Centre for Internet and Society

December 2013 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T13:51:47Z

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

We at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) wish you all a great year ahead and welcome you to the twelfth issue of its newsletter (December) for the year 2013:

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Highlights
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The National Resource Kit team has published a draft chapter highlighting the state of laws, policies and programmes for persons with disabilities in the state of Gujarat.
Government of India has passed the National Electronic Accessibility Policy. CIS had worked with the Department of Electronics and Information Technology to formulate this policy. We bring you a brief analysis of the policy and provisions therein in a blog post.
Nehaa Chaudhari on behalf of CIS submitted comments on the Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations to the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
CIS-A2K team has published a report highlighting the key accomplishments about the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.
Vipul Kharbanda has provided an analysis of the laws and regulations that apply to Bitcoin in India concluding that government can regulate Bitcoin.
We released the first documentary film (DesiSec) on cyber security in India in Bangalore on December 11.
In the module on Global Histories of the Internet (part of the Knowledge Repository on Internet Access project) Nishant Shah analyses the understanding of the internet, cyberspace and everyday life and why do we need to know the history of the internet.
The second "Institute on Internet and Society" will be held in Yashada, Pune from February 11 to 17, 2014.
As part of the Making Change project, Denisse Albornoz provides an analysis of the benefits and limitations of increasing access to information to enable citizenship and political participation.

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Jobs
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CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Program Officer (Access to Knowledge) and Program Officer (Internet Governance): http://bit.ly/1aA57K6. There are two vacancies each for these posts and these are full-time based in Delhi. To apply, please send your resume to Sunil Abraham (sunil@cis-india.org) and Pranesh Prakash (pranesh@cis-india.org) with three writing samples of which at least one demonstrates your analytic skills, and one that shows your ability to simplify complex policy issues.

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

► National Resource Kit Chapter

The Gujarat Chapter (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/Kxbg3b.

Note: All of the chapters published so far in this project are early drafts and will be reviewed and updated.

►Other

# Media Coverage

An “Advocacy” Saga and the Inspiring Legacy of Rahul Cherian (by Shamnad Basheer, Spicy IP, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a5B7sU.

# Blog Entry

National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility – An Analysis (by Anandhi Viswanathan, December 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dfCW3I.

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

# Submission

Comments on Proposed WIPO Treaty for the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations (by Nehaa Chaudhari, December 7, 2013). CIS submitted its comments to the Ministry of Human Resource Development: http://bit.ly/1hpWeuu.

# Events Participated In

3rd Global Congress on IP and the Public Interest & Open A.I.R. Conference on Innovation and IP in Africa (organized by University of Cape Town, December 9-13, 2013). Sunil Abraham participated as a speaker in the sessions on Bridging into the Global Congress: Global Issues, Local Answers?, User Rights Track: What Medicines Can Teach Tech: Exploring Patent Pooling and Compulsory Licensing in the Indian Mobile Device Market (http://bit.ly/1f74yir), User Rights Track: Reclaiming the World Trade Organisation: A Modest Proposal for a WTO Agreement on the Supply of Global Public Goods (http://bit.ly/1f74yir), and was a keynote speaker on The Freedom Continuum (http://bit.ly/1dH1WEM). Nehaa Chaudhari also participated in this event: http://bit.ly/1bJArFJ.
Twenty-Sixth Session of the Standing Committee on Copyrights and Related Rights (organized by WIPO, Geneva, December 16 – 20, 2013). CIS gave its statement on Limitations and Exceptions for Libraries and Archives (http://bit.ly/JWnjq7) and on Limitations and Exceptions for Education, Teaching and Research Institutions and Persons with Other Disabilities (http://bit.ly/JWnjq7). Nehaa Chaudhari participated as a speaker. India and the United States introduced 6 proposals on the WIPO Broadcast Treaty: http://bit.ly/1edqvr3.

The following has been done under grant from the Wikimedia Foundation (http://bit.ly/SPqFOl). As part this project (http://bit.ly/X80ELd), we held 3 workshops in the month of December, published a detailed report of key accomplishments of the work done in Konkani Wikipedia, a report on Train the Trainer Program held in the month of October and published an article in DNA.

►Wikipedia

# Article

Telugu Wikipedia completes 10 years (by Rahmanuddin Shaik, DNA, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/19OAvUV. The article was edited by Rohini Lakshané.

# Report

CIS-A2K: Work Accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/1l6ttmp. The report throws some light on the work accomplished on Konkani Wikipedia from September to December 2013.

# Blog Entries

First ever Train-the-Trainer Program in India (by Nitika Tandon, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1euwSXt.

The following are videos of participants from the Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization project (jointly organised by CIS-A2K and Goa University) speaking on their experiences with Wikimedia projects.

Priyadarshini Tadkodkar on Konkani language (by Subhashish Panigrahi, November 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hldNM8. We are featuring this here as we didn’t carry this in the last newsletter.
Varsha Kavlekar on Konkani Wikipedia Incubator (by Nitika Tandon, December 12, 2013): http://bit.ly/KmxyFo.
Darshan Kandolkar on Konkani Vishwakosh Digitization Process (by Nitika Tandon, December 13, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cqKyQ2.
Darshana Mandrekar speaks on Konkani Wikipedia (by Nitika Tandon, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1keWyya.
Pooja Tople on Wikimedia Projects (by Nitika Tandon, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hlbubU.

# Events Organised

You Too Can Write on Wikipedia! — Training workshop (National Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1edmx1z.
Telugu Wikipedia Training Workshop (KBN College, Vijaywada, December 16, 2013): http://bit.ly/1i8ScnL.
Kannada Wikipedia Workshop at Alvas Vishva Nudisiri Virasat (Moodabidre, December 19 – 22, 2013). Dr. U.B. Pavanaja gave a presentation about Kannada Wikipedia and also conducted a workshop on Kannada Wikipedia as a parallel track. The event was covered by Prajavani (December 22), Hosadigantha (December 22), and Deccan Herald (December 22): http://bit.ly/1dGTBkw.

# Events Co-organised

Wikipedia Orientation Workshop (organised by CIS-A2K and Christ University, Bangalore, December 2, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lrkwEy.
Wikipedia Training Session @ Tiruvur (organised by CIS-A2K and Telugu Wikipedia community, Srivahini College, Tiruvur, December 19, 2013). T. Vishnu Vardhan and Rahmanuddin Shaik conducted the workshop: http://bit.ly/1e3oQX7. It was covered by Andhraprabha (http://bit.ly/1bU5VsQ), Eenadu (http://bit.ly/19fsttf), Sakshi (http://bit.ly/1e3pQdU), and Prajasakthi (http://bit.ly/JJs7ja) on December 19, 2013.

# Event Participated In

A Wikipedia Workshop at IISC (organised by the Assamese Wikipedia community, Bangalore, December 1, 2013). CIS-A2K team and Wikipedian Shiju Alex supported this event: http://bit.ly/1dSutY2.

# Media Coverage

CIS gave its inputs for the following media coverage:

A Feature on Telugu Wikipedia (Namaste Telengana Newspaper, December 8, 2013): http://bit.ly/19Yjwj6.
Odisha: Odia Wikipedia reaching 5000 article mark! (Odisha Diary Bureau, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1dGU2vc.

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Internet Governance
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CIS is doing a project (under a grant from Privacy International and International Development Research Centre (IDRC)) on conducting research on surveillance and freedom of expression (SAFEGUARDS). So far we have organised seven privacy round-tables and drafted the Privacy (Protection) Bill. This month we bring you an analysis on whether Bitcoin can be banned by the government and a blog post on misuse of surveillance powers in India. As part of its project (funded by Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto and support from the IDRC) on mapping cyber security actors in South Asia and South East Asia a film DesiSec: Episode 1was screened. We also did an interview with Pranesh Prakash on cyber security. With this we have completed a total of 13 video interviews so far:

# Analysis

Can Bitcoin Be Banned by the Indian Government? (by Vipul Kharbanda, December 24, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lJrnGF.

# Blog Entries

Misuse of Surveillance Powers in India (Case 1) (by Pranesh Prakash, December 6, 2013): http://bit.ly/1donbaJ.
Brochures from Expos on Smart Cards, e-Security, RFID & Biometrics in India (by Maria Xynou, December 18, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f714fN.
India’s Identity Crisis (by Malavika Jayaram, December 31, 2013 Internet Monitor Annual Report: Reflections on the Digital World, published by Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society): http://bit.ly/1lTRuuz.

# Upcoming Events

Digital Citizens: Why Cyber Security and Online Privacy are Vital to the Success of Democracy and Freedom of Expression (CIS, Bangalore, January 14, 2014): http://bit.ly/KucEU5. Michael Oghia will give a talk.
CPDP 2014 Reforming Data Protection: The Global Perspective (Brussels, January 22 – 24, 2014): http://bit.ly/KsgCws.
Nullcon Goa Feb 2014 — International Security Conference (organised by Nullcon, Bogmallo Beach Resort, Goa, February 12 – 15, 2014). CIS is one of the sponsors for this event: http://bit.ly/1lrBu5I.

# Events Organised

Big Democracy: Big Surveillance - A talk by Maria Xynou (CIS, Bangalore, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/19YnA31.
DesiSec: Episode 1 - Film Release and Screening (CIS, December 11, 2013): http://bit.ly/1lJt2fm.
Legal Issues pertaining to Cloud Computing (NLSIU Campus, Bangalore, December 14-15, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cvcmGq.
Biometrics or Bust? Implications of the UID for Participation and Inclusion (CIS, Bangalore, January 10, 2014). Malavika Jayaram will give a talk: http://bit.ly/1lJZhuK.

# Events Participated In

Convention on Crisis of Capitalism and brazen onslaught on Democracy (organized by INSAF, December 6, 2013). Snehashish Ghosh participated as a speaker: http://bit.ly/1gAxmNy.
International View of the State-of-the-Art of Cryptography and Security and its Use in Practice (IV) (jointly organized by Microsoft Research India, Indian Institute of Science, and Indian Institute of Technology Madras, December 6, 2013). Sunil Abraham was a panellist: http://bit.ly/1eAXl5t.
Technology in Government and Topics in Privacy (organized by Data Privacy Lab, CGIS Cafe, Cambridge Street, Harvard University Campus, December 9, 2013). Malavika Jayaram participated as a speaker on Biometrics in Beta – India's Identity Experiment: http://bit.ly/1bJDqht.
Cyberscholars Working Group at MIT (organized by the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University, December 12, 2013): Malavika Jayaram made a presentation on Biometrics or Bust - India’s Identity Crisis: http://bit.ly/1eIpHef.
Seventh NLSIR Symposium on “Bridging the Security-Liberty Divide” (organised by National Law School, Bangalore, December 21-22). Chinmayi Arun and Bhairav Acharya were speakers at this event: http://bit.ly/1gjsxYe.

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

MongoDB startup hired by Aadhaar got funds from CIA VC arm (by Lison Joseph, Economic Times, December 3, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f77bRg.
A Three-Way Race Draws Delhi’s Young, and Everyone Else, Out to Vote (by Betwa Sharma, New York Times, December 4, 2013): http://bit.ly/1gAxoFf.
India for UN body to resolve internet governance issues (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/JWESqe.
Card transactions with Aadhaar validation need more time: experts (by Kirti V. Rao and Moulishree Srivastava, Livemint, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1hq35UL.
Indian government wakes up to risk of Hotmail, Gmail (originally published by AFP, December 7, 2013): http://bit.ly/19LrlOS. This was also mirrored in The Times of India (http://bit.ly/1hpYEJu), Reuters (http://bit.ly/1gaHhZk), Dawn (http://bit.ly/1azuV95), NDTV (http://bit.ly/19Ys7lS), Yahoo News (http://yhoo.it/JCSreE), The Malaysian Insider (http://bit.ly/1eAPAMW) and Asia One Digital (http://bit.ly/JWuw9R). A slightly modified version was published by Silicon India on December 11: http://bit.ly/1gAtzjd.

# Announcement

Pranesh Prakash has been elected as the Asia-Pacific representative to the executive committee of the NonCommercial Users Constituency (NCUC) (part of the Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group, which is in turn part of the Generic Names Supporting Organization, which is in turn part of ICANN): http://bit.ly/KuIVeC.

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

# Newspaper Column

For a Telecom Revival (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, December 4, 2013 and Organizing India Blogspot, December 5, 2013): http://bit.ly/1avRDii.

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

# Blog Entry

The Conflict of Konigsberg (by Anirudh Sridhar, December 17, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEXhhU.

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

►Making Change Project

# Blog Entries

Tactical Technology: Information is Power? (by Denisse Albornoz, December 26, 2013): http://bit.ly/1cEUrcY.
Tactical Technology: Designing Activism (by Denisse Albornoz, December 27, 2013): http://bit.ly/1a9IuzH.

►Other

# Newspaper Column

Digital Native (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, December 22, 2013): http://bit.ly/1f7mU2P.

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

# Upcoming Event

Institute on Internet and Society (organised by Ford Foundation and CIS, Yashada, Pune, February 11-17, 2014): http://bit.ly/180mQi9. Registrations are closed for this event.

# Modules

History of the Internet: Building Conceptual Frameworks (by Nishant Shah, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/19WRHLb.
Internet Privacy in India (by Elonnai Hickok, December 31, 2013): http://bit.ly/19SNk6v.

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

► Follow us elsewhere

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

► Support Us

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

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

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

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

December 2012 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2013-01-16T05:15:27Z

We at the Centre for Internet & Society wish you all a great year ahead. In the December 2012 newsletter, we bring you the draft early chapters of our “National Resource Kit” project for persons with disabilities (covering four southern states); and accessibility-related comments on the Twelfth Five Year Plan; the draft research on pervasive technologies and access to knowledge that we presented at the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest in Brazil; our comments on the privacy implications of including RFID tags in the proposed Rule 138A of the Motor Vehicle Rules, a report on the open access lectures delivered by Prof. Leslie Chan during his tour of India, reports of Wikipedia-related workshops conducted across three cities, and news and media coverage.

Jobs

CIS is seeking applications for the posts of Programme Officer (Access to Knowledge — Indic Language Initiatives), Developer (NVDA Project), Research Manager (Digital Humanities project), and Policy Associate (Access to Knowledge and Openness) and Policy Associate (Internet Governance). To apply send your resume to sunil@cis-india.org and pranesh@cis-india.org.

Accessibility

National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities
CIS received a grant of INR 54,83,200 from the Hans Foundation for Creating a National Kit of Laws, Policies and Programs for Persons with Disabilities on August 16, 2012. Anandhi Vishwanathan from CIS and Shruti Ramakrishnan from the Centre for Law and Policy Research are the researchers presently working for this project. Early draft chapters have been published. Feedback and comments are invited from the readers:

The Tamil Nadu Chapter (by Shruti Ramakrishnan, December 30, 2012).
The Karnataka Chapter (by Shruti Ramakrishnan, December 30, 2012).
The Kerala Chapter (by Anandi Vishwanathan, December 31, 2012).
The Andhra Chapter (by Anandi Vishwanathan, December 31, 2012).

Access to Knowledge

The Access to Knowledge programme addresses the harms caused to consumers, developing countries, human rights, and creativity/innovation from excessive regimes of copyright, patents, and other such monopolistic rights over knowledge:

Event Organised

2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest (FGV Law School, Rio de Janeiro, December 15 – 17, 2012). The Second Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest was organized by Fundação Getulio Vargas, American University Washington College of Law, Columbia University, Open AIR, and ICSTD. Sunil Abraham and Pranesh Prakash participated in the event. Pranesh was one of the moderators in the Roundtable Discussion on Priority Policy Forums, Research and Analysis Needs and Commitments.

Research for the Global Congress

For the 2012 Global Congress on Intellectual Property and Public Interest event, CIS conducted research. Jadine Lannon (based on research by Annapoornima and Rohan George and with help from Yogesh Kumar did research on documentation of phones and their patent, Amba Kak did research on copyright and mobile licensing, Vikrant Vasudev conducted research on patent pools and valuation methods, Hans Varghese Mathews did research on mathematical models of patent pools and Nehaa Chaudhuri did research on analysis of 3Gand 4G patent pools.

Openness

The 'Openness' programme critically examines alternatives to existing regimes of intellectual property rights, and transparency and accountability. Under this programme, we study Open Government Data, Open Access to Scholarly Literature, Open Access to Law, Open Content, Open Standards, and Free/Libre/Open Source Software:

Event Report

Random Hacks of Kindness Global December 2012 — A Report (by Yogesh Londhe, December 10, 2012). Event was hosted at CIS office in Bangalore. CIS, Amnesty International India Office, Greenpeace India Office, HasGeek, Yahoo Research & Development and SimpleTechLife sponsored the event held in CIS office in Bangalore on December 1 and 2, 2012.

Events Participated

‘Information & Networks’ Partners’ Meeting (organised by International Development Research Centre, Canada in Rio de Janeiro, December 11 – 12, 2013). Sunil Abraham spoke in session on Open Business and IP.

Open Access Champion Leslie Chan Delivers Five Talks in India (Department of Library & Information Science, University of Kerala, National Institute of Interdisciplinary Science & Technology, CSIR, Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management – Kerala, Manasa Media Centre, Mysore University Library and SDM Institute for Management Development, December 17 – 20, 2012).

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia Project)
Beginning from September 1, 2012, Wikimedia Foundation has awarded CIS a two-year grant of INR 26,000,000 to support and develop free knowledge in India. The A2K team consists of three members based in Delhi: Nitika Tandon, Subhashish Panigrahi and Noopur Raval.

Events Organised

Wikipedia Workshop at NMAIT (NMAIT, Karkala Taluk, December 21, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute).
Wikipedia Workshop at SRM (SRM University, Chennai, December 17, 2012, co-organised in association with Metawings Institute).
Marathi Wiki Workshop at TISS (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, December 8, 2012).

Blog Entries

Non Unicode ISCII Text Can be Converted to Unicode Now! (by Subhashish Panigrahi, December 19, 2012).
New Avenues: Media Wiki Groups (by Noopur Raval, December 28, 2012).

News / Media Coverage

A Report of Odia Wikipedia Workshop at IIT, Kharagpur (Samaja, Odia daily, Kolkata edition, December 3, 2012).

Videos

Wikipedia: State of Tech — A Talk by Erik Moeller (CIS, Bangalore, November 12, 2012). Erik Moeller, Vice President of Engineering and Product Development at the Wikimedia Foundation gave a talk.
Art in the Open Source Age — A Talk by Gene Kogan (CIS, Bangalore, November 30, 2012). Gene Kogan, a programmer and digital artist gave a talk.

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 out from CIS office in Bengaluru.

Upcoming Event

Meta Refresh (MLR Convention Centre, JP Nagar, Bangalore, February 22 and 23, 2013).

Internet Governance

The Internet Governance programme conducts research around the various social, technical, and political underpinnings of global and national Internet governance, and includes online privacy, freedom of speech, and Internet governance mechanisms and processes:

Analysis of Central Motor Vehicle Rules

Comments on the Proposed Rule 138A of the Central Motor Vehicle Rules, 1989 Concerning Radio Frequency Identification Tags (by Bhairav Acharya, December 3, 2012).

Columns/Op-eds

Online Censorship: How Government should Approach Regulation of Speech (by Sunil Abraham, Economic Times, December 5, 2012).
The Worldwide Web of Concerns (by Pranesh Prakash, Deccan Chronicle, and Asian Age, December 10, 2012).
The Trouble with Hurried Solutions (by Chinmayi Arun, The Hindu, December 15, 2012).
Tomorrow, Today (Nishant Shah, The Indian Express, December 29, 2012).

Event Organised

Meeting of the Network of Internet & Society Centers (organised by Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet & Society, Center for Technology & Society, KEIO University SFC, the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Center for Civic Media, NEXA Center for Internet & Society and CIS, Cambridge, Massachusetts, December 6 – 8, 2012).

Upcoming Events

DML Conference 2013 (Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers - Chicago, Illinois, March 14 – 16, 2012).

Events Participated

Second International e-Governance Conference (organized by the National Committee for Corporate Governance Electronic Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme, Rashid Hotel, Baghdad, December 2, 2012). Sunil Abraham presented on "Review of the Legal Environment in Iraq for Effective e-Governance".
Seminar/Artist Talks : "Outresourcing" with the Transmediale Collective (organised by the Berlin - Transmediale new media collective, December 3, 2012, Bangalore). Sharath Chandra Ram presented a White Paper.
World Conference on International Telecommunications (organised by ITU, December 3 – 14). Chinmayi Arun participated as a civil society representative.
Internet Driven Developments: Structural Changes and Tipping Points (organised by Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Cambridge, Massachusetts at Harvard University, December 6 – 8, 2012).
Annual Conference on Human Rights 2012 (organised by Estonian Institute of Human Rights and Google). Malavika Jayaram participated as a panelist.
State Surveillance and Human Rights Camp (Sheraton Rio Hotel & Resort, Rio, Brazil, December 13 and 14, 2012). Elonnai Hickok made a presentation on MLATS and International Cooperation for Law Enforcement Purposes.
Economic Impact of Internet in India (organised by Aspen Institute India, December 21, 2012). Chinmayi Arun attended this event.

Blog Entries

Transcripts from WCIT-12 (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 3, 2012).
Section 66-A, Information Technology Act, 2000: Cases (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 3, 2012).
Internet-driven Developments — Structural Changes and Tipping Points (by Elonnai Hickok, December 28, 2012).
State Surveillance and Human Rights Camp: Summary (by Elonnai Hickok, December 31, 2012).
Mining the Web Collective (by Sharath Chandra Ram, December 31, 2012).

Video

Technology Culture and Events in South East Asia — A Presentation by Preetam Rai (CIS, Bangalore, December 18, 2012). Preetam Rai gave a lecture.

Media Coverage

66A ‘cut & paste job’ (by GS Mudur, Telegraph, December 3, 2012). Pranesh Prakash and Snehashish Ghosh are quoted.
Ayodhya trending on Twitter sparks censorship concerns (by Surabhi Agarwal, December 6, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.
Debate on Section 66A rages on (Vasudha Venugopal, The Hindu, December 10, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Hacktivists deface BSNL website (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 13, 2012).
Govt likely to issue guidelines to clarify IT rules soon (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, December 16, 2012).
The freedom of expression debate: The State must mend fences with The Web (by Rahul Jayaram, India Today, December 18, 2012).
‘The IT Act is fine, but its interpretation is not’ (DNA, December 19, 2012).
No fear of losing internet freedom till Jan 15: Experts (by Kim Arora, The Times of India, December 22, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
UN agrees to review agencies governing Internet (by Surabhi Agarwal, LiveMint, December 27, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
Delhi gang rape: What Facebook, Twitter expose about govt (The Times of India, December 31, 2012). Pranesh Prakash is quoted.
A note of dissent on cash transfers and UID (The Hindu, December 31, 2012). Sunil Abraham was one of the signatories.
The year social media came of age in India (by Javed Anwer and Rukmini Shrinivasan, The Times of India, December 31, 2012). Sunil Abraham is quoted.

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

Inflation Control Through Structural Reforms (by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, December 11, 2012).

Building Knowledge and Capacity around Telecommunication Policy in India
Ford Foundation has given a grant of USD 2,00,000 to CIS to build expertise in the area of telecommunications in India. The knowledge repository deals with these modules: Introduction to Telecommunications, Telecommunications Infrastructure and Technologies, Government of India Regulatory Framework for Telecom, Telecommunication and the Market, Universal Access and Accessibility, The International Telecommunications Union and other international bodies, Broadcasting, Emerging Topics and Way Forward. Dr. Surendra Pal, Satya N Gupta, Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Payal Malik, Dr. Rakesh Mehrotra and Dr. Nadeem Akhtar are the expert reviewers.

The following are the new outputs:

Licensing Framework for Telecom: A Historical Overview (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 31, 2012).
Market Structure in the Telecom Industry (by Snehashish Ghosh, December 31, 2012).

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:

Book Review

Not Just Fancy Television (by Nishant Shah, Indian Express, December 8, 2012): Nishant Shah reviews Ben Hammersley's book "64 Things You Need to Know for Then: How to Face the Digital Future Without Fear ", published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Media Coverage

What does it mean to be a digital native? (by Oliver Joy, CNN, December 8, 2012).

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 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, and has given policy briefs to delegations from various countries, our Programme Manager, Nirmita Narasimhan won the National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award.

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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

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/about/newsletters/december-2012-bulletin

December 2011 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-07-23T08:35:03Z

Welcome to the newsletter issue of December 2011. This issue carries a special section on Freedom of Expression as there was much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media.

Digital Natives with a Cause?

Digital Natives with a Cause? is a knowledge programme initiated by CIS, India and Hivos, Netherlands. It is a research inquiry that seeks to look at the changing landscapes of social change and political participation and the role that young people play through digital and internet technologies, in emerging information societies. The collaboration has produced a four book collective around ‘digital revolutions’ in a post Arab spring world, a position paper, a scouting report and three international workshops in Taipei, Johannesburg and Santiago.

Blog Entry

The Digital Other: Nishant Shah raises his concerns that increasingly, Digital Natives are acting as pure consumers of technology and gadgets, and seem willing to do so. The blog post was published in DML Central, 14 December 2011.

Events

Digital Native Video Contest, jointly organised by CIS and Hivos. Submission guidelines and FAQs are online. Submit your proposal online by 26 January 2012.
Digital AlterNatives Tweet-a-Review, 17 – 26 December 2011: 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' Project invites readers to review essays from the 'Digital AlterNatives with a Cause', a four-book collective published by Centre for Internet & Society and Hivos.

Book Reviews

Unpacking Digital Natives from their Shiny Packaging: “The ‘Digital Natives’ concept is neither necessarily nor inherently positive, as YiPing Tsou highlights in her chapter Digital Natives in the Name of a Cause: From Flash Mob to "Human Flesh Search.” — Argyri Panezi
On Natives, Norms and Knowledge: “It is a text I strongly recommend, especially to those interested in the reasons behind contemporary policies that try to regulate digital activism such as the US SOPA Act.” — Philip Ketzel
Digital Native: Twin Manifestations or Co-Located Hybrids: “Ben-David’s piece is a well-articulated and informed attempt to resolve two of the several conceptual fuzziness of the term Digital Native. She attempts this in a philosophical manner: trying to move away from the ontological who are Digital Natives? to an epistemological when and where are Digital Natives?” — Samuel Tettner

Pathways for Learning in Higher Education

The Pathways Project for Learning in Higher Education is a collaboration between the Higher Education Innovation and Research Applications (HEIRA) at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS). The project is supported by the Ford Foundation and works with disadvantaged students in nine undergraduate colleges in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala, to explore relationships between technologies, higher education and the new forms of social justice in India.

Workshop Report

The Digital Classroom: Social Justice and Pedagogy: Nishant Shah captures some of the questions that were thrown up and discussed at the 2 day Faculty Training workshop for participant from colleges included in the Pathways to Higher Education programme, supported by Ford Foundation and collaboratively executed by the Higher Education Innovation and Research Application and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

Blog Post

Technology, Social Justice and Higher Education by Nishant Shah, 7 December 2011.

Event Organised

Pathways 3rd Faculty Workshop & Regional Facilitators Meeting at CSCS, 8–10 December 2011, CSCS, Bangalore, Nishant Shah participated in the workshop.

Accessibility

India has an estimated 70 million disabled persons who are unable to read printed materials due to some form of physical, sensory, cognitive or other disability. The disabled need accessible content, devices and interfaces facilitated via copyright law and electronic accessibility policies. So far we have organised Right to Read campaigns in the four metro cities of Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai, made a submission to amend the Indian Copyright to the HRD Ministry, researched on accessible mobile handsets in India, analysed the Working Draft of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, and published a policy handbook on e-accessibility and a book on universal service for persons with disabilities.

Publications

Universal Service for Persons with Disabilities: Published by G3ict and CIS in cooperation with the Hans Foundation. The book is co-authored by Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict, Deepti Bharthur and Nirmita Narasimhan.
The Business Case for Web Accessibility: NASSCOM Foundation has published a handbook on web accessibility titled “Understanding Web Accessibility — A Guide to Create Accessible Work Environments”. Nirmita Narasimhan authored a chapter “The Business Case for Web Accessibility”.

Submission

Accessibility in the New Telecom Policy 2011: CIS was part of the 27 organisations that responded to the call for comments on NTP 2011. The submission was made to the Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India on 9 December 2011.

Interview

An Interview of Nirmita Narasimhan on ITU Portal: ITU Girls in ICT is now online! ITU interviewed Nirmita and published her profile on their website.

Award

Nirmita receives NIVH Award: Nirmita Narasimhan received the NIVH Excellence Award from Justice AS Anand (retd), former chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, on International Day of Persons with Disabilities at the National Institute for the Visually Handicapped in Dehradun on Saturday, 3 December 2011. The Tribune covered the award ceremony and published this in their newspaper on 3 December 2011.

Upcoming Event

ITU Meeting and Tutorial on Audiovisual Media Accessibility, organized by the International Telecommunication Union, India International Centre, 13 – 15 March 2012. CIS is hosting the workshop in collaboration with the ITU-APT Foundation. More information and registration are available at the ITU website.

Access to Knowledge

Access to Knowledge is a campaign to promote the fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development. It deals with issues like copyrights, patents, and trademarks, which are an important part of the digital landscape. We prepared the India report for the CI IP Watchlist, made submission to the HRD Ministry on WIPO Broadcast treaty, questioned the demonization of pirates, and advocated against laws (such as the PUPFIP Bill) that privatize public funded knowledge.

Comments

CIS Intervention on Future Work of the WIPO Advisory Committee on Enforcement
The seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) was held in Geneva on 30 November and 1 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash participated in the event and made the intervention.
Comment by CIS at ACE on Presentation on French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting: Pranesh Prakash responded to a presentation by Prof. Pierre Sirinelli of the École de droit de la Sorbonne, Université Paris 1 on 'The French Charter on the Fight against Cyber-Counterfeiting of 16 December 2009 during the seventh session of the World Intellectual Property Organization's Advisory Committee on Enforcement (ACE) held in Geneva.

Blog Post

CIS Hosts Scanned Version of George Orwell’s Books vs. Cigarettes: Verbindingen/Jonctions (V/J), the bi-annual multidisciplinary festival organised by Constant took place on 1 December 2011. CIS hosted the scanned pages of the essay in public domain.

Openness

Innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration. The advent of Internet has radically defined what it means to be open and collaborative. The Internet itself is built upon open standards and free/libre/open source software. Our endeavour has resulted in a report on open government data, a report on online video environment in India and a film on oral citations on the Wikipedia.

Award

Inaugural EPT Award for Open Access: The Electronic Publishing Trust for Development is pleased to announce the winners of a new annual award to be made to individuals working in developing countries who have made a significant personal contribution to advancing the cause of open access (OA) and the free exchange of research findings. The winner of the inaugural award is Dr Francis Jayakanth of the National Centre for Science Information, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.

Internet Governance

The Tunis Agenda of the second World Summit on the Information Society has defined internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society, in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet. CIS partnered with Privacy International and Society in Action Group which has produced outputs in banking, telecommunications, consumer rights, media law, sexual minorities, etc., and submitted seven open letters to Parliamentary Finance Committee on UID covering several aspects, feedbacks on NIA Bill, and IT Rules.

Peer Review

Now Streaming on Your Nearest Screen by Nishant Shah, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Volume 3, Issue 1.
Internet and Society in Asia: Challenges and Next Steps by Nishant Shah, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Volume 11, Number 1.

Book Review

The Historian Wins Over the Biographer “In Walter Isaacson's eponymous biography of Steve Jobs, the multibillion dollar man who is credited with single handedly changing the face of computing and the digital media industry, we face the dilemma of a biographer: how do you make sense of a history that is so new, it is still unfolding.”
Nishant Shah's detailed review of Steve Jobs' biography was published in the Biblio Vol. XV Nos. 11 & 12, November- December 2011

Newspaper / Magazine Articles

Spy in the Web The government’s proposed pre-censorship rules undermine the intelligence of an online user and endanger democracy, Nishant Shah, Indian Express, 18 December 2011.
What is Dilligaf? On the web, time moves at the speed of thought: Groups emerge, proliferate and are abandoned as new trends and fads take precedence. Nowhere else is this dramatic flux as apparent as in the language that evolves online, Nishant Shah, GQ India.
Of Surrogate Futures and Scattered Temporalities: Nishant Shah responds to Michael Edwards through this blog post published in the Broker on 27 December 2011.

Interview

An Interview with Dr. Ann Cavoukian: Elonnai Hickok interviews Dr. Ann Cavoukian, Information and Privacy Commissioner, Ontario, Canada.
When the digital spills into the physical: Nishant Shah tells us why flash mobs are an interesting sign of our times, and not just a passing fad. MidDay published this interview in their newspaper on 18 December 2011.

Video

Phishing Attacks on the Rise: Sunil Abraham was on the TV Channel News 9 on 2 December 2011 speaking about two visual cues to distinguish between the fake and the real websites.

Media Coverage

India’s dreams of web censorship, Financial Time's beyondbrics, 6 December 2011, Sunil Abraham was quoted in this post.
Did He, Didn’t He by Rahul Bhatia, Open Magazine (issue: 7-14 December 2011)
Much at stake for tech sector in UID project by Pranav Nambiar, Economic Times, 12 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
On the net, red herring by Javed Anwer, The Times of India, 4 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
Twitter, Facebook take the lead in blogosphere as blog searches fall by half by Ameya Chumbhale, Economic Times, 17 November 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this article.

Event Report

Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism organised by Tactical Tech and CIS in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Zainab Bawa, Ayisha Abraham, Ward Smith and Marek Tuszinsky gave a talk. Videos of the event are now online.

Upcoming Events

Privacy Matters — Analyzing the "Right to Privacy Bill": Privacy India in partnership with International Development Research Centre, Canada, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, the Godrej Culture Lab, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore is organising "Privacy Matters", a public conference at IIT, Bombay on 21 January 2012.

The High Level Privacy Conclave: Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon and Privacy International, UK is organizing the High Level Privacy Conclave at the Paharpur Business Centre, Nehru Place Greens in New Delhi on Friday, 3 February 2012.

All India Privacy Symposium: Privacy India in partnership with the International Development Research Centre, Canada, Society in Action Group, Gurgaon, Privacy International, UK and Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative is organizing the All India Privacy Symposium at the India International Centre, New Delhi on Saturday, 4 February 2012.

Event Organised

Dialogue Cafe @ Centre for Internet and Society, 2 Dec 2011, Kavita Philip gave a talk.

Special Section on Freedom of Expression

We usually cover Freedom of Expression under Internet Governance. However, this month there has been much discussion regarding the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal’s proposal for pro-active censorship of social media. This special section covers reportage and original content from CIS:

Newspaper / Magazine Articles

Invisible Censorship: How the Government Censors Without Being Seen by Pranesh Prakash: The Indian government wants to censor the Internet without being seen to be censoring the Internet. The article was translated into Marathi and featured in Lokmat, 18 December 2011.
US Clampdown Worse than the Great Firewall by Sunil Abraham: If you thought China’s Internet censorship was evil, think again. American moves to clean up the Web could hurt global surfers. Sunil Abraham wrote this article in Tehelka, Volume 8, Issue 50, 17 December 2011.
That’s the Unkindest Cut, Mr. Sibal by Sunil Abraham: There’s Kolaveri-di on the Internet over Kapil Sibal’s diktat to social media sites to prescreen users’ posts. That diktat goes far beyond the restrictions placed on our freedom of expression by the IT Act. But, says Sunil Abraham of the Centre for Internet and Society, India is not going to be silenced online. Deccan Chronicle, 11 December 2011.

Blog Posts

Online Pre-Censorship is Harmful and Impractical by Pranesh Prakash: The Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal wants Internet intermediaries to pre-censor content uploaded by their users. Pranesh Prakash takes issue with this and explains why this is a problem, even if the government's heart is in the right place.
Press Coverage of Online Censorship Row: We are maintaining a rolling blog with press references to the row created by the proposal by the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology to pre-screen user-generated Internet content.

Radio Broadcast

Social media sites refuse Indian censorship request: Sunil Abraham spoke to Radio Australia. Follow the broadcast here

Live Chat

Is the govt bid to regulate content on the Internet a good thing?: Pranesh Prakash answered questions freedom of expression vis-a-vis objectionable content live on CNN-IBN's chat feature, 7 December 2011.

Media Coverage

Caught in the Web: “As it is the status of freedom of speech in India is in a bad shape. Sibal's new rules will only make it worse.”— Sunil Abraham in Hindu Business Line, 13 December 2011.

Online gag: Existing rules give little freedom: “Our criticism is of the policy and not of the websites and Internet entities that are forced to err on the side of caution when faced by such notices.” — Sunil Abraham in the Times of India, 9 December 2011.
Facebook, Google tell India they won’t screen for derogatory content: “Researchers sent mock take-down notices to seven sites, complaining about their content... six sites immediately deleted content. They did not even verify the validity of our flawed complaint. They over-complied.” — Sunil Abraham in Washington Post, 6 December 2011.
‘Any Normal Human Being Would Be Offended’: “Indian law seems to state that it has global jurisdiction but that is not really true. An Indian court might give an order that is unenforceable in the United States or anywhere else.” — Sunil Abraham in the New York Times, 6 December 2011.
IT Inc oppose Sibal’s ‘great’ firewall proposal: “You wouldn’t want to end up with a situation where you are denied access to, say, the website of the University of Sussex because the address contains the word ‘sex’.” — Nishant Shah in Indian Express, 7 December 2011.
Online @ India: “I haven't yet heard of anybody in India going on a rampage because somebody in Pakistan started an 'India hate' page.” — Nishant Shah in the Hindustan Times, 10 December 2011.
How ‘private-censorship’ is making online content disappear, quietly: “Google’s self-reported compliance rate of 51 per cent shows that they are probably over-stepping the law in order to appease the Indian government’s requests.” — Pranesh Prakash in FirstPost, 15 December 2011.
Kapil Sibal to sterilise Net but undercover sting shows 6 of 7 websites already trigger-happy to censor under ‘chilling’ IT Act, Legally India, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this blog post.
‘Chilling’ Impact of India’s April Internet Rules by Heather Simmons, New York Times, 7 December 2011.
Govt wants to scrub the Internet clean, Livemint, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
India's Techies Angered Over Internet Censorship Plan, NPR, 20 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash was quoted in this blog post.
Internet, social media access should not be blocked: Ban, Oman Tribune, 10 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this article.
India entering the Minority Report age?, ioL scietech. Sunil Abraham was quoted in this.
Los internautas indios se oponen a la censura a través de la Red, Diario de Navarra, 7 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the Spanish newspaper.
Technological beasts like Facebook, Orkut, YouTube & Google impossible to control by Sunanda Poduwal & Kamya Jaiswal, Economic Times, 11 December 2011. Sunil Abraham was quoted in the article.
Google V/s Kapil Sibal by Sundeep Dougal in Outlook, 8 December 2011. Pranesh Prakash's work at CIS has been extensively quoted in this blog post.
India bid to censor Internet draws flak Phil Hazlewood spoke to Sunil Abraham and published this article for AFP. France 24, Khaleej Times, Physorg.com, TimesLive, Bangkok Post, Yahoo News, MSN News, Emirates 24/7, Business Live and Jakarta Globe also carried the news on their websites, 9 December 2011.

Videos

Censorship — A Death Knell for Freedom of Expression Online: On 8 December 2011, NDTV aired an interesting discussion on internet censorship. Shashi Tharoor, Soli Sorabjee, Shekhar Kapoor, Ken Ghosh and Sunil Abraham participated in this discussion with NDTV's Sonia Singh.
FTN: Should social networking sites be censored?: Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal met the representatives of Facebook, Google and others seeking to device a screening mechanism. Sunil Abraham was on CNN-IBN from 10.00 p.m. to 10.30 p.m. speaking about freedom of expression in India.
Debate: Online content row-1: Sunil Abraham was on Times Now from 9.05 p.m. to 9.45 p.m. on 6 December 2011 speaking about freedom of expression in India.

Event Organised

Free Speech Online in India under Attack? A Panel Discussion, 21 December 2011. Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs, Lawrence Liang and Sunil Abraham gave lectures.

Telecom

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

Newspaper Article

Healing self-inflicted wounds by Shyam Ponappa, Business Standard, 1 December 2011: A spate of dysfunctional actions and retrograde developments has led to an unimaginable mess for India. Can the damage to growth prospects be undone? Does it need to be? If so, how?

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Visit us at www.cis-india.org

CIS is grateful to 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/december-2011-bulletin

December 2010 Bulletin

praskrishna — 2012-08-07T11:28:02Z

Greetings from the Centre for Internet and Society! It gives us immense pleasure to present regular updates on the progress of our research on the mainstream Internet media. In this issue of we bring our latest project updates, news and media coverage:

Researchers@Work

RAW is a multidisciplinary research initiative. CIS believes that in order to understand the contemporary concerns in the field of Internet and society, it is necessary to produce local and contextual accounts of the interaction between the Internet and socio-cultural and geo-political structures. To build original research knowledge base, the RAW programme has been collaborating with different organisations and individuals to focus on its three year thematic of Histories of the Internets in India. Monographs arising from these projects are now online for public review:

Pornography & the Law
This monograph attempts to unravel the relations between pornography, technology and the law in the shifting context of the contemporary. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/f1sQsi

Re:wiring Bodies
Dr. Asha Achutan historicises the attitudes, imaginations and policies that have shaped the Science-Technology debates in India, to particularly address the ways in which emergence of Internet Technologies have shaped notions of gender and body in India. Deadline for review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/gYCP1C

The Leap of Rhodes or, How India Dealt with the Last Mile Problem — An Inquiry into Technology and Governance
The project has fed into many different activities in teaching, in examining processes of governance and in looking at user behaviour. The deadline for peer review expires on 15 Jan 2011.
http://bit.ly/iiYJp1

New Blog Entries

Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities

Queer Histories of the Internet

A Detour: The Internet and Forms of Narration: A Short Note

Digital Natives

CIS has interest in developing Digital Identities as a core research area and looks at practices, policies and scholarships in the field to explore relationships between Internet, technology and identity.

Columns on Digital Natives

A fortnightly column on ‘Digital Natives’ authored by Nishant Shah is featured in the Sunday Eye, the national edition of Indian Express, Delhi, from 19 September 2010 onwards. The following articles were published in the Indian Express recently:

Make a Wish [published on 19 December 2010]
Play Station [published on 5 December 2010]

Workshop

The third and final workshop in the Digital Natives with a Cause? research project will take place in Santiago, Chile, from the 8 to 10 February. Open Call and FAQs for the workshop are online:

Publication

Position papers from the Thinkathon conference held at Hague from 6 to 8 December have been published:

Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon: Position Papers

Accessibility

Estimates of the percentage of the world's population that is disabled vary considerably. But what is certain is that if we count functional disability, then a large proportion of the world's population is disabled in one way or another. At CIS we work to ensure that the digital technologies, which empower disabled people and provide them with independence, are allowed to do so in practice and by the law. To this end, we support web accessibility guidelines, and change in copyright laws that currently disempower the persons with disabilities.

National Award

Nirmita Narasimhan got a National Award for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities from the Government of India on 3 December 2010. The award was presented by Smt. Pratibha Patil, President of India under the Role Model category. The event was telecast live on Doordarshan.

Nirmita Narasimhan wins National Award

Conference Report

An international conference on Enabling Access to Education through ICT was held in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The full report of the conference is published online:

Enabling Access to Education through ICT - Conference Report

New Blog Entries

Intellectual Property

Copyright, patents and trademarks are the most important components on the Internet. CIS believes that access to knowledge and culture is essential as it promotes creativity and innovation and bridges the gaps between the developed and developing world positively. Hence, the campaigns for an international treaty on copyright exceptions for print-impaired, advocating against PUPFIP Bill, calls for the WIPO Broadcast Treaty to be restricted to broadcast, questioning the demonization of 'pirates', and supporting endeavours that explore and question the current copyright regime. Our latest endeavour has resulted into these:

New Blog Entries

Openness

CIS believes that innovation and creativity should be fostered through openness and collaboration and is committed towards promotion of open standards, open access, and free/libre/open source software, its latest involvement have yielded these results:

Reports

Event

Wikipedia Meetup in Bangalore, This time in TERI

Privacy

CIS is doing a couple of projects, one Privacy in Asia which is supported by Privacy International, UK and the other on Privacy and Identity which is funded by Ford Foundation and managed by the Centre for Study of Culture and Society. The project is a research inquiry into the history of privacy in India and how it shapes the contemporary debates around technology mediated identity projects like Aadhar.

New Blog Entries

Telecom

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

Articles by Shyam Ponappa

Shyam Ponappa is a Distinguished Fellow at CIS. He writes regularly on Telecom issues in the Business Standard and these articles are mirrored on the CIS website as well.

Take 'Model T' for Telecom

News & Media Coverage

An online community platform for people with different needs (Sify News, 12 December 2010)

Self-regulation in media and society meet to gain legal perspectives (Indiantelevision.com, 13 December 2010)

This Is All India Radia (Outlook, 6 December 2010)

'Pakistan' hackers target India's top police agency (Google News, 4 December 2010)

Intellectual Property Rights as seen in a graphic novel (TimeOut Bengaluru, 1 December 2010)

The Niira Radia Tapes: Scrutinizing the Snoopers (The Wall Street Journal, 29 November 2010)

Mobile banking set to get a boost from IMPS (The Hindu, 28 November 2010)

UID elicits mixed response (Deccan Herald, 23 November 2010)

Time to bury e-mail? (DNA, 21 November 2010)

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Deccan Chronicle – 27th September, 2009

radha — 2011-04-02T14:50:21Z

Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager, CIS, speaks at the launch of ‘Right to Read’ campaign. Loyola College in the city on Saturday launched the campaign to amend the Indian Copyright Act, 1957, and give visually challenged and dyslexic people better access to printed books in the form of Braille copy and big prints.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/deccan-chronicle-2013-27th-september-2009

Creating a National Resource Kit for Persons with Disabilities: An Introduction

anandi — 2013-03-18T05:58:04Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is engaged in a two-and-a-half year project starting from August 2012 to create a national resource kit of state-wise laws, policies and programmes on issues relating to persons with disabilities in India. This project is supported by the Hans Foundation. The Resource Kit will be brought out in both English and Hindi and disseminated to policy makers from panchayat to ministry levels throughout India.

CIS hopes that this resource kit will immensely benefit the disabled community in India by providing them with a ready reference on the facilities given by the government.

More often than not a facility isn’t enjoyed by the public as no one knows about its existence. It becomes important then to make it accessible and give it exposure. The National Resource Kit of Laws, Policies and Programmes for Persons with Disabilities will fill this gap of lack of comprehensive information in this field.

The rights of persons with disabilities have for long been a topic of international discussion in various forums. It is essential to not just promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights of persons with disabilities but also promote respect for their dignity. Making legal provisions for the rights of persons with disabilities is not only a mechanism that ensures that they have access to human rights but also a tool that enables them to contribute to the growth of their nation by providing them with the facilities that aid them in overcoming their challenges and enable them to lead fruitful lives.

To provide persons with disabilities in India equal opportunity for liberty, equality and dignity on par with all citizens, India has enacted three disability laws:

Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, 1995.
National Trust for Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disability Act, 1999.
Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992.

India is now in the process of drafting a new law on the rights of persons with disabilities that aims to fill the gaps in the earlier laws through a deeper understanding of the real issues faced by them and providing solutions and opportunities on par with international standards.

Despite the existing legal provisions, the populace that continues to struggle with consuming issues like overpopulation, poverty, unemployment and lack of resources, often tend to neglect issues which concern persons with disabilities. An overwhelming public opinion that considers persons with disabilities to be incapable of making meaningful contribution to the society due to their disability has led to the exclusion of persons with disabilities from mainstream society.

One of the major reasons for this exclusion and neglect is the lack of awareness about the various facilities being extended by the government to persons with disabilities targeted at enabling them to overcome their challenges. Generating awareness by providing them with information that will help them gain access to education, vocational skills, employment training and opportunities and healthcare is a vital step in ensuring that the legal rights of persons with disabilities are enabled for them.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/creating-a-national-resource-kit-for-persons-with-disabilities

Copyright v. Exercise of Fundamental rights

Rahul Cherian — 2013-02-20T11:07:02Z

In this article, Rahul Cherian analyzes the legal and ethical framework around the issue of copyright in relation to converting materials into accessible formats for the print impaired.

Copyright Infringement v. Exercise of Fundamental Rights

India has about 70 million persons who cannot access printed material due to various disabilities, including visual impairment, learning disabilities and physical disabilities that prevent them from holding books or turning pages (“Print Impaired Persons”). The Copyright Act, 1957, does not provide exceptions and limitations for the benefit of Print Impaired Persons as a result of which any conversion of material into accessible formats would require permission of copyright owners. It is noted that publishers do not sell/make available books in accessible formats and are often unwilling to give the necessary permissions required for conversion of books to accessible formats and distribution of the same to Print Impaired Persons. As a result, Print Impaired Persons cannot enjoy printed material without infringement of copyright.

The Constitution to the rescue

The Indian Constitution expressly provides for “equality” (Article 14), “non-discrimination” (Article 15), “freedom of speech and expression” (Article 19) and “right to life” (Article 21). Indian courts have not yet had the opportunity to pronounce any judgment on whether the Constitution requires that copyright law provide exceptions and limitations to the rights of copyright owners for the benefit of Print Impaired Persons. However, Indian courts have routinely upheld the rights of persons with disability and the Supreme Court has specifically recognized that the “right to life” as enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution includes right to dignity including basic necessities such as reading and writing[1]. The right to education has also been recognised as a fundamental right. For print impaired persons to enjoy their fundamental rights, it is essential that they have access to material, including but not limited to educational material, in accessible formats. In this context it can be argued that the fundamental rights of Print Impaired Persons are being infringed because the Copyright Act, 1957, does not provide exceptions and limitations for the benefit of Print Impaired Persons.

“Reading in” of provisions in the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities

India has also signed and ratified the United Nations Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities[2] (the “Convention”). The Convention aims to support the full and effective participation of persons with disabilities in social life and development; and to advance the rights and protect the dignity of persons with disabilities and to promote equal access to employment, education, information, goods and services[3].

Ensuring accessibility for persons with disabilities is one of the guiding principles of the Convention[4]. The preamble of the convention recognizes the importance of information in transforming the life of persons with disabilities. Article 4 (General Obligations) of the convention mandates state parties to provide accessible technology for persons with disabilities at affordable costs. Article 9 of the convention further mandates state parties to take appropriate measures to ensure the availability of information to persons with disabilities, at par with the general population[5]. Article 9 also mandates state parties to endeavor to ensure the easy availability of communication and information technology to persons with disabilities at affordable costs. Article 21 of the convention cast an affirmative obligation on the state parties to effectuate the freedom of speech and expression, (including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information). The provision calls for parity between persons with disabilities and others insofar as the freedom of speech and expression are concerned. The convention recognizes the right to receive information as a facet of free speech[6].

In this regard the Convention obligates state parties to;

Provide information intended for the general public to persons with disabilities in accessible formats and technologies appropriate to different kinds of disabilities in a timely manner and without additional cost;[7]
Accept and facilitate the use of Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions;[8]
Ensuring that private entities which provide services to the general public, including through the Internet, provide information and services in accessible and usable formats for persons with disabilities;[9]
Encourage mass media, including providers of information through the Internet, to make their services accessible to persons with disabilities[10].

Article 30 (3) of the Convention also states that “States Parties shall take all appropriate steps, in accordance with international law, to ensure that laws protecting intellectual property rights do not constitute an unreasonable or discriminatory barrier to access by persons with disabilities to cultural materials”.

After the decision of the Supreme Court in Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan[11] it has become a settled position of law that international conventions and norms are to be read into domestic laws in the absence of enacted domestic law, to the extent that there is no inconsistency between them.[12] It is now an accepted rule of judicial construction that regard must be had to international conventions and norms for construing domestic law when there is no inconsistency between them.[13] The Bombay High Court has in May 2009, “read in” provisions of the Convention into India law in Ranjit Kumar Rajak Vs State Bank of India[14]

The Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights & Full Participation) Act 1995 (the “PD Act”), was enacted with the objective of ensuring equal opportunities for people with disabilities and their full participation in the nation building. The PD Act provides for both preventive and promotional aspects of rehabilitation like education, employment and vocational training, job reservation, research and manpower development, creation of barrier-free environment, rehabilitation of persons with disability, unemployment allowance for the disabled, special insurance scheme for the disabled employees and establishment of homes for persons with severe disability etc. In Javed Abidi v Union of India[15] the Supreme Court observed that the object of the PD Act was to create a barrier-free environment for persons with disability and to make special provisions for the integration of persons with disabilities into the social mainstream apart from the protection of rights, provision of medical care, education, training, employment and rehabilitation. However, an appraisal of the provisions of the PD Act would show that the PD Act does not have provisions regarding the right of the visually challenged to access information. The only provision in this regard in the PD Act concerns the duty of the state to provide text books in special formats for students with disabilities.[16] Hence there is no domestic law as regards the rights of persons with disabilities to access information and provisions of the Convention have to be read into the Copyright Act, 1957.

It is observed that visually impaired persons routinely convert books into accessible formats such as Braille. Without the amendment of the Copyright Act, such conversion would strictly speaking be an infringement of copyright. However, the issue at hand is whether such conversion is the exercise by the visually impaired person of his fundamental rights, and if so, whether the exercise of fundamental rights will override any copyright infringement. The government apparently understands this contradiction and is proposing to amend the Copyright Act to provide for appropriate exceptions and limitations. However till such time as the amendment comes through should visually impaired persons sit around and fail to exercise their fundamental rights? Interesting question, that!

[1] Francis Coralie Mullin v. The Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi (1981) 2 SCR 516.

[2] India signed the convention on 30th March 2007 and ratified it on 1st October 2007. See United Nations Convention on Persons with Disabilities [entered into force on 3rd May 2008] GA/RES/62/170; See http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=17

[3] Id.

[4] See Guiding Principles of the Convention at; http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?navid=14&pid=156

[5] See Art. 9 (2)(f)

[6] See Art. 21 of the Convention.

[7] See Art. 21 (a)

[8] See Art. 21 (b)

[9] See Art. 21 (c)

[10] See Art. 21 (d)

[11] AIR 1997 SC 3011

[12] Apparel Export Promotion Council v. A.K. Chopra (1999) 1 SCC 759; Aban Loyd Chiles Offshore Ltd & Ors. v. Union of India 2008 (227) ELT 24; Chairman School Managing Commitee & Ors. v. Vimmi Joshi & Ors. 2008 INDLAW SC 2009 Civil Appeal No. 7355/2008; Union for Civil Liberties v. Union of India (2005) 10 SCC 481

[13] Id

[14] Order dated 8th May, 2009 of the Bombay High Court in WP No. 576 or 2009

[15] 1999 AIR(SC) 512

[16] See Sec. 27(f) of The Persons with Disabilities Act 1995.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/copyright-v-exercise-of-fundamental-rights

Copyright obstacle for Braille, audio books

radha — 2011-04-02T14:35:46Z

An article by Arpit Basu, The Times of India (Kolkata) Nov 7th, 2009

Kolkata: For the 12 lakh-odd visually challenged and dyslexic persons in the state, access to good Indian literature in Braille or audio format is a challenge. Obtaining copyright to convert books into special format is the biggest hindrance, say activists working for disability rights.

“Even the National Library does not have any Braille or audio books. Authorities argue that the number of such special books is too less to create full-fledged sections,” said Shampa Sengupta of Sruti. When it comes to audio-version, the scenario is worse, says Lina Bardhan from Noble Mission that works with the mentally challenged.

City Braille publishers say legal formalities prove to be an obstacle. “We believe that as a humanitarian gesture, the Copyright Act of 1957 should be relaxed for books meant for the differently-abled,” said Amiyo Biswas of Blind Persons’ Association, one of the three Braille publishers in the city.

In April 2008, UK-based Sight Savers International urged the UN to sign a treaty so that persons with disabilities can access books and documents easily.

Now, Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) has carried out campaigns in Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai. On Saturday, Seminar will be held in Kolkata. “We want to organize a pan-India movement and amend the Copyright Act to establish the Right to Read,” said CIS programme manager Nirmita Narasimhan.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-obstacle-for-braille-audio-books

Copyright Law as a tool for Inclusion

Rahul Cherian — 2013-02-20T11:04:40Z

Can Copyright Law be used as a tool for Inclusion? Rahul Cherian examines this in his blog on copyright.

Content owners have argued for years that copyright is a simple mechanism for the protection of author’s rights and the ownership of their creations. Globally, copyright law has been used as a tool to protect and enforce the rights of authors, publishers, record producers, software companies and movie moghuls. Copyright law has largely been responsible for creating virtual monopolies. But copyright law plays another role as important as protecting the rights of content owners, that of benefiting the world at large. In this context it is relevant to ask the question: Can Copyright Law be used as a tool for Inclusion?

Historically copyright was protected to afford greater encouragement to the production of literary works of lasting benefit to the world. One of the objectives of the first codified copyright law was to prevent publishers from having perpetual monopoly over works. Therefore copyright was available only for a short period of time after which the works were open to all to use. Thus, ideas of copyright law to balance the interests of the users and the authors began to take shape and moved away from being solely concerned with granting rights to publishers. The system of copyright was not an arrangement solely to safeguard the interests of the publishers but was an arrangement to balance interests of all the parties involved in order to espouse the greater cause of “encouragement of learning”. However, as copyright law evolved and vested interests started playing a larger role in shaping copyright law the goal of promoting scholarship and the “progress of science and useful arts” was lost. The period for which copyright is protected has been extended over the years. At present copyright in a literary work is protected for life of the author plus 60 years.

One of the communities that is hit hardest because copyright law focuses solely on the interest of publishers are persons with print impairment. Persons with print impairment, who may number close to 500 million globally, such as the visually impaired, dyslexics and persons with cerebral palsy, cannot read printed material. Publishers do not sell books in formats such as Braille, audio or e-text that can be “read” by persons with print impairment. Copyright law in most countries including India does not permit persons with print impairment to convert books into such formats as a result of which they are excluded from the education system (due to lack of text books), from working (due to lack of books for reference and research) and from leisure reading.

But all this is set to change. Over the last few years the World Blind Union, which represents more than 300 million persons with visual impairment, has been working on a draft treaty to allow for the conversion and distribution of books in accessible formats for persons with print impairment without infringing copyright. This draft treaty is currently being discussed at the World Intellectual Property Organisation and should hopefully be signed within the next few years. The Treaty, if signed, would be groundbreaking in the sense that it would be first time that international consensus will be reached on using copyright law as a tool for inclusion. As one of the people who was part of the treaty drafting exercise I find the resistance from most publishers to any expansion of the concept of “fair use” for persons with disabilities disturbing to say the least. This resistance is prevalent at the international level for the Treaty as well at the national level here in India where we have been working with disability rights organisations and policy research partners on amending Indian copyright law to achieve the same objectives (www.righttoread.in <http://www.righttoread.in/>). The common refrain of publishers is that any such change would result in piracy, almost as if blind people are the sole perpetrators of copyright infringement. The unsaid reason for the resistance is obvious: publishers do not want any expansion of the concept of “fair use”, even when they will not suffer any monetary loss. Publishers are concerned that the proposed expansion of “fair use” for the benefit of persons with print impairment could open the floodgates for further “fair use” exceptions for, say, education. So they resist this change, which will benefit hundreds of millions of persons with print disability around the world by enabling them to exercise their basic fundamental rights to read, to learn and to work.

What is encouraging though is that some momentum has built up at the national and international level on this issue with several countries supporting the Treaty. At the national level in India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development has proposed some appalling wording for the copyright amendment. But it is heartening to note that several leading politicians including India’s Law Minister has written to the Minister of Human Resource Development to re-look at the amendment. We are working at the Parliamentary level to try and ensure that the amendment is modified to meet the requirements of persons with print impairments. Over the next few months and years we will see how this plays out. We are quietly optimistic as always.

It is indeed heartening to note that there is a serious attempt to strike a balance between the interests of copyright owners and the public at large. Copyright law should be used as a tool to foster development and inclusion and should not perpetuate monopolies and exclusion. The exceptions to copyright for the benefit of persons with print impairment are a good starting point for using copyright law for one of its original purposes. In the long term I believe that these exceptions will create newer markets for publishers as a result of more print impaired persons becoming educated and having an income to BUY books in formats that they can read. After all, who will want to take the effort to convert a book into an accessible when they can buy the accessible version?

For those of you who are not convinced about the requirement of any change in the copyright landscape, let me pose these questions: should the right of a blind person to read a book be subservient to the copyright of a publisher or author? If a publisher refuses to sell a book in an accessible format, does the blind person have the right to convert the book into an accessible format? What if the book were needed for her education?

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/copyright-law-as-tool-for-inclusion

Copyright Challenges for Print Impaired Persons in India

nirmita — 2011-08-17T08:51:33Z

Print impaired persons in India face several hurdles in accessing reading materials- the biggest one being the Indian Copyright Act 1957

Background

The Indian Constitution guarantees citizens fundamental rights to dignity, to read, to education, to information and to expression.
India has approximately 70 million disabled persons who are unable to participate in the social, cultural and political life of the country because they cannot access materials in the printed form. These include persons with visual disabilities, persons whose physical impairments prevent them from holding or turning pages of a book and persons who have a learning disability like dyslexia. These groups can access reading materials if they are converted into formats which can be accessed by them in an alternate manner using assistive technologies.
Recent developments in technologies such as screen reading and OCR technology, electronic tactile devices, evolution of multiple audio, audio-video and electronic formats, DAISY etc which can be adapted for use in a multiplicity of platforms have opened up innumerable possibilities for persons with different abilities to access information independently and participate in society.
The process of conversion of a printed book into an alternate accessible format such as large print, audio, Braille and electronic formats involves special effort in terms of obtaining permissions from copyright holders, possessing manpower, infrastructure and monitory resources, concerted involvement of intermediary agencies undertaking conversion and the presence of an effective distribution model.

Challenges in India

Today, print impaired persons in India are faced with several problems that hamper their participation in society-

Lack of availability of affordable technological solutions in English as well as local languages
Lack of availability of printed materials in formats that can be accessed using these technologies
Failure on the part of technology and web developers to adhere to principles of universal design which ensure that web sites are accessible to persons with disabilities
Lack of accessible or compatible mainstream technologies to work with special technologies
Lack of an enabling legal regime.

Disability Awareness around the world

The United Nations declared the decade of 1983-1992 as the decade of Persons with Disabilities and the decade of 1993-2002 as the Asian and Pacific decade of persons with disabilities. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities came into force from 2008.
International bodies like the World Wide Consortium (W3C) and the Daisy Consortium have come out with standards and guidelines which will make the web and publications on the web universally accessible.
The World Blind Union (WBU) has recently proposed a Treaty for the Blind, Visually Impaired and other Reading Disabled, (referred to as the “VIP initiative”) which seeks to harmonise limitations and exceptions at a global level so that countries around the world can freely share knowledge in accessible formats for print impaired persons. This Treaty is now being proposed by three Latin American countries and is presently tabled before the WIPO and is under discussion.

Position in India

The Indian Copyright Act 1957 does not make any provision for the conversion and distribution of books in accessible formats for print impaired persons. Hence organisations serving the print impaired have to get permissions from copyright holders to undertake conversions. Further, Indian organisations are not able to borrow accessible materials from libraries in other countries since the absence of such a provision in our fair dealing clause prevents countries from lending books to print impaired persons in India.
In the case of books published in India, there are no accessible copies readily available in the market and while many publishers in principle are not averse to giving permission, the unwanted fear of piracy and lack of awareness prevents them from allowing organisations to undertake conversions. Consequently print impaired persons are denied the freedom to choose and read any book which is freely available to the public.
In the light of increasing global attention in this matter and in the interests of the large print impaired community in India, we need to have a clear position in our law with regard to converting materials into accessible formats for print challenged persons. It is important to understand this as not merely a legal issue, but also as a social and economic cause. We need to work at various levels to solve this problem:

We need to work towards legally binding norms both at a national as well as international level. We can achieve this by supporting the proposed treaty for improved access for the visually impaired at the WIPO, and by ensuring that necessary amendments are immediately incorporated into the Copyright Act, which afford flexibilities for conversion into accessible formats for print Impaired person.
Publishers, copyright holders, organisations and print impaired persons should work collaboratively towards conversion and distribution of published works in accessible formats. Publishers should give digitised copies of books in an accessible format to recognised organisations serving the print Impaired and in return these organisations should set up a distribution mechanism which will ensure that these accessible books get circulated only within the print impaired community and do not find their way into the mainstream market.
Publishers should explore the large market in India for selling books in electronic, audio and other accessible formats along with the print copy. These copies should be available in the market at the same time and at the same price that the print copy becomes available. In the case of electronic copies, publishers may also consider selling the books at a price which is lesser than the price of the print version since this will not involve cost of paper publication.
Publishers should adopt a standard format for creating digital masters of their publications so that all distribution formats including hard copy print, braille, talking book and digital publications can be derived out of it without wastage of resources on conversions and reproduction of books in accessible formats.
The government should frame incentive schemes for publishers and other persons developing technologies to encourage them to create accessible versions of their content and technologies.
We need to work towards ensuring at least the minimum basic study and reference materials which are required for children with print disabilities to complete their school and college level education in all subjects and languages.
We need to encourage peer to peer models amongst disabled persons and organisations for sharing and generating more accessible content.
We need to work towards establishing public libraries and repositories of accessible content with a healthy system of exchange amongst them.
Work towards generating more Indian language content and developing technologies such as text to speech synthesisers which support regional Indian language content.
We need to work towards facilitating cross-border exchange of books so that persons in India get exposure to foreign authors and also ensure that persons abroad are able to read Indian literature. Libraries in India should be able to freely exchange books with libraries in other countries.
We need to spread awareness about the importance of building in accessibility right at the start so that not much time, effort and money is wasted at a later stage in converting materials into accessible formats.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/blog/copyright-challenges-for-print-impaired-persons-in-india

Copyright Amendments – Empowering the Print Disabled

Rahul Cherian — 2012-09-07T11:11:26Z

The much anticipated Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012 was passed with a few changes in the Rajya Sabha on 17th May 2012 after a very spirited debate and passed by the Lok Sabha on the 22nd May 2012 with unanimous consensus.

The Bill now requires presidential assent to become a law. The Bill discusses various key aspects which have not been addressed in the present copyright regime due to reasons such as changing international standards, technological and scientific advancements. This blog post is limited to the new Section 52(1)(zb) which creates a new copyright exception for the benefit of persons with print disabilities, including persons with visual impairment and dyslexia.

Prior to the inclusive of Section 52(1)(zb) that the owner of copyright in a work had the exclusive right to adapt, make copies, communicate to the public etc. the work. Therefore, any conversion of a book into accessible formats such as Braille, Daisy, audio books, etc., for the benefit of persons with print disabilities could be undertaken only by the owner of copyright or with the permission of the owner of copyright. More often than not, owners of copyright are unwilling or disinterested to either undertake the conversion and sale of such accessible format copies or permit such conversion, for reasons varying from lack of profitability to limited target audience.

The Copyright Amendment Bill, 2012 does away with the necessity to seek the consent of the publishers for converting their books into accessible formats. To this extent, the Bill provides that it would not be an infringement of copyright for any person or any organization working for the benefit of the persons with disabilities and on a non-profit basis to create accessible format copies or distribute them to persons with disabilities who cannot enjoy the work in their normal formats. This provision is very wide and inclusive in its scope and also has some protection built in against unauthorized use by non-beneficiaries of the exception. For instance, the books so provided in accessible formats shall be for private or personal use, education or research only. Moreover, the persons or organizations providing such services have the obligation to ensure that such converted formats do not enter the mainstream business channels. While the new exception permits the recovery of the expenses incurred in converting the books, they do not permit the making of any profit under the exception. However, under a new Section 31 B any person working for the benefit of the persons with disabilities on a profit basis or for business can undertake conversion and distribution after obtaining a license from the Copyright Board in accordance with the procedure laid down in that section.

It is to be noted that the original wording of the amendment as proposed by the Copyright Office in 2006 was extremely limited in that it allowed conversion only into “specialized formats designed for persons with disabilities” and not into "all formats" as is the case now. The problem with "specialized formats" is that many persons with print disabilities, including those with dyslexia, person who lost their eyesight at a later age etc. cannot use specialized formats such as Braille and use mainstream formats such as .pdf or audio. By limiting conversion into “specialized formats” such as Braille, a large number of potential beneficiaries would have been excluded from the amendment. In order the attempt to change the wording of the proposed amendment to reflect technological developments and also benefit a larger number of persons with disabilities, the nationwide Right to Read Campaign was launched by Inclusive Planet, the Centre for Internet and Society, the Daisy Forum of India. As a result of sustained campaigning and high level advocacy during which over 70 Members of Parliament were met, we were invited to present evidence before the Parliamentary Standing Committee which fully endorsed our concerns. The Copyright Office then changed the wording from the 2006 wording to the current wording. It still took about a year and half for the amendments to be passed by both Houses of Parliament.

In conclusion, the Copyright Amendment Bill will enable persons with disabilities to be able to exercise their right to knowledge on an equal basis with others. It also shows that a small group of committed disability activists with the support of a handful of lawyers and the tool of high level advocacy can bring about effective change.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/copyright-amendments

Copyright Access for the Disabled and Collaborative IP Policy

radha — 2011-04-02T14:27:01Z

A blog post on SPICY IP by Shamnad Basheer, November 18, 2009

In previous p osts, we covered the Right to Read Campaign, a campaign aimed at increasing access to copyrighted works for the print impaired. As many of you know, most works of literature, science and the arts are practically out of bounds for the disabled, unless converted to readable formats such as Braille or digitized and accessed via expensive screen reader software such as JAWS.

Recently, this campaign, the brainchild of CIS and Inclusive Planet, came home to us at NUJS, Kolkata and I was amazed to see the bonding between these children of a lesser god and their struggle to transform society into a more inclusive one. NUJS was particularly fortunate to host this campaign that day, as we have a student (Moiz Tundawalla, who ranks in the top 5 of his class) as well as a faculty member, Dr TV Sudhakar, who are visually impaired.

As part of the campaign, a group of us including Rahul Cherian of Inclusive Planet (and the brain behind Bookbole, one of the most innovative solutions yet catering to the needs of the visually impaired), Sunil Abraham and Nirmita Narasimhan of CIS and Lawrence Liang of ALF began working on a copyright defence that would enable the conversion of copyrighted works to more accessible formats for the disabled..formats that would enable them to enjoy such works as comfortably as the others.

Such a provision is critical, given that hardly 0.5% of all published books are accessible by the print impaired. Further, given the constitutional mandate that each one of us shall have the right to life under Article 21 (which includes the right to education and the right to read) and the right not to be discriminated against (under Article 14), the State is under a positive obligation to provide accessible works to the disabled and thereby help them lead better lives.

The Government Copyright Proposal

This is not to suggest that the Indian government lacks sensitivity on this count. Indeed, it is commendable that as far as back as 2006, the government proposed the introduction of Section 52 (1) (za) to the Copyright Act, 1957 to resolve the issue.

The proposed Section 52 (1) (za) states that the following act shall not constitute an infringement of copyright: “reproduction, issue of copies or communication to the public of any work in a format, including sign language, specially designed (emphasis added) only for the use of persons suffering from a visual, aural or other disability that prevents their enjoyment of such works in their normal format.”

While this is a great start, this draft suffers from some serious limitations:

Firstly, it restricts permissible formats to those “specially designed” for persons with disabilities. In practical terms, this means that only Braille and sign language is permitted. As many of you may know, Braille is extremely expensive to print and distribute and is not portable. Moreover persons with low vision, dyslexics, people with paralysis, cerebral palsy etc. cannot use Braille and require alternate formats.
Given recent technological developments and the burgeoning of audio formats and electronic formats that are now used by a large number of visually impaired persons, the exception ought to cover such formats as well... formats that do not strictly constitute "formats specially designed for the disabled". Indeed, any creation of a digitized version of a copyrighted work would enable access by the visually impaired (provided they have tools such as screen reading software on their respective computers).
We understand that the Indian government wishes to ensure that the defence is availed of only by the disabled and not by others, who may free ride on such an exception. While limiting the exception to “formats specially designed for the disabled” may help achieve this objective, it seriously limits the scope of access by the disabled in this technological day and age, as explained above. Rather than limit the kinds of formats that could be created, we propose that the government restrict access of works created under the aegis of this exception to only people with disabilities. One way to do this is by insisting on reliable certificates that confirm one's status as "differently-abled".
Secondly, the proposed amendment fails to ensure that software and other intellectual property protected tools required to create accessible formats and enable persons with disabilities to access such formats are available at a reasonable cost. Illustratively, the most widely used screen reading software, JAWS, is licensed at a whooping Rs 50,000!
Thirdly, the proposed amendment must provide wording to the effect that if content owners apply any technology circumvention measures or DRM locks to digital content, they must make available such content to persons with disabilities. Without such provision, the production of talking books or the use of screen reading software for the benefit of the visually impaired will be restricted if the owner of a digital work has prohibited such use of his work.

Thankfully India does not have any specific protection for anti-circumvention measures and DRM as yet. However, we're not sure if the government plans to introduce such a protection via the recent copyright amendment bill that is likely to be introduced in Parliament in December. Unfortunately, the bill is still secret and will be made available for public viewing only after it is introduced in Parliament.

Our Copyright Proposal
We've therefore proposed a more liberal and meaningful exception as below:

Section 52 (1) (za) (i): The doing of any act, the primary objective of which is to enable persons with disabilities to access copyrighted works as comfortably and flexibly as a person without a disability.
Such acts shall include, without limitation, the making of any accessible format of a work, reproducing such work/format, adapting such work/format, making available such work/format, lending such works/formats etc. and the provision of any facility that is primarily designed to enable any of the acts contemplated above.
Provided that if any entity wishes to undertake any of the above activities on a for profit basis, it shall pay such remuneration to copyright owners as may be prescribed by the Copyright Board from time to time. For the purpose of determining remuneration, the Copyright Board shall take into consideration the need to ensure that works are accessible and available at prices that are affordable, taking into account disparities of incomes for persons who are disabled.
Provided that if any software or other tool that is covered by any intellectual property right is necessary to create accessible formats or to enable access to such formats, or to enable disabled persons to access any work in any manner as contemplated above, such intellectual property protected software or tool shall be licensed at an affordable price, to be determined by the Copyright Board.
Provided that if any works are protected by technology circumvention measures or subject to DRM limitations that restrict access to the work in any way, the owner of copyright shall grant access to any person who wishes to secure such access for the primary purpose of doing any act contemplated within any of the provisions above.
Provided that the exemption or other benefits envisaged under this section can be availed of only when reasonable measures have been taken to ensure that the end beneficiary is a person with a disability.
Provided that if any act done in good faith in pursuance of any of the above provisions falls outside the ambit of such provision, such act shall not be enjoined by an injunction, whether temporary or permanent, but shall be made compensable by payment of a reasonable royalty to be determined by the Copyright Board.
This provision shall override any conflicting provision in any other legislation, regulation or rule in force in India, only to the extent of such conflict.
Section 52 (1) (za) (ii): For the purpose of Section 52 (1) (za) (i) "accessible format" means any format or form which gives a disabled person access to the work as flexibly and comfortably as a person without a disability, and shall include, but not be limited to, large print, with different typefaces and sizes all being permitted according to need, Braille, audio recordings, digital copies compatible with screen readers or refreshable Braille and audiovisual works with audio and or text description.

The above section draws from a provision recommended by the World Blind Union and supported by countries such as Brazil and NGO's such as KEI.

Readers will note that the above exception not only caters to the visually impaired, but any differently-abled person who is unable to access copyrighted works as comfortably as others. Illustratively, without the subtitling of audio-visual material, a hearing-impaired persons is unable to enjoy movies, TV programs and other audio-visual material.

CLIPP and Collaborative IP Policy Making

Readers may recollect an initiative called CLIPP (Collaborative Innovation in IP Policy), that we touched upon sometime back, but never really got around to implementing. We are still in the process of designing an appropriate IT architecture to support this endeavour, which will greatly aid transparency and public participation around IP law making in this country.

Till such time as we unleash this specialised architecture, we're trying to see if we can make do with the blogger format. Indeed, if our experiment around the parallel imports provision is anything to go by, where our posts elicited around 50 odd comments that helped suggest ways in which to interpret (and perhaps reword section 107A), there is no reason why the blogger format itself should not suffice.

Leaving comments on posts is fairly easy. You scroll down to the bottom of the post, hit the "post a comment" button and either sign in with your gmail account or click on the "anonymous" tab to post a comment anonymously. You could also chose any other online identity. For those that are averse to using the comments section at the end of this blog post, please free to email me at shamnad[at]gmail.com.

I hope all of you can take some time out to help this worthy cause by inspecting the suggested provision with a fine tooth comb and recommending ways to improve it. I understand that we have many sophisticated copyright experts on our subscriber list ..and I do hope that you will lend your minds and hearts to this cause. Needless to state, a mere copyright provision by itself is not enough--but it will certainly go some way in ensuring that we provide a better and more "inclusive" tomorrow for these children of a lesser god.

ps: Venky Hariharan, a leading open source advocate has referred me to Orca, an open source screen reader software, freely downloadable.

Link to the original blogspot

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/copyright-access-for-the-disabled-and-collaborative-ip-policy

Constitution of the High Level Advisory Committee (HLAC) on National Policy on Universal Electronic Accessibility

praskrishna — 2014-04-06T06:46:15Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has been invited to serve on the high level committee on electronic accessibility policy constituted by the Government of India.

Click to read the notification issued by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/hlac-national-policy-universal-electronic-accessibility

Constitution of Committee for revision of Guidelines for Indian Government Websites

Admin — 2017-08-23T14:02:55Z

The ‘Guidelines for Indian Government Websites’ (GIGW) was formulated by National Informatics Centre to make Indian Government Websites usable, user centric and universally accessible.

GIGW were included as a part of Central Secretariat Manual of office Procedure by DARPG However, since the inception of GIGW, there have been a lot of changes in user demands and technology trends including major revision of HTML and CSS, etc. A Committee has been constituted to study current scenario and advice on the revision of the GIGW so that it may fulfill its mandate of benchmarking Websites and Mobile Apps that are usable, user centric and universally accessible. Nirmita Narasimhan is a member of the Committee. For more info, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/constitution-of-committee-for-revision-of-guidelines-for-indian-government-websites

Communication technology opens 'doors' for everyone, not only people with disabilities

praskrishna — 2014-11-04T16:36:43Z

Today, most Americans overlook improvements made since the dawn of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) in 1990.

The article by John D. Kemp and Brandon M. Macsata was published in the Hill on October 13, 2014. Dr. Nirmita Narasimhan's report is mentioned.

Today, most Americans overlook improvements made since the dawn of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA") in 1990. Sidewalk ramps…automatic door openers…adjustable vanity mirrors…and automatic lighting and fixture controls were all designed to help make the "physical" world more accessible for and useable by all people, including individuals with disabilities. Now, isn't it time we opened doors to the "virtual" world, and information and communication technology ("ICT")?

Since 1998, federal agencies have been required by law to make their electronic ICT accessible to people with disabilities. Better known as "Section 508" (of the Rehabilitation Act), it mandates "individuals with disabilities who are Federal employees to have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access to and use of the information and data by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities." [1]

Accessible ICT is an evolving process, evidenced by the United States Access Board, which monitors Section 508 compliance, updating its standards, as well as other telecommunications accessibility guidelines. The House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman, Darrell Issa, has introduced legislation calling for the designation of the Chief Information Officers (CIOs) in all federal Departments, including significant changes to the management of information technology. This legislation passed the House of Representatives by voice vote, with similar legislation pending in the Senate.

Congress is currently faced with countless legislative proposals focusing on IT, ranging from healthcare, Veterans benefits, telecommunications and education, to name a few.

But more needs to be done in both the public and private sectors.

Wall Street and Main Street are both being re-defined by technology. The potential for our emerging "digital economy" is endless, if that technology is made more accessible.

Consider this: CTIA recently reported that the mobile data traffic more than doubled last year! [2] We know that people with disabilities are yearning to leverage accessible technologies in their everyday lives.

Whereas there have been many improvement in accessibility features on smart phones and mobiles devices, there is a still a long way to go. A recent report, authored by Nirmita Narasimhan, Program Manager at the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), and Axel Leblois, founder and Executive Director of G3ict, summarized the challenge:

"Senior citizens and people with physical or mental disabilities are often unable to access mobile phones because the equipment lacks the necessary accessibility features or because the price of the adapted phones and services remain unaffordable. Considering that 15 per cent of the world's population, or over one billion people, have a disability that affects their access to modern communications, the commercial opportunities for mobile service providers, manufacturers and smart phone application developers are consequently substantial." With so much of our daily lives dependent on mobile devices and the Internet, it is time that we ushered in an "accessible technology renaissance."[3]

Aside from being the "socially responsible" thing to do, it also makes good business sense! In the first quarter of 2013, e-commerce expenditures reached 50.18 billion U.S. dollars.[4] Worldwide, it is estimated that the total value of e-commerce revenue topped $1.2 trillion in U.S. dollars.[5]

Maybe the more pertinent question to ask is, "How can we NOT afford to make ICT more accessible for people with disabilities?"

Ironically, despite its increasing relevance in our everyday lives, the World Wide Web is largely inaccessible for people with disabilities. Many websites are lacking "ALT Tags," which are designed to help screen readers used by people who are blind or visually impaired identify and explain images, graphs and charts. Yet, missing ALT Tags are only the tip of the iceberg.

Last year, Walmart had over 59 million unique monthly visitors to its websites. As large as that number may seem, it pales in comparison to Amazon and Ebay, with 149 million and 91 million monthly unique visitors, respectively.[6] These companies, and many more - such as Deque, IBM and Microsoft - are investing in accessible ICT because they understand its inherent business and social value.

Ironically, just as people without disabilities benefit from physical accessibility improvements, they are already benefitting from accessible ICT. According to the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom), 80 percent of people using closed captions are not deaf or hard of hearing.[7]

What is accessible technology renaissance? It is one whereby we envision every single individual, regardless of disability, can fully access the modern marvels of technology. Technology is what drives our economy. Technology is what links our communities. Technology is what keeps us connected to the world around us. That is why it should be accessible to everyone.

[1] Section 508 Of The Rehabilitation Act. Section508.gov. http://www.section508.gov/Section-508-Of-The-Rehabilitation-Act .

[2] Mobile Data Traffic More Than Doubled Last Year, According to CTIA. Roll Call TechnoCRAT. June 17, 2014.

[3] Making mobile phones and services accessible for persons with disabilities. A joint report of ITU - The International Telecommunication Union and G3ict - The global initiative for inclusive ICTs. August 2012.

[4] Statistics 2013. E-Commerce Revenues. September 20, 2013.

[5] Statistics 2013. E-Commerce Revenues. September 20, 2013.

[6] Statistics 2013, E-Commerce Revenues, September 20, 2013.

[7] Did You Know? 80 Percent of People Who Use Closed Captions Are Not Hard of Hearing. CaptionsforYouTube. June 6, 2014.

Kemp is president and CEO of The Viscardi Center, and Macsata is general consultant of the National Business and Disability Council (NBDC) at The Viscardi Center.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/accessibility/news/the-hill-john-d-kemp-and-brandon-m-macsata-october-13-2014-communication-technology-opens-doors-for-everyone-not-only-people-with-disabilities