Centre for Internet and Society

Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia and India – Section Outlines

sumandro — 2015-11-13T05:40:49Z

The Centre for Internet and Society has been invited to contribute two sections to the Asia Internet History - Third Decade (2001-2010) book edited by Dr. Kilnam Chon. The sections will discuss the activities and experiences of civil society organisations in Asia and India, respectively, in national, regional, and global Internet governance processes. The draft outlines of the sections are shared here. Comments and suggestions are invited.

In the (draft) Foreword to the Asia Internet History – Third Decade (2001-2010), Prof. David J. Farber writes:

One of the early attempts to extend the reach of the Internet to Asia was via the “Johnny Appleseed” approach. That is a set of people responded to queries by people in Asian countries asking how they could connect with the growing Internet by offering to supply tapes to key people in the requesting countries, often by physically going with the tapes, as well as providing access points to the USA Internet. The people that we, I was one of the seeders, worked, with became the leaders in their nation and founded the initial national networks that blossomed with time and often formed the basis of commercial Internets. The traditions that these network frontier pioneers established lead to the eventual spread of the benefits of Internet access to not only their nations but became models for the spread to the rest of Asia…

I am honoured to contribute to the pioneering series titled Asia Internet History, edited by Dr. Kilnam Chon, by foregrounding a range of other individuals and organisations that often worked outside but in engagement with the national governments, and technical and academic institutions that govern the connecting tapes of the Internet, to ensure mass access to and effective usages of Internet in Asia.

The two sections, to be authored me, provides an overview of ‘civil society organisations’ working across Asian countries that have played a critical role in the shaping of policy-making and discourse around Internet governance during 2000-2010, and then undertakes a closer look at the organisations working in India and their interventions at national, regional, and global levels.

Please read the draft outlines of the overview section and the section on Indian organisations, and share your comments. The comments can be posted on the GitHub page where the outlines are hosted, on this page, or over email: sumandro[at]cis-india[dot]org.

The outlines can also be directly downloaded as markdown files: the overview and the India section.

Asian Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance

Here is a tentative list of key civil society organisations from Asia that have participated and intervened in Internet governance processes during 2001-2010. Please suggest organisations missing from the list.

Bangladesh

Cambodia

China

Indonesia

EngageMedia, Australia and Indonesia
ICT Laboratory for Social Change (iLab)
Indonesian CSOs Network for Internet Governance
Indonesian ICT Partnership Association (ICT Watch)
Internet Society Indonesia Chapter [website is under construction]

India

Iran

Iranian Civil Society Organizations Training and Research Centre (ICTRC) [URL is not working]

Japan

Centre for Global Communications (GLOCOM) [Academia?]
Internet Society Japan Chapter
Japan Computer Access for Empowerment (JCAFE) [URL is not working]
Japan Computer Access Network (JCA-NET)

Kuwait

iJMA3 - Kuwait Information Technology Society (KITS)

Lebanon

Lebanese Center for Civic Education (LCCE)

Malaysia

Internet Society Malaysia Chapter

Myanmar

Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO)

Nepal

Internet Society Nepal Chapter

Pakistan

Philippines

Democracy.Net.PH
Foundation for Media Alternatives (FMA) [URL not working
Internet Society Philippines Chapter

Regional

Singapore

Internet Society Singapore Chapter

South Korea

Sri Lanka

Internet Society Sri Lanka Chapter

Thailand

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-asia-and-india-outlines

Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Open Review

sumandro — 2015-11-13T05:54:33Z

This is a book section written for the third volume (2000-2010) of the Asia Internet History series edited by Prof. Kilnam Chon. The pre-publication text of the section is being shared here to invite suggestions for addition and modification. Please share your comments via email sent to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org with 'Civil Society Organisations and Internet Governance in Asia - Comments' as the subject line. This text is published under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.

You are most welcome to read the pre-publication drafts of other sections of the Asia Internet History Vol. 3, and share your comments: https://sites.google.com/site/internethistoryasia/book3.

Preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) conferences organized by the United Nations in Geneva (2003) and Tunis (2005) initiated crucial platforms and networks, some temporary and some continued, for various non-governmental actors to intensively and periodically take part in the discussions of governance of Internet and various related activities towards the goals of inclusive development and human rights. Many of the civil society organizations taking part in the WSIS conferences, as well as the various regional and thematic preparatory meetings and seminars, had little prior experience in the topic of Internet governance. They were entering these conversations from various perspectives, such as local developmental interventions, human and cultural rights activism, freedom and diversity of media, and gender and social justice. With backgrounds in such forms of applied practice and theoretical frameworks, members of these civil society organizations often faced a difficult challenge in articulating their experiences, insights, positions, and suggestions in terms of the (then) emerging global discourse of Internet governance and that of information and communication technologies (ICTs) as instruments of development. At the WSIS: An Asian Response Meeting in 2002, Susanna George, (then) Executive Director of Isis International, Manila, succinctly expressed this challenge being faced by the members of civil society organizations:

For some feminist activists however, including myself, it has felt like trying to squeeze my concerns into a narrow definition of what gender concerns in ICTs are. I would like it to Cinderella’s ugly sister cutting off her toe to fit into the dainty slipper of gender concerns in ICTs. The development ball, it seems, can only accommodate some elements of what NGO activists, particularly those from the South, are concerned about in relation to new information and communications technologies. (George 2002)

The above mentioned seminar, held in Bangkok, Thailand, on November 22-24, 2002, was a crucial early meeting for the representatives from Asian civil society organizations to share and shape their understanding and positions before taking part in the global conversations during the following years. The meeting was organised by Bread for All (Switzerland), Communication Rights in the Information Society Campaign (Netherlands), Forum-Asia (Thailand), and World Association for Christian Communication (United Kingdom), as a preparatory meeting before the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference of WSIS, with 34 organizations from 16 Asian countries taking part in it. The Final Document produced at the end of this seminar was quite a remarkable one. It highlighted the simultaneity of Asia as one of the global centres of the information economy and the everyday reality of wide-spread poverty across the Asian countries, and went on to state that the first principle for the emerging global information society should be that the '[c]ommunication rights are fundamental to democracy and human development' (The World Summit on the Information Society: An Asian Response 2002). It proposed the following action items for the efforts towards a global inclusive information society: 1) strengthen community, 2) ensure access, 3) enhance the creation of appropriate content, 4) invigorate global governance, 5) uphold human rights, 6) extend the public domain, 7) protect and promote cultural and linguistic diversity, and 8) ensure public investment in infrastructure (ibid.).

Immediately after this Conference, several Asian civil society organizations attended the Asian Civil Society Forum, organised as part of the Conference of Non-governmental Organizations in Consultative Relations with the United Nations (CONGO), held in Bangkok, Thailand, during December 9-13, 2002. Representatives of Dhaka Ahsania Mission (Bangladesh), OneWorld South Asia (India), GLOCOM (Japan), Foundation for Media Alternative (Philippines), Korean Progressive Network – JINBONET (Republic of Korea), Friedrich Naumann Foundation (Singapore), International Federation of University Women (Switzerland), and Forum Asia (Regional) drafted a Joint Statement emphasising that a 'broad-based participation of civil society, especially from those communities which are excluded, marginalized and severely deprived, is critical in defining and building such a [true communicative, just and peaceful] society' (Aizu 2002). In the very next month, the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference was held in Tokyo during January 13-15, 2003, 'to develop a shared vision and common strategies for the “Information Society' (WSIS Executive Secretariat 2003: 2). The conference saw participation of representatives from 47 national governments, 22 international organizations, 54 private sector agencies, and 116 civil society organizations across the Asia-Pacific region. The Tokyo Declaration, the final document prepared at the conclusion of the Conference, recognized that:

[T]he Information Society must ... facilitate full utilization of information and communication technologies (ICT) at all levels in society and hence enable the sharing of social and economic benefits by all, by means of ubiquitous access to information networks, while preserving diversity and cultural heritage. (Ibid.: 2)

Further, it highlighted the following priority areas of action: 1) infrastructure development, 2) securing affordable, universal access to ICTs, 3) preserving linguistic and cultural diversity and promoting local content, 4) developing human resources, 5) establishing legal, regulatory and policy frameworks, 6) ensuring balance between intellectual property rights (IPR) and public interest, 7) ensuring the security of ICTs, and 8) fostering partnerships and mobilizing resources. It is not difficult to see how the focus of necessary actions shifted from an emphasis on concerns of community and human rights, and public investments and commons, towards those of legal and policy mechanisms, multi-partner delivery of services, and intellectual property rights. Civil society organizations, expectedly, felt sidelined in this Conference, and decided to issue a join statement of Asian civil society organizations to ensure that their positions are effectively presented. The first two topics mentioned in this document were: 1) '[c]ommunication rights should be fully recognized as a fundamental and universal human right to be protected and promoted in the information society,' and 2) '[t]he participation of civil society in the information society at all levels should be ensured and sustained, from policy planning to implementation, monitoring and evaluation' (UNSAJ et al 2003). The joint statement was endorsed by 30 civil society organizations: UDDIPAN (Bangladesh); COMFREL (Cambodia); ETDA (East Timor); The Hong Kong Council of Social Services (Hong Kong); Food India, IT for Change (India); Indonesian Infocom Society (Indonesia); Active Learning, CPSR, Forum for Citizens' Television and Media, JTEC, Kyoto Journal, Ritsumeikan University Media Literacy Project, UNSAJ (Japan); Computer Association Nepal, Rural Area Development Programme (Nepal); APC Women's Networking Support Programme, Foundation for Media Alternatives, ISIS International (Philippines); Citizens' Action Network, Korean Progressive Network – Jinbonet, Labor News Production, ZAK (Republic of Korea); e-Pacificka Consulting (Samoa); National University of Singapore (Singapore); Public Television Service, Taiwan Association for Human Rights (Taiwan); Asian-South Pacific Bureau for Adult Education, FORUM ASIA, and TVE Asia Pacific (Regional) (Ibid.).

Participation in the WSIS Process

The first WSIS conference was held in Geneva in December 2003. Through the processes of organizing this conference, and the second one in Tunis in November 2005, United Nations expressed a clear intention of great participation of actors from the private companies, civil society, academia, and media, along with the governmental organizations. During the first meeting of the WSIS Preparatory Committee (PrepCom-1) in Geneva, during July 1-5, 2002, the civil society organizations demanded that they should be allowed to co-shape the key topics to be discussed during the first conference (2003). There was already an Inter-Governmental Subcommittee on Contents and Themes, but no equivalent platform for the civil society organizations was available. With the approval of the Civil Society Plenary (CSP), the Civil Society Subcommittee on Content and Themes (WSIS-SCT) was instituted during PrepCom-1 (WSIS-SCT 2003b). At the second WSIS Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom-2) in Geneva, during February 17-28, 2003, the WSIS-SCT produced a summary of the views of its members titled 'Vision and Principles of Information and Communication Societies,' and also a one page brief titled 'Seven Musts: Priority Principles Proposed by Civil Society' to be used for lobbying purposes (Ibid.). This brief mentioned seven key principles of Internet governance identified by the civil society organization taking part in the WSIS process: (1) sustainable development, (2) democratic governance, (3) literacy, education, and research, (4) human rights, (5) global knowledge commons, (6) cultural and linguistic diversity, and (7) information security (WSIS-SCT 2003a).

Asian civil society organizations that took part in the PrepCom-2 meeting included United Nations Association of China (China); CASP - Centre for Adivasee Studies and Peace, C2N - Community Communications Network (India); ICSORC - Iranian Civil Society Organizations Resource Center (Iran); GAWF - General Arab Women Federation (Iraq); Daisy Consortium, GLOCOM - Center for Global Communications (Japan); Association for Progressive Communication, Global Knowledge Partnership (Malaysia); Pakistan Christian Peace Foundation (Pakistan); WFEO - World Federation of Engineering Organization (Palestine); Asian South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education, Foundation for Media Alternatives, ISIS International – Manila (Philippines); Korean Progressive Network - Jinbonet (Republic of Korea); IIROSA - International Islamic Relief Organization (Saudi Arabia); and Taking IT Global (India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Turkey) (ITU 2003a).

All these efforts led to development of the Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society, which was prepared and published by the Civil Society Plenary at the Geneva conference, on December 08, 2003. The Declaration was titled 'Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs' (WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2003). The Asian civil society organization that took part in the Geneva conference were BFES - Bangladesh Friendship Education Society, Drik, ICTDPB - Information & Communication Technology Development Program, Proshika - A Center for Human Development (Bangladesh); China Society for Promotion of the Guangcai Programme, Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, United Nations Association of China (China); The Hong Kong Council of Social Service (Hong Kong); CASP - Centre for Adivasee Studies and Peace, Childline India Foundation / Child Helpline International, DAWN - Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (India); Communication Network of Women's NGOs in Iran, Green front of Iran, ICTRC - Iranian Civil Society Organizations Training and Research Center, Islamic Women's Institute of Iran, Institute for Women's Studies and Research, Organization for Defending Victims of Violence (Iran); ILAM - Center for Arab Palestinians in Israel (Israel); Citizen Digital Solutions, Forum for Citizens' Television and Media, GLOCOM - Center for Global Communications, JCAFE - Japan Computer Access for Empowerment, Soka Gakkai International (Japan); LAD-Nepal - Literary Academy for Dalit of Nepal (Nepal); Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, Global Knowledge Partnership (Malaysia); PAK Educational Society / Pakistan Development Network, SMEDA - Small & Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Pakistan); Palestine IT Association of Companies (Palestine); Isis International – Manila, Ugnayan ng Kababaihan sa Pulitika / Philippine Women's Network in Politics and Governance (Philippines); Citizen's Alliance for Consumer Protection of Korea, Korean Civil Society Network for WSIS (Republic of Korea); Youth Challenge (Singapore); Association for Progressive Communications (India and Philippines), CITYNET - Regional Network of Local Authorities for the Management of Human Settlements (India. Mongolia, and Philippines), Taking IT Global (India and Philippines) (ITU 2003b).

As the preparatory meetings and consultations towards the second WSIS conference advanced during the next year, the Asian civil society organizations attempted to engage more directly with the global Internet governance processes on one hand, and the national Internet and ICT policy situations on the other. Writing about their encounters at and before the second Preparatory Committee meeting of the Tunis conference, held in Geneva during February 17-25, 2005, Anita Gurumurthy and Parminder Jeet Singh made several early observations that have continued to resonate with the experiences of Asian civil society organizations throughout the decade (Gurumurthy & Singh 2005). Firstly, they indicated that the government agencies present in the dialogues tend to take diverging positions in international events and domestic contexts. Secondly, there was a marked absence of formal and informal discussions between the governmental and the civil society representatives of the same country present at the meeting. The government agencies were clearly disinterested in involving civil society organizations in the process. Thirdly, the civil society actors present in the meeting were mostly from the ICT for Development sector, and the organizations working in more 'traditional' sectors – such as education, health, governance reform, etc. – remained absent from the conversations. This is especially problematic in the case of such developing countries where there does not exist strategic linkages between civil society organizaions focusing on topics of technologized developmental interventions, and those involved in more 'traditional' development practices. Rekha Jain, in a separate report on the Indian experience of participating in the WSIS process, re-iterates some of these points (Jain 2006). She notes that '[w]hile the Secretary, [Department of Telecommunications, Government of India] was involved in (PrepCom-1) drafting the initial processes for involvement of NGOs, at the national level, this mechanism was not translated in to a process for involving the civil society or media' (Ibid.: 14).

The frequent lack of interest of national governments, especially in the Asian countries, to engage with civil society organizations on matters of policies and projects in Internet governance and ICTs for development (Souter 2007), further encouraged these organization to utilise the global discussion space opened up by the WSIS process to drive the agendas of democratisation of Internet governance processes, and protection and advancement of human rights and social justice. The second WSIS conference held in Tunis, during November 16-18, 2005, however, did not end in a positive note for the civil society organizations as a whole. The sentiment is aptly captured in the title of the Civil Society Statement issued after the Tunis Conference: 'Much more could have been achieved' (WSIS Civil Society Plenary 2005). Apart from producing this very important critical response to the WSIS process, within a month of its conclusions, the civil society organization contributed effectively in one of the more longer-term impacts of the process – the establishment of the Internet Governance Forums (IGFs). Immediately after the publication of the Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance (Desai et al) in June 2005, the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), Japan, acting on behalf of the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus, came forward with public support for 'the establishment of a new forum to address the broad agenda of Internet governance issues, provided it is truly global, inclusive, and multi-stakeholder in composition allowing all stakeholders from all sectors to participate as equal peers' (WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus 2005: 3).

Asian Civil Society Organizations at the IGFs

In 2006, the WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus was reformed and established as a permanent 'forum for discussion, advocacy, action, and for representation of civil society contributions in Internet governance processes' (Civil Society Internet Government Caucus 2006). Representatives from Asian civil society organizations have consistently played critical roles in the functionings of this Caucus. Youn Jung Park of the Department of Technology and Society, SUNY Korea, co-founded and co-coordined the original Caucus in 2003. Adam Peake of the Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), International University of Japan, was co-coordinator of the original Caucus from 2003 to 2006. Parminder Jeet Sing of IT for Change, India, was elected as one of the co-cordinators of the newly reformed Caucus in 2006, with the term ending in 2008. Izumi Aizu of the Institute for HyperNetwork Society and the Institute for InfoSocinomics, Tama University, Japan served as the co-coordinator of the Caucus during 2010-2012.

The first Internet Governance Forum organized in Athens, October 30 – November 2, 2006, saw participation from a very few Asian civil society organizations, mostly from Bangladesh and Japan (IGF 2006). The second Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, November 12-15, 2007 had a wider representation from Asian civil society organizations: Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication, BFES - Bangladesh Friendship Education Society, VOICE – Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment (Bangladesh); China Association for Science and Technology, Internet Society of China (China); University of Hong Kong (Hong Kong); Alternative Law Forum (via Association for Progressive Communications - Women's Networking Support Programme), Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, IT for Change (India); GLOCOM, Kumon Center, Tama University (Japan); Sustainable Development Networking Programme (Jordan); Kuwait Information Technology Society (Kuwait); Assocation of Computer Engineers – Nepal, Rural Area Development Programme, Nepal Rural Information Technology Development Society (Nepal); Bytesforall – APC / Pakistan, Pakistan Christian Peace Foundation (Pakistan); Foundation for Media Alternatives, Philippine Resources for Sustainable Development Inc. (Philippines); and LIRNEasia (Sri Lanka). At the Open IGF Consultations in Geneva, on February 26 2008, the Internet Governance Caucus made two significant submissions: 1) that, although structuring the IGF sessions in Athens and Rio de Janeiro around the large themes of access, openness, diversity, and security have been useful to open up the multi-stakeholder dialogues, it is necessary to begin focused discussions of specific public policy issues to take the IGF process forward (Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus 2008a), and 2) that the Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG), which drives the IGF process and events, should be made more proactive and transparent, and expanded in size so as to better include the different stakeholder groups who may self-identify their representatives for the MAG (Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus 2008b).

On one hand, the IGF Hyderabad, December 3-6, 2008, experienced a decline in the percentage of participants from civil society organizations and a rather modest increase in the percentage of participants from Asian countries (see: 6.1.5. Annexe – Tables), especially since this was the first major international Internet governance summit held in an Asian country. On the other hand, the Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus succeeded to bring forth the term 'enhanced cooperation,' as mentioned in the Tunis Agenda, to be addressed and discussed in one of the main sessions of the Forum (IGF 2008). The next IGF held in Sharm El Sheikh, November 15-18, 2009, saw further decline of participation from both the representatives of civil society organizations, and the attendees from Asian countries (see: 6.1.5. Annexe – Tables). In this context, Youn Jung Park made the following statement in the Stock Taking session of the summit:

As a cofounder of WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus in 2003, I would like to remind you ... [that] Internet Governance Forum was created as a compromise between those who supported the status quo Internet governance institution under one nation's status provision, and those who requested for more balanced roles for governments under international supervision of the Internet. While IGF has achieved a great success of diluting of such political tension between those who have different views of how to institutionalize Internet governance, ironically Internet governance forum became a forum without governance... [We] have to admit [that] IGF failed to deliver another mandate of the U.N. WSIS: Continuing discussion of how to design Internet governance institutions... The current IGF continues to function as knowledge transfer of ICANN's values to other stakeholders, while those who want to discuss and negotiate on how to design Internet governance institutions should have another platform for that specific U.N. WSIS mandate. (IGF 2009)

The first Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) was held in Hong Kong on June 14-16, 2010. The organising committee included three civil society / acadmic organizations – Center for Global Communications (GLOCOM), Internet Society Hong Kong, and National University of Singapore – and three indpendent experts – Kuo-Wei Wu (Taiwan), Norbert Klein (Cambodia), and Zahid Jamil (Pakistan). Though the Forum had dominant presence from government and private sector participants, several representatives from Asian civil society / academic organizations spoke at the sessions: Ang Peng Hwa (Singapore Internet Research Centre, Nanyang Technological University), Charles Mok (Internet Society Hong Kong), Christine Loh (Civic Exchange), Chong Chan Yau (Hong Kong Blind Union), Clarence Tsang (Christian Action), Ilya Eric Lee (Taiwan E-Learning and Digital Archives Program, and Research Center for Information Technology Innovation), Izumi Aizu (Institute for HyperNetwork Society, and Institute for InfoSocinomics, Kumon Center, Tama University), Oliver “Blogie” Robillo (Mindanao Bloggers Community), Parminder Jeet Singh (IT for Change), Priscilla Lui (Against Child Abuse in Hong Kong), Tan Tin Wee (Centre for Internet Research, National University of Singapore), and Yap Swee Seng (Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development). As Ang Peng Hwa noted at the beginning of the summit, its key objective was to provide a formal space for various stakeholders from the Asia-Pacific region to discuss and provide inputs to the IGF process (APrIGF 2010). The regional forum was successful in enabling newer civil society entrants from the Asia-Pacific region to familiarize themselves with the IGF process, and to contribute to it. Oliver “Blogie” Robillo, represented and submit recommendations from Southeast Asian civil society organizations at IGF Vilnius, September 14-17, 2010, which was the first time he took part in the summit series. He emphasised the following topics: 1) openness and freedom of expression are the basis of democracy, and state-driven censorship of Internet in the region is an immediate threat to such global rights, 2) coordinated international efforts need to address and resolve not only global digital divides, but also the divides at regional, national, and sub-nationals scales, 3) the right to privacy is an integral part of cybersecurity, as well as a necessary condition for exercising human rights, 4) global Internet governance efforts must ensure that national governments do not control and restrict abilities of citizens to express through digital means, and it should be aligned with the universal human rights agenda, and 5) even after 5 years of the IGF process, a wider participation of civil society organizations, especially from the Asia-Pacific regions, remains an unachieved goal, which can only be achived if specific resources are allocated and processes are implemented (IGF 2010).

Internet Censorship and Civil Society Responses

Throughout the decade of 2000-2010, censorship of Internet and restriction of digital expression remained a crucial Internet rights concern across the world, and especially the Asian countries. One of the earliest global reports on the matter was brought out by the Reporters without Borders. In 2006, it published a list of countries marked as 'Internet Enemies' that featured 16 countries, out of which 11 were from Asia: China, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar (then, Burma), Nepal, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam (Reporters without Borders 2006). The list was updated in 2007, and three of these countries – Libya, Maldives, and Nepal – were taken off (Ibid.). The unique contradictions of the Asian region were sharply foregrounded in the 2006-07 report on Internet censorship by OpenNet Initiative, which noted:

Some of the most and least connected countries in the world are located in Asia: Japan, South Korea, and Singapore all have Internet penetration rates of over 65 percent, while Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Nepal remain three of thirty countries with less than 1 percent of its citizens online. Among the countries in the world with the most restricted access, North Korea allows only a small community of elites and foreigners online. Most users must rely on Chinese service providers for connectivity, while the limited number North Korean–sponsored Web sites are hosted abroad... [T]hough India’s Internet community is the fifth largest in the world, users amounted to only about 4 percent of the country’s population in 2005. Afghanistan, Myanmar, and Nepal are among the world’s least-developed countries. Despite the constraints on resources and serious developmental and political challenges, however, citizens are showing steadily increasing demand for Internet services such as Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP), blogging, and chat. (Wang 2007)

The report further described the strategy used by various Asian governments of 'delegation of policing and monitoring responsibilities to ISPs, content providers, private corporations, and users themselves' (Ibid.) These mechanisms enforce self-surveillance and self-censorship in the face of threats of loss of commercial license, denial of services, and even criminal liability. Defamation suits and related civil and criminal liability have also been used by several Asian governments to silence influential critics and protesters. Direct technical filtering of Internet traffic (especially inwards traffic) and blocking of URLS via government directives sent to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have also been common practice in key Asian countries (Ibid.). Expectedly, such experiences of oppression led to widespread campaigns and communications by the Asian civil society organizations, as can be sensed from the above mentioned submission by Oliver “Blogie” Robillo at IGF Vilnius.

Among the Asian countries, the comprehensive technologies of censorship developed and deployed by China has been studied most extensively. The Golden Shield Project was initiated by the Ministry of Public Security of China in 1998 to undertake blanket blocking of incoming Internet traffic based on specific URLs and terms. Evidences of the project getting operationalised became available in 2003 (Garden Networks for Freedom of Information 2004). Censorship of Internet in China, however, has not only been dependent on such sophisticated systems. In 2003, it was made mandatory for all residents of Lhasa, Tibet, to use a specific combination and password to access Internet, which was directly linked to their names and address. An Internet ID Card was issued by the government to implement this (International Campaign for Tibet. 2004). Tibet Action Institute has been a key civil society organization at the forefront of cyber-offensive of the Chinese government. A recent documentary by the Institute, titled 'Tibet: Frontline of the New Cyberwar,' has narrated how it has worked closely with the Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto, to identify, trace, and resist the malware- and other cyber-attacks experienced by the civil society actors and websites in favor of independence of Tibet (Tibet Action Institute 2015). Not only activists supporting the Tibetan cause, digital security training emerged as an important aspect of the life of civil society organizations during the decade. Asian organizations like Bytes for All (Pakistan) and Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (Mynamar), as well as international organizations like Front Line Defenders and Citizen Lab have educated and supported civil society activities much beyond the Internet governance sphere with tools and techniques for effectively using digital channels of communications, and defending themselves for cyber-threats.

Combination of traditional forms of civil society mobilizations and digital techniques have often been used resist attempts by Asian governments to control the online communication space. Huma Yusuf has extensively studied the emergence of hybrid media strategies, using both old media channels like newspapers and new media channels like blogs and video sharing platforms, among citizen journalists and civil society activists in Pakistan as the government took harsh steps towards control of both traditional and online media during 2007-2008 (Yusuf 2009). She has carefully traced how possibilities of new forms of information and media sharing enabled by Internet were initially identified and implemented by citizen journalists and student activists, which was quickly learned and re-deployed by more formal organisation, such as print and electronic news companies, and civil society organizations like those involved in election monitoring (Ibid.). Malaysia also experienced fast-accelerating face-off between the government and the civil society during 2007-2010, as the former started intervening directly into censoring blogs and newspaper websites. On one hand, the government took legal actions against critical bloggers, either directly or indirectly, and on the other it instructed ISPs to block 'offensive content.' It also borrowed the 'Singapore-model' to mandate registration of bloggers with government authorities, if they are identifed as writing on socio-political topics. The civil society actors responded to these oppressive steps by setting up a new blog dedicated to coverage of the defamation cases (filed against prominent bloggers), and publicly sharing instructions for circumvention of the blocks imposed by ISPs. The National Alliance of Bloggers was soon formed, which organised the “Blogs and Digital Democracy” forum on October 3, 2007 (Thien 2011: 46-47). Similarly, Bloggers Against Censorship campaign took shape in India in 2006 as the government first directed ISPs to block specific blogs hosted on Blogspot, TypePad, and Yahoo! Geocities, and then went for complete blocking of Yahoo! Geocities as the ISPs failed to block specific sub-domains of the platform (Bloggers Collective Group 2006). Learning from this experience, the following year Indian government decided to work directly with Orkut to take down 'defamatory content' about a politician (The Economic Times 2007). This is common for other Asian governments too, as they have continued to develop more legally binding and technically sophisticated measures to monitor and control online expression.

In the 'Internet Enemies Report 2012,' Reporters without Borders listed 12 countries as 'enemies of the Internet,' out of which 10 were from Asia – Bahrain, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam – and it named 14 countries that are conducting surveillance on its citizens, out of which 7 were from Asia – India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and United Arab Emirates (Reporters without Borders 2012). At the APrIGF held in Tokyo, July 18-20, 2012, a group of delegates from civil society organizations working in the South-East Asian region issued a joint statement with a clear call for global action against the shrinking space for freedom of (digital) expression in the region (Thai Netizen Network et al 2012). They specifically noted the following national acts as examples of the legislative mechanisms being used by different Asian governments to criminalize online speech and/or to harass public dissenters:

Burma – The 2004 Electronic Transactions Act
Cambodia – The 2012 Draft Cyber-Law, the 1995 Press Law, and the 2010 Penal Code
Malaysia – The 2012 Amendment to the Evidence Act and the 2011 Computing Professionals Bill
Indonesia – The 2008 Law on Information and Electronic Transaction and the 2008 Law on Pornography
The Philippines – The 2012 Data Privacy Act
Thailand – The 2007 Computer Crimes Act, the Article 112 of the Penal Code, and the 2004 Special Case Investigation Act
Vietnam – The 1999 Penal Code, the 2004 Publishing Law, the 2000 State Secrets Protection Ordinance, and the 2012 Draft Decree on Internet Management. (Ibid.)

The statement was co-signed by Thai Netizen Network, Thai Media Policy Centre, The Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM), Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA), Southeast Asian Centre for e-Media (SEACeM), Victorius (Ndaru) Eps, Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), Sovathana (Nana) Neang, Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA), and was endorsed by ICT Watch (Indonesian ICT Partnership Association).

Annexe – Tables

Table 1: Participation from Asian Countries and of representatives from Asian civil society organisations in IGFs, 2006-2010

Event	Participants from Asian Countries	Participants from Civil Society Organizations
IGF Athens 2006	11%	29%
IGF Rio de Janeiro 2007	13%	32%
IGF Hyderabad 2008	56% from India, and 15% from other Asian countries	25%
IGF Sharm El Sheikh 2009	17%	19%
IGF Vilnius 2010	Not Available	Not Available

Source: Reports available on Internet Governance Forum website (http://igf.wgig.org/cms).

Table 2: Internet Society Chapters in Asia

Chapter	Year of Establishment	URL
Afghanistan	In formation	Not available
Bahrain	2001	http://www.bis.org.bh/
Bangladesh	2011	http://www.isoc.org.bd/dhaka/
Hong Kong	2005	http://www.isoc.hk/
India (Bangalore)	2010	http://www.isocbangalore.org/
India (Chennai)	2007	http://www.isocindiachennai.org/
India (Delhi)	2002. Rejuvenated in 2008.	http://www.isocdelhi.in/
India (Kolkata)	2009	http://isockolkata.in/
India (Trivandrum)	2015	Not available
Indonesia	2014	http://www.isoc.or.id/
Israel	1995	http://www.isoc.org.il/
Japan	1994	http://www.isoc.jp/
Lebanon	2010	http://www.isoc.org.lb/
Malaysia	2010	http://www.isoc.my/
Nepal	2007	http://www.internetsociety.org.np/
Pakistan (Islamabad)	2013	http://www.isocibd.org.pk/
Palestine	2002	http://www.isoc.ps/
Philippines	1999. Rejuvenated in 2009.	https://www.facebook.com/isoc.ph/
Qatar	2011	http://www.isoc.qa/
Republic of Korea	2014	Not available
Singapore	2011	http://isoc.sg/
Sri Lanka	2010	http://www.isoc.lk/
Taipei	1996	http://www.isoc.org.tw/
Thailand	1996	http://www.isoc-th.org/
United Arab Emirates	2007	http://www.isocuae.com/
Yemen	2013	http://isoc.ye/

Source: Details of chapters available on Internet Society website (http://www.internetsociety.org/).

Reference

Aizu, Izumi et al. 2002. Joint Statement from Asia Civil Society Forum Participants on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). December 13. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://www.wsisasia.org/wsis-acsf2002/wsis-acsfdec13f.doc.

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF). 2010. APrIGF Roundtable – June 15th, 2010: Session 1 – Welcome Remarks and Introduction – Real Time Transcript. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://2010.rigf.asia/aprigf-roundtable-june-15th-2010-session-1/.

Bloggers Collective Group. 2006. Bloggers Against Censorship. Last updated on April 30, 2009‎. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://censorship.wikia.com/wiki/Bloggers_Against_Censorship.

Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. 2006. Internet Governance Caucus Charter. October 14. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://igcaucus.org/old/IGC-charter_final-061014.html.

Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. 2008a. Inputs for the Open IGF Consultation, Geneva, 26th February, 2008 – Statement II: Main Session Themes for IGF, Hyderabad. February 26. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://igcaucus.org/old/IGC%20-%20Main%20themes%20for%20IGF%20Hyd.pdf.

Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. 2008b. Inputs for the Open IGF Consultation, Geneva, 26th February, 2008 – Statement III: Renewal / Restructuring of Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group. February 26. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://igcaucus.org/old/IGC%20-%20MAG%20Rotation.pdf.

Desai, Nitin, et al. 2005. Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance. United June. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://www.wgig.org/docs/WGIGREPORT.pdf.

Garden Networks for Freedom of Information. 2004. Breaking through the “Golden Shield.” Open Society Institute. November 01. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/china-internet-censorship-20041101.pdf.

George, Susanna. 2002. Women and New Information and Communications Technologies: The Promise of Empowerment. Presented at The World Summit on the Information Society: An Asian Response Meeting, November 22-24. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://www.wsisasia.org/materials/susanna.doc/.

Gurumurthy, Anita, & Parminder Jeet Singh. 2005. WSIS PrepCom 2: A South Asian Perspective. Association for Progressive Communications. April 01. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from https://www.apc.org/en/news/hr/world/wsis-prepcom-2-south-asian-perspective.

Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 2006. Athens 2006 – List of Participants. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.intgovforum.org/PLP.html.

Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 2008. Arrangements for Internet Governance, Global and National/Regional. IGF Hyderabad, India. December 5. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from https://web.archive.org/web/20130621205004/http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/hyderabad_prog/AfIGGN.html [Original URL: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/hyderabad_prog/AfIGGN.html].

Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 2009. Taking Stock and Looking Forward – On the Desirability of the Continuation of the Forum, Part II. IGF Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. November 18. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/2009/sharm_el_Sheikh/Transcripts/Sharm%20El%20Sheikh%2018%20November%202009%20Stock%20Taking%20II.txt.

Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 2010. Taking Stock of Internet Governance and the Way Forward. IGF Vilnius, Lithuania. September 17. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://igf.wgig.org/cms/component/content/article/102-transcripts2010/687-taking-stock.

International Campaign for Tibet. 2004. Chinese Authorities Institute Internet ID Card System in Tibet for Online Surveillance. April 30. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.savetibet.org/chinese-authorities-institute-internet-id-card-system-in-tibet-for-online-surveillance/.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 2003a. PrepCom-2 / 17-28 February 2003 – Final List of Participants. February 28. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/wsis/participation/prepcom2/prepcom2-cl.pdf.

International Telecommunication Union (ITU). 2003b. Geneva Phase of the WSIS: List of Participants. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/summit_participants.pdf.

Jain, Rekha. 2006. Participation of Developing Countries in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Process: India Case Study. Association for Progressive Communications. March. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://rights.apc.org/documents/wsis_india.pdf.

Reporters without Borders. 2006. List of the 13 Internet Enemies. Last updated on August 28, 2007. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://en.rsf.org/list-of-the-13-internet-enemies-07-11-2006,19603.

Reporters without Borders. 2012. Internet Enemies Report 2012. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://en.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/rapport-internet2012_ang.pdf.

Souter, David. 2007. WSIS and Civil Society. In: Whose Summit? Whose Information Society? Developing Countries and Civil Society at the World Summit on the Information Society. With additional research by Abiodun Jagun. Association for Progressive Communications. Pp. 72-89. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://rights.apc.org/documents/whose_summit_EN.pdf.

Thai Netizen Network et al. 2012. Southeast Asian Civil Society Groups Highlight Increasing Rights Violations Online, Call for Improvements to Internet Governance Processes in the Region. Statement of Civil Society Delegates from Southeast Asia to 2012 Asia-Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF). July 31. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/AprIGF-Joint%20Statement-FINAL.pdf.

The Economic Times. 2007. Orkut's Tell-All Pact with Cops. May 01. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2007-05-01/news/28459689_1_orkut-ip-addresses-google-spokesperson.

The World Summit on the Information Society: An Asian Response. 2002. Final Document. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://www.wsisasia.org/materials/finalversion.doc.

Thien, Vee Vian. 2011. The Struggle for Digital Freedom of Speech: The Malaysian Sociopolitical Blogosphere’s Experience. In: Ronald Deibert et al. (eds.) Access Contested. OpenNet Initiative. Pp. 43-63. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://access.opennet.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/accesscontested-chapter-03.pdf.

Tibet Action Institute. 2015. Tibet: Frontline of the New Cyberwar. YouTube. January 27. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yE3AQqbGVkk.

UNSAJ et al. 2003. Civil Society Observations and Response to the Tokyo Declaration. Asia-Pacific Regional Conference on the World Summit on the Information Society. January 15. Accessed on July 08, 2015 from http://www.wsisasia.org/wsis-tokyo/tokyo-statement.html.

Wang, Stephanie. 2007. Internet Filtering in Asia in 2006-2007. OpenNet Initiative. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from https://opennet.net/studies/asia2007.

WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. 2005. Initial Reactions to the WGIG Report. Contribution from GLOCOM on behalf of the WSIS Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus. July 19. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from www.itu.int/wsis/%20docs2/pc3/contributions/co23.doc.

WSIS Civil Society Plenary. 2003. “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs” – Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society. December 8. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf.

WSIS Civil Society Plenary. 2005. “Much more could have been achieved” – Civil Society Statement on the World Summit on the Information Society. December 18. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from https://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/contributions/co13.pdf.

WSIS Civil Society Subcommittee on Content and Themes. 2003a. “Seven Musts”: Priority Principles Proposed by Civil Society. February 25. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.movimientos.org/es/foro_comunicacion/show_text.php3%3Fkey%3D1484.

WSIS Civil Society Subcommittee on Content and Themes. 2003b. Final Report on Prepcom-2 Activities of the Civil Society on Content and Themes. March 27. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs/pcip/misc/cs_sct.pdf.

WSIS Executive Secretariat. 2003. Report of the Asia-Pacific Regional Conference for WSIS (Tokyo, 13-15 January 2003). WSIS. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from http://www.itu.int/dms_pub/itu-s/md/03/wsispc2/doc/S03-WSISPC2-DOC-0006!!PDF-E.pdf.

Yusuf, Huma. 2009. Old and New Media: Converging during the Pakistan Emergency (March 2007 - February 2008). MIT Centre for Civic Media. January 12. Accessed on July 08, 2015, from https://civic.mit.edu/blog/humayusuf/old-and-new-media-converging-during-the-pakistan-emergency-march-2007-february-2008.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/civil-society-organisations-and-internet-governance-in-asia-open-review

Citizen Activism the Past Decade

Nilofar Ansher — 2015-04-24T11:52:44Z

Call for Contributions to the ‘Digital Natives with a Cause?’ newsletter, ‘Citizen Activism the Past Decade’. Deadline: August 15, 2012.

The past decade (2001 – 2011) has been marked by unprecedented democratic protests across the globe. Not only have citizens risen against autocratic regimes or systemic corruption, which is not unprecedented in itself, but also, a spark in one region inflamed solidarity among neighbouring nations to pick up the placards and march for change. Plenty has been written about the strategic deployment of social media, Web 2.0 platforms and Smart-gadgets by the digital natives (the youth and the old alike) to rewrite the rules of citizen activism.

In this issue of the newsletter, we explore the mechanics of activism aided by media: web, social, digital, and traditional. What do we understand by a cause and how does it find resonance at the local and global platforms? Is the digital native a community player or a global citizen? How do digital natives connect, collaborate, mobilize and bring about their visions of change? The aim is to not establish or reinforce these dichotomies, if indeed they exist, but to understand the dimensions of the stage the digital natives operate on and if that stage is a synecdoche for global youth-led civic action. A case in point: ‘Slut Walk’ moved from being a one-off march in Toronto to becoming a global movement and came full circle when small towns and cities across the world organized protest marches with a local ‘twist’.

Topics that contributors can explore:

What do we understand by citizen activism? How has citizen activism changed over the last 10 years with the advent of new media tools?
Youth as 'change agents'. Are protest movements youth oriented today? How are civil rights movements of the past decade different from the wave of movements that marked the 60s? (women's lib, LGBT rights, civil rights, disability rights). Explore the mechanics of organizing, mobilizing and measuring the success of a campaign in both the cases.
Participatory Politics and Web 2.0 | Value and power of the Network in effecting change | Mobilizing support and consensus within the network |studies on politically active youth using social media | digital natives as apathetic citizens | Is Slacktivism still a misunderstood term?
Kony 2012 video campaign | interviews | what went wrong and what did they do right? | Rise of DIY activism | mechanics of digital activism | resources, tools and strategies
Rise of the ‘Glocal’ (global with local resonance) cause | Slut Walk and Co – global protests inspiring local campaigns | Children of globalization with global stakes supporting local causes – how does this work?
Role of new media as a vehicle for civic engagement | Are new media and traditional media mutually exclusive in influencing citizen action? | How are new media strategies deployed by citizens in comparison with traditional media engagement?
Learning from past campaigns: citizen activism initiates and strategies in history that inspire modern campaigns (The ‘Walk to Work’ protest in Uganda protesting against fuel price hike and removal of subsidies is similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s Dandi March in pre-independence India to protest against Salt Tax).
Finding commonalities in citizen activism across Asia, Africa and Middle East | Explore the citizen action campaigns that have shaped political discourse in the past decade | Explore some of the most successful youth action campaigns of the past decade
How do we measure value, quality and success of campaigns? When does a protest officially end? Studies that explore the life-cycle of a protest or movement
The future of activism: new technologies, new demography, new forms of engagement | art and activism | Gamification
Role of non-governmental organizations and civil society networks in fostering political change | collaboration between NGOs and social media activists / independent protesters
State and the empowered citizen | State response to protest | surveillance and censorship
Technologies of protest
Studying citizen activism | digital native research methodology to study citizen activism

To know more about the topics you can write about, please write to: nilofar.ansh@gmail.com (Nilofar Ansher, Community Manager). Contributions can be in the form of essays, notes, commentaries, reviews (book or paper), dialogues and chat transcript, poems, sketches / graphics. Essay word count between 800-1,600 words. Send your entries along with a brief bio and a profile picture by August 15, 2012.

View previous issues of the 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' newsletter here: http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/newsletter

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/citizen-activism-the-past-decade

CISxScholars Delhi - William F. Stafford (Nov 03, 6:30 pm)

sumandro — 2019-03-13T00:30:39Z

We are delighted to have William F. Stafford, PhD candidate in UC Berkeley, present on "Public Measurements, Private Measurements, and the Convergence of Units" at the CIS office in Delhi on Thursday, Nov 03, at 6:30 pm. Please RSVP if you are joining us: .

CISxScholars are informal events organised by CIS for presentation, discussion, and exchange of academic research and policy analysis.

Public Measurements, Private Measurements and the Convergence of Units

In this discussion I will focus on a comparison between the standard government prescribed meters for autorickshaws and taxis and the role of ridesharing apps as instruments which take measurements, as the basis for the calculation of fares, and the more general questions which arise for commerce, technology and their regulation. I will organise the paper around the observations of a paratransit operations engineer on the distinction between public and private instruments, and explore the possible implications of new forms of commercialisation of location and proximity and reactions to such developments for understanding questions of fairness and corruption.

William F. Stafford

William F. Stafford, Jr., is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley. William's research focuses on the auto-rickshaw meter in New Delhi, as a way to engage with classical questions concerning the relationship between measurement, quantification and delimitations of domains of labour. William's general interests concern the analytics of labour and the reconfiguration of what are often taken as its axiomatic aspects. Before joining Berkeley, he studied Sociology at Jawaharlal Nehru University and the Delhi School of Economics.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/cisxscholars-delhi-william-f-stafford-thursday-nov-03

CISxScholars Delhi - Harsh Gupta - FAT ML for Lawyers and Lawmakers (June 29, 5:30 pm)

sumandro — 2017-06-27T09:16:48Z

We are proud to announce that Harsh Gupta will discuss "FAT ML (Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning) for Lawyers and Lawmakers" at the CIS office in Delhi on Thursday, June 29, at 5:30 pm. This will be a two and half hour session: beginning with a 45 minute talk, followed by 15 minute break, another talk for 45 minutes, and then a discussion session. Please RSVP if you are joining us: .

CISxScholars are informal events organised by CIS for presentation, discussion, and exchange of academic research and policy analysis.

FAT ML (Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in Machine Learning) for Lawyers and Lawmakers

From tagging people in photos to determining risk of loan defaults, use of data based tools is affecting more and areas of our lives. In some areas there have been very successful applications of such tools, in others areas they has been found to not only reflect the existing bias and discrimination found in today's society but also exaggerate it.

Harsh Gupta

Harsh Gupta is a recent graduate from IIT Kharagpur with B.Sc and M.Sc in Mathematics and Computing and will be joining JP Morgan and Chase as a data scientist. He completed his master's thesis in "Discrimination Aware Machine Learning". He was also an intern at The Center for Internet and Society during summer of 2016.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/cisxscholars-harsh-gupta-machine-learning-for-lawyers-and-lawmakers-20170629

CIS Featured in 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' Report

sneha-pp — 2015-10-16T07:43:18Z

This report, authored by Vivian Lewis, Lisa Spiro, Xuemao Wang, and Jon E. Cawthorne, sheds light on the expertise required to support a robust and sustainable digital scholarship (DS) program. It focuses first on defining and describing the key domain knowledge, skills, competencies, and mindsets at some of the world’s most prominent digital scholarship programs. It then identifies the main strategies used to build this expertise, both formally and informally. The work is set in a global context, examining leading digital scholarship organizations in China, India, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, Canada, and the United States. The report team visited and spoke to us last year, as part of the study. Here are the Executive Summary and link to the final report.

Access the 'Building Expertise to Support Digital Scholarship: A Global Perspective' report here.

Executive Summary

As new production, researchers scholarship analysis, pursue using digital or digital publishing scholarship or computational and dissemination (the creation, techniques), of they are often challenged to develop new skill sets. What skills, competencies, knowledge, and mindsets should digital scholars possess? How are such attributes—which we group under the term expertise—best cultivated? Does the shape of expertise vary around the world? Such questions are being asked by institutions establishing or reshaping digital scholarship organizations (DSOs), instructors developing educational and training programs in digital scholarship, experienced and aspiring digital scholars defining what expertise they need to acquire, and researchers exploring the global nature of digital scholarship.

Through our pilot study, we sought to answer these questions with the broader aims of identifying the workforce-related factors important to the success of digital scholarship, helping training and educational programs define key goals, and contributing to the conversation about the global dimensions of digital scholarship. We focused on “best in class” DSOs, highlighting the human dimensions behind their success in areas such as research output, winning grants, international reputation, and innovative teaching or training programs. We conducted interviews with a range of people involved with leading DSOs, including directors, research staff, faculty, librarians, graduate students, and university administrators. We conducted site visits with all but one of the 16 institutions participating in our study, which enabled us to get a richer sense of the facilities, organizational context, and local culture. While most of our interviews focused on digital humanities, we also included several digital social science organizations to identify areas of commonality and contrast. We explored a variety of organizational structures, including research centers and institutes, an academic department, labs, a network, a nonprofit organization, and a company; these organizations were sponsored by academic schools, libraries, and information technology departments. To understand the global dimensions of digital scholarship, we examined organizations from Mexico, China, Taiwan, India, Germany, the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Since digital scholarship projects often require specific technical skills (such as expertise in text analysis or geographic information systems [GIS]), it was difficult to generalize about what particular skill sets organizations should offer; in many ways that depends on the goals and focus of the organization. In addition, different skill sets were expected depending on one’s position and degree of experience. However, our interviews revealed in particular the importance of collaborative competencies, reflecting the ways in which digital scholarship typically takes place in teams dependent on diverse expertise. Since digital scholarship often involves developing new methods, tools, and theoretical approaches, successful digital scholars usually exhibit creativity, curiosity, and an enthusiasm for learning, which we term learning mindsets. Some level of general domain knowledge is useful so that team members can understand the research questions they are pursuing, while researchers draw upon methodological competencies (such as data science and GIS) and technical skills (such as database design and programming) to carry out their research. Finally, managerial skills—particularly project management—are needed to ensure that projects are completed.

While self-education and learning by doing are the predominant ways that digital scholars have traditionally acquired expertise, they also appreciate being part of a community of practice, so that they can turn to colleagues for help solving a problem and learning something new. Many organizations host workshops and visiting speakers and enable faculty and staff to attend conferences, although it can be challenging for staff to secure travel funding. A couple of organizations provide dedicated research time to staff, so that they can experiment, stay abreast of the state of the art, and contribute their own research. Along with formal support for professional development, we noted the importance of a “learning culture” in fostering continuous learning. Organizations most successful at building expertise among faculty, students, and staff tended to share characteristics such as an open and collaborative interdisciplinary culture in which each team member contributes expertise and is respected for it; global engagement, which includes participating in multi-institutional research projects; an entrepreneurial culture in which experimentation is valued; and a focus on teaching and learning as well as research. We noted variation in the kind of facilities these organizations occupied; collaborative space seemed to be more important than top-notch hardware.

Since we were able to visit only a small number of organizations in each country or region included in the study, we don’t feel comfortable making broad generalizations about the state of digital scholarship around the world. However, we did note some common factors that influenced the shape of digital scholarship expertise. These factors included a tradition of digital scholarship, as more established organizations could both build on existing structures and could be limited by them; funding; the degree of involvement of the institution’s library; and variations in academic career structures, such as paths to promotion and the recognition of alternative academic careers.

Digital scholarship organizations face a number of challenges, particularly in securing adequate funding for their work. We want to draw particular attention to the challenge of recruitment and retention. Typically, DSOs cannot compete with the private sector in offering high salaries or extensive opportunities for advancement; rather, they provide more flexible environments and an academic or intellectual atmosphere in which staff are encouraged to experiment and learn. Unfortunately, some staff at many organizations are hired on temporary contracts because of limited funding, so they often leave for more stable positions. We also noted a tension between research and service at some organizations, wherein these organizations viewed producing new knowledge as central to their mission but may also be expected to provide services to local researchers or to maintain existing projects. At a few organizations, we observed status differences between faculty and staff, particularly in the ability to be principal investigators on grants or to receive travel funding. Researchers whose first language is not English must often choose between reaching a smaller audience with work published in their native language and devoting significant time to translating their work into English.

We provide an extensive list of recommendations aimed at digital scholars, leaders of DSOs, universities and host organizations, funders, and the broader digital scholarship community. To highlight some of the most salient: We recommend that digital scholars take responsibility for their own learning, nurture their own curiosity, and actively pursue learning opportunities, including by participating in communities of practice and team projects. We advise the leaders of DSOs to encourage both structured and unstructured opportunities for learning by including dedicated staff research time in job descriptions, enabling staff to train and mentor, and hosting workshops, outside speakers, and other events. Host institutions such as universities should create more stable staff positions with paths to promotion and facilitate more stable funding for DSOs, while funders should support global digital scholarship exchanges. As for the digital scholarship community, we recommend heightening awareness of digital scholarship around the world through conference programs, funding initiatives, publications, and communities of practice, and promoting greater linguistic diversity. We hope that this report helps raise awareness of the range of expertise required for digital scholarship, the importance of a learning culture and active communities of practice in nurturing it, the challenges digital scholarship staff often face in finding stable careers, and the diversity of models for digital scholarship around the world.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/cis-featured-in-building-expertise-to-support-digital-scholarship-report

CIS anniversary

praskrishna — 2013-05-06T07:28:07Z

The Centre for Internet and Society will celebrate five years of its existence with an exhibition showcasing its works and accomplishments.

This was published in Hindu Business Line on May 5, 2013

The exhibition will be held concurrently at both Bangalore and Delhi offices from May 20 to 24, 2013, said a press release.

“To promote transparency, we're getting the general public to be our auditors by throwing open our account books and contracts which show how we have spent the Rs 8.3 crore received from our donors.”

The exhibition will also see artists like Kiran Subbaiah, Tara Kelton, Navin Thomas, Abhishek Hazra, among others exhibiting their works, as well as lectures.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/news/the-hindu-business-line-may-5-2013-cis-anniversary

CFI-ACCION - Panel Discussion on 'Big Data: Challenge or Opportunity?' (Delhi, December 06)

sumandro — 2019-03-16T04:41:52Z

The Centre for Financial Inclusion of ACCION International is organising a panel discussion on "Big Data: Challenge or Opportunity?" as an associated event of the Inclusive Finance India Summit 2016, Hotel Ashok, Delhi, December 05-06. The discussion will be held at 12:30 on Tuesday, December 06. It will be moderated by Amy Jensen Mowl, CFI Fellow at IFMR, and M.S. Sriram, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Development of Research in Banking Technology. Sumandro Chattapadhyay will participate as a panelist.

Inclusive Finance India Summit: http://inclusivefinanceindia.org/.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/news/cfi-accion-panel-discussion-on-big-data-delhi-dec-06

Celebrating 5 Years of CIS

praskrishna — 2014-02-25T09:15:58Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is celebrating 5 years of its existence with an exhibition showcasing its activities and accomplishments. The exhibition will be held at its offices in Bangalore and Delhi from May 20 to 23, 2013.

Download all the posters exhibited during the recent exhibition here.

As a move to promote transparency, CIS is inviting the general public to be its auditors by throwing open its account books and contracts which show how it has spent the Rs. 13.13 crores received from its donors. The four-day event will see renowned artists like Kiran Subbaiah, Tara Kelton, Navin Thomas and Abhishek Hazra featuring their work and also giving live demonstrations.

Agenda

Open exhibition on all the 4 days from 10.00 a.m. to 8.00 p.m., in Bangalore and Delhi. The evening programmes will be held in Bangalore. Dinner will be served right afterwards.

Evening Programmes

May 20, 2013

18.00 19.00	Why did I buy a set-top box?: What we know, don't know and need to know about Digitalisation — A Talk by Vibodh Parthasarathi Why are we being asked to install set-top boxes? How will this change what we want, and pay for, on TV? Grappling with these questions, the talk will evaluate the rationale of the digital migration in cable currently underway, and the less talked about digital migration being planned for the public broadcaster. These scarcely debated and often contentious issues form the core of a recent Country Report on the Media in India, anchored by the speaker. The India Country Report, the first inter-sectoral and policy oriented study of our electronic media landscape, finds the ongoing digitalisation of cable, the infusion of digital tools in the press and the proposed digital switchover of the public broadcaster, posing varied challenges not only to journalism but to public interest at large. This report is part of a global initiative, Mapping Digital Media, examining opportunities and risks amidst the transitions to a digital media ecology across 50 countries. Video
19.00 19.30	Film Screening on Cyber Cafes of Rural India by Video Volunteers Video Volunteers in partnership with CIS have been documenting the cyber cafes of rural India. Kamini Menon and Christy Raj will do the screening of seven 2-minute films: Cyber Cafe Trends Slowly Changing in Imphal by Achungmei Kamei (Manipur) Transgender Interaction with Cyber Cafes by Christy Raj (Karnataka) Cyber Cafes Prevail Over Mobile Phones in Nagaland by Meribeni Kikon (Nagaland) Mobile Technology Threatens Cyber Cafes in HP by Avdhesh Negi (Himachal Pradesh) Cyber Cafe Visit - A Day's Journey by Saroj Paraste (Madhya Pradesh) The Challenges of Establishing Cyber Cafes by Rohini Pawar (Maharashtra) The Community Service Centre - Myth or Reality? by Neeru Rathod (Gujarat) Video
19.30 20.00	Hindustani Classical Performance by Aditya Dipankar
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283 Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 21, 2013

18.00 19.00	Screening of Sabaka A young elephant trainer in India vows revenge against the cult that killed his family. He seeks help from the local Maharajah who refuses, and he sets out alone to battle the enemy... Sabaka is a 1954 film produced and directed by Frank Ferrin starring Boris Karloff, Reginald Denny, June Foray, et.al.
19.00 20.00	Slouching towards Tlön: An Encyclopedia for the 2nd century of Indian cinema — A Talk by Lawrence Liang Ashish Rajadhyaksha and Paul Willemen’s Encyclopedia of Indian cinema (1994) marked an important moment for the study of Indian film history. In the two decades since its publication we have seen a rise in the academic community working on Indian film history along with the rise of various new archival initiatives online. Materials that were hitherto unavailable have also made their way into the public domain via the efforts of film historians, cinephiles and other enthusiasts. It is perhaps fitting to think about what a collaborative encyclopedia of Indian cinema for the 21st century may look like. Using Rajadhayksha and Willemen’s Encyclopedia as a base, Lawrence has been working on an online version that incorporates moving images, photographs and archival materials and his presentation will open up questions of how one thinks of an online encyclopedia as well as larger conceptual questions of the relationship between the encyclopedias, the internet and moving image archives. Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283, Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 22, 2013

Cybersecurity, Privacy and Surveillance

18.00 18.30	“The Indian Surveillance State”— A Talk by Maria Xynou The Central Monitoring System confirms that, starting from last month ‘Big Brother’ is a reality in India. But how do authorities get the tech to spy on us? Maria has started investigating surveillance technology companies operating in India. So far, 76 companies have been detected which are producing and selling different types of surveillance gear to Indian law enforcement agencies. Join us to see India´s first investigation of who is aiding our watchers! Video
18.30 19.00	Why Privacy and How? A Talk by Bernadette Langle "But I have nothing to hide!" That's what most people think. Are you sure? What about all the services you use for free, don't you think the service provider has to spend money on that, and that he needs to earn it somehow? Bernadette will show some alternatives and also how easy it can be, to put your messages in a virtual private envelope as you use to do with messages on paper. Video
19.00 19.45	Cyber Security Preview — Presentation by Laird Brown and Purba Sarkar CIS in cooperation with Citizen Lab, Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, is developing a film project on cyber security in India from a civil society perspective. Laird will show the preview of the project. The preview will include an overview of the project along with a video footage from the first series of interviews. Video
19.45 20.00	Faking of Fingerprints: A Presentation by Bernadette Langle Bernadette will give a brief presentation on how easy it is to fake a fingerprint. Afterwards you can get hands-on. Fake a fingerprint yourself and take it with you to your home. Video Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283, Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

May 23, 2013

Kannada Language and IT

18.00 18.15	Kannada in Modern Era: A Guest Talk by Dr. Chandrashekhara Kambara Dr. Chandrashekhara will be the chief guest for this session and will give a guest lecture. Video
18.15 19.30	From Palm Leaf to Tablet – Journey of Kannada: A Talk by Dr. U.B. Pavanaja Kannada language which has a history of 2000 years and quite rich in literature started on palm leaves. Kannada advanced with modern times adopting the marvels of Information Technology. This is accomplished by successfully implementing Kannada in various facets of IT. It is being used everywhere from data driven applications to websites to hand held devices like tablets. These aspects will be brought out during the talk. Summary in Kannada: ತಾಳೆಗರಿಯಿಂದ ಟ್ಯಾಬ್ಲೆಟ್ ತನಕ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಪಯಣ ಸುಮಾರು ಎರಡು ಸಾವಿರ ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಭವ್ಯ ಇತಿಹಾಸವಿರುವ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಾಹಿತ್ಯದ ಉಗಮ ತಾಳೆಗರಿಗಳ ಮೇಲೆ ಆಯಿತು. ಕನ್ನಡ ಭಾಷೆಯು ಆಧುನಿಕ ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಅದ್ಭುತ ಕೊಡುಗೆಗಳನ್ನು ತನ್ನದಾಗಿಸಿಕೊಂಡು ಬೆಳೆಯಿತು. ಮಾಹಿತಿ ತಂತ್ರಜ್ಞಾನದ ಎಲ್ಲ ಅಂಗಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ಕನ್ನಡವನ್ನು ಅಳವಡಿಸಿ ಬಳಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವುದರ ಮೂಲಕ ಇದು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಾಯಿತು. ಆನ್ವಯಿಕ ತಂತ್ರಾಂಶವಿರಲಿ, ಪ್ರತಿಸ್ಪಂದನಾತ್ಮಕ ಜಾಲತಾಣವಿರಲಿ, ಕೈಯಲ್ಲಿ ಹಿಡಿದು ಕೆಲಸ ಮಾಡುವ ಟ್ಯಾಬ್ಲೆಟ್ ಇರಲಿ –ಎಲ್ಲ ಕಡೆ ಕನ್ನಡದ ಬಳಕೆ ಆಗುತ್ತಿದೆ. ಈ ಎಲ್ಲ ವಿಷಯಗಳ ಕಡೆ ಒಂದು ಪಕ್ಷಿನೋಟವನ್ನು ಈ ಭಾಷಣದಲ್ಲಿ ನೀಡಲಾಗುವುದು. Video
19.30 20.00	Carnatic Music Performance by Nirmita Narasimhan Video
20.00	Dinner
RSVP: Bernadette Längle (bernadette@cis-india.org), Ph: +91 80 4092 6283 Prasad Krishna (prasad@cis-india.org).

About the Speakers

Vibodh Parthasarathi	Vibodh Parthasarathi works with the Centre for Culture and Media Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. He is also a Board Member at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. He maintains a multidisciplinary interest in media and development policy, business history of creative industries, and governance of media infrastructure. At the Centre for Culture, Media & Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, his ongoing research addresses media policy literacy, the TV news industry and the digital switchover in India. He is the co-editor of the critically acclaimed tri-series on Communication Process (Sage).
Lawrence Liang	Lawrence Liang is the Chairman of the Board at the Centre for Internet and Society. He is a graduate of the National Law School. He subsequently pursued his Masters degree in Law and Development at Warwick, on a Chevening Scholarship. His key areas of interest are law, technology and culture, the politics of copyright and he has been working closely with Sarai, New Delhi on a joint research project Intellectual Property and the Knowledge/Culture Commons. A keen follower of the open source movement in software, Lawrence has been working on ways of translating the open source ideas into the cultural domain. He has written extensively on these issues and is the author of The Public is Watching: Sex, Laws and Videotape and A Guide to Open Content Licenses. Lawrence has taught at NLS, the Asian College of Journalism, NALSAR, etc., and is currently working on a Ph.D. on the idea of cinematic justice at Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Maria Xynou	Maria Xynou is a Policy Associate on the Privacy Project at the CIS. She has previously interned with Privacy International and with the Parliament of Greece. Maria holds a Master of Science in Security Studies from the University College London (UCL).
Bernadette Langle	Bernadette Längle recently graduated in social and cultural anthropology, philosophy and computer science. She is also a so-called hacktivist together with one of the oldest hacker associations of the world, the Chaos Computer Club, having a lot of influence in German politics. As one of the core-team organizer of Chaos Communication Congress in Germany she also has a lot of experience in organizing events.
Laird Brown	Laird Brown is a strategic planner and writer. His core competencies are brand analysis, public relations, and resource management. Laird has worked at the United Nations in New York; high-tech ventures in North America, Europe, and India; and, is a guest speaker at ICT conferences internationally. He is currently working on a film project for CIS on cyber security in India with Purba Sarkar.
Purba Sarkar	Purba Sarkar is an associate producer with the cyber security film project. She holds a Bachelor in Technology degree from West Bengal University of Technology. Purba worked as a strategic advisor in the field of SAP Retail for 4 years before joining CIS in January, 2013.
Dr.Chandrashekhara Kambara	Dr. Chandrashekhara Kambara is a prominent poet, playwriter, folklorist, film director in Kannada language. He is also the founder-vice-chancellor of Kannada University in Hampi. He is known for his effective usage of North Karnataka dialect of Kannada language in his plays and poems and is often compared with D.R. Bendre. He has been conferred with many prestigious awards including the Jnanpith Award (the highest literary honour conferred in India) in 2011 for the year 2010, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Padma Shri by Government of India, Kabir Samman, Kalidas Samman and Pampa Award. After his retirement, Kambara was nominated Member of Karnataka Legislative Council, to which he made significant contributions through his interventions.
Dr. U.B. Pavanaja	Dr U B Pavanaja holds a Master’s degree from Mysore University and Ph.D. from Mumbai University. He was a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Mumbai, for about 15 years. He has done advanced research in Taiwan. He resigned from BARC in 1997 and dedicated himself fully for the cause of Computer and Indian languages. He has to his credit many firsts, viz., first Kannada website, first Kannada online magazine, first Indian language (Kannada) website to receive Golden Web Award, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for Palm OS, first Indian language (Kannada) editor for WinCE device (HP Jornado 720), first Indian language version (Kannada) of universally popular Logo (programming language for children) software, etc. His Kannada logo won the Manthan Award for the year 2006. He was a member of the technical advisory committee setup by the Govt. of Karnataka for Standardization of Kannada on Computers (2000). He is also a member of the Kannada Software Committee of Govt. of Karnataka (2008-current).

The Artists

Kiran Subbaiah	Kiran Subbaiah studied sculpture at Santiniketan, MSU Baroda and the RCA London. He was an artist in residence at the Rijksakademie Amsterdam where he worked on art that incorporated informatics and electro-mechanics. He is also known for making videos using custom-built tools that enable him to perform multi-person film-making tasks single-handed. His art is shown extensively in India and abroad. Subbaiah is based in Bangalore and is represented by the Chatterjee and Lal gallery in Mumbai. Kiran will present the Spectator, a robot that can sense the presence of human beings around it. It tries to appreciate them as works of art.
Tara Kelton	Tara Kelton is an artist and designer. She has been living in Brooklyn, USA and Bangalore, India for the last three years. She received her MFA from the Yale School of Art in 2009. Kelton’s video, print, and web-based works investigate moments in which technology alters our perception of the physical world. Kelton has taught at the Srishti School of Art, Design, and Technology and has recently exhibited her work at Vox Populi (USA), Franklin Street Works (USA), GALLERYSKE (Bangalore) and the India Design Forum (Mumbai). Tara will present Trace, a surveillance camera feed drawn in real-time by anonymous online workers.
Navin Thomas	Navin Thomas is a multimedia artist and a professional scrap market junkie, he spends a good quality of his precious time looking for obscure cultural misfits... after destroying most of himself in the 90's, he now spends his time restoring your mother's brother’s tin space toys and other unusual situations.
Abhishek Hazra	Abhishek Hazra approaches his art with a particular emphasis on the study of the historiography of science. He uses videos and prints that often integrate textual fragments drawn from real and fictional scenarios. He has previously exhibited and performed at Science Gallery, Dublin, HEART Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Denmark, Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Casino Luxembourg Forum d’art Contemporain, Experiment Marathon Reykjavik, Reykjavik Art Museum and Kunstmuseum Bern. Abhishek was most recently an artist in residence at SymbioticA, the Centre for Excellence in Biological Arts, University of Western Australia, Perth. It was first performed as part of Beam Me Up, curated by Reinhard Storz and Gitanjali Dang, which was acknowledged by Pro Helvetia, New Delhi and German Book Office, New Delhi. Abhishek will be presenting #cloudrumble56 (attempted to re-animate sections of the Indian parliamentary archives — specifically, the transcripts of the scientist M.N. Saha's (1893-1956) interventions — through a performance that was transmitted only through live tweets on Twitter).
Aditya Dipankar	Aditya Dipankar started fiddling with music at the age of 4 when he started learning the tabla and then went on to play it for a long time. Years later, he discovered his strong inclination towards singing. Now, under the noble guidance of Pandit Vijay Sardeshmukh (Senior disciple of Pandit Kumar Gandharva), he is trying to understand the simplicity and spontaneity in the rich tradition of Hindustani classical music.
Nirmita Narasimhan	Nirmita Narasimhan is a Policy Director at CIS and works on accessibility for persons with disabilities. She was awarded the national award for empowerment of persons with disabilities by the President of India and also received the NIVH Excellence Award. Nirmita Narasimhan is a disciple of Dr. Radha Venkatachalam and renowned maestro Prof. T.R. Subramanyam. She began learning music at the age of 5 and went on to complete her Ph.D. in this subject from the Delhi University. Nirmita has been performing since 1995 and received several accolades such as the Sahitya Kala Parishad Scholarship and prizes in several competitions. She received the Gold medal in MA for standing first in the University and also stood first in MPhil. She has released a CD on Ponnayya Pillai compositions and also sung in an album of varnams. Nirmita has performed in different places in India such as Delhi, Chennai, Tirupathi and Bangalore as well as in Singapore and has also given several thematic concerts such as Eka Raga Sandhya and Pallavi concerts.
Sharath Chandra Ram	Sharath Chandra Ram (Sharathchandra Ramakrishnan) has interests in multimodal art, cognitive science, accessibility, digital humanities and network cultures. He is a faculty at the Centre for Experimental Media Arts at the Srishti School of Art Design and Technology. At the Centre for Internet and Society he helped set up and manage activities at the Metaculture Media Lab : an open hackerspace and alternative platform for research and exchange. His writings and musings at CIS maybe found here: http://cis-india.org/author/sharath He graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a degree in Artificial Intelligence specializing in interactive virtual environments. Previously as a Research Associate at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences he received a special mention award at the International Conference on Consciousness (2012) held at the National Institute of Advanced Studies for his work on ‘Cross modal Integration’. As an amateur radio broadcaster, he is a proponent of the free use of airwaves for relief work, education and transmission art. He has also been a development related radio journalist (PANOS @ Nepal, Voices UNDP@Bangalore), speaker at the International Ham Radio Convention (Port Blair, 2006) and as a film enthusiast has been a Press Reviewer for the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

Locations

Bangalore

Centre for Internet and Society
No. 194, Second 'C' Cross, Domlur,
2nd Stage, Bangalore - 560071,
Karnataka, India
Ph: +91 80 4092 6283
Fax: +91 80 2535 0955

Delhi

Centre for Internet and Society
G 15, Top floor
Behind Hauz Khas, G Block Market
Hauz Khas,
New Delhi 110016
Ph: + 91 011 40503285

Event Brochure

Event Flier

Event Posters/Banners and Videos

Accessibility

National Resource Kit (PDF, PNG)
NVDA E-Speak (PDF, PNG)
International Collaborations (PDF, PNG)
Partners (PDF, PNG)
Publications (PDF, PNG)
Timeline (PDF, PNG)
Inclusive Planet (PDF, PNG)

In the below video Anandhi Viswanathan gives a demo of the National Resource Kit project and Rameshwar Nagar gives a demo of the NVDA and ESpeak (Text-to-Speech) project during the exhibition.

Access to Knowledge

Broadcast Treaty (PDF, PNG)
Copyright (PDF, PNG)
Software Patent 1 (PDF, PNG)
Software Patent 2 (PDF, PNG)
Pervasive Technologies (PDF, PNG)

Access to Knowledge (Wikipedia)

Factsheet (PDF, PNG)
Reaching Out (PDF, PNG)
Outreach (PDF, PNG)
Bridging Gender Gap (PDF, PNG)
Press Coverage (PDF, PNG)
Education Programmes (PDF, PNG)
Team Achievements (PDF, PNG)
Visualization (PDF, PNG)

Openness

Open Access to Scholarly Literature (PDF, PNG)
Open Access to Law (PDF, PNG)
Open Standards (PDF, PNG)
Free/Open Source Software (PDF, PNG)

Internet Governance (Free Speech)

Blocking of Websites (PDF, PNG)
Freedom of Speech (PDF, PNG)
Intermediary Liability (PDF, PNG)
Internet Governance Forum (PDF, PNG)

Internet Governance (Privacy)

Privacy Events (PDF, PNG)
Timeline (PDF, PNG)
UID (1) (PDF, PNG)
UID (2) (PDF, PNG)
DNA (1) (PDF, PNG)
DNA (2) (PDF, PNG)

Telecom

Institutional Framework for Indian Telecommunication (PDF, PNG)
Growth of Telecom Industry in India (PDF, PNG)
Delicensed Spectrum (PDF, PNG)
Spectrum Sharing (PDF, PNG)

RAW Monographs

Archives and Access (PDF, PNG)
Internet, Society and Space in Indian Cities (PDF, PNG)
The Last Cultural Mile (PDF, PNG)
Porn, Law, Video Technology (PDF, PNG)
Re:Wiring Bodies (PDF, PNG)
Community Informatics and Open Government Data (Special Issue) (PDF, PNG)

News and Media

Media Coverage (PDF, PNG)
Organizational Chart (PDF)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/celebrating-5-years-of-cis

Can data ever know who we really are?

sumandro — 2019-12-06T05:02:53Z

This is an excerpt from an essay by Zara Rahman, written for and published as part of the Bodies of Evidence collection of Deep Dives. The Bodies of Evidence collection, edited by Bishakha Datta and Richa Kaul Padte, is a collaboration between Point of View and the Centre for Internet and Society, undertaken as part of the Big Data for Development Network supported by International Development Research Centre, Canada.

Please read the full essay on Deep Dives: Can data ever know who we really are?

Zara Rahman: The Engine Room, Website, and Twitter

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.
– Audre Lorde

The proliferation of digital data and the technologies that allow us to gather that data can be used in another way too — to allow us to define for ourselves who we are, and what we are.

Amidst a growing political climate of fear, mistrust and competition for resources, activists and advocates working in areas that are stigmatised within their societies often need data to ‘prove’ that what they are working on matters. One way of doing this is by gathering data through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourced data isn’t ‘representative’, as statisticians say, but gathering data through unofficial means can be a valuable asset for advocates. For example, data collating the experiences of women who have reported incidents of sexual violence to the police in India, can then be used to advocate for better police responses, and to inform women of their rights. Deservedly or not, quantifiable data takes precedence over personal histories and lived experience in getting the much-desired currency of attention.

And used right, quantifiable data — whether it’s crowdsourced or not — can also be a powerful tool for advocates. Now, we can use quantifiable data to prove beyond a question of a doubt that disabled people, queer people, people from lower castes, face intersecting discrimination, prejudice, and systemic injustices in their lives. It’s an unnecessary repetition in a way, because anybody from those communities could have told reams upon reams of stories about discrimination — all without any need for counting.

Regardless, to play within this increasingly digitised system, we need to repeat what we’ve been saying in a new, digitally-legible way. And to do that, we need to collect data from people who have often only ever been de-humanised as data subjects.

Artist and educator Mimi Onuoha writes about the challenges that arise while collecting such data, from acknowledging the humans behind that collection to understanding that missing data points might tell just as much of a story as the data that has been collected. She outlines how digital data means that we have to (intentionally or not) make certain choices about what we value. And the collection of this data means making human choices solid, and often (though not always) making these choices illegible to others.

We speak of black boxes when it comes to the mystery choices that algorithms make, but the same could be said of the many human decisions that are made in categorising data too, whether that be choosing to limit the gender drop-down field to just ‘male/female’ as with Fitbits, or a variety of apps incorrectly assuming that all people who menstruate also want to know about their ‘fertile window’. In large systems with many humans and machines at work, we have no way of interrogating why a category was merged or not, of understanding why certain anomalies were ignored rather than incorporated, or of questioning why certain assumptions were made.

The only thing we can do is to acknowledge these limitations, and try to use those very systems to our advantage, building our own alternatives or workarounds, collecting our own data, and using the data that is out there to tell the stories that matter to us.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/zara-rahman-can-data-ever-know-who-we-really-are

Call for Researchers: Welfare, Gender, and Surveillance

ambika — 2020-02-13T15:05:37Z

We are inviting applications for two researchers. Each researcher is expected to write a narrative essay that interrogates the modes of surveillance that people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations are put under as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. The researchers are expected to undertake field research in the location they are based in, and reflect on lived experiences gathered through field research as well as their own experiences of doing field research. Please read the sections below for more details about the work involved, the timeline for the same, and the application process for this call.

Call for Researchers: Download (PDF)

Description of the Work

Each researcher is expected to author a narrative essay that presents and reflects on lived experiences of people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations as they seek sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India. We expect the essay to contribute to a larger body of knowledge around the increasing focus on data-driven initiatives for public health provision in the country and elsewhere. Accordingly, the researcher may respond to any one or more than one of the following questions, within the context of the geographical focus as specified by the researcher:

What are the modes of surveillance, especially in terms of generation and exploitation of digital data, experienced by people of marginalised gender identities and sexual orientations in India, as they avail of sexual and reproductive healthcare?
How are the lived experiences of underserved populations, such as people of marginalised gender identities and sexual orientations, shaped by gendered surveillance while accessing sexual and reproductive services?
What are the modes of governance and gender ideologies that have mediated the increasing datafication of such provision?

We expect the researchers to draw on a) the Indian Supreme Court’s framing of privacy in India, as a fundamental right, and its implications; and b) apply and/or build on feminist conceptualisations of privacy. Further, we expect the researchers to respond to the uncertain landscape of legal rights accessible to people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations, especially in the current context shaped by The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019.

The researchers will undertake field research in locations of their choice, conduct interviews and discussions with people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations seeking such services, and conduct formal and informal interviews with officials and personnel associated with public and private sector agencies involved in the provision of SRH services.

Eligibility and Application Process

We specifically encourage people of LGBTHIAQ+ and gender non-conforming identities and sexual orientations to submit their applications for this call for researchers.

We are seeking applications from individuals who:

Are based in the place where field study is to be undertaken, for the duration of the study;
Are fluent in the main regional language(s) spoken in the city where the study will be conducted, and in English (especially written);
Preferably have a postgraduate degree (current students should also apply) in social or technical sciences, journalism, or legal studies (undergraduate degree-holders with research or work experience should also apply); and
Have previous research and writing experiences on issues at the intersection of sexual and reproductive health, gender justice and women’s rights, and health informatics or digital public health.

Please send the following documents (in text or PDF formats) to raw@cis-india.org by Friday, January 24 to apply for the researcher positions:

Brief CV with relevant academic and professional information;
Two samples of academic/professional (published/unpublished) writing by the applicant; and
A brief research proposal (around 500 words) that should specify the scope (geographical and conceptual), research questions, and motivation of the essay to be authored by the applicant.

All applicants will be informed of the selection decisions by Friday, January 31.

Timeline of the Work

February 3-7 CIS research team will have a call with each researcher to plan out the work to be undertaken by them

February - March Researchers are to undertake field research, as proposed by the researchers and discussed with the CIS research team

March 27 Researchers are to submit a full draft essay (around 3,000 words)

March 30 - April 3 CIS research team will have call with each researcher to discuss the shared draft essays and make plans towards their finalisation

May 15 Researchers are to submit the final essay (around 5,000 words, without footnotes and references)

As part of this project, CIS will organise two discussion events in Bengaluru and New Delhi during April-June (tentatively). Event dates are to be decided in conversation with the researchers, and they will be invited to present their works in the same.

Remuneration

Each researcher will be paid a remuneration of Rs. 1,00,000 (inclusive of taxes) over two equal installments: first on signing of the agreement in February 2020, and second on submission of the final essay in May 2020.

We will also reimburse local travel expenses of each researcher upto Rs. 10,000, and translations and transcriptions expense (if any) incurred by each researcher upto Rs. 10,000. These reimbursements will be made on the basis of expense invoices shared by the researcher.

Description of the Project

Previous research conducted by CIS on the subject of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services in India observes that there is a complex web of surveillance, or ‘dataveillance’, around each patient as they avail of SRH services from the state. In this current project, we are aiming to map the ecosystem of surveillance around SRH services as their provision becomes increasingly ‘data-driven’, and explore its implications for patients and beneficiaries.

Through this project, we are interested in documenting the roles played by both the public and the private sector actors in this ecosystem of health surveillance. We understand the role of private sector actors as central to state provision of sexual and reproductive health services, especially through the institutionalisation of data-driven health insurance models, as well as through extensive privatisation of public health services. By studying semi-private, private, and public medical establishments including hospitals, primary/community health centres and clinics, we aim to develop a comparative analysis of surveillance ecosystems across the three establishment types.

This project is led by Ambika Tandon, Aayush Rathi, and Sumandro Chattapadhyay at the Centre for Internet and Society, and is supported by a grant from Privacy International.

Indicative Reading List

We are sharing below a short and indicative list of readings that may be useful for potential applicants.

Aayush Rathi, Is India's Digital Health System Foolproof? (2019)

Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon, Data Infrastructures and Inequities: Why Does Reproductive Health Surveillance in India Need Our Urgent Attention? (2019)

Ambika Tandon, Feminist Methodology in Technology Research: A Literature Review (2018)

Ambika Tandon, Big Data and Reproductive Health in India: A Case Study of the Mother and Child Tracking System (2019)

Anja Kovacs, Reading Surveillance through a Gendered Lens: Some Theory (2017)

Lindsay Weinberg, Rethinking Privacy: A Feminist Approach to Privacy Rights after Snowden (2017)

Nicole Shephard, Big Data and Sexual Surveillance (2016)

Sadaf Khan, Data Bleeding Everywhere: A Story of Period Trackers (2019)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/jobs/researchers-welfare-gender-surveillance-call

Call for Proposal: Big Data for Development – Initial Field Studies

sumandro — 2016-04-28T07:28:23Z

The Centre for Internet and Society, as part of a project with the University of Manchester and University of Sheffield, is inviting calls from researchers to undertake a brief initial study of a specific instance of use of big data for development in India. This is an exercise to build preliminary understanding of the landscape of big data for development in India, identify key research questions and priorities, and start developing connections with researchers interested in the field. The studies will be 6 weeks long - running from May to June 2016 - and the researchers are expected to produce a 3,000 words long report. We will support three field studies.

Study Process and Deliverable

The researcher is expected to propose and undertake a 6 weeks long study – starting from May 09 and ending on June 17 – of an instance of big data is being used to inform, target, operationalise, monitor, or support developmental and/or humanitarian activity in India.

During this period, the researcher is expected to interview 4-5 persons directly involved in the big data for development project concerned, and 2-3 other persons to get a wider sense of the context of the project.

By the end of the 6 weeks period, the researcher is expected to submit a 3,000 words long report. The report will be commented upon by Prof. Richard Heeks (University of Manchester), Dr. Christopher Foster (University of Sheffield), and Sumandro Chattapadhyay (CIS), and revised accordingly during the last weeks of June.

The individual reports will be published independently and as part of the larger project report, under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. The authors will be attributed appropriately.

All researchers will take part in a work-in-progress meeting (held over internet) during last week of May or first week of June.

Research Questions

The interviews will focus on the following topics:

Innovation: What is the nature of the innovation being done by the use of big data? What technical systems and/or applications are being deployed and replaced/superceded? Who are key actors in this innovation process?
Implementation: What is the grounded experience of implementing the big data technology? What are the key enablers and constraints being faced, both in the data collection stage, and the analysis and decision making stage?
Value: What is the value being created, and how is it understood? Is it organisational value, or socio-economic value? Who is gaining this value?
Ethics: What ethical concerns are emerging? Do they involve concerns about data quality, representation, privacy, or security? Is there concerns about a data divide being created among people who are represented in data and who are not, or among people who can gain value from the data and who cannot?

Application, Eligibility, and Remuneration

Please submit the following documents to apply:

Proposal: A one page note on the big data for development project that you would like to study. Please share a brief description of the project and how you will study it, including the name/designation of key people you will speak to.
Writing Sample: An article or a collection of articles, of not more than 8,000 words length in total.
CV: A short CV, two pages or less.

Please e-mail the documents to raw[at]cis-india[dot]org by Wednesday, May 04, 2016.

There is no eligibility criteria for submitting proposals. However, we will prioritise researchers living and studying big data for development projects in non X-class cities, that is in cities other than Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai, and Pune.

We will select three researchers, and will offer Rs. 35,000 to each of them for this study. The amount will be paid in a single installment, after the draft field study report is submitted for comments.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/jobs/call-for-proposal-big-data-for-development-field-studies

Call for Papers: #CultureForAll Conference

sneha-pp — 2020-12-23T13:34:23Z

We are collaborating with Sahapedia, Azim Premji University, and University of Cape Town to invite papers on cultural mapping for the #CultureForAll conference scheduled to be held in March 2021. Cultural mapping is a set of activities and processes for exploring, discovering, documenting, examining, analysing, interpreting, presenting, and sharing information related to people, communities, societies, places, and the material products and practices associated with those people and places. All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to submit papers. The conference is supported by Tata Technologies and MapMyIndia.

Cross-posted from Sahapedia.

Background

Sahapedia in collaboration with the Azim Premji University, The Centre for Internet and Society and the University of Cape Town is inviting papers in cultural mapping for the Culture For All conference scheduled to be held in March 2021.

Cultural mapping is a set of activities and processes for exploring, discovering, documenting, examining, analysing, interpreting, presenting, and sharing information related to people, communities, societies, places, and the material products and practices associated with those people and places. It was recognised by UNESCO more than a decade ago as a crucial tool in sustaining the tangible, intangible, and natural heritage of the world.

However, the exercise is either used inadequately or rarely highlighted in the Indian context thereby limiting accessibility to peer-reviewed work in this area. As part of the #CultureForAll festival and conference, an open call for research papers and action projects in cultural mapping is being made to consolidate knowledge created till date in India and regions with similar cultural history like Asia and Africa. Cultural mapping and documentation are intricate processes that attempt to solve complex questions of who, what, how, and for whom to map. We hope these papers will carve out a space to interrogate, discuss, and reflect upon the same.

Another central objective of reviewing work in this area is to develop a mapping toolkit/guide that can help make cultural documentation accessible to anyone interested. Without being prescriptive or lending itself to a homogenous practise, the toolkit/guide would be a way to bring together varied approaches, contexts, and innovations in the field. In a sector like culture where financial and non-financial resources are insubstantial, we believe this toolkit/guide will give organisations and individuals a clear roadmap for future mapping projects.

Themes

All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to submit their papers under any one of the following themes. All papers will be evaluated by a review committee and select papers in each theme will be awarded INR 10,000 and presented in the #CultureForAll conference. Papers will also get an opportunity to be published in respected peer-reviewed journals and Sahapedia's web platform.

Cultural Mapping—Theory & Practise: There is no fixed way to map cultural resources and the approach can be multi-fold. Efforts can also vary in terms of community involvement and collaborative processes. Papers submitted under this topic should explore and elucidate the theoretical and methodological frameworks used in mapping, with an emphasis on issues and challenges faced, the extent of community engagement, and the impact of such projects in policymaking and society, if any.

Technology for cultural mapping: Technology and digitisation have shifted approaches to culture and heritage and the recent pandemic has made it indispensable to the society at large. Papers are invited on issues related to techniques and technologies for preservation, management and dissemination of cultural heritage with a focus on innovation and social equity specifically for the Indian context.

Evaluating impact of cultural mapping applications: Cultural mapping provides rich cultural data by creating resource inventories that helps address varied issues like sustainability, intergenerational conflict, alienation of youth, and the role of women in society. It can create opportunities for communities to affirm identity and pursue land rights. Cultural mapping can be an informative classroom activity for children, and a valuable methodology for academic research. As a policymaking tool, it can be used to enhance and conserve heritage sites while promoting new tourism development approaches. Papers submitted under this topic should illustrate how cultural mapping has been used in areas like education, tourism, placemaking, conservation, and skilling, the issues and challenges faced, how impacts are measured, and the metrics associated with such measurement.

Important dates

Call for papers: November 16, 2020

Last date for submission: January 31, 2021

Announcement of final selection: February 26, 2021

Presentation of select papers: March 1 to March 15, 2021

If you have any questions, please contact us at conference[at]sahapedia[dot]org

Eligibility & Selection

All interested academicians, researchers, PhD students, and practitioners are invited to participate in the call for papers. Papers should be submitted in English and will be reviewed for their originality, relevance, and clarity. Works that have been published earlier or are found to be plagiarised will not be accepted. The submission should include a paper of not more than 3,500 words along with a presentation for the same. Please email submissions to conference[at]sahapedia[dot]org with the subject "Paper Submission: [Theme] [Applicant’s Full Name]". Please find formatting instructions for the paper here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-papers-culture-for-all-conference

Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India

sumandro — 2016-07-04T12:48:15Z

As Internet makes itself comfortable amidst everyday lives in India, it becomes everywhere and everyware, it comes in 40 MBPS Unlimited and in chhota recharges – though no longer in zero flavour – the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society invites abstracts for essays that explore how do we study internet in India today.

Submission deadline extended to Sunday, July 03.

Source: Leonardo Flores.

How do we move beyond a fascination with new digital things and interfaces that we engage with on the internet, which are increasingly becoming the objects and sites of our research and creative practices? How do we engage with these on their own terms, and perhaps also against the grain? What "new" is being brought in, performed, and afforded by these digital artefacts in our daily lives? How can our concerns and practices benefit from developing an awareness of their aesthetics, functions, and politics?

This call is for researchers, workers, and others interested in closely – or from a distance – commenting on these topics and questions.

Please send abstracts (200 words) to raw@cis-india.org by Sunday, July 03, 2016. The subject of the email should be 'Studying Internet in India.'

We will select up to 10 abstracts and announce them on Tuesday, July 05, 2016.

The selected authors will be asked to submit the final longform essay (3,000-4,000 words) by Sunday, July 31, 2016. The final essays will be published on the RAW Blog. The authors will be offered an honourarium of Rs. 6,000.

We understand that not all essays can be measured in words. The authors are very much welcome to work with text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other mediatic forms that the internet offers. We will not be running a Word Count on the final 'essay.' The basic requirement is that the 'essay' must offer an argument – through text, or otherwise.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india-2016

Call for Essays: Studying Internet in India

sumandro — 2015-08-28T07:09:39Z

As Internet makes itself comfortable amidst everyday lives in India, it becomes everywhere and everyware, it comes in 40 MBPS Unlimited and in chhota recharges – and even in zero flavour – the Researchers at Work (RAW) programme at the Centre for Internet and Society invites abstracts for essays that explore what it means to study Internet(s) in India today.

We are interested in the many experiences of Internet(s) in India; its histories and archaeologies; how we use it to read, write, create, relate, learn, and share; the data that is produced, and the data that is consumed; the spaces that are created, and the spaces that are inhabited; the forms that political expressions take on the Web; and of course, where and how should one be studying Internet(s) in India?

This call is for researchers, workers, and others interested in closely – or from a distance – commenting on these topics and questions.

Please send abstracts (200 words) to raw@cis-india.org by Sunday, April 26, 2015. The subject of the email should be 'Studying Internet in India.'

We will select up to 10 abstracts and announce them on Friday, May 01, 2015.

The selected authors will be asked to submit the final longform essay (2,500-3,000 words) by Sunday, May 31, 2015. The final essays will be published on the RAW Blog. The authors will be offered an honourarium of Rs. 5,000.

We understand that not all essays can be measured in words. The authors are very much welcome to work with text, images, sounds, videos, code, and other mediatic forms that the Internet offers. We will not be running a Word Count on the final 'essay.' The basic requirement is that the 'essay' must offer an argument – through text, or otherwise.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/call-for-essays-studying-internet-in-india