Centre for Internet and Society

Regulatory Perspectives on Net Neutrality

pranesh — 2015-07-18T02:46:30Z

In this paper Pranesh Prakash gives an overview on why India needs to put in place net neutrality regulations, and the form that those regulations must take to avoid being over-regulation.

With assistance by Vidushi Marda (Programme Officer, Centre for Internet and Society) and Tarun Krishnakumar (Research Volunteer, Centre for Internet and Society). I would like to specially thank Vishal Misra, Steve Song, Rudolf van der Berg, Helani Galpaya, A.B. Beliappa, Amba Kak, and Sunil Abraham for extended discussions, helpful suggestions and criticisms. However, this paper is not representative of their views, which are varied.

Today, we no longer live in a world of "roti, kapda, makaan", but in the world of "roti, kapda, makaan aur broadband". ^{^[1]} This is recognized by the National Telecom Policy IV.1.2, which states the need to "recognise telecom, including broadband connectivity as a basic necessity like education and health and work towards 'Right to Broadband'."^{^[2]} According to the IAMAI, as of October 2014, India had 278 million internet users. ^{^[3]} Of these, the majority access Internet through their mobile phones, and the WEF estimates only 3 in 100 have broadband on their mobiles.^{^[4]} Thus, the bulk of our population is without broadband. Telecom regulation and net neutrality has a very important role in enabling this vision of Internet as a basic human need that we should aim to fulfil.

1. Why should we regulate the telecom sector?

All ICT regulation should be aimed at achieving five goals: achieving universal, affordable access; ^{^[5]} ensuring and sustaining effective competition in an efficient market and avoiding market failures; protecting against consumer harms; ensuring maximum utility of the network by ensuring interconnection; and addressing state needs (taxation, security, etc.). Generally, all these goals go hand in hand, however some tensions may arise. For instance, universal access may not be provided by the market because the costs of doing so in certain rural or remote areas may outweigh the immediate monetary benefits private corporations could receive in terms of profits from those customers. In such cases, to further the goal of universal access, schemes such as universal service obligation funds are put in place, while ensuring that such schemes either do not impact competition or very minimally impact it.

It is clear that to maximise societal benefit, effective regulation of the ICT sector is a requirement, which otherwise, due to the ability of dominant players to abuse network effect to their advantage, is inherently prone towards monopolies. For instance, in the absence of regulation, a dominant player would charge far less for intra-network calls than inter-network calls, making customers shift to the dominant network. This kind of harm to competition should be regulated by the ICT regulator. However, it is equally true that over-regulation is as undesirable as under-regulation, since over-regulation harms innovation - whether in the form of innovative technologies or innovative business models. The huge spurt of growth globally of the telecom sector since the 1980s has resulted not merely from advancements in technology, but in large part from the de-monopolisation and deregulation of the telecom sector.^{^[6]} Similarly, the Internet has largely flourished under very limited technology-specific regulation. For instance, while interconnection between different telecom networks is heavily regulated in the domestic telecom sector, interconnection between the different autonomous systems (ASes) that make up the Internet is completely unregulated, thereby allowing for non-transparent pricing and opaque transactions. Given this context, we must ensure we do not over-regulate, lest we kill innovation.

2. Why should we regulate Net Neutrality? And whom should we regulate?

We wouldn't need to regulate Net Neutrality if ISPs were not "gatekeepers" for last-mile access. "Gatekeeping" occurs when a single company establishes itself as an exclusive route to reach a large number of people and businesses or, in network terms, nodes. It is not possible for Internet services to reach the customers of the telecom network without passing through the telecom network. The situation is very different in the middle-mile and for backhaul. Even though anti-competitive terms may exist in the middle-mile, especially given the opacity of terms in "transit agreements", a packet is usually able to travel through multiple routes if one route is too expensive (even if that is not the shortest network path, and is thus inefficient in a way). However, this multiplicity of routes is not possible in the last mile.

This leaves last mile telecom operators (ISPs) in a position to unfairly discriminate between different Internet services or destinations or applications, while harming consumer choice. This is why we believe that promoting the five goals mentioned above would require regulation of last-mile telecom operators to prevent unjust discrimination against end-users and content providers.

Thus, net neutrality is the principle that we should regulate gatekeepers to ensure they do not use their power to unjustly discriminate between similarly situated persons, content or traffic.

3. How should we regulate Net Neutrality?

3.1. What concerns does Net Neutrality raise? What harms does it entail?

Discriminatory practices at the level of access to the Internet raises the following set of concerns:

1. Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and privacy.

2. Harm to effective competition

a. This includes competition amongst ISPs as well as competition amongst content providers.

b. Under-regulation here may cause harm to innovation at the content provider level, including through erecting barriers to entry.

c. Over-regulation here may cause harm to innovation in terms of ISP business models.

3. Harm to consumers

a. Under-regulation here may harm consumer choice and the right to freedom of speech, expression, and communication.

b. Over-regulation on this ground may cause harm to innovation at the level of networking technologies and be detrimental to consumers in the long run.

4. Harm to "openness" and interconnectedness of the Internet, including diversity (of access, of content, etc.)

a. Exceptions for specialized services should be limited to preserve the open and interconnectedness of the Internet and of the World Wide Web.

It might help to think about Net Neutrality as primarily being about two overlapping sets of regulatory issues: preferential treatment of particular Internet-based services (in essence: content- or source-/destination-based discrimination, i.e., discrimination on basis of 'whose traffic it is'), or discriminatory treatment of applications or protocols (which would include examples like throttling of BitTorrent traffic, high overage fees upon breaching Internet data caps on mobile phones, etc., i.e., discrimination on the basis of 'what kind of traffic it is').

Situations where the negative or positive discrimination happens on the basis of particular content or address should be regulated through the use of competition principles, while negative or positive discrimination at the level of specific class of content, protocols, associated ports, and other such sender-/receiver-agnostic features, should be regulated through regulation of network management techniques . The former deals with instances where the question of "in whose favour is there discrimination" may be asked, while the latter deals with the question "in favour of what is there discrimination".

In order to do this, a regulator like TRAI can use both hard regulation - price ceilings, data cap floors, transparency mandates, preventing specific anti-competitive practices, etc. - as well as soft regulation - incentives and disincentives.

3.1.1 Net Neutrality and human rights

Any discussion on the need for net neutrality impugns the human rights of a number of different stakeholders. Users, subscribers, telecom operators and ISPs all possess distinct and overlapping rights that are to be weighed against each other before the scope, nature and form of regulatory intervention are finalised. The freedom of speech, right to privacy and right to carry on trade raise some of the most pertinent questions in this regard.

For example, to properly consider issues surrounding the practice of paid content-specific zero-rating from a human rights point of view, one must seek to balance the rights of content providers to widely disseminate their 'speech' to the largest audiences against the rights of consumers to have access to a diverse variety of different, conflicting and contrasting ideas.

This commitment to a veritable marketplace or free-market of ideas has formed the touchstone of freedom of speech law in jurisdictions across the world as well as finding mention in pronouncements of the Indian Supreme Court. Particular reference is to be made to the dissent of Mathew, J. inBennett Coleman v. Union of India^{^[7]} and of the majority Sakal Papers v. Union of India^{^[8]} which rejected the approach.

Further, the practice of deep-packet inspection, which is sometimes used in the process of network management, raises privacy concerns as it seeks to go beyond what is "public" information in the header of an IP packet, necessary for routing, to analysing non-public information. ^{^[9]}

3.2 What conditions and factors may change these concerns and the regulatory model we should adopt?

While the principles relating to Net Neutrality remain the same in all countries (i.e., trying to prevent gatekeepers from unjustly exploiting their position), the severity of the problem varies depending on competition in the market, on the technologies, and on many other factors. One way to measure fair or stable allocation of the surplus created by a network - or a network-of-networks like the Internet - is by treating it as a convex cooperation game and thereupon calculating that game's Shapley value:^{^[10]} in the case of the Internet, this would be a game involving content ISPs, transit ISPs, and eyeball (i.e., last-mile) ISPs. The Shapley value changes depending on the number of competitors there are in the market: thus, the fair/stable allocation when there's vibrant competition in the market is different from the fair/stable allocation in a market without such competition. That goes to show that a desirable approach when an ISP tries to unjustly enrich itself by charging other network-participants may well be to increase competition, rather than directly regulating the last-mile ISP. Further, it shows that in a market with vibrant last-mile competition, the capacity of the last-mile ISP to unjustly are far diminished.

In countries which are remote and have little international bandwidth, the need to conserve that bandwidth is high. ISPs can regulate that by either increasing prices of Internet connections for all, or by imposing usage restrictions (such as throttling) on either heavy users or bandwidth-hogging protocols. If the amount of international bandwidth is higher, the need and desire on part of ISPs to indulge in such usage restrictions decreases. Thus, the need to regulate is far higher in the latter case, than in the former case.

The above paragraphs show that both the need for regulation and also the form that the regulation should take depend on a variety of conditions that aren't immediately apparent.

Thus, the framework that the regulator sets out to tackle issues relating to Net Neutrality are most important, whereas the specific rules may need to change depending on changes in conditions. These conditions include:

● last-mile market

○ switching costs between equivalent service providers

○ availability of an open-access last-mile

○ availability of a "public option" neutral ISP

○ increase or decrease in the competition, both in wired and mobile ISPs.

● interconnection market

○ availability of well-functioning peering exchanges

○ availability of low-cost transit

● technology and available bandwidth

○ spectrum efficiency

○ total amount of international bandwidth and local network bandwidth

● conflicting interests of ISPs

○ do the ISPs have other business interests other than providing Internet connectivity? (telephony, entertainment, etc.)

3.3 How should we deal with anti-competitive practices?

Anti-competitive practices in the telecom sector can take many forms: Abuse of dominance, exclusion of access to specific services, customer lock-in, predatory pricing, tying of services, cross-subsidization, etc., are a few of them. In some cases the anti-competitive practice targets other telecom providers, while in others it targets content providers. In the both cases, it is important to ensure that ensure that telecom subscribers have a competitive choice between effectively substitutable telecom providers and an ability to seamlessly switch between providers.

3.3.1 Lowering Switching Costs

TRAI has tackled many of these issues head on, especially in the mobile telephony space, while competitive market pressures have helped too:

● Contractual or transactional lock-in. The easiest way to prevent shifting from one network to another is by contractually mandating a lock-in period, or by requiring special equipment (interoperability) to connect to one's network. In India, this is not practised in the telecom sector, with the exception of competing technologies like CDMA and GSM. Non-contractual lock-ins, for instance by offering discounts for purchasing longer-term packages, are not inherently anti-competitive unless that results in predatory pricing or constitutes an abuse of market dominance. In India, switching from one mobile provider to another, though initiated 15 years into the telecom revolution, is in most cases now almost as easy as buying a new SIM card.^{^[11]} TRAI may consider proactive regulation against contractual lock-in.

● Number of competitors. Even if switching from one network to another is easy, it is not useful unless there are other equivalent options to switch to. In the telecom market, coverage is a very important factor in judging equivalence. Given that last mile connectivity is extremely expensive to provide, the coverage of different networks are very different, and this is even more true when one considers wired connectivity, which is difficult to lay in densely-populated urban and semi-urban areas and unprofitable in sparsely-populated areas. The best way to increase the number of competitors is to make it easier for competitors to exist. Some ways of doing this would be through enabling spectrum-sharing, lowering right-of-way rents, allowing post-auction spectrum trading, and promoting open-access last-mile fibre carriers and to thereby encourage competition on the basis of price and service and not exclusive access to infrastructure.

● Interconnection and mandatory carriage. The biggest advantage a dominant telecom player has is exclusive access to its customer base. Since in the telecom market, no telco wants to not connect to customers of another telco, they do not outright ban other networks. However, dominant players can charge high prices from other networks, thereby discriminating against smaller networks. In the early 2000s, Airtel-to-Airtel calls were much cheaper than Airtel-to-Spice calls. However, things have significantly changed since then. TRAI has, since the 2000s, heavily regulated interconnection and imposed price controls on interconnection ("termination") charges.^{^[12]} Thus, now, generally, inter-network calls are priced similarly to intra-network calls. And if you want cheaper Airtel-to-Airtel calls, you can buy a special (unbundled) pack that enables an Airtel customer to take advantage of the fact that her friends are also on the same network, and benefits Airtel since they do not in such cases have to pay termination charges. Recently, TRAI has even made the interconnection rates zero in three cases: landline-to-landline, landline-to-cellular, and cellular-to-landline, in a bid to decrease landline call rates, and incentivise them, allowing a very low per call interconnection charges of 14 paise for cellular-to-cellular connections. ^{^[13]}

○ With regard to Net Neutrality, we must have a rule that no termination charges or carriage charges may be levied by any ISP upon any Internet service. No Internet service may be discriminated against with regard to carriage conditions or speeds or any other quality of service metric. In essence all negative discrimination should be prohibited. This means that Airtel cannot forcibly charge WhatsApp or any other OTT (which essentially form a different "layer") money for the "privilege" of being able to reach Airtel customers, nor may Airtel slow down WhatsApp traffic and thus try to force WhatsApp to pay. There is a duty on telecom providers to carry any legitimate traffic ("common carriage"), not a privilege. It is important to note that consumer-facing TSPs get paid by other interconnecting Internet networks in the form of transit charges (or the TSP's costs are defrayed through peering). There shouldn't be any separate charge on the basis of content (different layer from the carriage) rather than network (same layer as the carriage). This principle is especially important for startups, and which are often at the receiving end of such discriminatory practices.

● Number Portability. One other factor that prevents users from shifting between one network and another is the fact that they have to change an important aspect of their identity: their phone number (this doesn't apply to Internet over DSL, cable, etc.). At least in the mobile space, TRAI has for several years tried to mandate seamless mobile number portability. The same is being tried by the European Commission in the EU. ^{^[14]} While intra-circle mobile number portability exists in India - and TRAI is pushing for inter-circle mobile number portability as well^{^[15]} - this is nowhere as seamless as it should be.

● Multi-SIM phones. The Indian market is filled with phones that can accommodate multiple SIM cards, enabling customers to shift seamlessly between multiple networks. This is true not just in India, but most developing countries with extremely price-sensitive customers. Theoretically, switching costs would approach zero if in a market with full coverage by n telecom players every subscriber had a phone with n SIM slots with low-cost SIM cards being available.

The situation in the telecom sector with respect to the above provides a stark contrast to the situation in the USA, and to the situation in the DTH market. In the USA, phones get sold at discounts with multi-month or multi-year contracts, and contractual lock-ins are a large problem. Keeping each of the above factors in mind, the Indian mobile telecom space is far more competitive than the US mobile telecom space.

Further, in the Indian DTH market, given that there is transactional lock-in (set-top boxes aren't interoperable in practice, though are mandated to be so by law^{^[16]}), there are fewer choices in the market; further, the equivalent of multi-SIM phones don't exist with respect to set-top boxes. Further, while there are must-carry rules with respect to carriage, they can be of three types: 1) must mandatorily provide access to particular channels^{^[17]} (positive obligation, usually for government channels); 2) prevented from not providing particular channels (negative obligation, to prevent anti-competitive behaviour and political censorship); and 3) must mandatorily offer access to at least a set number of channels (positive obligation for ensuring market diversity). ^{^[18]} Currently, only (1) is in force, since despite attempts by TRAI to ensure (3) as well.^{^[19]}

If the shifting costs are low and transparency in terms of network practice is reported in a standard manner and well-publicised, then that significantly weakens the "gatekeeper effect", which as we saw earlier, is the reason why we wish to introduce Net Neutrality regulation. This consequently means, as explained above in section 3.2, that despite the same Net Neutrality principles applying in all markets and countries, the precise form that the Net Neutrality regulations take in a telecom market with low switching costs would be different from the form that such regulations would take in a market with high switching costs.

3.3.2 Anti-competitive Practices

Some potential anti-competitive practices, which are closely linked, are cross-subsidization, tying (anti-competitive bundling) of multiple services, and vertical price squeeze. All three of these are especial concerns now, with the increased diversification of traditional telecom companies, and with the entry into telecom (like with DTH) of companies that create content. Hence, if Airtel cross-subsidizes the Hike chat application that it recently acquired, ^{^[20]} or if Reliance Infocomm requires customers to buy a subscription to an offering from Reliance Big Entertainment, or if Reliance Infocomm meters traffic from another Reliance Big Entertainment differently from that from Saavn, all those would be violative of the principle of non-discrimination by gatekeepers. This same analysis can be applied to all unpaid deals and non-commercial deals, including schemes such as Internet.org and Wikipedia Zero, which will be covered later in the section on zero-rating.

While we have general rules such as sections 3 and 4 of the Competition Act, we do not currently have specific rules prohibiting these or other anti-competitive practices, and we need Net Neutrality regulation that clearly prohibit such anti-competitive practices so that the telecom regulator can take action for non-compliance . We cannot leave these specific policy prescriptions unstated, even if they are provided for in section 3 of the Competition Act. These concerns are especial concerns in the telecom sector, and the telecom regulator or arbitrator should have the power to directly deal with these, instead of each case going to the Competition Commission of India. This should not affect the jurisdiction of the CCI to investigate and adjudicate such matters, but should ensure that TRAI both has suo motu powers, and that the mechanism to complain is made simple (unlike the current scenario, where some individual complainants may fall in the cracks between TRAI and TDSAT).

3.3.3 Zero-rating

Since a large part of the net neutrality debate in India involves zero-rating practices, we deal with that in some length. Zero-rating is the practice of not counting (aka "zero-rating") certain traffic towards a subscriber's regular Internet usage. The zero-rated traffic could be zero-priced or fixed-price; capped or uncapped; subscriber-paid, Internet service-paid, paid for by both, or unpaid; content- or source/destination-based, or agnostic to content or source/destination; automatically provided by the ISP or chosen by the customer . The motivations for zero-rating may also be varied, as we shall see below. Further, depending on the circumstances, zero-rating could be competitive or anti-competitive. All forms of zero-rating result in some form of discrimination, but not all zero-rating is harmful, nor does all zero-rating need to be prohibited.

While, as explained in the section on interconnection and carriage above, negative discrimination at the network level should be prohibited, that leaves open the question of positive discrimination. It follows from section 3.1 that the right frame of analysis of this question is harm to competition, since the main harm zero-rating is, as we shall see below, about discriminating between different content providers, and not discrimination at the level of protocols, etc.

Whether one should allow for any form of positive discrimination at the network level or not depends on whether positive discrimination of (X) has an automatic and unfair negative impact on all (~X). That, in turn, depends on whether (~X) is being subject to unfair competition. As Wikipedia notes, "unfair competition means that the gains of some participants are conditional on the losses of others, when the gains are made in ways which are illegitimate or unjust." Thus, positive discrimination that has a negative impact on effective competition shall not be permitted, since in such cases it is equivalent to negative discrimination ("zero-sum game") . Positive discrimination that does not have a negative impact on effective competition may be permitted, especially since it results in increased access and increases consumer benefit, as long as the harm to openness and diversity is minimized .

While considering this, one should keep in mind the fact that startups were, 10-15 years ago, at a huge disadvantage with regard to wholesale data purchase. The marketplaces for data centres and for content delivery networks (which speed up delivery of content by being located closer, in network terms, to multiple last-mile ISPs) were nowhere near as mature as they are today, and the prices were high. There was a much higher barrier to startup entry than there is today, due to the prices and due to larger companies being able to rely on economies of scale to get cheaper rates. Was that unfair? No. There is no evidence of anti-competitive practices, nor of startups complaining about such practices. Therefore, that was fair competition, despite specific input costs that were arguably needed (though not essential) for startups to compete being priced far beyond their capacity to pay.

Today the marketplace is very different, with a variety of offerings. CDNs such as Cloudflare, which were once the preserve of rich companies, even have free offerings, thus substantially lowering barriers for startups that want faster access to customers across the globe.

Is a CDN an essential cost for a startup? No. But in an environment where speed matters and customers use or don't use a service depending on speed; and where the startup's larger competitors are all using CDNs, a startup more or less has to. Thankfully, given the cheap access to CDNs these days, that cost is not too high for a startup to bear. If the CDN market was not competitive enough, would a hypothetical global regulator have been justified in outright banning the use of CDNs to 'level' the playing field? No, because the hypothetical global regulator instead had the option to (and would have been justified in) regulating the market to ensure greater competition.

A regulator should not prohibit an act that does not negatively impact access, competition, consumer benefit, nor openness (including diversity), since that would be over-regulation and would harm innovation.

3.3.3.1 Motivations for Zero-Rating

3.3.3.1.1 Corporate Social Responsibility / Incentivizing Customers to Move Up Value Chain

There exist multiple instances where there is no commercial transaction between the OTT involved and the telecom carrier, in which zero-priced zero-rating of specific Internet content happens. We know that there is no commercial transaction either through written policy (Wikipedia Zero) or through public statements (Internet.org, a bouquet of sites). In such cases, the telecom provider would either be providing such services out of a sense of public interest, given the social value of those services, or would be providing such services out of self-interest, to showcase the value of particular Internet set the same time.

The apprehended risk is that of such a scheme creating a "walled garden", where users would be exposed only to those services which are free since the search and discovery costs of non-free Internet (i.e., any site outside the "walled garden") would be rather high. This risk, while real, is rather slim given the fact that the economic incentives for those customers who have the ability to pay for "Internet packs" but currently do not find a compelling reason to do so, or out of both a sense of public interest and self-interest of the telecom providers works against this.

In such non-commercial zero-priced zero-rating, a telecom provider would only make money if and only if subscribers start paying for sites outside of the walled garden. If subscribers are happy in the walled garden, the telecom provider starts losing money, and hence has a strong motivation to stop that scheme. If on the other hand, enough subscribers start becoming paying customers to offset the cost of providing the zero-priced zero-rated service(s) and make it profitable, that shows that despite the availability of zero-priced options a number of customers will opt for paid access to the open Internet and the open Web, and the overall harms of such zero-priced zero-rating would be minimal. Hence, the telecom providers have an incentive to keep the costs of Internet data packs low, thus encouraging customers who otherwise wouldn't pay for the Internet to become paying customers.

There is the potential of consumer harm when users seek to access a site outside of the walled garden, and find to their dismay that they have been charged for the Internet at a hefty rate, and their prepaid balance has greatly decreased. This is an issue that TRAI is currently appraised of, and a suitable solution would need to be found to protect consumers against such harm.

All in all, given that the commercial interests of the telecom providers align with the healthy practice of non-discrimination, this form of limited positive discrimination is not harmful in the long run, particularly because it is not indefinitely sustainable for a large number of sites. Hence, it may not be useful to ban this form of zero-priced zero-rating of services as long as they aren't exclusive, or otherwise anti-competitive (a vertical price-squeeze, for instance), and the harm to consumers is prohibited and the harm to openness/diversity is minimized.

3.3.3.1.2 Passing on ISP Savings / Incentivizing Customers to Lower ISP's Cost

Suppose, for instance, an OTT uses a CDN located, in network distance terms, near an eyeball ISP. In this case, the ISP has to probably pay less than it would have to had the same data been located in a data centre located further away, given that it would have fewer interconnection-related charges.

Hence the monetary costs of providing access to different Web destinations are not equal for the ISP. This cost can be varied either by the OTT (by it locating the data closer to the ISP - through a CDN, by co-locating where the ISP is also present, or by connecting to an Internet Exchange Point which the ISP is also connected to - or by it directly "peering" with the ISP) or by the ISP (by engaging in "transparent proxying" in which case the ISP creates caches at the ISP level of specific content (usually by caching non-encrypted data the ISP's customers request) and serves the cached content when a user requests a site, rather than serving the actual site). None of the practices so far mentioned are discriminatory from the customer's perspective with regard either to price or to prioritization, though all of them enable faster speeds to specific content. Hence none of the above-mentioned practices are considered even by the most ardent Net Neutrality advocates to be violations of that principle. ^{^[21]} However, if an ISP zero-rates the content to either pass on its savings to the customer^{^[22]} or to incentivize the customer to access services that cost the ISP less in terms of interconnection costs, that creates a form of price discrimination for the customer, despite it benefiting the consumer.

The essential economic problem is that the cost to the ISP is variable, but the cost to the customer is fixed. Importantly, this problem is exacerbated in India where web hosting prices are high, transit prices are high, peering levels are low, and Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are not functioning well. ^{^[23]} These conditions create network inefficiencies in terms of hosting of content further away from Indian networks in terms of network distance, and thus harms consumers as well as local ISPs. In order to set this right, zero-rating of this sort may be permitted as it acts as an incentive towards fixing the market fundamentals. However, once the market fundamentals are fixed, such zero-rating may be prohibited.

This example shows that the desirability or otherwise of discriminatory practices depends fully on the conditions present in the market, including in terms of interconnection costs.

3.3.3.1.3 Unbundling Internet into Services ("Special Packs")

Since at least early 2014, mobile operators have been marketing special zero-rating "packs". These packs, if purchased by the customer, allow capped or in some instances uncapped, zero-rating of a service such as WhatsApp or Facebook, meaning traffic to/from that service will not be counted against their regular Internet usage.

For a rational customer, purchasing such a pack only makes sense in one of two circumstances:

● The person has Internet connectivity on her Internet-capable phone, but has not purchased an "Internet data pack" since she doesn't find the Internet valuable. Instead, she has heard about "WhatsApp", has friends who are on it, and wishes to use that to reduce her SMS costs (and thereby eat into the carriage provider's ability to charge separately for SMSes). She chooses to buy a WhatsApp pack for around ₹25 a month instead of paying ₹95 for an all-inclusive Internet data pack.

● The person has Internet connectivity on her Internet-capable phone, and has purchased an "Internet data pack". However, that data pack is capped and she has to decide between using WhatsApp and surfing web sites. She is on multiple WhatsApp groups and her WhatsApp traffic eats up 65% of her data cap. She thus has to choose between the two, since she doesn't want to buy two Internet data packs (each costing around ₹95 for a month). She chooses to buy a WhatsApp pack for ₹25 a month, paying a cumulative total of ₹120 instead of ₹190 which she would have had to had she bought two Internet data packs. In this situation, "unbundling" is happening, and this benefits the consumer. Such unbundling harms the openness and integrity of the Internet.

If users did not find value in the "special" data packs, and there is no market demand for such products, they will cease to be offered. Thus, assuming a telco's decision to offer such packs is purely customer-demand driven - and not due to deals it has struck with service providers - if Orkut is popular, telcos would be interested in offering Orkut packs and if Facebook is popular, they would be interested in offering a Facebook pack. Thus, clearly, there is nothing anti-competitive about such customer-paid zero-rating packs, whereas they clearly enhance consumer benefit. Would this increase the popularity of Orkut or Facebook? Potentially yes. But to prohibit this would be like prohibiting a supermarket from selectively (and non-collusively) offering discounts on popular products. Would that make already popular products even more popular? Potentially, yes. But that would not be seen as a harm to competition but would be seen as fair competition. This contravenes the "openness" of the Internet (i.e., the integral interconnected diversity that an open network like the Internet embodies) as an independent regulatory goal. The Internet, being a single gateway to a mind-boggling variety of services, allows for a diverse "long tail", which would lose out if the Internet was seen solely as a gateway to popular apps, sites, and content. However, given that this is a choice exercised freely by the consumer, such packs should not be prohibited, as that would be a case of over-regulation.

The one exception to the above analysis of competition, needless to say, is if that these special packs aren't purely customer-demand driven and are the product of special deals between an OTT and the telco. In that case, we need to ensure it isn't anti-competitive by following the prescriptions of the next section.

3.3.3.1.4 Earning Additional Revenues from Content Providers

With offerings like Airtel Zero, we have a situation where OTT companies are offering to pay for wholesale data access used by their customers, and make accessing their specific site or app free for the customer. From the customer's perspective, this is similar to a toll-free number or a pre-paid envelope or free-to-air TV channel being offered on a particular network.

However, from the network perspective, these are very different. Even if a customer-company pays Airtel for the toll-free number, that number is accessible and toll-free across all networks since the call terminates on Airtel networks and Airtel pays the connecting network back the termination charge from the fee they are paid by the customer-company. This cannot happen in case of the Internet, since the "call" terminates outside of the reach of the ISP being paid for zero-rating by the OTT company; hence unless specific measures are taken, zero-rating has to be network-specific.

The comparison to free-to-air channels is also instructive, since in 2010 TRAI made recommendations that consumers should have the choice of accessing free-to-air channels à-la-carte, without being tied up to a bouquet.^{^[24]} This would, in essence, allow a subscriber to purchase a set-top box, and without paying a regular subscription fee watch free-to-air channels. ^{^[25]} However, similar to toll-free numbers, these free-to-air channels are free-to-air on all MSO's set-top boxes, unlike the proposed Airtel Zero scheme under which access to a site like Flipkart would be free for customers on Airtel's network alone.

Hence, these comparisons, while useful in helping think through the regulatory and competition issues, should not be used as instructive exact analogies, since they aren't fully comparable situations.

3.3.3.1.5 Market Options for OTT-Paid Zero-Rating

As noted above, a competitive marketplace already exists for wholesale data purchase at the level of "content ISPs" (including CDNs), which sell wholesale data to content providers (OTTs). This market is at present completely unregulated. The deals that exist are treated as commercial secrets. It is almost certain that large OTTs get better rates than small startups due to economies of scale.

However, at the eyeball ISP level, it is a single-sided market with ISPs competing to gain customers in the form of end-users. With a scheme like "Airtel Zero", this would get converted into a double-sided market, with a gatekeeper without whom neither side can reach the other being in the middle creating a two-sided toll. This situation is ripe for market abuse: this situation allows the gatekeeper to hinder access to those OTTs that don't pay the requisite toll or to provide preferential access to those who pay, apart from providing an ISP the opportunity to "double-dip".

One way to fix this is to prevent ISPs from establishing a double-sided market. The other way would be to create a highly-regulated market where the gatekeeping powers of the ISP are diminished, and the ISP's ability to leverage its exclusive access over its customers are curtailed. A comparison may be drawn here to the rules that are often set by standard-setting bodies where patents are involved: given that these patents are essential inputs, access to them must be allowed through fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licences. Access to the Internet and common carriers like telecom networks, being even more important (since alternatives exist to particular standards, but not to the Internet itself), must be placed at an even higher pedestal and thus even stricter regulation to ensure fair competition.

A marketplace of this sort would impose some regulatory burdens on TRAI and place burdens on innovations by the ISPs, but a regulated marketplace harms ISP innovation less than not allowing a market at all.

At a minimum, such a marketplace must ensure non-exclusivity, non-discrimination, and transparency. Thus, at a minimum, a telecom provider cannot discriminate between any OTTs who want similar access to zero-rating. Further, a telecom provider cannot prevent any OTT from zero-rating with any other telecom provider. To ensure that telecom providers are actually following this stipulation, transparency is needed, as a minimum.

Transparency can take one of two forms: transparency to the regulator alone and transparency to the public. Transparency to the regulator alone would enable OTTs and ISPs to keep the terms of their commercial transactions secret from their competitors, but enable the regulator, upon request, to ensure that this doesn't lead to anti-competitive practices. This model would increase the burden on the regulator, but would be more palatable to OTTs and ISPs, and more comparable to the wholesale data market where the terms of such agreements are strictly-guarded commercial secrets. On the other hand, requiring transparency to the public would reduce the burden on the regulator, despite coming at a cost of secrecy of commercial terms, and is far more preferable.

Beyond transparency, a regulation could take the form of insisting on standard rates and terms for all OTT players, with differential usage tiers if need be, to ensure that access is truly non-discriminatory. This is how the market is structured on the retail side.

Since there are transaction costs in individually approaching each telecom provider for such zero-rating, the market would greatly benefit from a single marketplace where OTTs can come and enter into agreements with multiple telecom providers.

Even in this model, telecom networks will be charging based not only on the fact of the number of customers they have, but on the basis of them having exclusive routing to those customers. Further, even under the standard-rates based single-market model, a particular zero-rated site may be accessible for free from one network, but not across all networks: unlike the situation with a toll-free number in which no such distinction exists.

To resolve this, the regulator may propose that if an OTT wishes to engage in paid zero-rating, it will need to do so across all networks, since if it doesn't there is risk of providing an unfair advantage to one network over another and increasing the gatekeeper effect rather than decreasing it.

However, all forms of competitive Internet service-paid zero-priced zero-rating, even when they don't harm competition, innovation amongst content providers, or consumers, will necessarily harm openness and diversity of the Internet. For instance, while richer companies with a strong presence in India may pay to zero-rate traffic for their Indian customers, decentralized technologies such as XMPP and WebRTC, having no central company behind them, would not, leading to customers preferring proprietary networks and solutions to such open technologies, which in turn, thanks to the network effect, leads to a vicious cycle. These harms to openness and diversity have to be weighed against the benefit in terms of increase in access when deciding whether to allow for competitive OTT-paid zero-priced zero-rating, as such competition doesn't exist in a truly level playing field . Further, it must be kept in mind that there are forms of zero-priced zero-rating that decrease the harm to openness / diversity, or completely remove that harm altogether: that there are other options available must be acknowledged by the regulator when considering the benefit to access from competitive OTT-paid zero-priced zero-rating.

3.3.3.1.6 Other options for zero-rating

There are other models of zero-priced zero-rating that either minimize the harm is that of ensuring free Internet access for every person. This can take the form of:^{^[26]}

● A mandatorily "leaky" 'walled garden':

○ The first-degree of all hyperlinks from the zero-rated OTT service are also free.

○ The zero-rated OTT service provider has to mandatorily provide free access to the whole of the World Wide Web to all its customers during specified hours.

○ The zero-rated OTT service provider has to mandatorily provide free access to the whole of the World Wide Web to all its customers based on amount on usage of the OTT service.^{^[27]}

● Zero-rating of all Web traffic

○ In exchange for viewing of advertisements

○ In exchange for using a particular Web browser

○ At low speeds on 3G, or on 2G.

3.3.3.2. What kinds of zero-rating are good

The majority of the forms of zero-rating covered in this section are content or source/destination-based zero-rating. Only some of the options covered in the "other options for zero-rating" section cover content-agnostic zero-rating models. Content-agnostic zero-rating models are not harmful, while content-based zero-rating models always harm, though to varying degrees, the openness of the Internet / diversity of OTTs, and to varying degrees increase access to Internet-based services. Accordingly, here is an hierarchy of desirability of zero-priced zero-rating, from most desirable to most harmful:

1. Content- & source/destination-agnostic zero-priced zero-rating.^{^[28]}

2. Content- & source/destination-based non-zero-priced zero-rating, without any commercial deals, chosen freely & paid for by users. ^{^[29]}

3. Content- & source/destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, without any commercial deals, with full transparency. ^{^[30]}

4. Content- & source/destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, on the basis of commercial deal with partial zero-priced access to all content, with non-discriminatory access to the same deal by all with full transparency.^{^[31]}

5. Content- & source/destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, on the basis of a non-commercial deal, without any benefits monetary or otherwise, flowing directly or indirectly from the provider of the zero-rated content to the ISP, with full transparency. ^{^[32]}

6. Content- & source-destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, across all telecom networks, with standard pricing, non-discriminatory access, and full transparency.

7. Content- & source-destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, with standard pricing, non-discriminatory access, and full transparency.

8. Content- & source-destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, with non-discriminatory access, and full transparency.

9. Content- & source-destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, with non-discriminatory access, and transparency to the regulator.

10. Content- & source-destination-based zero-priced zero-rating, without any regulatory framework in place.

3.3.4 Cartels and Oligopoly

While cartels and oligopolies may have an impact on Net Neutrality, they are not problems that any set of anti-discrimination rules imposed on gatekeepers can fix. Further, cartels and oligopolies don't directly enhance the ability of gatekeepers to unjustly discriminate if there are firm rules against negative discrimination and price ceilings and floors on data caps are present for data plans. Given this, TRAI should recommend that this issue be investigated and the Competition Commission of India should take this issue up.

3.4 Reasonable Network Management Principles

Reasonable network management has to be allowed to enable the ISPs to manage performance and costs on their network. However, ISPs may not indulge in acts that are harmful to consumers in the name of reasonable network management. Below are a set of guidelines for when discrimination against classes of traffic in the name of network management are justified.

● Discrimination between classes of traffic for the sake of network management should only be permissible if:

○ there is an intelligible differentia between the classes which are to be treated differently, and

○ there is a rational nexus between the differential treatment and the aim of such differentiation, and

○ the aim sought to be furthered is legitimate, and is related to the security, stability, or efficient functioning of the network, or is a technical limitation outside the control of the ISP^{^[33]}, and

○ the network management practice is the least harmful manner in which to achieve the aim.

● Provision of specialized services (i.e., "fast lanes") is permitted if and only if it is shown that

○ The service is available to the user only upon request, and not without their active choice, and

○ The service cannot be reasonably provided with "best efforts" delivery guarantee that is available over the Internet, and hence requires discriminatory treatment, or

○ The discriminatory treatment does not unduly harm the provision of the rest of the Internet to other customers.

These principles are only applicable at the level of ISPs, and not on access gateways for institutions that may in some cases be run by ISPs (such as a university network, free municipal WiFi, at a work place, etc.), which are not to be regulated as common carriers.

These principles may be applied on a case-by-case basis by a regulator, either suo motu or upon complaint by customers.

^{^[1]} Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, (19 May 2011), http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/A.HRC.17.27_en.pdf.

^{^[2]} Available at http://www.trai.gov.in/WriteReadData/userfiles/file/NTP%202012.pdf.

^{^[3]} IAMAI, India to Cross 300 million internet users by Dec 14, (19 November, 2014), http://www.iamai.in/PRelease_detail.aspx?nid=3498&NMonth=11&NYear=2014.

^{^[4]} World Economic Forum, The Global Information Technology Report 2015, http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_IT_Report_2015.pdf.

^{^[5]} http://www.ictregulationtoolkit.org/4.1#s4.1.1

^{^[6]} See R.U.S. Prasad, The Impact of Policy and Regulatory Decisions on Telecom Growth in India (July 2008), http://web.stanford.edu/group/siepr/cgi-bin/siepr/?q=system/files/shared/pubs/papers/pdf/SCID361.pdf.

^{^[7]} 1973 AIR 106

^{^[8]} 1962 AIR 305

^{^[9]} "When ISPs go beyond their traditional use of IP headers to route packets, privacy risks begin to emerge." Alissa Cooper, How deep must DPI be to incur privacy risk? http://www.alissacooper.com/2010/01/25/how-deep-must-dpi-be-to-incur-privacy-risk/

^{^[10]} Richard T.B. Ma & Vishal Misra, The Public Option: A Non-Regulatory Alternative to Network Neutrality, http://dna-pubs.cs.columbia.edu/citation/paperfile/200/netneutrality.pdf

^{^[11]} Mobile number portability was launched in India on January 20, 2011 in the Haryana circle. See http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pm-launches-nationwide-mobile-number-portability/1/127176.html . Accessed on April 24, 2015.

^{^[12]} For a comprehensive list of all TRAI interconnection regulations & subsequent amendments, see http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/Regulation/0_1_REGULATIONS.aspx.

^{^[13]} See Telecommunication Interconnection Usage Charges (Eleventh Amendment) Regulations, 2015 (1 of 2015), available at http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/Regulation/0_1_REGULATIONS.aspx.

^{^[14]} Article 30 of the Universal Service Directive, Directive 2002/22/EC.

^{^[15]} See Telecommunication Mobile Number Portability (Sixth Amendment) Regulations, 2015 (3 of 2015), available at http://www.trai.gov.in/Content/Regulation/0_1_REGULATIONS.aspx.

^{^[16]} The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Seventh) (The Direct to Home Services) Tariff Order, 2015 (2 of 2015).

^{^[17]} Section 8, Cable Television Networks Act, 1995.

^{^[18]} TRAI writes new rules for Cable TV, Channels, Consumers, REAL TIME NEWS, (August 11, 2014), http://rtn.asia/rtn/233/1220_trai-writes-new-rules-cable-tv-channels-consumers.

^{^[19]} An initial requirement for all multi system operators to have a minimum capacity of 500 channels was revoked by the TDSAT in 2012. For more details, see http://www.televisionpost.com/cable/msos-not-required-to-have-500-channel-headends-tdsat/.

^{^[20]} Aparna Ghosh, Bharti SoftBank Invests $14 million in Hike, LIVE MINT, (April 2, 2014), http://www.livemint.com/Companies/nI38YwQL2eBgE6j93lRChM/Bharti-SoftBank-invests-14-million-in-mobile-messaging-app.html.

^{^[21]} Mike Masnick, Can We Kill This Ridiculous Shill-Spread Myth That CDNs Violate Net Neutrality? They Don't, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140812/04314528184/can-we-kill-this-ridiculous-shill-spread-myth-that-cdns-violate-net-neutrality-they-dont.shtml.

^{^[22]} Mathew Carley, What is Hayai's stance on "Net Neutrality"?, https://www.hayai.in/faq/hayais-stance-net-neutrality?c=mgc20150419

^{^[23]} Helani Galpaya & Shazna Zuhyle, South Asian Broadband Service Quality: Diagnosing the Bottlenecks, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1979928

^{^[24]} DTH players told to offer pay channels on la carte basis, HINDU BUSINESS LINE (July 22, 2010), http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/dth-players-told-to-offer-pay-channels-on-la-carte-basis/article999298.ece.

^{^[25]} The Telecommunication (Broadcasting and Cable) Services (Fourth) (Addressable Systems) Tariff Order, 2010.

^{^[26]} These suggestions were provided by Helani Galpaya and Sunil Abraham, based in some cases on existing practices.

^{^[27]} This is what is being followed by the Jana Loyalty Program: http://www.betaboston.com/news/2015/05/06/with-a-new-loyalty-program-mobile-app-marketplace-jana-pushes-deeper-into-the-developing-world/

^{^[28]} Example: free Internet access at low speeds, with data caps.

^{^[29]} Example: special "packs" for specific services like WhatsApp.

^{^[30]} Example: zero-rating of all locally-peered settlement-free traffic.

^{^[31]} Example: "leaky" walled gardens, such as the Jana Loyalty Program that provide limited access to all of the Web alongside access to the zero-rated content.

^{^[32]} Example: Wikipedia Zero.

^{^[33]} A CGNAT would be an instance of such a technology that poses network limitations.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/regulatory-perspectives-on-net-neutrality

Re-Wiring Women's Rights Debates in the Digital Age

praskrishna — 2015-02-12T17:07:32Z

IT for Change in partnership with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan and ANANDI organized this event on September 13 and 14, 2014. Rohini Lakshane participated as a speaker.

Website:
http://www.itforchange.net/ITfC_Course_Re-wiring_womens_rights/index.php/Agenda

Speakers List:
http://www.itforchange.net/ITfC_Course_Re-wiring_womens_rights/index.php/Session_speakers

Video

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/re-wiring-women-rights-debates-in-digital-age

ICT Awareness Program for Myanmar Parliamentarians in Yangon

praskrishna — 2014-07-29T09:37:26Z

Myanmar ICT for Development Organization-MIDO conducted ICT policy training for multi- party parliamentarian representatives in Yangon on July 26 and 27, 2014. Sunil Abraham presented on Innovation Ecosystem and Thinking about Internet Regulation.

Sunil's Presentations

Schedule

Day 1	Topic	Resource Person
0930-1030	What is the significance of ICTs to legislators?	Rohan Samarajiva (RS)
1030-1115	Stories from the field: What do poor people do with ICTs?	Helani Galpaya (HG)
1115-1145	Break
1145-1245	Legislation, policies, plans, strategies, regulation	RS
1245-1330	Modalities of making and implementing ICT policy	RS and HG
1330-1430	Lunch	Videos
1430-1530	What is independent regulation? Why is it needed for sector growth	RS
1530-1600	Break
1600-1700	Panel discussion: How social media can be used in public life	Sunil Abraham (SA), RS & Charitha Herath (CH)
Day 2
930-1030	Regulation of online speech	Nay Phone Latt (NPL)
1030-1100	Break
1100-1200	How to think about Internet policy	SA; counterpoint by CH
1200-1300	Hope in the heart and money in the pocket: Results of effective policy	RS
1300-1400	Lunch	Videos

We plan to have simultaneous interpretation. There will be time for discussion within each session.

Brief descriptions of sessions

What is the significance of ICTs to legislators?

Rohan Samarajiva

This is the introduction, wherein we bring out the economic, social and political significance of ICTs. Why legislators should pay attention to the subject.

Stories from the field: What do poor people do with ICTs?

Helani Galpaya

Here we present the findings of how the poor use ICTs, using demand-side data (both quant and quality) from Myanmar and countries in similar circumstances.

Legislation, policies, plans, strategies, regulation

In this session, a former policy advisor/regulator will present a perspective on the important distinctions between legislation, policies, plans, strategies, and regulation.

Modalities of making and implementing ICT policy

RS and HG

Here we will delve into the practical details of making policy and of implementing policy, using examples.

What is independent regulation? Why is it needed for sector growth

Progress in electronic connectivity is the foundation that will reduce the frictions in the Myanmar economy, create jobs and exports and enable social, political and economic innovations. This requires massive investments, most of which will be private and most of which will come from outside the country. What legislators need to know about creating an environment that will attract and retain foreign investment in a globalized economy will be discussed.

How social media can be used in public life

Sunil Abraham, RS and Charitha Herath

In the panel discussion, SA will pose questions to a policy advisor who has used social media in a political campaign and a social media savvy current government official.

How to think about Internet policy

SA; counterpoint by CH

A leading advocate of enlightened Internet policy, Sunil Abraham of the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore, India, will present his ideas, highlighting the international dimension of Internet policy. CH will share his perspectives as a serving government official.

Regulation of online speech

Nay Phone Latt

Here, Myanmar’s leading blogger and founder of MIDO will discuss the current concerns with legislation that seeks to control online speech.

Hope in the heart and money in the pocket: Results of effective policy

Results of effective policy implementation will be discussed with reference to specific country experiences.

Resource persons

Rohan Samarajiva, PhD, (program director) is founding Chair of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across emerging Asian and Pacific economies. He was Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology (2002-04) responsible for infrastructure reforms, including participation in the design of the USD 83 million e-Sri Lanka Initiative. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka (1998-99). In this capacity, he established the Telecom Regulatory Commission of Sri Lanka; conducted the first public hearing and public notice proceedings; successfully concluded a license-violation proceeding; and laid the foundation for a competitive market. He was also a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (2003-05), Honorary Professor at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka (2003-04), Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-03) and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000). Dr. Samarajiva was also Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh (2007-09).

Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of Bangalore based research organization, the Centre for Internet and Society. He founded Mahiti in 1998, a company committed to creating high impact technology and communications solutions. Today, Mahiti employs more than 50 engineers. Sunil continues to serve on the board. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was also granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.

Helani Galpaya is LIRNEasia’s Chief Executive Officer. Helani leads LIRNEasia’s 2012-2014 IDRC funded research on improving customer life cycle management practices in the delivery of electricity and e-government services using ICTs. She recently completed an assessment of how the poor in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka use telecenters to access government services. For UNCTAD and GTZ she authored a report on how government procurement practices can be used to promote a country’s ICT sector and for the World Bank/InfoDev Broadband Toolkit, a report on broadband strategies in Sri Lanka. She has been an invited speaker at various international forums on topics ranging from m-Government to ICT indicators to communicating research to policy makers. Prior to LIRNEasia, Helani worked at the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka, implementing the World-Bank funded e-Sri Lanka initiative. Prior to her return to Sri Lanka, she worked in the United States at Booz & Co., Marengo Research, Citibank, and Merrill Lynch. Helani holds a Masters in Technology and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from Mount Holyoke College, USA.

Charitha Herath has served as Secretary, Ministry of Mass Media and Information in the Government of Sri Lanka since 2012. Prior to his present appointment, he was the Chairman of the Central Environment Authority. Currently on secondment for national services from his permanent academic position as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka, he continues to work on his academic research, specializing in governments and politics in Asia, ethnic studies, cultural psychology, social and political philosophy, with his main focus on political psychology. More detail at http://charithaherath.wordpress.com/about-2/

Nay Phone Latt is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO). He graduated from Yangon Technological University with a civil engineering degree in 2004. He co-founded the Myanmar Blogger Society in 2007. Award winner of PEN Barbara Goldsmith Award and RFS’s Cyber Dissidents Award. Former Political Prisoner. CEC Member of Myanmar Journalists Association(MJA) Chief Editor of ThanLwinAinMat Online Magazine (www.thanlwin.com). Member of Board of Directors of House of Media & Entertainment (HOME).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/ict-awareness-program-for-myanmar-parliamentarians-yangon

Information & Communication Technology in Making a Healthy Information Society with special reference to use of ICTS in Educational Technology

praskrishna — 2014-07-18T09:06:20Z

The Department of Computer Science, Andhra Loyola College in collaboration with the Department of Computer Science, Krishna University will be organizing a UGC-sponsored National Seminar on August 11 and 12, 2014 at Andhra Loyola College in Vijayawada.

T. Vishnu Vardhan, Programme Director, Access to Knowledge from the Centre for Internet and Society will be giving a key note address at this event.

See the invitation below:

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/information-communication-technology-in-making-a-healthy-information-society-with-special-reference-to-use-of-icts-in-educational-technology

WSIS+10 High Level Event: A Bird's Eye Report

geetha — 2014-06-20T15:57:32Z

The WSIS+10 High Level was organised by the ITU and collaborative UN entities on June 9-13, 2014. It aimed to evaluate the progress on implementation of WSIS Outcomes from Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005, and to envision a post-2015 Development Agenda. Geetha Hariharan attended the event on CIS' behalf.

The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) +10 High Level Event (HLE) was hosted at the ITU Headquarters in Geneva, from June 9-13, 2014. The HLE aimed to review the implementation and progress made on information and communication technology (ICT) across the globe, in light of WSIS outcomes (Geneva 2003 and Tunis 2005). Organised in three parallel tracks, the HLE sought to take stock of progress in ICTs in the last decade (High Level track), initiate High Level Dialogues to formulate the post-2015 development agenda, as well as host thematic workshops for participants (Forum track).

The High Level Track:

Opening Ceremony, WSIS+10 High Level Event (Source)

The High Level track opened officially on June 10, 2014, and culminated with the endorsement by acclamation (as is ITU tradition) of two Outcome Documents. These were: (1) WSIS+10 Statement on the Implementation of WSIS Outcomes, taking stock of ICT developments since the WSIS summits, (2) WSIS+10 Vision for WSIS Beyond 2015, aiming to develop a vision for the post-2015 global information society. These documents were the result of the WSIS+10 Multi-stakeholder Preparatory Platform (MPP), which involved WSIS stakeholders (governments, private sector, civil society, international organizations and relevant regional organizations).

The MPP met in six phases, convened as an open, inclusive consultation among WSIS stakeholders. It was not without its misadventures. While ITU Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré consistently lauded the multi-stakeholder process, and Ambassador Janis Karklins urged all parties, especially governments, to “let the UN General Assembly know that the multi-stakeholder model works for Internet governance at all levels”, participants in the process shared stories of discomfort, disagreement and discord amongst stakeholders on various IG issues, not least human rights on the Internet, surveillance and privacy, and multi-stakeholderism. Richard Hill of the Association for Proper Internet Governance (APIG) and the Just Net Coalition writes that like NETmundial, the MPP was rich in a diversity of views and knowledge exchange, but stakeholders failed to reach consensus on crucial issues. Indeed, Prof. Vlamidir Minkin, Chairman of the MPP, expressed his dismay at the lack of consensus over action line C9. A compromise was agreed upon in relation to C9 later.

Some members of civil society expressed their satisfaction with the extensive references to human rights and rights-centred development in the Outcome Documents. While governmental opposition was seen as frustrating, they felt that the MPP had sought and achieved a common understanding, a sentiment echoed by the ITU Secretary General. Indeed, even Iran, a state that had expressed major reservations during the MPP and felt itself unable to agree with the text, agreed that the MPP had worked hard to draft a document beneficial to all.

Concerns around the MPP did not affect the review of ICT developments over the last decade. High Level Panels with Ministers of ICT from states such as Uganda, Bangladesh, Sweden, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia and others, heads of the UN Development Programme, UNCTAD, Food and Agriculture Organisation, UN-WOMEN and others spoke at length of rapid advances in ICTs. The focus was largely on ICT access and affordability in developing states. John E. Davies of Intel repeatedly drew attention to innovative uses of ICTs in Africa and Asia, which have helped bridge divides of affordability, gender, education and capacity-building. Public-private partnerships were the best solution, he said, to affordability and access. At a ceremony evaluating implementation of WSIS action-lines, the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), India, won an award for its e-health application MOTHER.

The Outcome Documents themselves shall be analysed in a separate post. But in sum, the dialogue around Internet governance at the HLE centred around the success of the MPP. Most participants on panels and in the audience felt this was a crucial achievement within the realm of the UN, where the Tunis Summit had delineated strict roles for stakeholders in paragraph 35 of the Tunis Agenda. Indeed, there was palpable relief in Conference Room 1 at the CICG, Geneva, when on June 11, Dr. Touré announced that the Outcome Documents would be adopted without a vote, in keeping with ITU tradition, even if consensus was achieved by compromise.

The High Level Dialogues:

Prof. Vladimir Minkin delivers a statement. (Source)

The High Level Dialogues on developing a post-2015 Development Agenda, based on WSIS action lines, were active on June 12. Introducing the Dialogue, Dr. Touré lamented the Millennium Development Goals as a “lost opportunity”, emphasizing the need to alert the UN General Assembly and its committees as to the importance of ICTs for development.

As on previous panels, there was intense focus on access, affordability and reach in developing countries, with Rwanda and Bangladesh expounding upon their successes in implementing ICT innovations domestically. The world is more connected than it was in 2005, and the ITU in 2014 is no longer what it was in 2003, said speakers. But we lack data on ICT deployment across the globe, said Minister Knutssen of Sweden, recalling the gathering to the need to engage all stakeholders in this task. Speakers on multiple panels, including the Rwandan Minister for CIT, Marilyn Cade of ICANN and Petra Lantz of the UNDP, emphasized the need for ‘smart engagement’ and capacity-building for ICT development and deployment.

A crucial session on cybersecurity saw Dr. Touré envision a global peace treaty accommodating multiple stakeholders. On the panel were Minister Omobola Johnson of Nigeria, Prof. Udo Helmbrecht of the European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA), Prof. A.A. Wahab of Cybersecurity Malaysia and Simon Muller of Facebook. The focus was primarily on building laws and regulations for secure communication and business, while child protection was equally considered.

The lack of laws/regulations for cybersecurity (child pornography and jurisdictional issues, for instance), or other legal protections (privacy, data protection, freedom of speech) in rapidly connecting developing states was noted. But the question of cross-border surveillance and wanton violations of privacy went unaddressed except for the customary, unavoidable mention. This was expected. Debates in Internet governance have, in the past year, been silently and invisibly driven by the Snowden revelations. So too, at WSIS+10 Cybersecurity, speakers emphasized open data, information exchange, data ownership and control (the right to be forgotten), but did not openly address surveillance. Indeed, Simon Muller of Facebook called upon governments to publish their own transparency reports: A laudable suggestion, even accounting for Facebook’s own undetailed and truncated reports.

In a nutshell, the post-2015 Development Agenda dialogues repeatedly emphasized the importance of ICTs in global connectivity, and their impact on GDP growth and socio-cultural change and progress. The focus was on taking this message to the UN General Assembly, engaging all stakeholders and creating an achievable set of action lines post-2015.

The Forum Track:

Participants at the UNESCO session on its Comprehensive Study on Internet-related Issues (Source)

The HLE was organized as an extended version of the WSIS Forum, which hosts thematic workshops and networking opportunities, much like any other conference. Running in parallel sessions over 5 days, the WSIS Forum hosted sessions by the ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, ICANN, ISOC, APIG, etc., on issues as diverse as the WSIS Action Lines, the future of Internet governance, the successes and failures of WCIT-2012, UNESCO’s Comprehensive Study on Internet-related Issues, spam and a taxonomy of Internet governance.

Detailed explanation of each session I attended is beyond the scope of this report, so I will limit myself to the interesting issues raised.

At ICANN’s session on its own future (June 9), Ms. Marilyn Cade emphasized the importance of national and regional IGFs for both issue-awareness and capacity-building. Mr. Nigel Hickson spoke of engagement at multiple Internet governance fora: “Internet governance is not shaped by individual events”. In light of criticism of ICANN’s apparent monopoly over IANA stewardship transition, this has been ICANN’s continual response (often repeated at the HLE itself). Also widely discussed was the role of stakeholders in Internet governance, given the delineation of roles and responsibilities in the Tunis Agenda, and governments’ preference for policy-monopoly (At WSIS+10, Indian Ambassador Dilip Sinha seemed wistful that multilateralism is a “distant dream”).

This discussion bore greater fruit in a session on Internet governance ‘taxonomy’. The session saw Mr. George Sadowsky, Dr. Jovan Kurbalija, Mr. William Drake and Mr. Eliot Lear (there is surprisingly no official profile-page on Mr. Lear) expound on dense structures of Internet governance, involving multiple methods of classification of Internet infrastructure, CIRs, public policy issues, etc. across a spectrum of ‘baskets’ – socio-cultural, economic, legal, technical. Such studies, though each attempting clarity in Internet governance studies, indicate that the closer you get to IG, the more diverse and interconnected the eco-system gets. David Souter’s diagrams almost capture the flux of dynamic debate in this area (please see pages 9 and 22 of this ISOC study).

There were, for most part, insightful interventions from session participants. Mr. Sadowsky questioned the effectiveness of the Tunis Agenda delineation of stakeholder-roles, while Mr. Lear pleaded that techies be let to do their jobs without interference. Ms. Anja Kovacs raised pertinent concerns about including voiceless minorities in a ‘rough consensus’ model. Across sessions, questions of mass surveillance, privacy and data ownership rose from participants. The protection of human rights on the Internet – especially freedom of expression and privacy – made continual appearance, across issues like spam (Question 22-1/1 of ITU-D Study Group 1) and cybersecurity.

Conclusion:

The HLE was widely attended by participants across WSIS stakeholder-groups. At the event, a great many relevant questions such as the future of ICTs, inclusions in the post-2015 Development Agenda, the value of muti-stakeholder models, and human rights such as free speech and privacy were raised across the board. Not only were these raised, but cognizance was taken of them by Ministers, members of the ITU and other collaborative UN bodies, private sector entities such as ICANN, technical community such as the ISOC and IETF, as well as (obviously) civil society.

Substantively, the HLE did not address mass surveillance and privacy, nor of expanding roles of WSIS stakeholders and beyond. Processually, the MPP failed to reach consensus on several issues comfortably, and a compromise had to be brokered.

But perhaps a big change at the HLE was the positive attitude to multi-stakeholder models from many quarters, not least the ITU Secretary General Dr. Hamadoun Touré. His repeated calls for acceptance of multi-stakeholderism left many members of civil society surprised and tentatively pleased. Going forward, it will be interesting to track the ITU and the rest of UN’s (and of course, member states’) stances on multi-stakeholderism at the ITU Plenipot, the WSIS+10 Review and the UN General Assembly session, at the least.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/wsis-10-high-level-event-a-birds-eye-report

Syllabus: “Policy and regulation conducive to rapid ICT sector growth in Myanmar: An introductory course”

praskrishna — 2013-10-24T03:56:31Z

A five-day course is being offered by LIRNEasia in collaboration with Myanmar ICT Development Organization, with support from the Open Society Foundation and the International Development Research Centre of Canada in Myanmar from September 28 to October 5, 2013.

Sunil Abraham will be supporting Prof. Samarajiva on the last optional day of this course in Yangon. Read about the Introductory course on “Policy and regulation conducive to rapid ICT sector growth in Myanmar”

Goal

To enable members of Myanmar civil-society groups (including academics and those from the media) to marshal available research and evidence for effective participation in policy and regulatory processes, thereby improving policy processes and helping achieve the government’s objective of providing ICT access to all.

Outcomes

The objective of the course is to produce discerning and knowledgeable consumers of research who are able to engage in an informed manner in ICT policy and regulatory processes in Myanmar. The course will benefit those working in government and operators as well.

At the end of the course attendees will:

Have an understanding of telecom policy and regulatory processes
Be able to find and assess relevant research & evidence
Be able to summarize the research in a coherent and comprehensive manner
Have the necessary tools to improve their communication skills

- Have some understanding of how media functions and how to effectively interact with media

Assignments

Participants will be formed into teams on Day1. Each group will work on an assignment that addresses both substantive and procedural aspects of law, policy and regulation. Teams will be assigned topic areas that are being developed into regulations under the new Act. They will have to make presentations on what the desirable provisions should be. We will emphasize the procedural aspects as well as the substantive. Disciplined and focused team presentations, preferably using slides, are required.

It is necessary to use the Internet for the assignments. All who have laptops are encouraged to bring them. Arrangements will be made for Internet connectivity at the hotel.

Tentative topic areas

Licensing and authorization regulations
Essential facilities and anti-competitive practices
Universal service policy
Price and quality regulation
Independence of regulatory agency

Course schedule

	Day 1 (September 28)	Day 2 (September 29)	Day 3 (September 30)	Day4 (October 1)	Day 5 (October 2) (optional)
09:00-10:30	S1 Introduction to course: What have been the results of reform & rationale for regulation. Rohan Samarajiva (RS)	S5 Regulatory legitimacy, including procedural legitimacy (RS)	S10 Challenges of monitoring complex license commitments (HG)	S14 How does the Internet work? (TBA)	S16 Internet governance The big picture. Sunil Abraham (SA)
10:30-11:00	Break	Break	Break	Break
11:00-12:00	S2 Interrogating supply-side indicators & research based on them. Helani Galpaya (HG)	S6 Current status of telecom law and policy in Myanmar (RS)	S11 How evidence is used in policy & regulation (panel discussion, KS, RS	S15 The art of media interaction (RS)	S17 Economic & technical interface with telecom industry (RS)
12:00-13:00	S3 Finding information on the web. Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne (RLG)	S7 Presenting evidence in slides & written submissions (HG)	S12 Essential facilities and anti-competitive practices (RS)	A3 Mock public hearing (RS & panel)	S18 How Internet is governed within India (SA)
13:00-14:00	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Lunch
14:00-15:00	A1 Group formation; Assignment explained (HG and RLG)	S8 Licensing and authorization (RS)	A2 Midpoint check on assignment/group work (HG and RLG)	A4 Mock public hearing & critique (RS & panel)	S19 Content regulation (TBA)
15:00-15:30	Break	Break	Break
15:30-17:00	S4 Demand-side research (RS)	S9 Price and quality regulation (RS & HG)	S13 Universal service subsidies: Theory & practice (RS & KS)	Reflection on the course	S20 Surveillance & privacy (SA & RS)
17:00	Group work	Group work	Group work
19:00	Welcome dinner Speaker: TBA

Faculty

Sunil Abraham is the Executive Director of CIS. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate. He founded Mahiti in 1998 which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software. Today, Mahiti employs more than 50 engineers and Sunil continues to serve on the board as a board member. Sunil was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1999 to 'explore the democratic potential of the Internet' and was granted a Sarai FLOSS fellowship in 2003. Between June 2004 and June 2007, he managed the International Open Source Network, a project of the UNDP's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. Between September 2007 and June 2008, he also managed ENRAP, an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Roshanthi Lucas Gunaratne is a Research Manager at LIRNEasia and is currently managing the Ford Foundation Funded project on Giving Broadband Access to the Poor in India. She is also contributing to the IDRC Customer Lifecycle Management Practices Project by conducting research on customer lifecycle management practices in telecommunication sector in Bangladesh. Before joining LIRNEasia, Roshanthi worked at the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Geneva, Switzerland as a Strategic Information Officer. She contributed to the process of defining the Global Fund Key Performance Indicators, and also worked on improving the performance measurements of their grants. Prior to that, she worked as a telecom project manager at Dialog Telecom, and Suntel Ltd in Sri Lanka. As Suntel she managed the design and implementation of corporate customer projects. She holds a MBA from the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, UK and a BSc. Eng (Hons) specializing in Electronics and Telecommunication from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.

Rajat Kathuria, PhD

Rohan Samarajiva, PhD, is founding Chair of LIRNEasia, an ICT policy and regulation think tank active across emerging Asian and Pacific economies. He was Team Leader at the Sri Lanka Ministry for Economic Reform, Science and Technology (2002-04) responsible for infrastructure reforms, including participation in the design of the USD 83 million e-Sri Lanka Initiative. He was Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka (1998-99), a founder director of the ICT Agency of Sri Lanka (2003-05), Honorary Professor at the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka (2003-04), Visiting Professor of Economics of Infrastructures at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-03) and Associate Professor of Communication and Public Policy at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000). Dr. Samarajiva was also Policy Advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh (2007-09).

Koesmarihati Sugondo

Resource Material

infodev, ICT regulation toolkit. http://www.ictregulationtoolkit.org/en/Index.html

infoDev. Broadband strategies toolkit. http://broadbandtoolkit.org/en/toolkit/contents

infoDev (2011). Tenth anniversary telecom regulation handbook. http://www.infodev.org/En/Publication.1057.html

ITU (2011). The role of ICT in advancing growth in least developed countries: Trends, challenges and opportunities. Geneva: ITU. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ldc/turkey/docs/The_Role_of_ICT_in_Advancing_Growth_in_LDCs_Trends_Challenges_and_Opportunities.pdf

Samarajiva, Rohan (2000). The role of competition in institutional reform of telecommunications: Lessons from Sri Lanka, Telecommunications Policy, 24(8/9): 699-717. http://www.comunica.org/samarajiva.html

Samarajiva, Rohan (2002). Why regulate?, chapter 2 of Effective regulation: Trends in Telecommunication Reform 2002. Geneva: International Telecommunication Union.

Samarajiva, Rohan (2006). Preconditions for effective deployment of wireless technologies for development in the Asia-Pacific, Information Technology and International Development, 3(2): 57-71. http://itidjournal.org/itid/article/view/224/94

Samarajiva, Rohan & Zainudeen, Ayesha (2008). ICT infrastructure in emerging Asia: Policy and regulatory roadblocks, New Delhi & Ottawa: Sage & IDRC http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-117916-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/policy-and-regulation-conducive-to-rapid-ict-growth-in-myanmar

Towards a Global Network of Internet and Society Centres

praskrishna — 2013-06-05T07:29:43Z

This event was held in Istanbul by Bilgi University as part of the collaboration on Global Network of Interdisciplinary Internet and Society Research Centres.

Chinmayi Arun spoke on the Internet Governance panel at the conference on 'ICT, Law and Innovation: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Lessons Learned'.

Second International e-Governance Conference

praskrishna — 2012-12-11T10:50:29Z

The second international conference on governance and electronics which is held under the motto "Together Toward Digital Inclusion" is organized by the National Committee for Corporate Governance Electronic Iraq and the United Nations Development Programme at Rashid Hotel in Baghdad from December 2-3, 2012. The event aims to review the achievements of the program e-governance Iraqi national, and discuss the challenges of applying e-governance as a tool to achieve public sector reform and digital inclusion.

Sunil Abraham is a speaker at this event and is presenting on "Review of the Legal Environment in Iraq for Effective e-Governance", and "Government Interoperability Frameworks: Global Overview and implications for Iraq".

Conference Agenda

Sunday, December 2, 2012

09:00 – 10:00	Conference Registration
10:00 – 11:00	Opening Ceremony H.E. Nuri Al-Maliki, Prime Minister of Iraq Ms. Helen Clark, UNDP Administrator H.E. Dr. Abdul Kareem Al-Samaraii, Minister of Science and Technology
11:00 – 11:30	Break
11:30 – 12:30	Plenary session 1: e-Governance and Public Sector Reform Chairman: Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology Mr. Thamir Al Ghadban, Head of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Commission (PMAC) Prof. Subhash Bhatnagar, UNDP Expert Q & A
12:30 – 13:30	Plenary session 2: Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society Chairman: Mr. Imad Naji, Director General - Ministry of Planning Dr. Laurence Millar, UNDP Expert Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning Q & A
13:30 – 13:40	Plenary Session 3: Challenges of e-Governance Implementation Chairman: Dr. Mahmood Kassim Sharief, Director General – Ministry of Science and Technology
13:40 – 14:00	Break
14:00 – 15:30	Workshop 1: Challenges of implementing an adequate telecommunications infrastructure and Highlighting the role of the private sector and the establishment of the concept of true public-private sector partnership in the field of e-governance Chairman: Mr. Jaber Zwayed Atiyah, Director General – National Security Commission Dr. Rohan Samarajiva Lirne, UNDP Expert Dr. Shahani Markus Weerawarana, UNDP Expert Ms. Raghad Abdulrasoul National Centre for Consultation and Management Development/Ministry of Planning Q&A
13:30 – 14:30	Lunch @ AL-Rashid

Monday, December 3, 2012

09:00 – 09:15	Closure of the Plenary Session 3 Presentation of workshop results
09:15 – 10:45	Plenary Session 4: Effective Role of Local Governments in Framework of e-Governance Program Chairman: Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning Mr. Manu Srivastava, UNDP Expert Dr. Adil Abdullah Shuhaieb, member of e-Governance Committee in Missan Governorate Mr. Anmar Natik Mohammed, Manager of e-Governance Programme in Ninawa Governorate Eng Haider Shaker Yaji , Muthana Governorate Q&A
10:45 – 11:00	Break
11:00 – 12:00	Plenary Session 5: Challenges of Government Interoperability Framework Implementation, Standards and Information Chairman: Mr. Mohammed Raji Mousa, Council of Ministers Secretariat (COMSEC) Mr. Sunil Abraham, UNDP Expert Mr. Ammar Salih and Dr. Firas Hamadani/ Minister of Foreign Affairs Q&A
12:00 – 13:00	Plenary Session 6: Building e-Services Chairman: Dr. Saad Najem / University of Mustanserieh Mr. Emilio Bugli Innocenti, UNDP Expert Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology Mr. Ahmed Saad, Director General – Ministry of Municipality and Public Work Q&A
13:00 – 14:30	Conference Closing Session Chairman: Dr. Samir Attar, Deputy Minister – Ministry of Science and Technology Looking forward Adopt conference recommendation UNDP Closing Speech Government of Iraq Speech
14:30 – 15:30	Lunch @ AL-Rashid

Papers/Speakers Bio Summary

Plenary Session 1: e-Governance and Public Sector Reform

Chairman: Dr. Adil Matloob, Minister IT Advisor – Ministry of Science and Technology

e-Governance and public sector reform/ Subhash Bhatnagar The paper shares experiences from different countries of implementing e-Governance projects that have significantly contributed to governance reform by enhancing transparency and reducing corruption in delivery of public services. Some lessons are drawn for Iraq. E-Governance should be used as a means of implementing public sector reform agenda. The implementation of projects should be accelerated. *Subhash Bhatnagar* is an alumnus of Indian Institute of Technology, Madras and Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). Currently he is an honorary adjunct professor at the IIMA. He was a Chair Professor, member of Board of Governors and the Dean of IIMA in his 30 year tenure at IIMA. He has been a visiting Professor in universities in the US and Africa. He worked with the World Bank in Washington DC for six years serving as an advisor to to mainstream e-Governance in the operations of the Bank. He has been a lead speaker in training workshops for ministers and legislators for 16 states in India. His research and consulting work has covered E-Governance, ICT for development, National IT Policy, and Corporate IT Strategy. He has hundred research papers and seven books to his credit which include two books on eGovernance. He is on the editorial boards of seven international journals and has served as Chairman of International Committees in the ICT field. He serves on a number of central and state Government committees in Inda including the steering committee for ICT sector for formulating India’s 12^th Five Year Plan. He was made a Fellow of the Computer Society of India in 1994. He has served on the boards of a number of educational institutions and private enterprises in India. He has travelled to nearly 60 countries, delivering public lectures and conference key notes

Plenary Session 2: Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society

Chairman: Mr. Imad Naji, Director General - Ministry of Planning

Citizen Inclusion into the Digital Society/ Laurence Millar This paper describes the importance of digital inclusion to achieve the e-governance Vision for Iraq. The paper reports on international experience in digital inclusion and e-governance, using examples from New Zealand, United Kingdom, Bahrain and Taiwan. These experiences illustrate how to develop a plan for increasing digital inclusion in Iraq which is aligned to the wider priorities for social and economic outcomes. Laurence Millar is an independent advisor in the use of ICT by governments, and Editor at Large for FutureGov magazine. He is the lead advisor for the e-government strategy and second action plan for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and has also worked with other GCC countries on their e-government strategies. He provides expert advice to the government on the adoption of digital technology and broadband in schools; he is also Chair of 2020 Communications Trust, which is the leading provider of digital literacy programmes in New Zealand. During his career of more than 35 years, he has worked in the public and private sector, in the UK, USA, Asia and New Zealand. From 2004, he led the New Zealand e-government programme providing leadership in strategy and policy, establishing a foundation of shared infrastructure, and maintaining oversight of government ICT investment; he finished in the role of NZ Government CIO on 1 May 2009. He is married with four adult children and lives in Wellington, New Zealand; he has a MA from Cambridge University and an MSc with distinction from London University.
The role of ICTs in promoting public participation/ Dr. Kathim Ibrisim Participation is a basic feature of good governance, which suggests providing a democratic environment in the community that allows the integration of citizens, institutions of civil society, stakeholders and the poor and marginalized groups into policy-making and follow-up implementation. As much a democratic atmosphere allows for participation good governance can achieve the hopes of community regardless of its different components. This paper provides an assessment of the reality of public participation in Iraq which is based on a survey of public participation in four sectors concerned with providing services (Health/Education/Higher Education/Water and Sanitation). It was carried out by the National Centre and the support of the ESCWA in 2011 - in the light of identification the main challenges facing the participation. It will focus on how to use ICT in promoting public participation in setting priorities and policy-making and follow-up implementation.
Dr. Kathim Mohammed Breisem Okabi, Director General of the National Center for Administrative Development and Information Technology since 2008, holds Ph.D. in object-oriented software engineering, M.A. in empirical computer science – 1989, Higher Diploma in systems analysis – 1982, and B.A. of Statistics – 1980. Dr. Kazem served as a professor at the universities of Jordan (Al al-Bayt University/Philadelphia University) for the period 1996-2008, a professor at the Al-Tahadi University/Libya for the period 1983 – 1992, and a statistician for the period 1980 -1983.

Plenary Session 3: Workshop 1 (Challenges of implementing an adequate telecommunications infrastructure and Highlighting the role of the private sector and the establishment of the concept of true public-private sector partnership in the field of e-governance)

Chairman: Dr. Mahmood Kassim Sharief, Director General – Ministry of Science and Technology

ICT Infrastructure for e-Government and e-Governance in Iraq / Rohan Samarajiva Lirne Governments provisioning e government services have to address two specific policy principles with regard to infrastructure: ensure universal access to their services and assure a higher level of reliability than with comparable private services. Unlike a decade or so ago, governments today do not have to rely solely on common-access centers (telecenters) to provide universal access. In most countries, mobile signals cover almost the entirety of the population; most households have at least one electronic access device; the few that do not, can gain such access. Today’s smartphones have capabilities little different from the early telecenters, except for functionalities such as printing, scanning, etc. and the support of intermediaries. Therefore, delivering voice-based e government services in the short term and mobile-optimized web-based services in the medium term, with common-access centers performing specialized backup functions, is a viable strategy. Conventional web interfaces that adhere to common standards must be maintained but articulated with mobile applications and voice-based services provided through a government call center. In light of difficulties in supplying continuous electricity and security at the present time, special attention has to be paid to reliability. Reliability can be achieved, beginning with a proper understanding of requirements such as the importance of ensuring redundancy of suppliers, paths and media. Samarajiva is founder Chair and CEO of LIRNEasia, a regional think tank focusing on ICT policy and regulation in the emerging Asia Pacific. He most recently completed a diagnostic report on the potential of the ICT Sector for inclusive growth in Bhutan for the Asian Development Bank. He is a member of the team supporting the World Bank to establish the Pacific ICT Regulatory Resource Center, based at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. He served as policy advisor to the Ministry of Post and Telecom in Bangladesh in 2006-07 and 2009. In 2002-2004, Samarajiva served as Team Leader of the Public Interest Program Unit of the Ministry for Economic Reform, Science & Technology of Sri Lanka. He was one of the designers of the USD 53 million plus e Sri Lanka Initiative (that had a major e gov focus) that led the way to rapid growth of fixed and mobile broadband in Sri Lanka. He was one of the founder directors of the ICT Agency. Samarajiva has been active in ICT (including telecom) policy and regulation for over 20 years. From 1998-1999, he served as Director General of Telecommunications in Sri Lanka at the invitation of the Government of Sri Lanka. He taught at the Ohio State University in the US (1987-2000) and at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands (2000-2003).
The role of private sector software development services companies in e-Government solution implementation/ Shahani Markus Weerawarana Iraq is a country in transformation and has embarked on a compelling vision for e-Government based on a National e-Governance Strategy and Action Plan. Since the private sector plays an important and pivotal role in any national e-Government program, it is important to develop a comprehensive roadmap towards establishing a true public-private sector partnership in Iraq. As a prerequisite for such an endeavor, we review the current status of the e-Government program implementation in Iraq, the critical challenges that need to be addressed in achieving a robust public-private sector partnership in Iraq and the best practices prevalent globally and regionally with respect to addressing such issues along with the resultant policy and program implications. Based on this critical analysis, we formulate many recommendations that could be included in a public-private sector partnership development roadmap that would create momentum in establishing a competitive and vibrant private-sector role in a knowledge-based economic environment geared towards enabling the vision of e-Iraq. Shahani Markus Weerawarana has global experience in the IT industry, government and academia, in a professional career has spanned many different roles, including being an educator, engineer, entrepreneur, manager and researcher. Currently, she is a Visiting Scientist at Indiana University, USA and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. Previously, she was the CTO at the ICT Agency (ICTA) of Sri Lanka, which is the country's apex IT policy & planning agency for implementing the e-Sri Lanka program. At ICTA, she played a key role in providing technical guidance for many eGovernment projects, including spearheading the design and implementation of LankaGate, a 'FutureGov' Award winning project. Prior to joining ICTA, Shahani was the Head of Engineering at Virtusa (Sri Lanka), where she directly and indirectly led more than 600 IT professionals. Before joining Virtusa Shahani worked in the USA, at Prescient Markets Inc and at the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in New York. Her professional activities have included being a member in the Sri Lankan Presidential Task Force in English and IT, an adviser to the Royal Government of Bhutan in their Interoperability Framework and Enterprise Architecture initiative, and a member of the Open eGovernance Forum Advisory Board in the Pan Asia Network for Democratic eGovernance. She is a free & open source software advocate and is a Committer and PMC member in the Apache Software Foundation. Shahani has more than 50 academic publications and her academic activities include the formulation of Asia's first MBA in eGovernance program for the University of Moratuwa, and the supervision of more than 30 MBA and MSc research projects. Her research interests include e-governance, software engineering, parallel & distributed systems, e-science, and TLA practices in higher education. Shahani has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Purdue University, USA.
Assess the reality of the public-private partnership (PPP) and its role in promoting ICT for development/ Raghad Abdulrasoul This paper, a field survey in four service sectors (health, education, higher education, water and sanitation), aims at identifying the reality and types of PPPs and how could such partnerships contribute in the provision of or complement services within the target sectors in addition to understand and recognize the quality of the services provided by the private sector than in the public sector with a focus on the role of PPP in the promotion of ICT to support national development efforts and improve the quality of public services. Raghad Abdulrasoul, an expert at the National Center for Administrative Development and Information Technology, Higher Diploma in Development Planning/specialty in feasibility studies and B.A. of Statistics. She has functional experience and participated in implementing projects with international organizations (UNICEF/UNDP/ESCWA) in different subjects dealing with the reform and modernization of the Iraqi public sector. She performed many advisory tasks for various institutions in the state in subjects (performance evaluation, organizational structures, job descriptions , mainstreaming of procedures). She provided a variety of lectures at the National Centre and state institutions in the areas of administration, planning and feasibility studies.

Workshop 2 Challenges for creating an enabling legal environment
Chairman: Mrs Afaf Khairallah Hussein, Prime Minister Office

Review of the legal environment in Iraq for effective e-Governance/ Sunil Abraham This paper examines the legal environment and compares it to international best practices for information society aspects that have direct implication for e-governance. It begins with transparency and openness law where there is an examination of right to information/access to information law and subsidiary policies such as free/open source software policy, open content or access policy, open standards policy, electronic accessibility policy, open government data policy. Then it examines privacy law looking at various options for the horizontal statute and also the vertical statutes necessary to comprehensive protect citizen/consumer rights and also public interest simultaneously. This is followed by an examination of intellectual property rights law overall before a more focussed examination patent law and copyright law. The paper ends with examination of some miscellaneous statutes such as the Cyber Crime Law and Electronic Signature and Electronic Transactions Act. Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore. CIS is a 4 year old policy and academic research organisation that focuses on accessibility by the disabled, intellectual property rights policy reform, openness [Free/Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Content, Open Access and Open Educational Resources], internet governance, telecom, digital natives and digital humanities. He is also the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Sunil continues to serve on the board of Mahiti. He is an Ashoka fellow and was elected for a Sarai FLOSS fellowship. For three years, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007 - 2008, he managed ENRAP an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific, facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada. Sunil currently serves on the advisory boards of Open Society Foundations - Information Programme, Mahiti, Tactical Technology Collective, Samvada and International Centre for Free/Open Source Software.
Implementation of the e-system in the Iraqi elections/Dr. Tariq Kazim Ajil, University of Thi Qar

Plenary Session 4: Effective Role of Local Governments in framework of e-Governance Program

Chairman: Dr. Kathim Ibrisim, Director General - Ministry of Planning

Municipal e-Governance Platform / Manu Srivastava The paper discusses the Municipal eGovernance Platform developed by eGovernments Foundation (eGov). The paper sees this in the back ground of the policies and frameworks that the shaped the Municipal eGovernance sector in India. The paper discusses the basic design approach for developing the platform, the platform itself and then discusses the future direction for the platform. *Manu Srivastava* Bio: Manu Srivastava managed and a founding member of the eGovernments Foundation since 2003, that aims at creating an eGovernance Platform (Municipal ERP) to improve the efficiencies of City Municipalities leading to better delivery of services. Between 2000 and 2003, Manu was the project leader of GlobeTrades (Silicon Valley), for creation an Internet platform for medium and large companies to set up industry specific Internet-based solutions to streamline global Procurement and Distribution. He Architected and delivered award winning Citizen Services Solutions in area of eGovernance such as Nirmala Nagara.
Ninawa e-Governance Roadmap/ Anmar Natik Mohammed, Manager of e-Governance Programme in Ninawa Governorate

Plenary Session 5: Challenges of Government Interoperability Framework Implementation, Standards and Information

Chairman: Mr. Mohammed Raji Mousa, Council of Ministers Secretariat (COMSEC)

Government Interoperability Frameworks: Global Overview and implications for Iraq/ Sunil Abraham This paper attempts to identify some next steps for the implementation of the Iraqi Government Interoperability Framework and National Enterprise Architecture[GIF/NEA]. The paper begins with an introduction which provides an historical overview of the GIF/NEA formulation process an the policy document itself. This is followed by a discussion of Open Standards to understand why the GIF/NEA and other open standards policies in the Iraqi government remain critical from a variety of perspectives. The paper then proceeds to look at GIFs across the world and attempts to characterize some of the strategies employed by governments to reach their policy objectives. The paper also features a examination of emerging semantic standards that are most useful from the perspective of storing government data. The paper ends with certain concrete recommendations for taking the open standards agenda forward with Iraqi e-governance. Sunil Abraham is the executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore. CIS is a 4 year old policy and academic research organisation that focuses on accessibility by the disabled, intellectual property rights policy reform, openness [Free/Open Source Software, Open Standards, Open Content, Open Access and Open Educational Resources], internet governance, telecom, digital natives and digital humanities. He is also the founder of Mahiti, a social enterprise aiming to reduce the cost and complexity of information and communication technology for the voluntary sector by using free software. Sunil continues to serve on the board of Mahiti. He is an Ashoka fellow and was elected for a Sarai FLOSS fellowship. For three years, Sunil also managed the International Open Source Network, a project of United Nations Development Programme's Asia-Pacific Development Information Programme, serving 42 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2007 - 2008, he managed ENRAP an electronic network of International Fund for Agricultural Development projects in the Asia-Pacific, facilitated and co-funded by International Development Research Centre, Canada. Sunil currently serves on the advisory boards of Open Society Foundations - Information Programme, Mahiti, Tactical Technology Collective, Samvada and International Centre for Free/Open Source Software.

Plenary Session 6: Building e-services

Chairman: Dr. Saad Najem / University of Mustanserieh

Breaking information silos: towards an Iraqi e-Service ecosystem supporting the life-event approach/ Emilio Bugli Innocenti This paper analyses the current status of the e-Service implementation within the e-Governance programmes in developing countries with a specific focus on the Life Event approach delivery of-e-Services along with the related Service Oriented Architecture. Then, it discusses the most suited SOA engineering methodology in order to boost e-Service re-use and integration. Finally, a combined SOA and Cloud Computing approach is proposed in order to provide an effective/efficient implementation of Iraqi e-Governance Action Plan along with a possible fast take-up of e-Services. Emilio Bugli Innocenti has 27 year experience in the ICT domain and over 20 in the e-Governance domain. As Senior e-Governance Consultant he has been working with assignments in transition and developing countries in the Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East, South America and South East Asia. He has been Project Manager of large International ICT projects targeting different sectors and e-Governance, in particular dealing with the implementation of e-Services. He is member of the Italian Industry Executive Association, IEEE Computer Society and Association for Computing Machinery. He holds a MSc in Physics and speaks English, Italian and French.
E-governance and cloud computing services This lecture addresses the historical perspective of cloud computing from a virtual concept to provide computing as a public facility launched in the mid-sixties of the last century as well as the phases of computing services offered by individual computers and then the network to the services provided on line. It also addresses the benefits and types of cloud computing comparing between the benefits and weaknesses of each type. Furthermore, it particularly tackles the economic benefits of balancing security with information, through the architecture and various levels of cloud computing and its impacts on architectures that must be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the ten risks will be put in cloud computing in particular. Adil Matloob is one of the advisors to the Ministry of Science & Technology Baghdad, Iraq. He works in the field of knowledge based systems and artificial intelligence for the last 30 plus years. He was the managing director of the SoftDev limited; a British based company, and a technical director for the Washington based multinational company; the United Press International. He is one of the pioneers’ researchers on machine translation software in the beginning of the nineties with the product known as ArabTrans software. He works on Arabic data mining as well as Arabic abstraction and Arabic knowledge based system. Adil has M.Sc and PhD from Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom in 1977 & 1980 respectively.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/second-international-e-governance-conference-at-baghdad

Civil society & industry oppose India’s plans to modify ITRs

praskrishna — 2012-11-30T09:42:17Z

Industry fears ITU control over Internet; excessive content control and surveillance an issue for civil society.

Shalini Singh's article was published in the Hindu on November 23, 2012.

India’s proposal on International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs), submitted last month to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), the U.N. agency responsible for information and communication technologies, has drawn opposition from, and fears of content control among, civil society and the industry alike.

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet Society, told The Hindu: “The Indian government’s position on the ITRs can be improved, particularly with regard to the proposed definitions, approach to cyber security, scope of regulation.” However, he said, “we are confident that the Indian position will protect consumer and citizen interest once the government implements changes based on inputs from all… stakeholders.”

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM), which represents the $100-billion IT and BPO industry, has strong views against the Internet governance model of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (ICANN), but favours self-regulation. Its president Som Mittal says: “NASSCOM does not favour oversight by an existing U.N. organisation like ITU. Internet and infrastructure have to be in the hands of expert organisations with proven experience.” NASSCOM has also expressed discomfort with the inclusion of “ICTs along with processing” in Section 21E of India’s proposal, since this would subject IT and BPO industries to inter-governmental regulation through the ITRs.

The Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), which represents India’s largest mobile operators with nearly 700 million subscribers, has also opposed any role for ITU in the areas of international roaming and Internet governance, fearing a direct impact on domestic network architecture, costs and technology choices. COAI director-general Rajan Mathews said: “We are already regulated by the Department of Telecom (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). Placing the ITU’s jurisdiction over us — where we neither have voice nor recourse — is unacceptable.” The COAI’s position is consistent with the GSM Association (GSMA), the world’s largest association of mobile companies representing 800 operators spanning 220 countries. The COAI further alleges that most of its inputs “have been rejected without reasons assigned or even a meeting.” It has lodged a protest with the DoT.

The Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) has similarly protested against ITU’s jurisdiction over issues of Internet governance, architecture and cost.

Subho Ray, president, Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), said: “We represent a vast majority of Internet companies but have not been consulted by the DoT. We are completely opposed to ITU’s jurisdiction in any area related to Internet policy.”

The FICCI has also given detailed inputs on the dangers of allowing ITU’s jurisdiction, especially in areas of Internet policy and governance. It supports a bottom-up consultative and consensus-led multi-stakeholder approach, similar to the one propounded by Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal at the Internet Governance Forum, the world’s largest multi-stakeholder conference, held in Baku.

Several prominent civil society groups and members of academia involved in Internet governance also have apprehensions about expanding the ITU’s reach to Internet regulation through the ITRs. In a November 15, 2012 letter to Telecom Secretary R. Chandrashekhar, Society for Knowledge Commons, Internet Democracy Project, Free Software Movement of India, Delhi Science Forum, Media for Change and Software Freedom Law Center have complained about not having been consulted, while warning that India’s proposal “could have far reaching implications for the Internet.”

On the issue of cyber security, industry associations and several civil society groups are unanimously against any role for ITU, pointing out that including ill-defined terms such as ‘spam’ and ‘network fraud’ in a binding treaty is a terrible idea. Further, cyber security commitments can force India to cooperate with countries whose military and strategic interests are against it.

Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India, and head of NASSCOM’s security initiatives, said: “Cyber security is sought to be taken over by ITU — an area in which it has little experience. Cyber security includes areas of application security, identity and access management, web security, content filtering, cyber forensics, data security, including issues such as cyber espionage and cyber warfare. The ITU has had no involvement in these matters over the last two decades, and should therefore stay out of them.”

Similar views have been expressed in varying degrees by the COAI, the IAMAI, the ISPAI and the FICCI. Dr. Ray of the IAMAI says: “cyber security is essentially a state prerogative and should not be part of an external treaty obligation. Any attempt to channel it through the ITU may be counter productive.”

Mr. Sibal, who has already been challenged by opposition to the domestic IT rules, is aware that if left unaddressed, opposition to India’s stance on ITRs will only escalate at a national and global level, and that if corrections have to be made in India’s position, those will have to be done consensually within the governance structure. Mr. Sibal confirmed that while cyber security was an area of discussion with the ITU, “the ITU does not have any role in Internet governance.”

According to him, either he or the Department will hold meetings on these issues with the industry to further evolve India’s position.

Mr. Chandrashekhar further confirmed that similar to several global national delegations, the government would include media and industry experts as part of its delegation to Dubai, the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12) will be held from December 3 to 14. The final decisions on the ITRs and the composition of the delegation would be announced the coming week.

A deeply divided house in Dubai is a strong possibility, with countries which favour democracy and free speech taking a stance against those who, due to political compulsions, have proposed inter-governmental control through the ITRs by the ITU, not just on Internet policy, but also its traffic and content, most of which automatically fall under the definitions of the ICTs.

The 193-countries at THE WCIT may well spend 11 days discussing national proposals to separate issues that can be addressed nationally from those which require inter-governmental cooperation, while further debating which platforms may be best to address global cooperation.

It is equally clear that the existing Internet governance system is unacceptable to most countries, and therefore a more evolved democratic and internationally equitable system, which is managed through a multi-stakeholder process and yet with a definite role for countries like India, appears the only way forward.

Mr. Sibal, at meetings with global Internet governance bodies in Baku, is learnt to have bargained hard for India’s explicit role in the existing Internet governance processes.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-nov-23-2012-shalini-singh-civil-society-and-industry-oppose-indias-plans-to-modify-itrs

Konkan Corridor Project — A Lecture by Vasant Gangavane

praskrishna — 2012-04-13T13:49:32Z

Well known social worker Vasant Gangavane will be giving a public lecture on the Konkan Corridor Project at Ashoka Innovators for the Public in Bangalore on April 16, 2012. The lecture will focus on the role of Information & Communication Technology for total rural transformation by inclusive integrated development with no change of land ownerships. The event is co-organized by Ashoka Innovators for the Public and the Centre for Internet and Society.

Citing examples from the 117 village clusters in the regions of Ratnagiri and Sindhudurga districts of Maharashtra the lecture hopes to throw light on questions like what is a village cluster, what does it mean to urbanize one village cluster and what do we need to do to urbanize one village cluster, how will we organize and coordinate the project. This apart the vision, status and action plans of the Konkan Corridor Project, the skills development in each cluster, intensive agriculture in each cluster, farm produce processing, water conservation in the project area, rivers in the project area, energy, transportation, industry, science communication, and self administration in each clusters will also be discussed.

Vasant Gangavane

In the 1970s Vasant Gangavane, a management graduate from Indian Institute of Management and Wharton, returned to his village in Konkan, Maharashtra, to give his people what he felt they needed most — the knowledge to manage their natural resources. In the process, he set up several models of rural development. Gangavane found that the rate at which people migrated out of the Konkan was very high, despite the fact that the area was rich in natural resources. He studied the area and realised that land improvement and watershed development were key issues. He conducted a series of experiments in agriculture, dairy and poultry farming before setting up the Gokul Prakalp Pratishthan (GPP) in 1978. With the Maharashtra government's comprehensive watershed management programme (COWDEP), Gangavane's Pratishthan afforested 400 hectares of land in Vilye village with mango and cashew trees. Gangavane then acquired 40 acres of wasteland in the village and built water conservation structures called Gokul bandharas. This resulted in the wells in the area being recharged and ensured enough drinking water for 25 families.This model was later adopted by the Indo-German Watershed Programme.

When Gangavane's project began, the village of Vilye was bereft of young people. Its young had migrated. Now there is reverse migration and 3,000 people have benefited from the programme. The village has been transformed — water runoff has been arrested and afforestation has changed the look of the village.

After the watershed programme, Gangavane formulated a theoretical plan for model villages called the Gokul project. The aim was communication and knowledgesharing. A participatory rural appraisal is also done to explore natural resource availability, potential and use. The awareness is meant to empower people and convince them that watershed programmes can address problems of poverty and inequity. Gangavane believes that with this knowledge, and with the resources available, a small family in the area can live sustainably.

Gangavane's Pratishthan has set up an Ashramshaala at Laanja, Ratnagiri district, which is a tribal residential school, where 300 children are provided free boarding and lodging up to the secondary level. GPP has also introduced computer education in schools. For his work Gangavane was awarded the Vanashree award, Vasantrao Naik Pratisthan award and the Indira Priyadarshini Vrikshamitra award.

Download the presentation here [PDF, 228 KB]

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/talk-by-vasant-gangavane

Secure IT 2012 — Securing Citizens through Technology

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:06:47Z

The event is co-organised by DST and NSDI, Govt. of India in partnership with Elets Technomedia Pvt. Ltd. on March 1, 2012 at Claridges in New Delhi.

Draft Agenda

9.00 am – 9.30 am	Registration & Tea
9.30 am – 11.00 am	Inaugural Session

Securing Citizens through Technology

The SecureIT 2012 Inaugural Session would present an overview of the security scenario in the country, and place the use of ICT towards ensuring national security centrestage. The inaugural would also highlight the use that ICT is being put for in effective disaster management, minimising material as well as human loss.

The session would aim at identifying a policy roadmap towards making effective use of ICT for the purposes of national security, well-being of citizens and businesses in times of disaster and an uncertain external environment and identify the major policy objectives for the sector as a whole.

Introductory Remarks: Dr Ravi Gupta, CEO Elets Technomedia and Editor-in-Chief, egov
Welcome Address: Dr M P Narayanan, President, Centre for Science, Development and Media Studies
Inaugural Address: Anil K Sinha, Vice Chairman, Bihar State Disaster Management Authority, Government of Bihar – Chief Guest, SecureIT 2012

Panel Discussion:

S Regunathan, Former Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi
R S Sharma, Director General, UIDAI
Shankar Aggarwal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Defence, Government of India
Shambhu Singh, Joint Secretary (North East), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India
Ajay Sawhney, CEO, National e-Governance Division, Government of India
Major General (Dr) R Siva Kumar, Head, (NRDMS), Government of India

11. 00 am – 11.30 am	Networking Tea
11.30 am – 1.30 pm	Technical Session 1

Information Security – Securing Networks, Communications, Data and Applications

In the modern Information Age, knowledge is power like never before. A robust, secure communications network is not only desired, it is an absolute imperative in order to allow efficient functioning of the state. The communications networks have to be secured from state and non-state actors inimical to India. This session would highlight some major threats to the national communications infrastructure and the policies being adopted to counter these threats.

Chair: Ravi S Saxena, Additional Chief Secretary, DST, Government of Gujarat
Key Note Speaker: Dr Gulshan Rai, Director General, CERT-In

Distinguished Panellists:

S K Basu, Vice President, NIIT Technologies
Manas Sarkar, Head Pre-Sales (India & SAARC), Trend Micro
Ruchin Kumar, Principal Solution Architect, India and SAARC, Safenet India Pvt Ltd
Dr Kamlesh Bajaj, CEO, Data Security Council of India
Rajan Raj Pant, Controller, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of Nepal
Prof. Anjali Kaushik, Management Development Institute, Gurgaon

1.30 pm – 2.30 pm	Lunch
2.30 pm – 5.00 pm	Technical Session 2

ICT in National Security and Policing

India faces a multiplicity of security challenges from within and without. Conventional responses to these challenges are no longer adequate and technology is being increasingly deployed to make the nation safer and more secure for residents, visitors and businesses. The legal framework has also been modified to incorporate modern technological advances.

The MHA has embarked upon a major project – Crime and Criminal Tracking System (CCTNS) that is expected to bring about a major overhaul of the policing system of the country. In this session, CCTNS and state adaptations of ICT in policing would be discussed along with an overview of technological advances in the field of security.

Chair: S Suresh Kumar, Joint Secretary (Centre-State), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

Distinguished Panellists:

NSN Murty, General Manager, Smarter Planet Solutions - India/ South Asia, IBM
Col Vishu Sikka, (Retd) General Manager – Defence, Aerospace & Public Security, SAP India & Subcontinent
Joachim Murat, Director of Sagem Morpho Security Pvt Ltd.
Hemant Sharma, Vice- Chair, BSA India Committee
Raj Prem Khilnani, DGP (Homeguard and Civil Defence), Maharashtra
Rajvir P Sharma, Additional Director General of Police, Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force
Loknath Behra, IGP, National Investigation Agency
Purushottam Sharma, IGP, State Crime Records Bureau, Madhya Pradesh
Ranjan Dwivedi, IGP, UP Police
Sanjay Sahay, IGP, Karnataka State Police

5.00 pm – 5. 30 pm	Networking Tea
5.30 pm – 7.00 pm	Technical Session 3

Managing Information for Safety and Security

In the modern age, ICT is deployed in a variety of ways for enhancing citizen safety and security. ICT is being widely used for disaster management, urban planning, census operations etc.

In this session, discussions would highlight some path-breaking uses of ICT for enhancing citizen safety in a number of diverse settings.

Chair: N Ravishanker, Additional Secretary, Universal Service Obligation Fund, DIT, Govt of India

Distinguished Panellists:

Sandeep Sehgal, IBM, VP, Public Sector, India and South Asia
Sanjeev Mital, CEO, National Institute of Smart Governance (NISG), Government of India
Dr R C Sethi, Additional Registrar General of India
Maj Gen R C Padhi, Assistant Surveyor General, Survey of India
Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Center For Internet Society
V S Prakash, Director, Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, Karnataka
Rajiv P Saxena, Deputy Director General, National Informatics Centre, Government of India
Jay Kay Gupta, Fire Chief, Delhi Development Authority

7.00 pm onwards

Valedictory Session: Way Ahead High Tea

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/secure-it-2012

Of the State and the Governments - The Abstract, the Concrete and the Responsive

zainab — 2011-08-03T09:56:52Z

This post examines the concepts of state and government to lay the ground for understanding responsiveness enforced through transparency discourses and the deployment of ICTs, the Internet and e-governance programmes. It also lays the context for understanding why and how ICTs. Internet and e-governance have been deployed in India for improving government-citizen interfaces, eliminating middlemen, delivering services electronically and for introducing a range of similar reforms to institute transparency and a responsive state.

In the introductory post, I had suggested that we needed to examine the notion of the ‘responsive state’, particularly in the context of discourses around transparency and the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the Internet to institute transparency and thereby create a responsive state. I argued that interrogating the notion of the ‘responsive state’ is necessary to understand how responsiveness and even statehood actually translate on the ground for different citizen groups when ICTs and the Internet are deployed to provide information to citizens, to deliver services electronically, to eliminate middlemen, to re-engineer processes in government departments and state institutions, and to make the state more visible and (therefore, supposedly) more accessible and responsive to its people.

In this post, I want to open up the concepts of the state and the government in a more fundamental way to begin our explorations regarding ‘responsiveness’ and the ‘responsive state’. Attending to the idea and the practice of the state and the government in everyday life will open up the meanings that ‘responsiveness’ and transparency, ICTs and the Internet are attributed within different contexts and in the range of relationships that exist between the state and its citizens, governments and citizens, and across state and government institutions. It is necessary to understand how relationships between citizens and governments and across the range of government and state institutions get shaped by the contexts within which governance is carried out, and the “fields”[i] within which we locate and study governments, governance, transparency and technology. This will enable us to nuance the notion and the translation of responsiveness in its online, offline, transparent, secretive, overt and/or surreptitious avatars.

I will begin this post by explaining the similarities and differences between the concepts (and ground realities) of state and the government as well as the relationships that exist between these entities. This conceptual clarification will set the context for understanding the genesis and application of responsiveness and transparency and the deployment of ICTs and the Internet to usher responsiveness and transparency in India in subsequent blog posts.

The State – Abstract-Concrete, Composite-Fragmented, Homogeneous-Heterogeneous: The state is an abstract idea which has its concrete basis in a physical territory. The state is also reified through an organizational structure that is referred to as the bureaucracy. We, as citizens, give legitimacy and authority to the idea of the state and statehood by conferring powers on certain representatives, institutions and systems to make decisions on our behalf and to exercise power for maintenance of law and order. The notion of the state (more concretely the institutions representing and exercising powers on behalf of the state) also derives legitimacy and authority from the Constitution and the laws of the land. The image of the state, as has been passed down to us by particular narratives of history and certain strands of political philosophy as well as through the print and electronic media is that the state is a composite, compact structure which has absolute - and in certain contexts unlimited powers. The “state idea” (Abrams, 1988) remains a powerful organizing concept in the lives of citizens as well as the employees and representatives of the state. This is because the concept of the state provides a sense of structure and coherence in our lives which in turn creates a sense of belongingness to a territory (physical space) and/or an institution (such as public services, public sector institutions, municipality, government departments, etc). This sense of structure, coherence and order is further reinforced by the following beliefs:

1. That the state, organized and reified through its bureaucratic machinery, functions in a rational, orderly manner. This is the classic idea of the state promoted by Max Weber;

2. That the state is the source as well as the guardian of laws. These laws will protect and preserve the integrity of the territory and in turn, the integrity (and compositeness) of the state (where the notion of the state and its notional boundaries are based on an actual, physical territory);

3. That laws are supreme and everyone is equal before the law;

4. That laws will enforce order and provide relief, redressal, entitlements and access to welfare to one and all.

The state is thus imagined as a benign authority, a benefactor, which must protect its people, provide them with welfare and at the same time, safeguard order and integrity of the territory (and therefore, order and integrity of the state structure/organization). The state also remains the last resort that people have for articulating their claims and getting them fulfilled. There is therefore, a tenuous relationship with the state where as much as certain ideological groups/belief systems/world views and various citizen groups desire the state’s role and intervention in the individual’s life to be minimized, they still continue to view the state i.e., the law courts and the common judicial system[ii], to be the ultimate source of law and the final arbiter of disputes. To cite an example, even though the private property rights framework gives precedence to the individual over the state, advocates of private property invariably assume or necessitate the existence of an overarching/central legal system to which individuals can take their disputes and grievances. This kind of advocacy automatically creates a paradox for individual freedom because a centralized legal system functions on the basis of uniform laws that may not consider the particularities and the uniqueness of each dispute over private property. Moreover, such a centralized legal system has the capacity to impinge on the individuals’ and groups’ freedoms especially when individuals’ and groups’ practices of ownership and usufruct (which can be social, historical, cultural and negotiated over time) do not comply with corresponding legalistic notions and practices.

The concept of the state is also associated with the notion of power where the state holds and wields power. The relationship between the state and its citizens is defined by this power equation. The notion of democracy is hinged on the idea that since people confer powers upon the state and they elect representative governments by voting at elections, citizens should also be able to contain the powers of the state and prevent the state from becoming an absolute, authoritarian entity. Deliberations, debate and discussion over the state’s policies and decisions (and a free press) are viewed as tools through which the state’s actions can be questioned, criticized and when necessary, contained. It is for the purposes of deliberations, debate and discussion that publishing of information about state policies as well as the processes through which decisions are made is deemed as quintessential in certain frameworks (and corresponding policies) of the ‘responsive state’.

The notion of the state remains a powerful idea in people’s imaginations and actions. The belief in the existence of a state system/organization enables people to make claims on what they see as state institutions or employees of the state. At the same time, as researchers and theorists excavating the “everyday state” argue, what also matters is how people ‘encounter’ the state when they make claims and/or seek resources, who they ‘mark’ as the state in these encounters, and what their ‘experience’ of the state is – a monolith, a bureaucratic mess, a sloth, a responsive entity and/or apathetic (Corbridge, Srivastava, et al, 2005; Fuller and Benei, 2000; Elyachar, 2005; Tarlo, 2003). The nature of the encounters with ‘the state’ and consequently the perceptions of power and authority vary depending on the institutions/personnel that different people approach. This implies that the institutions within the state system are different from each other and they function in diverse ways and contexts. These institutions are also not equally and cordially aligned with the idea of the state and the state system. Moreover, the resources that they variously control have different kinds of significance and meanings for both, the officials in charge of the respective institutions as well as the people vying for those resources. In short, not all institutions within the state system are equally statist in terms of the way in which they control resources, wield power, maintain territorial integrity and statist quo and interact with different citizen groups. To explain this in more concrete terms, let us take the instance of the forest authorities in India. Forest departments tend to be much more authoritarian and controlling of forest lands and forest resources and consequently the people within their jurisdictions and territory. This authority of the forest department stems from historical factors and it has been further reinforced through the laws passed in the post-independence period regarding protection of wildlife and various resources and produces of forests. Moreover, as mandated in the Constitution of India, forests symbolize an essential aspect of the territorial integrity of the state. Hence, the powers that have been conferred, both constitutionally and by central governments and cabinet ministries on forest departments and officials over time, is more than the powers that have been granted to other state institutions and departments in the context of control over the state’s natural resources. Therefore, the manner in which forest departments function in relation with citizens as well as in relation with other state institutions and government departments produces and reinforces certain perceptions of the state i.e., authoritarian, autocratic, corrupt, wielding excessive power, curbing group liberties, punitive, among others. In yet some other aspects of governance and everyday life, we find that police forces have unlimited powers and depending on socio-economic status and networks, different citizen groups have different perceptions of and relationships with the police and therefore, of the state which the police forces represent. Groups living in slums and squatter settlements tend to fear and dread police forces most because these groups tend to be marked as criminal owing to their (supposedly) ‘illegal’ occupancy of state/public/private land which in turn makes them the first targets of law and order and markers of criminality. Hence, community based organizations (CBOs) train slum dwellers and squatters, foremost, on how to interact with the police, how to conduct themselves in police stations, and provide them with information regarding the laws and procedures which immediately affect poor people’s lives and their relationship with the police and law and order[iii]. On the other hand, vehicle owning populations tend to the loathe the police (mainly traffic police and beat station cops) for demanding unnecessary bribes and engaging in what are seen to be as extortionist practices.

At this point, it will be instructive and insightful to ask the questions who/what is the state and where is it located (both physically and symbolically). There are myriad answers to this question, as one strand of sociologists, anthropologists and political scientists variously studying the “everyday state” in India and across the world have demonstrated and argued. In the past, scholars such as Philipp Abrams (1988) have questioned whether the state really exists in reality or is it simply an idea, a powerful construct that has been passed down to us by history and theory? Abrams has simultaneously asked questions about the methodologies for studying the state – do we go back to histories and theories to locate and understand the state or do we examine the practices of state more carefully. Each of these approaches carries with it its own problems of studying and explaining the state. Abrams fundamentally suggests that the state is associated with coherence, homogeneity and compositeness, all of which are imaginary attributes that do not exist on the ground. Then, is the concept of the state useful at all and if so, why?

For the purposes of this series on the ‘responsive state’ as well as the larger monograph which tries to trace the history of transparency, ICTs, Internet and politics in India, it is necessary for us to deal with the idea and the different practices of state in as much entirety and variety as may be possible. This is because discourses of transparency, e-governance policies and programmes and the use of ICTs to create/reform citizen-government interfaces are based on a particular idea of the state i.e., a notion of order as stemming from conformity/adherence to law, ‘the state’ as the final arbiter of disputes between peoples, ‘the state’ as the provider of welfare and therefore, ‘the state’ as a benefactor and a benevolent leviathan, and ‘the state’ as rational and orderly and internally coherent, cogent and composite. As I will explain in subsequent posts, ICTs, e-governance systems and the Internet are deployed precisely to reinforce these ideas of the Indian state to the people as well as to reorder, realign and re-engineer processes and personnel who are seen as stepping outside the lines of law and due process. Whether such technological interventions and the technology itself succeeds in enforcing this vision of order and absolute alignment is an issue that necessitates asking several nuanced questions:

How does the state – primarily decision-makers and policy-makers – imagine and understand technology and its application?
How are e-governance policies interpreted and implemented by government officials (and even private parties) on the ground?
How do officials internalize the visions ingrained in e-governance policies and deployments of ICTs and how does this impact the manner in which they implement directives from the state in this regard and subsequently interact with citizens?
Who gains and who loses when ICTs, e-governance and the Internet are deployed to deliver services to people electronically, to provide information and to create better government-citizen interfaces?
How are gains and losses assessed and why are they assessed as such? Who assesses the gains and losses and why?
Are gains and losses absolute and irreversible?
Do some deployments of ICTs, e-governance strategies and the Internet produce impacts that can only be seen and evaluated in the long run?
How does the state – in terms of power, authority, implementation of law and order and preservation of territorial integrity – manifest through the various deployments of ICTs and e-governance policies in different contexts?

These questions regarding the impact of ICTs, Internet and e-governance programmes on different citizen groups as well as the notions and practices of the state require us to turn our attention towards understanding the concepts of government, governance and administration and grounding our understandings of these concepts in the manner in which various government departments and institutions interact with citizens, on an everyday basis, in the process of governing and administering. Revisiting and opening up these concepts is further essential because governments and administrators are responsible for interpreting (and therefore, translating) and implementing the state’s policies and visions on the ground. This does not imply that the state is separate from government and administration. In fact, as we saw in the example of the forest departments and police forces, certain arms of the government and administration can be highly statist in the manner in which they exercise powers, control resources, make decisions and interact with citizens. We also saw above that not all government departments and state institutions are equally comfortable with and aligned with the state idea i.e., in terms of notions of law, order, authority and power. It therefore, becomes necessary to understand how different government departments and administrators understand, embody and even negotiate notions of law, order and power, what are the historical, political and social sources which shape the functioning and ideologies of different government departments, and how are notions of law, order, responsiveness and transparency configured when these different government departments implement various e-governance policies and transparency initiatives in an effort to become responsive.

Let us briefly examine the concept of government and in the process, tackle the important issue of state-society relationship.

Government – the State in Society and the Society in State: Governments are the concrete face of the state and the state idea. They are bodies/institutions/organizations which perform duties of the state and discharge the state’s obligations towards its people. Some of the primary obligations include:

delivering the state’s welfare resources to different citizen groups,
attending to and fulfilling and/or negotiating people’s varied claims and demands for entitlements,
resolving people’s complaints, disputes and grievances,
maintaining law and order and ensuring compliance with law,
providing infrastructure and services that are considered necessary for people’s well-being as well as for the physical territory’s (i.e., the state’s) development and progress.

Governments are expected to function in ways that aid in maintaining the integrity of the territory and therefore, the authority of the state. Governments must therefore, follow the policies formulated by the state and implement them in letter and spirit. However, implementation rarely happens in the exact letter and spirit because of a variety of factors including:

1. Inadequate release of funds which in turn is triggered by factors such as competition over power, territory and loyalty, competition between political parties, poor allocation to essential budgetary heads in the programme implementation, desire within government agencies to curb the autonomy of individual departments/personnel by providing fewer funds, etc.

2. Existing competition between administrative agencies, government employees and decision-makers which can be altered because of implementation. This, in turn, can prevent implementation altogether or, the implementing authorities may implement policies in a way that aids in preserving certain kinds of autonomy, powers and interests of the implementing agencies.

3. Multiple claims that arise in the course of implementation which in turn puts implementation on a sticky course and alters the letter(s) and spirit of the original policies as government agencies, administrators and the various implementing authorities negotiate (and even suppress) the claims made by different interest groups (which includes citizen groups, government agencies themselves, middlemen, competing political parties, among others).

Essentially then, government institutions and departments – the concrete faces of the state – are mired in multiple claims and interests not only with respect to implementation but also in the way in which they function in everyday life. These claims are advanced not only by citizen groups but also by the very employees of governments and by agencies and authorities related with various aspects of the governments’ functioning. Here, we need to address the issue of state-in-society and society-in-state which tends to be overlooked and even ignored in accounts and theories about the state. The state – wherever is experienced and however, it is sighted – is part of the gamut known as society. This means that the people working as government employees/state employees are simultaneously members of other networks and social groups. Consequently, they hold and embody various views and ideas that may be in consonance with as well as contradictory to notions of power, authority, law and order. These government employees also compete for the resources of the state – water, sanitation, housing sites, roads, electricity – as much as they are responsible for delivering the same resources to different citizen groups. In the process of delivery of welfare and service provision then, interests are shaped from time to time depending on the socio-economic and political positions of the administrators, bureaucrats and people’s representatives in charge as well as their association with various kinds of networks that enable them to maintain/enhance their personal/institutional positions and powers. Some of these interests and networks also shape the roles of government employees and administrators i.e., elected representatives, municipal field staff, engineers, etc., can also become middlemen in the process of delivering services and resources. How they function as middlemen depends on the resources in question as well as the political, social and administrative contexts in which the services are provided.

This aspect of state-in-society which is visible when we closely examine how governments and administrative departments and institutions function is an important factor that not only shapes interests and policy implementation but also influences that manner in which the state – power, authority, law and order – manifests in the interactions between citizens and governments. Therefore, when attempts are made to reconfigure or reform the interfaces between governments and citizens by introducing e-governance tools and ICTs, essentially the entire gamut of networks, social norms, conventions and negotiations that underlies government-citizen interfacing is tried to be put in line with a rational conception of law, due process and order. This implies that certain arms of the state attempt to reinforce and reorder particular government departments and functionaries in line with the idea of the rational, orderly and law enforcing state. (These arms of the state could be the central government in New Delhi, central government departments in New Delhi and state governments trying to align departments and functionaries working at different levels in the federal system hierarchy.) In turn, this means that the complexities in government-citizen interfacing – middlemen, opaque procedures, inadequate information, use of personal discretion, mobilization of political, economic and personal networks - are tried to be straightened through the application of technology which is viewed as neutral and capable of enforcing order and uniformity in procedures and service delivery. Therefore, it becomes essential to understand how different government departments function and how various services are delivered in order to assess where technology is/gets situated and how technology reorders/realigns government functionaries in line with the statist notions of law, order and fairness.

By way of a conclusion …: I will end this post here, leaving it for readers to ruminate and think over the ideas presented here. I will return back in the next post with a more concrete history of how and why ICTs, e-governance and Internet have been deployed in India to usher transparency and responsiveness in the functioning of the state via government agencies and departments. The concrete description will help put into perspective some of the conceptual issues and insights discussed in this post.

Till then, adios!

References:

Abrams, Philip. March 1988. “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State”. Journal of Historical Sociology. Vol. 1 (1): 58-89.

C. J. Fuller and V. Benei (eds). 2000. The Everyday State and Society in Modern India. New Delhi: D. K. Publishers.

Corbridge, Stuart, Glynn Williams, Manoj Srivastava and Rene Veron. (2005) Seeing the State: Governance and Governmentality in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Elyachar, Julia. 2005. Markets of Dispossession: NGOS, Economic Development and the State in Cairo. Duke University Press: Durham and London.

Moore, Sally Falk. 1973. “Law and Social Change: The Semi-Autonomous Social Field as an Appropriate Subject of Study.” Law and Society Review. Vol. 7 (4): 719-746.

Tarlo, Emma. 2003. Unsettling Memories: Narratives of India’s ‘Emergency’. Delhi: Permanent Black.

Also see …

Gupta, Akhil and James Fergusson. 2002. “Spatializing States: Towards An Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality”. American Ethnologist. Vol. 29 (4): 981-1002. See mainly part one on conceptual issues – spatializing states.

[i] The concept of “field” is borrowed from Sally Falk Moore’s (1973) model of the “semi-autonomous social field”. Moore suggests that a ‘field’ is a concrete, observable arena that generates rules and is simultaneously influenced by agencies and forces from outside (720). The notion of the ‘field’ aids in more a concrete and nuanced study of institutions especially the immediate and larger contexts in which institutions function and how this influences their functioning, why actors make particular decisions in certain circumstances, and how rules are formulated, adhered and resisted. Analyses will vary depending on how we map the field and which actors and factors we include/exclude and give primacy to in the given field.

[ii] Here, it is important to note that despite advocacy and practice of independence of judiciary, the judicial system of a nation functions on the principle of the ‘law of the land’ and maintaining the integrity and compositeness of the physical territory. In this respect, belief in the state’s judicial system continues to perpetuate the belief that there is a singular and ultimate source and arbiter of law, in this case the judicial system, even when the judiciary can strike down the decisions made by the executive organs of the state. Therefore, even if the judiciary is independent, the way in which it functions is to maintain and preserve the state system (i.e. the territory) and the statist quo (i.e. the state system and authority).

[iii] Interviews with social workers from community based organizations in Mumbai, conducted between May and November 2009.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/histories-of-the-internet/blogs/transparency-and-politics/of-the-state-and-the-governments-the-abstract-the-concrete-and-the-responsive

Fill The Gap: Global Discussion on Digital Natives

nishant — 2010-01-22T10:54:13Z

More often than not people don't understand the new practices inspired by Internet and digital technologies. As such a series of accusations have been leveled against the Digital Natives. Educators, policy makers, scholars, and parents have all raised their worries without hearing out from the people they are concerned about. Hivos has initiated an online global discussion about Digital Natives. So, to voice your opinion, start tweeting with us now #DigitalNatives.

If you cannot attend Fill The Gap, you can also join us in a global discussion on some of the issues being discussed at #DigitalNatives

1. Are you an apolitical consumer, or do you have ambitions?

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNatives

2. Are you a little prince or princess, who only wants to talk to like minded people or are you different?

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesPrincess

3. Is Wikipedia your bible or do you really know something?

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesWiki

4. Are you a digital dinosaur? They say you don’t know anything about ICT!

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalDinosaur

5. Why use the Internet, why don’t you march the streets?

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesProtest

6. Plans to change the world? What do you need?

http://www.tweetworks.com/groups/view/DigitalNativesChanceTheWorld

If you are in Amsterdam, here is the information you will need to attend the event:

Fill the Gap! - 7

R U Online?

Date: 15 January 2010

Time: 12.30 until 17.00 hour

Location: Het Sieraad, Postjesweg 1, Amsterdam

The seventh edition of Fill the Gap! is all about the power of youth and IT in developing countries. How can their skills be strengthened and put to use for a better world? Hivos, apart from cohosting the event, will be involving digital natives to hear their stories about ICT and engagement.

An Open Space event on the potential of new (mobile) media and youth in developing countries. For everyone in politics, the profit and the non-profit sectors who is interested in ICT and international development cooperation.

The use of new (mobile) technology is the most natural thing in the world for the youth of today.

Shaped by the digital era and at ease with creativeity, these innovators use new media to change the world. Just think of the Twitter revolution in Iran. What can the international development sector learn from this? How could international development cooperation use the potential power of youth to tackle development problems?

The seventh edition of Fill the Gap! is all about the power of youth and IT in developing countries. How can their skills be strengthened and put to use for a better world? The kick-off will be hosted by Jennifer Corriero, co-founder of Taking IT Global: the international platform for youth and the use of new media for a better world. Then the floor is open to discuss your own ideas with people from new media, the business world and the international development sector during the Open Space sessions. Join in: come to Amsterdam on Friday January 15th and be inspired during Fill the Gap!

Registration is free. The programme is in English.

» Fill the Gap

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/research/grants/digital-natives-with-a-cause/dntweet