reasonable restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression. One of these reasonable restrictions is defamation. Tort law on defamation in India has been mostly borrowed from common law principles developed in the UK, which include a series of exceptions where the law cannot be used. In the present context, the exceptions important for the IIPM case include: fair and bona fide comment and matter of public interest. In addition, Section 499 of the Indian Penal Code provides for 10 exceptions to defamation. The exceptions relevant to this case are: “first: imputation of truth which public good requires to be made or published”, “ninth: imputation made in good faith by person for protection of his or other’s interests” and “tenth: caution intended for good of person to whom conveyed or for public good”. The criminal law on defamation in India is based on robust legal principles, but for the sake of public interest it’d be best to do away with such a law as it has far-reaching, chilling effects on free speech.

On interim injunctions in defamation suits, the Delhi High Court set an important precedent protecting free speech in 2011. While applying the English principle — the Bonnard Rule — the court in Tata Sons Pvt Ltd versus Greenpeace International held that a higher standard should be adhered to while granting an interim injunction in a defamation suit, because such an injunction might impinge upon freedom of expression and thus potentially be in violation of the Indian Constitution. This century-old rule states that “until it is clear that an alleged libel is untrue… the importance of leaving free speech unfetter – ed is a strong reason in cases of libel for dealing most cautiously and warily with the granting of interim injunctions…”

In the same case, the Court rejected the argument that since it was published online and thus had wider reach and greater permanence, an injunction should be granted. It observed that “publication is a comprehensive term, embracing all forms and mediums — including the Internet”, thus ruling out special treatment for the Inter net in cases of defamation. That is good news for free speech online in India. Now let’s stick to it.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/tehelka-sunil-abraham-feb-3-2013-dont-slap-free-speech

Women in the IT Industry: Request for Data

jdine — 2013-03-06T10:52:00Z

For CIS's research on indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India, we have sent formal request for participation in a short survey to the six largest IT companies based in India. A copy of the letter of request and survey as well as some details of the request for data can be found in this post.

Click to see the Letter of Survey Request and the Income Bracket Form

As introduced in an earlier blog, CIS has begun a short research project on female employees in the IT industry in India. This project aims to gather quantitative and qualitative data on women employed by the six largest Indian software companies in order to generate insight into whether or not these employers foster workplaces that are conducive to female economic empowerment. We have decided to gather some very basic quantitative data for this project by directly asking each of these companies to provide some information on data points that we deemed important indicators of women-friendly workplaces. This request has been carried out via post and, when possible, electronic mail.

In this letter of request, we have asked each of the companies to provide information on the number of women they employ, how much paid leave employees are allocated per month and per year, whether or not they have any complaints committees in place as per the Vishaka guidelines, and whether or not they offer any support for childcare or childcare services on their worksites.

Further, we also requested that they complete a form listing ascending monthly incomes (from below Rs. 19,999 to above Rs. 1.5 crore) by filling in how many female and male employees they employ in each income bracket. A copy of the letter and the form are attached to this blog post.

Each of these letters was addressed to the Chief Human Resources Officer (or equivalent title) at the corporate headquarters, and mailed as Registered Post, Acknowledgement Due on February the 19^th, 2013. We plan to send two more copies of this letter on the same date for the next two months.

The contacts and addresses that these letters were sent to are listed below. All of this information was gathered from publicly available sources.

Tech Mahindra Ltd.:
Contact:
Sujitha Karnad - Senior Vice President: HR & QMG for IT Services
Address:
Tech Mahindra Limited, Department of Human Resources
Sharda Centre, Off Karve Road,
Pune 411004, Maharashtra
India

Mahindra Satyam:
Contact:
Hari Thalapalli - Chief Marketing Officer and Chief People Officer
Address:
Satyam Computer Services Limited, Department of Human Resources
Mahindra Satyam Technology Center
Survey No.62/1A, Qutubullapaur Mandal
Bahadurpally Village, RR Dist
Hyderabad 500043

HCL Technologies Ltd.:
Contact:
Prithvi Shergill - Chief Human Resources Officer
Address:
HCL Technologies Limited, Department of Human Resources
A-104, Sector 58, Noida
Uttar Pradesh, 201 303
India

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd.:
Contact:
Ajoyendra Mukherjee - Executive Vice President & Head, Global Human Resources
Address:
Tata Consultancy Services, Department of Human Resources
TCS House,
Raveline street,
Fort, Mumbai, 400 001
India

Infosys Ltd.:
Contact:
Nandita Gurjar - Group Head of Human Resources
Address:
Infosys Limited, Department of Human Resources
Electronics City, Hosur Road
Bangalore, 560 100
India

Wipro Ltd.:
Contact:
Pratik Kumar - Executive Vice President, Human Resources
Address:
Wipro Limited, Department of Human Resources
Doddakannelli
Sarjapur Road
Bangalore, 560 035
India

Further, emails were sent out and calls were made to the media contacts of each company requesting the contact information (email addresses in particular) of any relevant HR personnel and/or any individuals that may be able to provide us with the requested information. From the information gathered in this exercise, various Human Resources staff members from Wipro, HCL Technologies and TCS received the appeal to provide the requested information via email on the 11^th of February.

We have not yet received any replies to either the email or post requests for information.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/women-in-the-it-industry

"All Indian Enterprises should Be Very Worried": Centre for Internet and Society

praskrishna — 2013-02-28T09:21:32Z

This blog post by Shubhra Rishi was published in Computer World on February 25, 2013. Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

The chairman of the Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) is having a Barbara Streisand moment.

The American entertainer Barbra Streisand, in 2003, attempted to suppress photographs of her residence, involuntarily and indirectly fuelling further publicity. Arindam Chaudhuri’s order from a Gwalior Court has unfortunately resulted in more or less the same.

The DoT’s CERT team has successfully censored more than 70 URLs that didn’t particularly contain praises of IIPM. Amusingly, a URL containing a public notice issued by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in July 2012 was also blocked. The UGC notice said that IIPM cannot be recognized as a university according to the provisions of a particular section.

So while this issue has managed to hold our attention, it has also fervently highlighted the misappropriation of section 69 of India’s Information Technology (IT) Act 2000. According to this act, if the Director of Controller is satisfied that it is necessary or expedient so, he/she may order or direct any agency of the Government to intercept any information transmitted through any computer resource.

In short, intercepting or blocking is counter-productive in today’s scenario and is often seen as a direct infringement of people’s online freedom. “The Constitution of India does not put so many restrictions on the freedom of speech and expression that IT Act puts under a particular section,” says cyber law expert, Pavan Duggal.

Legal experts are also of the opinion that several provisions of the IT Act are unconstitutional. “It does not have built-in safeguards, especially transparency-related ones, around surveillance and censorship. Censorship in India, especially under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011, is completely opaque and results in invisible censorship, meaning that we don't even get to find out that censorship has happened and thus cannot challenge it,” says Pranesh Prakash, policy director, Centre for Internet and Society.

In the past, independent activists such as Binayak Sen, Assem Trivedi, and Arundhati Roy, or even commoners such as Shaheen Dhadha have come under fire of the said Act.

Frankly, if this loophole in the IT Act is not addressed, even Indian corporations could face a similar problem.

“I believe all intermediaries (websites that host user content, and networks that carry user traffic among others) are threatened now. Their executives can be dragged to court without any protection; thanks to the broad wording of the IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011, despite the IT Act itself granting them some protections. This is dangerous, and all Indian enterprises should be very worried,” says Prakash.

CorporateIndiawill have to tighten its belts. Despite the fact that the entire IT Act needs to be overhauled and employees need to be sensitized, currently, the first thing that corporate India needs to do is ensure that its operations in electronic format comply with the IT Act and its rules. “There's a lack of awareness about compliances in the corporate sector. Any kind of “jugaad” may not help a company get out of a potential exposure under the IT Act. An effective implementation of these compliances will relieve companies of the IT Act’s potential liabilities, both civil and criminal,” advises Duggal.

So the Streisand effect in the IIPM case will slowly wear off, but the potential threat of the IT Act will continue to haunt enterprises.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/computer-world-india-feature-shubra-rishi-feb-25-2013-all-indian-enterprises-should-be-very-worried

February 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-03-11T05:35:46Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wishes you a great year ahead and welcomes you to the second issue of its newsletter for the year 2013. In this issue we bring you an overview of our research programs, updates of events organised by us, events we participated in, news and media coverage, and videos of some of our recent events.

Memorial

Rahul Cherian, an expert and policy activist in disability law, intellectual property and technology law passed away due to an illness while on a visit to Goa on February 7, 2013. Rahul was the founder of the Inclusive Planet Centre for Disability and Policy, and a fellow at CIS. He was also a partner at IndoJuris Law Offices in Chennai and was one of the experts who drafted the Treaty for the Visually Impaired currently being negotiated at the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Hindu (February 8, 2013), First Post (February 8, 2013), Legally India (February 7, 2013), and Bar & Bench (February 8, 2013) covered this story. Lawrence Liang wrote an obituary page, A Lightness of Spirit (The Hindu, February 9, 2013) and Nishant Shah wrote a column One For All (Indian Express, February 17, 2013).

CIS organised a memorial function for Rahul Cherian at the TERI, Southern Regional Centre in Bangalore on February 28, 2013.

Jobs
CIS invites applications for the posts of Developer (NVDA Screen Reader Project), Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge and Openness), and Programme Officer (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

CIS is doing two projects in partnership with the Hans Foundation. One of this is to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India and another is for developing a screen reader and text-to- speech synthesizer for Indian languages. CIS is also working with the World Blind Union and many other organisations to develop a Treaty for the Visually Impaired helped by the WIPO:

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities

Anandhi Viswanathan from CIS and Manojna Yeluri from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are working in this project. Draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from readers for the chapters on Bihar and West Bengal:

The Bihar Chapter (by Manojna Yeluri, February 14, 2013): The state of Bihar is in the process of formulating a comprehensive state policy on disability. The Bihar State Policy on Disability is an extension of the National Policy for Persons with Disabilities and is currently in a draft form awaiting government approval and notification.
The West Bengal Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, February 28, 2013): The state of West Bengal has issued the West Bengal Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Rules, 1999 to implement the provisions under the central Persons with Disabilities (Protection of Rights, Equal Opportunities and Full Participation) Act, 1995.

Media Coverage

Indian Users’ Perspective On WIPO Negotiations On Treaty For Visually Impaired (by Catherine Saez, Intellectual Property Watch, February 16, 2013). Nirmita Narasimhan is quoted.

Access to Knowledge

The Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop the growth of Indic language communities and projects by community collaborations and partnerships. This is being carried out by the Access to Knowledge team based in Delhi. CIS is also doing a project (Pervasive Technologies) on examining the relationship between production of pervasive technologies and intellectual property. The project researches upon the noteworthy opportunities of the new types of low cost mobile devices, content and services as available in the market.

Wikipedia

Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of four members based in Delhi: T. Vishnu Vardhan, Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval, and one new team member Dr. U.B. Pavanaja who works from Bangalore office.

New Team Member

Dr. U.B. Pavanaja joined the A2K team as Programme Officer, India Language Initiatives on February 19, 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. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

Events Organised

Knowledge Sharing through GLAM at Bangalore (Karnataka Chitrakala Parishad, Kumara Krupa Road, Bangalore, February 25, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja, Subhashish Panigrahi and Nitika Tandon participated in this event.
Wikimedia Bangalore Meetup @ Indian Institute of Management (Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (organized in partnership with Wikispeed and NASSCOM). Vishnu Vardhan spoke on the Access to Knowledge project. Noopur Raval participated in the event.

Blog Entries

Creative Commons comes to India (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
Fifty-fourth Bangalore Wikimedia Meet-up at IIM, Bangalore (by Noopur Raval, February 28, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia Community Brings Wikipedia Education Program to IIMC, Dhenkanal (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).
FOSS, Wikimedia and Mozilla Under One Roof at GNUnify 2013, Pune (by Subhashish Panigrahi, February 28, 2013).

Event Reports
CIS organised one Wiki workshop in the month of February 2013. We also bring you the report from an event organised in the month of January:

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). Few glimpses of the event are available as audio podcasts.
Digital Literacy Workshop at Department of Arts, Delhi University (by Nitika Tandon, February 5, 2013).

Media Coverage

ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଉଇକିପିଡ଼ିଆର ନ‌ବମ ଜନ୍ମତିଥି ଅବସରରେ କର୍ମଶାଳା: ଇମିଡ଼ିଆରେ ଓଡ଼ିଆ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ର‌ୟୋଗ (Odishan.com, February 4, 2013).
ସମ୍ବାଦ: ଲିପି ବ୍ୟାକରଣ ଓ ମାନକ ଭାଷାର ପ୍ରୟୋଗ ଜରୁରୀ. (Sambad, February, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (e India Bureau, March 2, 2013).
Odia Wikipedia’s 9th anniversary (fullOrissa News, February 13, 2013).
Odisha: Workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia language: Application of Odia language in e-media (India Education Diary.com, March 2, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.
Odia language workshop organized on 9th Anniversary of Odia Wikipedia: Application of Odia language in e-media (Odishaviews.com, February 5, 2013). Subhashish Panigrahi is quoted.

Ongoing Events

Wikipedia Workshop @ BITS Goa (BITS Pilani K K Birla Goa Campus, March 7, 2013, 5.30 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.).
A Wikipedia Editing Workshop in Goa (Nirmala Institute of Education, Goa, March 8, 2013, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.).

Announcement

Sanskrit Wikiquote — Now Available: The Access to Knowledge team at CIS is happy to announce the availability of Sanskrit Wikiquote. Shiju Alex, an ex-team member played an active role in bringing this out. For more info see http://bit.ly/Y9OY9R.

Pervasive Technologies

Event Participated In

International Conference on Contours of Media Governance: Teaching, Disciplinarity, Methodology (organised by Jamia Millia Islamia University with support from Ford Foundation and ICSSR, Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, February 25 – 27, 2013). Sunil Abraham presented preliminary findings from the Pervasive Technologies project.

Other Openness Updates

Announcements from Other Organizations

Iryna Kuchma wins the second EPT award: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development announced the winner of its 2nd Annual Award in recognition of the effort made by individuals working in the developing and emerging countries in the furtherance of Open Access (OA) to scholarly publications. Dr. Francis Jayakanth won the inaugural award last year.

HasGeek

HasGeek creates discussion spaces for geeks and has organised conferences like the Fifth Elephant, Droidcon India 2011, Android Camp, etc. HasGeek is supported by CIS and works from the CIS office in Bengaluru.

Event Report & Video

Report of Aaron Swartz Memorial Hacknight (by Zainab Bawa, February 6, 2013). On January 19 and 20, 2013, HasGeek organized a hacknight to commemorate the life and work of Aaron Swartz. Zainab Bawa shares the developments.

Internet Governance

CIS has an agreement with Privacy International, London to facilitate the implementation of activities related to surveillance and freedom of speech and expression. We are also doing a project on examining the indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India.

Gender

Women in India’s IT Industry (by Jadine Lannon, February 27, 2013)
Women in the IT Industry: Request for Data (by Jadine Lannon, February 28, 2013).

Free Speech & Expression

Analyzing the Latest List of Blocked URLs by Department of Telecommunications (IIPM Edition) (by Snehashish Ghosh, February 14, 2013). The analysis was quoted in FirstPost.
Don’t SLAPP free speech (by Sunil Abraham with inputs from Snehashish Ghosh, Tehelka, February 3, 2013, Issue 9, Volume 10).
Freedom of Expression Gagged (by Chinmayi Arun, Hindu Business Line, February 15, 2013).

Media Coverage

Hate speech: ban or ignore? (NDTV, February 5, 2013). Pranesh Prakash, Shivam Vij, and Sanjay Rajoura gave their expert views on the impact of hate speech.
Censorship and sensibility in India (by Samanth Subramanian, February 6, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Online Abuse of Teen Girls in Kashmir Leads to Arrests (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, February 8, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Indian net service providers too play censorship tricks (by T Ramachandran, The Hindu, February 9, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Anonymous joins protests against Internet shutdown in Kashmir (by Indu Nandakumar, Economic Times, February 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Why was the Gwalior court in such a hurry to block IIPM URLs? (by Danish Raza, FirstPost, February 19, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh’s analysis on blocked website is quoted.
Stop Press Carousel (by Arindham Mukherjee, Outlook, February 22, 2013). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
"All Indian Enterprises should Be Very Worried": Centre for Internet and Society (by Shubhra Rishi, Computer World, February 25, 2013). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.

Events Participated In

Freedom of expression online: identifying and addressing challenges and developing a shared vision and a working partnership: (organized by Wilton Park, Wiston House, Sussex, UK, February 13 – 15, 2013). Pranesh Prakash participated in the event.
9th International Asian Conference (organized by ITech Law, Bangalore, February 14 -15, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panelist in the session on Censorship of Online Content.

Privacy

2012: Privacy Highlights in India (by Elonnai Hickok, February 12, 2013): Elonnai summarizes the top privacy moments of 2012 in India.
Surveillance Camp IV: Disproportionate State Surveillance - A Violation of Privacy (by Elonnai Hickok and Katitza Rodriguez of Electronic Frontier Foundation February 19, 2013).
BigDog is Watching You! The Sci-fi Future of Animal and Insect Drones (by Maria Xynou, February 25, 2013).

Events Organized

Analyzing the Draft Human DNA Profiling Bill 2012 (March 1, 2013, CIS, Bangalore).
Unique Identity Number (UID), National Population Register (NPR), and Governance (March 2, 2013, TERI Southern Regional Centre, Bangalore).

Event Participated In

The Omnishambles of UID, shrouded in its RTI opacity: CIS sponsored Colonel Mathew Thomas to hold a workshop at the fourth National Right to Information (RTI) organized by the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, held in Hyderabad from February 15 to 18, 2013.

Upcoming Event

DML Conference 2013 (co-organised by CIS and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central, Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2013).

Internet Access – Knowledge Repository

CIS in partnership with the Ford Foundation was executing the telecom knowledge repository project which included producing and disseminating modules on various aspects of telecommunications including policy, regulations, infrastructure and market. However, from November 2012 there was a change in the mandate of the project. The new repository will cover the history of the internet, technologies involved, principle and values of internet access, broadband market and universal access. It will also touch upon various polices and regulations which has an impact on internet access and bodies and mechanism which are responsible for formulation policies related to internet access. The blog posts and modules will be published in a new website: www.internet-institute.in.

Upcoming Event

We are hosting an “Institute on Internet and Society” in collaboration with the Ford Foundation India, which is to be held from June 8, 2013 to June 14, 2013. Call for registration and relevant details will be announced soon on our website.

Telecom

While the potential for growth and returns exist for telecommunications in India, a range of issues need to be addressed. One aspect is more extensive rural coverage and the other is a countrywide access to broadband which is low. Both require effective and efficient use of networks and resources, including spectrum:

Newspaper Column

The Supreme Court & Spectrum Management (by Shyam Ponappa, Organizing India Blogspot, February 14, 2013, originally published in the Business Standard, February 6, 2013).

Blog Entry

Who Minds the Maxwell's Demon: Revisiting Communication Networks through the Lens of the Intermediary (by Sharath Chandra Ram, February 28, 2013).

Digital Natives

Digital Natives with a Cause? examines the changing landscape of social change and political participation in light of the role that young people play through digital and Internet technologies, in emerging information societies. Consolidating knowledge from Asia, Africa and Latin America, it builds a global network of knowledge partners who critically engage with discourse on youth, technology and social change, and look at alternative practices and ideas in the Global South:

Events Participated In

D:coding Digital Natives - Seminar with Nishant Shah (organized by HUMlab, February 26, 2013). Nishant Shah gave a talk on D:coding Digital Natives at Samhällsvetarhuset.

Video Vortex # 9 Re:assemblies of Video (organized by the Institute of Network Cultures, Post Media Lab, Moving Image Lab, Leuphana, et.al, February 28 – March 2, 2013). Nishant Shah delivered a key note at this event.

Digital Humanities

From 2012 to 2015, the Researchers At Work series is focusing on building research clusters in the field of Digital Humanities. We organised the first Habits of Living workshops in Bangalore last year. The next workshop is being held in Brown University.

Upcoming Event

Habits of Living: Networked Affects, Glocal Effects (organised by CIS and Brown University, March 21 – 23, 2013, Brown University, Rhode Island). Nishant Shah will be speaking at this event.

About CIS

CIS was registered as a society in Bangalore in 2008. As an independent, non-profit research organisation, it runs different policy research programmes such as Accessibility, Access to Knowledge, Openness, Internet Governance, and Telecom. The policy research programmes have resulted in outputs such as the e-Accessibility Policy Handbook for Persons with Disabilities with ITU and G3ict, and Digital Alternatives with a Cause?, Thinkathon Position Papers and the Digital Natives with a Cause? Report with Hivos, etc. We have conducted policy research for the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Ministry of Human Resource Development, Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, etc., on WIPO Treaties, Copyright Bill, NIA Bill, etc.

CIS is accredited as an observer at WIPO. CIS staff participates in the Standing Committee for Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) meetings regularly held in Geneva, and participate in the discussions and comments on them from a public interest perspective. Our Policy Director, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

Follow us elsewhere

Get short, timely messages from us on Twitter
Join the CIS group on Facebook
Visit us at http://cis-india.org

Support Us

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

Request for Collaboration

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

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

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

Research Initiative: Women in India's IT Industry

jdine — 2013-03-06T10:31:48Z

CIS has begun a brief research project which will examine indicators of female economic empowerment in the IT industry in India. Though the gathering of quantitative and qualitative data from the six largest publicly-traded Indian software companies, we hope to provide insight into state of female employment in one of the most important and rapidly growing economic sectors in the country.

The recent events and subsequent discussions surrounding the brutal gang rape and murder of a young Delhi woman on a bus last December in Munirka, New Delhi, have prompted dialogue in mainstream discourses about the position of women in India, and have lead many to scrutinize the treatment of women within various spheres of Indian society. What has become increasingly apparent following the events of December 16^th is that effective longterm change for Indian women cannot be achieved by harsher consequences or more rigorous transport regulations, but instead through widespread recognition of the routine discrimination faced by Indian women in their public, private and professional lives. The latter sphere is of particular interest to the Indian context, as although the last two decades have seen an unprecedented number of Indian women enter the formal workforce, issues of female economic empowerment tend to get downplayed when juxtaposed against the entirety of the system of discrimination and violence faced by women in India.

As a brief foray into the reality of female economic empowerment in India, CIS has decided to carry out a small though hopefully telling research project on some of the largest corporate players in the Indian IT industry. The aim of this research is to gain a better understanding of the state of female employment, gender equality and the qualitative experience of being a working woman in one of the most important and rapidly growing economic sectors in the country.

Using NASSCOM's annual industry ratings from 2007-2012,[1] we put together a list of the six software companies headquartered in India that appeared in the top five spots at least twice between the years 2007-2012. These companies are Tata Consultancy Services Ltd., Infosys Ltd., Wipro Ltd., HCL Tech Ltd., Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam. Through formal requests for data and a handful of qualitative interviews, we will be gathering information from these companies and their employees that will eventually by compiled into a short report that will be publicly available on our website.

(A brief explanation of why we chose to use NASSCOM's industry list can be found at the end of this article,[2] along with some notes on the change of ownership of Mahindra Satyam and its merger with Tech Mahindra).[3]

Why the IT Industry?

In 2012, an international consulting and management firm called Booz & Company released “The Third Billion”, a global ranking of the level of economic empowerment attained by woman on 128 countries. The indicators used included equal pay for equal work, non-discrimination policies, the male-to-female-male employee ratio, and equality in terms of female managers and senior business leaders.[4] India rated quite poorly at spot 115.[5] Further, the International Labour Force recently reported that the rate of female participation in the total labour force[6] in India has fallen from 37% in 2004-05 to 29% in 2009-10, leaving India at the 11th lowest spot out of 131 countries.[7] Despite these declining rates, it was estimated in 2010 that approximately 5.5 million Indian women were entering the formal workforce each year at that period in time,[8] and though the aforementioned statistics likely indicate that a larger proportion of men are entering the formal workforce each year than women, this is a significant amount of employees, many of whom will be facing a unique set of challenges in the workplace simply because of their gender. In fact, research done by the Centre for Talent Innovation has found that 55% of female Indian employees routinely encounter such severe bias in the workplace that they disengage from their work or consider dropping out altogether.[9]

This is where the IT industry comes in. From an aggregate revenue of USD 3.9 billion in Fiscal Year (FY) 1998[10] to more than USD 100 billion in FY2012,[11] the Indian IT-BPO industry has been growing exponentially over the last 15 years, and it continues to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy. Further, it has rapidly become one of the most economically significant industries in India in terms of share of total exports (approximately 25% for FY2012)[12] export revenue (USD 69.1 billion and growing by more than 16%)[13] and proportion of national GDP (from 1.2% in FY1998 to 7.5% in FY2012).[14] IT services alone account for more than half of the software and services exports in the industry, and is the fastest growing segment of the sector at 18%.[15] Further, NASSCOM estimates that the sector will create 230,000 jobs in FY2012,[16] increasing the number of individuals employed directly in India's IT-BPO industry to about 2.8 million individuals.[17] The industry is estimated to indirectly employ another 8.9 million people.[18]

Because the IT industry in India is such an important source of employment for young Indian professionals (the median age of IT-BPO employees in India was about 24[19] in 2011), and because an unprecedented amount of those young professionals are women (women made up 42% of India's college graduates in 2010, and that figure was expected to continue to rise),[20] IT companies have the potential to become leading examples of women-friendly employers. However, according to DataQuest's Best Employer Survey 2012, the percentage of women employed in the IT industry in India has actually decreased from 26% in 2010 to 22% in 2012[21] even though the number of jobs created in this sector continues to increase annually. Again, these statistics most likely point to a larger number of males available for employment than females (and therefore a larger proportion of men being employed), but they also show that the number of women employed in the IT sector is not significantly increasing (or even increasing at all).

Considering, then, how important the IT industry may be for the employment of young female professionals (and if it is not now, it will be soon), the responsibility to create nondiscriminatory and comfortable workplace environments should fall heavily on the largest and most economically significant companies in the software sector, as they have the opportunity to set precedents not only for the rest of the industry but for Indian employers as a whole.

How are these industry giants faring in terms of the treatment of their female employees?

To commence this research, I have collected some basic facts about the Board of Directors and executive management teams of the six Indian IT companies off of their websites and annual reports. This brief preliminary foray into the industry has revealed that although many of these companies promote gender equality in the workplace and women in senior positions of authority, the Indian software sphere continues to be almost entirely male-dominated.

The collected statistics on Board members and executive management teams are listed below. It bears keeping in mind that while the information on the Board of Directors may be quite reliable (depending on how recently each company has updated their website) and therefore appropriate to use as a tool of comparative analysis, the information on the executive management teams can be misleading, as each company appears to have a different criteria of what constitutes a senior management team (for example, Tata Consultancy Services lists two individuals, their CEO and CFO, as their executive management team, but Wipro Ltd. lists 24 individuals from a variety of different departments).

Because we were not certain of how recently each company had updated its website, we have prioritized the data on the Boards from their annual Investor's Reports over the information available on their websites.

Tata Consultancy Services Limited
TCS' annual report for the 2011-2012 fiscal year reports a 14 member Board of Directors with one female non-executive director. This woman is not Indian. The report also lists a 28-member strong management team with two female members, and their website lists

Number of women on the Board: 1/14

Number of women holding executive management positions: 2/30

Infosys Limited
Infosys Ltd. has 15 Board members: six executive members, none of which are women; one male chairperson; and eight non-executive independent members, one of whom is a woman, but not an Indian woman.

Further, Infosys lists 14 individuals in their executive management team,[22] one of whom is a woman. It is interesting to note that this female member is the group head of Human Resources as well as being one of five senior Vice Presidents.[23] Infosys also has an Executive Council made up of 13 members, including one Indian woman.

Number of women on the Board: 1/15
Number of women holding executive management positions: 1/14

Wipro Limited
Wipro's Board of Directors is made up of 12 men: one executive chairman, two executive directors, and nine independent directors.

As for their executive management team, the website lists 24 executive leaders, two of whom are women.[24] Wipro also has a Corporate Executive Council of six men.

Number of women on Board: 0/12

Number of women in executive management team: 2/23

HCL Tech Limited
HCL's Board has nine members, two of whom are executive members. The other seven members are listed as being independent, non-executive members. One of these non-executive members is a woman; she is not Indian.

On their website[25] they list 18 members of their leadership team, none of whom are female.

Number of women on Board: 1/9

Number of women holding executive management positions: 0/18

Tech Mahindra
On Tech Mahindra's Board of Directors sits a non-executive chairman, one executive member, six non-executive independent members, and three non-executive directors. None of these individuals are female. On their website, seven employees appear to make up the leadership team of this company, one of whom is a woman. Interestingly, this individual is also the head of HR.[26]

Number of women on Board: 0/11

Number of women holding executive management positions: 1/7

Mahindra Satyam
According to their 2011-2012 annual report, Mahindra Satyam's Board of Directors boosts 6 members: a male chairman, one male CEO, and four non-executive board members, one of whom is an Indian woman.

Further, there appears to be six members of the leadership team[27] including the CEO, none of whom are female.

Number of women on Board: 1/6

Number of women holding executive management positions: 0/6

Summary of Board of Director Data

Number of female chairpersons in the 6 largest IT companies in India: 0/6

Number of women seated on the Board of Directors of the top 6 IT companies in India: 4/67

Executive (excluding chairmen/vice-chairmen): 0/14

Non-Executive (excluding chairmen/vice-chairmen): 4/47

Female Indian members: 1/4

Number of female employees in senior management positions: 6/98

While these numbers may be sobering, they are not exceptionally low, or even below average. According to The Globe and Mail's 11^th annual Board Games report on corporate governance, the percentage of Board seats held by women on Boards of Directors in the Indian corporate sector in 2012 was 5.3%, meaning that, at an approximately 6% of seats held by female members, our very small sample size is actually sitting just above the Indian average. However, when compared to the other BRIC countries at 5.1%, 5.9% and 8.5% respectively,[28] India is still lagging behind when it comes to having women in positions of senior authority in the corporate world.

Further, considering that these are the largest corporate IT companies in the industry, and the majority carry out activities across the globe, they probably have, on average, larger and more diverse Boards of Directors than our average mid- to large-sized Indian software company. Further, two out of six companies do not even have one female member on their Board. As for those remaining four, it is likely that these companies may be the exception and not the rule when it comes to the number of women on the Boards in the Indian IT.

As for executive management, the world average for the percentage of women in senior management roles was 21% in 2012, a meagre increase from the global average of 19% in 2004.[29] The same study that produced these figures also found that the proportion of women holding senior management positions in India was 14%, placing the data from our sample size way below the curve at approximately 6%. However, due to issues discussed earlier in this post, this figure is not an accurate representation of the executive management teams of all six companies; future research will hopefully provide us with more factual statistics.

This is not to say that the IT sector in India is the only industry that should be concerned with its low rates of female employment and attainment of seniority, nor should its industry giants be the only corporate entities publicly scrutinized in this manner. The economic empowerment of women in India is an on-going struggle that is played out in many spheres in the Indian society, including the non-profit sector. In fact, if we perform a similar breakdown of CIS' Board of Directors and staff, the results are comparable to those of the IT companies:

According to our 2011-2012 annual report, our Board of Directors boosts 8 members, two of whom are executive members of CIS' management team. One of these individuals is an Indian woman.

Further, of our 14 staff members, four are women.

[1]. NASSCOM. 2012. Industry Rankings: Top 20 Players in IT Services. [online] Retrieved from http://www.nasscom.org/industry-ranking on January 21st, 2013.

[2]. The NASSCOM industry ranking is a well-regarded annual ranking of the IT sector in India that is often used as a resource in various research initiatives and similar publications, and it appears to be widely accepted as a legitimate ranking by both those within the industry and by entities from other sectors. The ranking is determined using revenue information provided by each company for their activities in India, which we thought was a strong indicator of their significance to the industry and the Indian economic engine as a whole. Finally, NASSCOM carries out this ranking each year, which will allow us to use a similar methodology in choosing our research subjects should we choose to reproduce this research annually.

[3]. If you look at the NASSCOM list of top 20 for 2007-2008, you will see that a company called Satyam Computer Services. This company was taken over by the Mahindra Group in 2009, and was rebranded as Mahindra Satyam to reflect its new parent company. This is why Mahindra Satyam is included in our list, though it first appeared on the NASSCOM Industry Rankings for the 2011-2012 fiscal year; we counted the appearance of Satyam Computer Services in the fourth spot in the rankings for 2007-2008 as a point towards Mahindra Satyam.

Further, it was announced in March of 2012 that Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra would be merging; however, this had not yet happened by the end of the 2012 fiscal year and therefore we will treat Mahindra Satyam and Tech Mahindra as separate and independent entities in this research project.

[4]. Aquirre, D., Hoteit, L., Rupp, C., & Sabbaugh, K. 2012. Empowering the Third Billion: Women and the World of Work in 2012. [pdf] Booz & Company. Accessible at: http://bit.ly/SXdZ6P

[5]. ibid.

[6]. The rate of female labour participation indicates the proportion of the female population above the age of 15 that supplies labour for the production of goods and services on the formal market in a given time period.

[7]. International Labour Organization. February 13, 2013. India: Why is Women's Labour Force Participation Dropping? [online] Retrieved from http://bit.ly/11EGYCM on February 22^nd, 2013.

[8]. Hewlett, S. A., Fredman, C., Leader-Chivee, L., & Rashid, R. 2010. The Battle for Female Talent in India. New York: Center for Work-Life Policy.

[9]. Hewlett, S. A. November 1, 2012. “More Women in the Workforce Could Raise GDP by 5%.” Harvard Business Review. [online] Retrieved from http://bit.ly/YrxyFA February 23^rd, 2013.

[10]. Embassy of India. 2007. India's Information Technology Industry. [online] Retrieved from http://www.indianembassy.org/indiainfo/india_it.htm on February 23^rd, 2013.

[11]. NASSCOM. 2012. Indian IT-BPO Industry. [online] Retrieved from http://www.nasscom.in/indian-itbpo-industry on February 24^th, 2013.

[12]. ibid.

[13]. ibid.

[14]. ibid.

[15]. NASSCOM. 2012. IT Services. [online] Retrieved from http://www.nasscom.in/it-services on February 25^th, 2013.

[16]. NASSCOM. 2012. Indian IT-BPO Industry. [online] Retrieved from http://www.nasscom.in/indian-itbpo-industry on February 24^th, 2013.

[17]. ibid.

[18]. ibid.

[19]. Business Standard. January 31, 2011. Employee Retention Key Challenge for IT, BPO Cos. [online] Retrieved from http://bit.ly/13sCizA on February 24^th, 2013.

[20]. Hewlett, Sylvia A. & Rashid, Ripa. December 3, 2010. “India's Crown Jewels: Female Talent.” Harvard Business Review. [online] Retrieved from http://bit.ly/gpv7CQ on February 23^rd, 2013.

[21]. Sharma, P. October 29, 2012. “Gender Inclusivity, Still a Key Challenge.” DataQuest. [online] Retrieved from http://bit.ly/TPkz1F on February 19^th, 2013.

[22]. Information retrieved from: http://infy.com/cVfEwp

[23]. According to the Grant Thornton International Business Report for 2012, the majority of women employed in senior management positions are heads/directors of Human Resources (21%). It has been argued that women tend to get employed in Human Resources due to a perceived “natural transfer of skills”--meaning that women are believed to be pre-disposed to excel at Human Resources-related tasks and responsibilities simply because of the experiences and norms of their gender. For a more profound discussion of this phenomenon, please visit: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/view/story.jhtml?id=533345673

[24]. Information retrieved from: http://bit.ly/13sBtXJ

[25]. Information retrieved from: http://bit.ly/Kdm0vP

[26]. Please see footnote 23

[27]. Information retrieved from: http://bit.ly/148kLsv

[28]. Information retrieved from: http://bit.ly/XVvpp3

[29]. Grant Thornton. 2012. “Women in Senior Management: Still Not Enough.” in Grant Thornton International Business Report 2012. Grant Thornton. [pdf] Accessible at: http://bit.ly/HCjKTG

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/women-in-indias-it-industry